Mark Bell's Power Project - Jon Jones PACKED on 30 lbs with These Lifts - Coach Jordan Chavez || MBPP Ep. 901

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Jordan Chavez, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Jordan was able to pack size and strength onto heavyweight champ, Jon Jones! Follow Jordan on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mr_nfp/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

We continue to produce this content for free, and if the podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us if you could go to your favorite podcast platform, whether that's iTunes or Spotify, and give us a star rating. It'll help the podcast grow, and it won't take you much time. Enjoy the episode. By now, I assume everyone saw the Bones-Jones fight. Didn't turn out to be much of a fight. Ended very quickly. Really quick. Sorry to hijack it but i was i was texting my mom you know talking telling her about like the fight you know it's like john jones

after it ended she texted me back and she said it's like your dad said the fight was lame i'm like it's literally one of the most historic fights in like all of fighting history but he thought it was lame cool all right i got it well it was after a three-year layoff i mean uh let's uh kind of you know imagine if you imagine if you dominated a sport and then you left for various reasons for a while and then you came back three years later and then you just smoked somebody that people thought had a chance you'd kind of be like uh i don't even know if there's reason to really fight in this league anymore. Is there anybody out there? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there? Dude, I think the stakes are so wild because Gon is a good fighter. Cyril Gon is a very good fighter. And it just sucks that— He's fought in championship fights before. He's knocked out a lot of good opponents.

And apparently he's amazing at kickboxing too, but it's just unfortunate that he wasn't able to show that. It's just so unfortunate because that's like, and I think what's interesting is because before the fight, he was like, I'm about to go against the GOAT. There's this level of reverence he had for Jon Jones, and it's like, yeah, there's a level of respect, but you wonder maybe did he just like in his mind,

did he view Jones as being too good? And maybe it, cause I know Jones is great. Don't get me wrong. I know John Jones is fucking great, but did that affect the way he thought of himself? You got it. Like Diaz brothers,

that shit, you know what I mean? Like they hate everybody. They hate everybody in the locker room too. I don't even think anyone's safe no matter what weight class they're in. Those guys hate everybody they hate everybody in the locker room too i don't even think anyone's safe no matter what weight class they're in those guys hate everybody but i think i think some like okay their mindset might be you know maybe a little overboard but i think that people that are in your weight class you got to be like fuck this guy regardless of how good they are but it's

got to be hard you know bones jones is amazing and uh i don't know but it's got to be hard. You know, Bones Jones is amazing. And I don't know what it's like when you get in the ring and the guy throws like that oblique kick at you or something like that. It's like all that stuff just looks like it hurts. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the thing is, people have mentioned this, but he said he'd make it look easy. And he made that, he really did just make that fight

not even look like a fight. The hardest thing that happened was like when they had him remove the tape off his toe. And Jones got kicked in the nuts. At the beginning of the fight. Yeah, and that was like it. And then it was just like, all right, I'm going to take you down. And then once he took him down, it was like... I've never seen anything like that before.

The takedown? I've never seen anything like that before. The takedown? I've never seen anything like that in a big championship fight where somebody just got – I've seen people get lit up before. I've seen people get smoked from a barrage of punches or somebody catches a kick or a knee or something funny happens or something just throws the guy off track or off guard or whatever. But as soon as Jones had his hands on him, it was just like, oh, my God. Even thinking about Tyson back in the day, though, there were some very lopsided matches.

But those were like, you know, Tyson was known for a knockout, you know, knock people out all the time. Jones disposes of his opponents pretty quickly, but that was kind of, that was rare. But it almost looked like gone. It almost looked like he had no wrestling experience, which I know that that's not true. But it looked like once they went to the ground

that he just didn't know what was going on. But again again he's against john jones used the cage against him put him in a guillotine a fucking guillotine and just choked him out he's a strong fucking dude to play that that video that we had um so people can kind of see john jones is is fucking strong oh yeah he put him in that guillotine and then he just like walked away yeah yeah god just just went right to the ground. Didn't he say that he had it locked in and he could feel things like popping? And he said he gave him like a chiropractic adjustment.

And then he got in a little bit tighter and he went for it again. And then that's when he tapped because he's like he didn't want any more of that. It's like, oh, gosh. I can't even imagine. I'm excited to get into some jiu-jitsu when I'm done with all this fairy running stuff that I'm doing. But, you know, I know like the pressure of lifting up a weight, you know, lifting up like a thousand pound squat and then getting to the bottom and all that pressure on my head and the pressure of doing like, you know, heavy squats and things like that. But this seems like a different level even because there's one thing to kind of like hold your breath and to build that tightness and have that. The pressure is like self-induced. Now it's like you got pressure on top of you

and then somebody else really manipulating that and it's got to be a nightmare. Andrew, I'm also emailing you another video of another Jon Jones guillotine from another fight. That is literally just disgusting. I want you all to see this, too. And we're about to have Jon Jones strength coach on the podcast, so you guys hold tight, but it's interesting. Yeah.

In regards to what you're talking about, though, Mark, I remember the first time where I was like, I think I'm getting sick. Every time I swallow, I feel like, oh, man, raspy throat. And I'm like, oh, wait, no, that was the baseball choke on monday like if that's what it was are you guys ready for this let's see what we got touching the big three lift there what were your records if you could remember i ended up training camp binge pressing turn up a hundred five deadlifts about 640 my bench is about 500 pounds maybe 520 somewhere. Maybe 520, somewhere around there. Towards the end, I wasn't going for big numbers. I was just going for explosiveness and muscular endurance.

But I've gotten pretty strong over the last three years. So bench 315, squat 6, deadlift 500, 520. Squat 500, deadlift over 600. Yeah. Did I mess that up? I must have messed up mess that up yeah yeah he said 315 i think though in the bench press for like a set of five yeah that's that's legit as fuck that's um i mean john jones doesn't really he doesn't look like a lifter right he looks he looks strong and he looks athletic yeah but um usually people that bench 315 for some reps usually they're stockier

right yeah it's cool to see kind of like because he doesn't look like you're like he doesn't look like zero gone he doesn't like francis and gano he doesn't like kamaru usman these guys like we look at them and john is physically imposing but they look like they should be super physically imposing but john is fucking long and when he's leaner when he's in like light heavy weights he's fucking he's yacked out but to gain this weight he has gained a little bit of body fat so he comes in and he's not looking like a cyril but then he performs like i wonder what what would happen if we saw him go into deeper rounds though like would that weight have shown itself like maybe would there be a lack of fitness yeah we didn't learn anything just learn that he's dominant that's all yeah all the questions right like what happens when

he gets hit by a heavyweight what happens when the heavyweight puts pressure on him he's just like nope nothing you're not gonna learn shit did you did you get that video yeah dude check this out his next couple fights will answer a lot of those questions yeah yeah he folds people up into like a little pretzel yeah audio on this one too i don't know if we need the audio we gotta know what it's gonna play so i don't want us to get banned let's just same z's watch this those knees and stuff too are gross yeah he's all elbow just wait just wait this is how devastating this is. Oh no.

Ref, come. Come on, ref. Yeah. Oh. And so that's interesting, you know, because the ref doesn't, I mean, these refs are really good. Yeah.

That ref was probably a little bit out of position. He's on like the wrong side. He couldn't see. But it goes to show you, the guy in the ring can't even tell what's going on yeah so as a viewer unless you unless you're a grappler i don't know that he's in i don't know that that guy's that compromised until you see him you know completely follow the ground uh helpless those chokes can happen to people super quick like i've been in jiu-jitsu and across like a guillotine is different from a cross-collar choke. But I've had people in like a closed guard where I'm cross-collar choking and they don't realize they're going out until I feel them go limp and then I let it go.

Because it hits you so quickly. And obviously this is a different setting because it's a fucking fight. So you're trying to stay for as long as possible. But that guy probably didn't know he was going out until he was fucking out yeah that's how those chokes were how long does it take like so you know on in the movies you always see the guy like trying to go for the throat and and it would take a forever to like choke someone with your hands um how long do these take when you get the arm behind the head and you suck in air and you it could be like five eight seconds dog like like if you're holding a choke like that for a good six to eight seconds they're they're gonna be out and they

and that's because but it probably goes from like you think you're okayish maybe there's room to escape to like oh shit oh shit i'm out you phrased it perfectly yeah i think i'm okay wait this is kind of that's really how it is man so this is like that shit's crazy you're like i need to get used to this so i can i go this that way it doesn't work this way you know you keep and then you're out that's you're out that's what i tried on a on a baseball choke i was like okay i'm like it was he actually kind of he locked it in and then he let go and I'm like, no, no, it's okay. Like,

let me see what I can do. And I definitely didn't know which way to go, but the lights were dim and I'm like, Oh no, I'm out. I'm out. I'm good. But think like he,

obviously he knew and he wasn't trying to prove anything, but it's fast. Like that shit fucking like, and then I'm seeing stars for like the next like few minutes. It was weird. I've never felt that at that point do you just like whisper in the guy's ear like it's okay then the guy's like the last thing i heard is you whispering in my ear and you're like no i didn't

do that it's strange that you have hallucinated that yes i did i swear i didn't do that yeah yes yeah something i learned you know because i obviously had no experience grappling or anything i thought it was just like you're choking somebody and you like cut their windpipe but it's a strangle and it's your blocking the carotid arteries and that's what makes them pass out yeah I can't say that word

but that's what it is and that's why it's so fast it's actually way quicker than blocking their windpipe it's fucking strange you added more letters to it carotid carotid and blocking their windpipe. It's fucking strange. You added more letters to it. Karararadidid? Just Karadid. Karardid? Sorry, English is my second language.

Oh, period, dog. Yeah, so Jones is going to fight for the belt coming up, right? Well, does he have the interim right now? Is that what the... Well, I don't know what the deal is, but I'm sorry. Who was it that he was scheduled to fight next? Stipe is what he wants. Right.

And Stipe has the belt. I was confused because he won a belt. Francis had a belt, I think. No, I think it was vacant, and they fought for it, I believe. Yeah. It was strange, though. Maybe Stipe was just former. Yeah.

Stipe was former. He was just former heavyweight champion. Yeah, because John has the belt now. And then did Stipe get knocked out by Francis Ngannou? Am I saying that right? I don't know. I get confused. No, you're saying all their names right.

Yeah. So, yeah, what's the history on Stipe Francis, Andrew? You'll be able to find that faster than me. Yeah, it was a vacant heavyweight belt. What was the question in Timo? I'm sorry oh yeah steep a versus francis yeah and steep a versus uh jones i think that would be a great fight uh steep a is a you know he's he's been in the ring or been in the been in ufc for a long time

francis knocked him out has some more um you know more wins as a heavyweight than anybody in history and so forth. So he's really proficient. And when they fight, that should be for a really good, make for a really good fight. And the interesting thing is Jones was out for three years and he, you know, he gained weight. But sometimes when someone gains weight, they like gain weight like i don't know like a 20 week period and then they then they have a training camp and they try to rush into it and uh then they're just they're screwed and they can't breathe during the match and stuff like that because they're not used to having all that extra weight on them and so uh the way that he did it where he was out

for a long time i think it actually paid off a lot because he was able to gain the weight, have that weight sustained for a while, get used to training, get used to sparring. And I don't know how much of stuff you guys saw, but I check in on his stuff a lot. And I saw him wrestling with like, like some of the best wrestlers in the world and some of the best collegiate wrestlers in the world. And Jones is still pretty young, but you're wrestling guys that are 19, 20, 22, 23. These guys are full blast, full speed, and it obviously is something that really worked really well for him. He's always been a formidable wrestler. Like that's his athletic start. But it's just so crazy to me i wish though that he was i wish francis was still there because that that would be a fight that would be awesome but apparently dana white doesn't

want that to happen which is which sucks well yeah francis, Francis, he's like in a different league and he's, right? He's going to be doing boxing now. Yeah. Him and the UFC apparently couldn't find a deal that would work, that would be mutually beneficial. And Dana kicked him to the curb. Damn. Pat Brachy family, how's it going? Now, we talk about meat a lot on this podcast, which is why we've partnered with Piedmontese and have for years now because they have some of the best beef on the planet.

All right. Piedmontese beef has cuts that are fattier in terms of the rib eyes, and they have also cuts that are leaner in terms of their flat irons. But you can get cuts for no matter what diet you're on. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it? Yeah. Head over to Piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. Check out Enter Probo Code POWER for 25% off your entire order.

And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. As people may know, John Jones was linked up with Stan Efferding. And so Stan has helped him with some training. Stan has helped him with a diet. I think that's really cool because like gaining that weight can be a tricky thing. And Jones, I thought Jones looked really good. I think we are, I don't know.

I think we're just expecting too much of our athletes sometimes. Like he doesn't need to be ripped. He didn't look fat like i thought he looked good he looked strong looked powerful you know i think that we're just thinking that francis and ganu is like he's a mutant there's not a lot of people that look like that and so not every fighter is going to look like that and again thinking of uh the ds brothers like they got what they they need on their body to be able to do what they do and they're really fucking good at it so not everybody needs to look like a bodybuilder when they when they get into the octagon oh no yeah absolutely

and and it's i think it is just interesting though because when you do look at his extremities, he's like – they're like weapons. Like his legs are like knives. They're not – he doesn't have like huge legs but he's super fucking strong. He's super long. I guess he's similar to kind of like Israel Adesanya or Israel Adesanya is similar to him as far as their build is concerned. I'm not really aware of that many UFC guys that really use powerlifting to train for their fighting. I'm sure there's guys that are kind of doing some heavy lifts here and there, but straight powerlifting, Bones Jones is one of the few that I've actually seen do it, doing 675 rack pulls and stuff like that.

I think most people are scared to have their athletes do that um but john jones ain't scared of shit he's uh he's like wrestling other people like thursday before the fight um i saw mark coleman was uh he made a post and said that him and jones were like wrestling i mean you know, Mark Coleman's probably in his fifties or whatever, but you don't really hear of that. And then John Jones arrested somebody that like he chased down somebody that like was fucking with some lady the day of one of his fights years ago. And he was like out at a park just randomly chilling.

Cause he likes to be by himself sometimes it's just like who the fuck does who does shit like that you know um so he's not afraid to do some different stuff and uh he's been he's been training um in new mexico for a long time and he trains with uh we're gonna have jordan on the show here in a minute and uh we'll get to ask jordan some direct questions and see kind of what's up with some of bones is training cool yeah he's ready to go let's yeah let's uh let's get him in here how's it going hey we good we're good we are good my man beautiful i was just hey congratulations on uh congratulations on that amazing victory. It's got to be awesome to be part of that.

Thank you. Yes, it was an awesome experience. The last three years has been a journey, but glad to see everything be put together. How long have you been coaching and training John Jones? So I've been working with him for the better part of the last eight years. What's been some of the last eight years. What have, what's been some of the comments that you've seen pop up when you guys are doing the conjugate system,

when you guys are doing West side Barbell, when you guys are doing power lifting and one rep maxes and stuff like, are people usually positive and pretty fired up or you seeing something different? So just depending on the individuals we have uh you have your your haters who are going to say well oh that wouldn't work in a powerlifting competition or oh he needs to go lower he needs to do this oh i'm like i'm like the guy is the best mixed martial artist on the planet i'm not worried about what a bunch of powerlifting individuals think about how deep his squat needs to be or this, that, or the other.

I just worry more so about his carryover to what he actually does. Why do you guys use powerlifting? Is that just something that John really loves? He has a lot of fun with it? Or how else did you come to it? So he came to it more so it's kind of that's how I've I've been training for the last 20 years and that's how I train all my athletes as a power late power lifting base and so with him I kind of told him I was a well if you're looking at the time when we started training, he was fighting at light heavy.

So he was like, well, I can't really get bigger right now. I just need to be stronger for what we do. I'm like, all right, well, I could definitely get you as strong as an ox without having to put any weight on. And then as soon as we started doing that, little by little, like he started seeing the benefits of the power lifting style or as a foundation in his training and so he was able to get strong as shit at for his 205 and then when he wanted to make transition to heavyweight all we did was all right well let's bump up your volume so we could put on some quality weight as we're trying to get stronger and once once he was able to do that, once I got him strong and he got to feel it when he's in the ring,

it was a game changer in everyone that he trained with and all his opponents, I know have felt the difference in his strength. Did you guys make any adjustments to the big movements, like to the squat bench deadlift? Did you guys do anything from the rack?

Did you guys do anything with bands? Was there anything that you did differently than just pure sbd so that he couldn't handle all that volume oh yeah big thing where a lot of rack pulls block pulls different variations and height of all his pulling movements chains, we would mix all of them in. He had mixed a lot of good mornings in as well. Squatting, same thing. We would vary the height of the box, vary his stances, bands, chains, reverse bands, everything like that. And same thing with his pressing. We would rotate his various bars, bands, chains, the whole nine floor pressing. I'm just trying to make sure and monitor. So we would go into his, I would make sure I would go to his practices so that if he had a hard night

of sparring, hard night of grappling, that we would make sure and okay, wouldn't kill him the next day or vice versa. Hey, if I knew he had something big coming up in practice, sparring or anything like that, I know we had to tone down the volume on any given day just depending on what he had coming up in the evening what's the thing that really separates him out between the other fighters i've been down there before to new mexico unfortunately when i was down there i didn't have an opportunity to run into you

um but i went to uh jackson winkle john the the gym they have down there and uh what they kind of pointed to about john jones are like he he'll just stand over there for two hours straight and just throw a back elbow and yeah sometimes we'll go over and ask him like hey what are you doing he's like i'm gonna I'm going to use this in my next fight. And then sure enough, he knocks someone out with something just because of the way the gears are grinding in his head. What have you seen from him that separates him out, you think, from everybody else? I think his ability, like I know everyone talks about it,

but his fight IQ is phenomenal. And so his ability to either A a break someone down and think, Hey, I think this is what's going to expose that individual person or on the other end, you see him like he, he can watch someone move. He can even watch them for one round. And he is like, all right, I know how I can beat that person. Or even I've seen it on the fly where he's in there sparring with individuals and every 10 seconds it seems like he's making an adjustment

and sometimes even faster than that. But he's constantly – he's the individual that I noticed he's going in for a move, but he has five options that he could choose after it and so as soon as someone's like oh don't worry i i got this stuff he ain't catching me with this he catches on with three or four different other moves they're like you see them they all get thrown on their butt or they get caught in it and they break up they stand back up and every single one of them has eyes this wide open and they're like oh shoot like i didn't even think that was even possible in that situation and he happens to be able to turn something over like that we were just watching a video prior to

you coming on where he was talking about some of his lifts and you as a strength coach will probably know more of his numbers but what are some like how strong is he on some of his lifts and you as a strength coach will probably know more of his numbers, but what are some, like how strong is he on some of these lifts? Like the squat bench, deadlift, even like even rack pulls, how, how much weight is this guy working with? So, uh, leading up like last six months, we were kind of working a little more strength endurance, but like if I had to put an absolute number on what he can, like if he could pull right now, I think, John, say we're doing it.

Let's just say for instance, we'll go on pin three, pin four of a rack. I think he could pull right now 645 to 665 if I had to put a number on it. 65 if i had to put a number on it um so a lot of the stuff we've been doing a little more uh three rep and five rep maxes just um just so that we'll make sure like he's like well just making sure his conditioning and everything i was like well i need you to be strong for five rounds fortunately we'd even have to worry about one round this fight but but so the nice part is he got to show show off some skills in a couple minutes and even though he could have very easily went 25 minutes and done the same thing if he wanted but for a pull i think he's low to mid sixes squat i think right now he's sitting right about mid fives. And if I had to put a single on his press, I think he could press upwards of 365, maybe even 385, depending on the day. And depending on where his striking, grappling day before, day after, more so on those things.

But say if he was just worrying about lifting i think that's where his numbers are throw on a slingshot go for 405 why not hey why not hey by all means like i said if i wasn't worried about him uh having to practice uh three more sessions after by all means let's get that slingshot on there and let's throw a 405 for a couple. When you guys are doing squats, is it usually like a box squat or is it like a pin squat or something like that? Is it just squatting the weight up? So we actually do, we do box, we do pin, and he actually likes to feel free squats as well. just because we have so many people that are constantly, Oh, well, a box squat is in a real squat Anderson or a pin squat is in a real squat. So every now and then, uh, just so he can remind himself that how strong he really is. I'm like,

all right, we'll do a free squat today. And he's able to hit multiple reps at these various heights, but able to hit big numbers at a free squat as well. What does he normally weigh? So for this fight, I think he got up to around 245 or so. And previously he was in a 205 weight class, but is he normally 225 anyway-ish? So when he was fighting light heavy, he would walk around. As I've been working with him, he's been walking around between like 230 to 240 when he fought 205.

And then for heavyweight, he was like, yo, I want to get up to 260. I'm like, all right, let's make it happen. I want to get up to 260. I'm like, all right, let's make it happen. So we're working, working, going back and forth, bumping up volume, bumping up his calorie intake. And so it was a lot harder for him than he anticipated initially, but we're able, the heaviest he got was 263. Nice. So I remember the day he hit 263, I legit get a picture of the scale. And he calls me. He's like, guess what?

I just hit 263 today. It wasn't like he broke 260. It was like 259, woke up, and I'll say he's 263. And so he was ecstatic. He was like, I've never been that heavy in my life. But so 263 was the heaviest he got to. And then once we got into camp and it was like the fight was on, on. So started training, monitoring everything accordingly.

And then his weight would kind of drop down to about 255. Then about six weeks out, he was about 250, 253. And so I had initially thought he was going to weigh in at 247, just because after traveling, not training as much, just kind of sweating out and kind of going through pre-fight rituals for himself, my guess was going to be 247. He ended up weighing in at 248. Let me ask this. Did you see any type of detriment in terms of getting so big? Or was he, because he usually was around 230, 240, was putting on weight kind of a good thing for him? Did he feel better being heavier? So I think it was good for him because in the process of us putting weight on and bumping up our training

volume he never once missed any mma so in we're we're lifting four days a week but he was still doing mma four days a week so he's still striking he's still grappling like the amount of training he was doing out of camp is was probably more than most guys do in camp so like when it came to how much weight he put on i wasn't worried about how he moved because i got to watch him daily in the mma gym where most people are like oh i'm gonna spend all this time to put on this weight, get stronger, do this and completely neglect their activity, their sport, whatever it may be. And he didn't do that. He was in the MMA gym religiously. He was training religiously. And so that I think was the biggest benefit was he had great carry over just because there wasn't a time where he was skipping out on any of it.

What do you think led to that consistency? I think just his mindset of making the transition to heavyweight and understanding like, okay, it's go time like like he said it he's had his had that fire so to speak that being able to okay the person across from from me in the cage like gives a little fear of like okay i i need to be on right now whereas i think with that and his maturity level of how he approached this new division just leveled his game up to a completely different standard. Now I think his mindset and his focus on what he wants to accomplish, he's at such a great place right now. It's very impressive, and it's great to be able to witness on the daily.

Do you think it helped his mindset being away from UFC for a bit? Because it seemed like there was, you know, it's a three year time gap and it seemed like he was like, you know, kind of like, fuck this. I don't want to put words in the mouth, but it seemed like it's kind of like, fuck this. I don't want to do this anymore. Don't pay me properly. There's not the right fights. They only want me to fight Francis, and it's a very dangerous fight. And unless we kind of make it this thing, I don't want to mess with it, which I think is super smart for both athletes to go into it that way.

But do you think it was like refreshing in a way that he like kind of put a pause maybe on his career and then maybe when he was uh doing his training and things like that maybe it was for like other purposes maybe it was for like the original purpose of why he got so excited about wrestling and mma in the first place yeah i think the time off was great for him uh he got to really uh just kind of work work on himself and really understand what he wanted to do. It's something I've always told him. I'm like, at the end of the day, you always want to do what makes you happy. If that's something you genuinely want to do and it brings you genuine joy, then by all means, it's easy to be all in on something that you're doing it 100% for you. And as long as you're doing that in anything,

I think you're always going to be successful because you're willing. It's never work, like hard work day in and day out. It's never a chore. It's never a job. When you wake up every morning wanting to make every training session, wanting to be the best person you can that day, I think that's what the time off did for John. oh yeah i'm doing this for this fight i'm doing this for me i told them at the end of the day the more you do it for yourself everything else will fall into place now i know other athletes aren't necessarily john jones but there's a lot of people that listen to the podcast that maybe they do some mma maybe like there's a lot of people that do jujitsu that listen in and one thing you see especially in jujitsu is people are trying to gain weight and gain muscle, but they're, they, they never are able to, I guess, give themselves the time to be able to do that. So I guess, what advice do you have for athletes who are martial artists and they're trying to gain weight and they're trying to gain size, but they're just never able to,

or they just don't, they don't give themselves the time. What, how do you think they should approach their training? I think they need to be patient with themselves and understanding if I'm exerting so much of myself in a given day, I need to dedicate that same amount of time to eating like a horse. First of all, how many calories did he eat by the way? to eating like a horse, first of all. How many calories did he eat, by the way?

We try to keep John north of 4,000, usually between 4,200 and 5,000 calories. And so same thing, like I would tell everyone, I'm like, I need you eating. So if you're really trying to gain weight, I need you to hit the gym, whether it's 45 minutes, hour, 15, whatever. But hit the gym hard with some intent and with some intensity. And you need to eat. And then if you're really trying to put on weight, I need you to eat. Then you go eat some more. And then once you're full, I need you to get two more servings of rice, another 12 ounces of steak, and I need you to eat that.

And then once that sick feeling kind of goes away, I need you to prepare some more food. So at the end of the day, I think too many individuals are afraid of food, and I need them to eat like a grown man, so to speak. I got too many men out here eating like women and too many women eating like men. Amen to that. What you got, Andrew? You got anything over there? Yeah, I do, actually. This one's definitely for you.

That was great. For you as a coach um so like i recently started training some uh in training and coaching some jiu-jitsu athletes that are competing and you know because i'm so new to it i'm like sitting up at night like damn should i have given him a different rep set scheme i'm like meticulous about everything maybe i should have given him a rest day and these guys are just competing you know in jiu-jitsu at not the highest level of it for yourself it's freaking it's john jones right competing at the top level uh what about your abilities gives you the confidence to be so sure about what you're programming for him to make sure that he doesn't you know regress or get injured or anything like that that? I like to use myself as a guinea pig. So the amount of individuals that see success,

I try to make sure I'm like, look, how hard can I push myself on a limited time crunch with trying to get everything going? And then if it works, cool. Now we can try it with individuals, see how they do it. But at the end of the day, if you believe in something, you're going to make sure that person can succeed in it. Don't ever go into it where you're second guessing what you know. Buy into what you believe in and what you actually know and understand this is what I personally believe can help this individual. Because if you're constantly going back and forth, oh, well, I've seen this online. I've seen that online. This coach likes this rep scheme. This coach likes this rep scheme. At the end of the day, whatever you believe personally is the best option for your athletes,

that is your best option. So at the end of the day, walk in there with confidence of what you have them doing. And that's going to give you and your athletes the ability to be like, yo, we're doing the right things. And so for me personally, when it came to him, I already know what I've gotten a lot of people strong, very strong. And so I told him, I'm like, well, if strength is what you're looking for, I will get you strong. And we exhibited by, Hey, this is where you're at. Six months later, you trumped anything and everything you even thought you were going to hit. And I'll send now your original potential of what you thought was strong and now you're doing multiple reps of that given thing that the proof will show in the time but understanding like

all right it's gonna take time i can't make anyone regardless of who they are i can't make them strong in two weeks every everyone online right now. Oh, I want the six week program. I want the eight week program. I'm like this. There's no cookie cutter way to do this. You got to get in there, put your head down and put in some serious work to see what you're actually capable of. If you have what it takes to actually put in the time and give yourself a year. What can you accomplish in six months, in a year? And at that point, if you haven't improved, two things have either happened. You aren't training hard or you're eating like a woman. So at the end of the day, as a coach, believe in what you're doing and actually give yourself a chance to get after it. Like push comes to shove.

Everyone wants to do what looks pretty online. I hate to tell you, keep it basic, keep it simple, and make sure that foundation ain't going anywhere for centuries on end. Yeah, sports performance, you're looking at like a caloric surplus. Muscle gain, you're looking at a caloric surplus. Strength gain, you're looking at a caloric surplus. It's kind of hard. You're not going to be able to really make something out of nothing. So you need the food, but people also in that process may want to pay attention to their weight. They may want to look in the mirror and pay some attention to some of those things. But again, if strength is the main thing and muscle is the main thing, it may be temporary fat gain. You could always, you know, get into

camp and start to get in better shape and start to lose the weight again. Where do you sit with kind of sports specific type of training? kind of sports specific type of training? So I'm fine with it to an extent. I'm fine with it as an accessory. Biggest thing I think everyone spends too much time sports specific and they're trying to make that the meat and potatoes of their training instead of that being a side dish, which it should be i think their foundation main movement stuff like that needs to be priority and then that stuff is just

kind of assistance depending on the individual and the coaches that they have around them i think if they they have one for instance in fight game, if they only have one coach that's teaching them everything, I think as a strength and conditioning coach, you need to make sure and have a few more specific things to help work on just so they have extra, extra work on it on whether body mechanics and how they're moving and stuff like that. But if you have, like, for instance, with John Jones, he has a coach for everything. So my job is I'm not trying to change how he punches.

I'm not trying to change how he kicks. I'm not trying to change anything about his grappling. That's he has a coach for every single one of those. So my job is to keep his foundational strength a priority to where now I give you an extremely strong athlete. Now each given coach, it's their job to make sure their specific movements are moving properly. If he has something that's hindering him when they're trying to teach that, then that's my job to go in and fix and correct how he's moving or to see why he's moving incorrectly. It is really cool to kind of see that you're letting an athlete lift some pretty, pretty big loads.

Because one thing is that you don't tend to see a lot of professional athletes doing stuff like that because their coaches don't allow them to for safety reasons. athletes doing stuff like that because their coaches don't allow them to for safety reasons so i'm curious do you ever feel like do you ever load something and are you ever like oh shit should you do it because like it seems like you just let them rock so how do you have that confidence to let that i guess multi-million dollar body do all that work uh So I kind of take that upon myself because I feel like I've taught. I make sure and teach everyone, him or regardless of anyone walks through my door. I take the time to make sure they can do things correctly. amount of hours that we put in to initially learn these given movements that as long as i'm not seeing any breakdown on any given day i'm able to i'm fine with loading and i i tell him all the time even like there's times when he's like he'll say well that's a that's a generous amount you

added i'm like i will never load something on the bar that i don't think you can hit today at the end of the day if i load it on the bar i know you can hit it and so that's kind of my take on that is i think too many individuals are afraid to load someone either because a i think they were too lazy on the front end to actually teach them the movement. So then I think if you spend day in and day out, making sure the initial movement pattern is solid on the backend, you're not worried about loading, loading a bar up. Because if I have a 80 year old woman walk in the door, I'm not throwing a hundred pounds on her back. But if I have an 80 year old woman that I've been training for the last 18 months, squatting solid, I'm fine with loading a hundred pounds on her back.

So I think you're anyone that's afraid to load an individual doesn't trust in what they've taught that individual. And selecting the correct exercise is a big deal. It sounds like you – I'm sure you use full range of motion with some aspects of what you guys train and what you do. But it looks like when you're overloading, you're utilizing probably bench pressing off of boards, deadlifting out of the rack. Like John's a tall guy, you know, figuring out, you know, proper squat mechanics and things. It's nicer to do a box squat where it's a little bit above parallel. I know the Internet blows up and they lose their mind. But this is the way a lot of athletes have been training for a really long time.

And a lot of people, a lot of strength coaches subscribe to what you're talking about. Like, let's get in the gym and let's get strong with some fundamental gym movements. And then let's go play our sport. Let's not necessarily take a 250-pound dummy bag and try to connect bands to it and things like that to try to mimic the sport in some weird way. Yeah. I'm like, you have to remember the amount of reps they're getting in on the given sport is through the roof. If someone wanted to go in on a hour practice and see how many punches are

thrown in an hour practice, the guy's throwing over 1,000 punches. Let's just put a ballpark number on it. They're throwing 1,000 punches. You really think they need to throw another 1,000 punches against a 120-pound bag or a 120-pound band? That's going to fix them? that's gonna that's gonna fix them i'm like no now you're just adding extra volume extra wear and tear on a joint that's already had the volumes through the roof and they still have three more days of training so i think that's where like trying to mimic exactly what they're doing is just adding unnecessary volume and wear and tear to those individual muscles rather than

trying to do something that can counterbalance that all right if my guy's throwing a thousand punches i need him to do a thousand rows this week like everyone's worried about all their accelerators and not worried as much of their decelerators i'm like their backside needs to be able to stop them more than the amount of times they can throw it i was like it does us no good to have a ferrari go 250 miles an hour but we can't stop what does this uh jones family look like i mean uh i think uh one of john's brothers is still playing in the nfl i believe the other one did play in the NFL. His one brother, I think, that's still playing is like Hall of Fame caliber.

I mean, what's going on with his family? Let's just say his parents are very gifted to have the three lottery tickets right there. That's what you call three lottery tickets. That's insane. Everyone's trying to create perfect athletes, and the Jones family happened to make three of them. They got it figured out. They got the formula. So if you can figure out, Mr. Jones, how they got that set up,

then I think you got the Nobel Prize coming your way. We've been talking about box squats a lot kind of recently too, and Mark's been talking about it forever. But I'm curious, when you put something like that in, because I think some people still don't see the benefits and how beneficial box squats can be for an athlete, why choose box squats, sometimes over full range of motion squats? Just hip development.

I mean, I've heard Mark talk about it for years. My mentor has been telling me for years. And just the amount of hip development that it helps athletes, strength athletes, ball sport athletes, MMA athletes, ball sport athletes, MMA athletes, just all athletes in general, the amount of force and rotational force that they can develop by having extremely strong hips. Like now we could overload those hips more than we could with any free squat because the amount of volume we could put on their hips with a box is significantly higher than we could with a free squat you try putting someone and you put their feet wider than the j hooks and have them do uh 25 reps at 70 to 85 percent of what they're doing

they could get away with they're gonna be smoked by the end of that squat session but they're doing they could get away with they're gonna be smoked by the end of that squat session but they're gonna be able to do it and we're granted we're doing this in under nine minutes and but i tell someone to do that same amount in under nine minutes free squat they might make it through halfway because they're not going to be able to recover and they're not going to be able to stop. Before you know it, you're going to see everyone's stance go from outside the J hooks to they're going to just try to stay underneath their shoulders and turn it into a leg press. Because they won't be able to load their hips and feel confident enough to be able to load their hips that way. They're growing. Everything's going to be blown out. to be able to load their hips that way. They're growing, everything's going to be blown out.

And all of a sudden now we got an athlete that's sore for the next four days because they can't walk straight. Now they can't train in the evening either. So what the box squat allows us to do is we could get high volume and hip development and still have my athlete able to train that afternoon, train the next morning, train that afternoon train the next morning train that afternoon following afternoon and the following evening when my guy's training six days a week and of those six days he has three to four sessions a day like i don't need one session to screw up the next eight sessions he has to make yeah Yeah. Four sets of 12 regular squats would just kill someone. Their butt would be all sore. Their hamstrings might be all sore and it's just, it's going to be rough, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be a rough day. Uh, not only walking

out the gym that day, but they aren't going to be able to get in and out of bed or on and off that toilet. And I think you actually mentioned something really important there. When you have your athletes box squat, you have them, you purposely have them take a wider stance. So it is more hip dominant than a normal squat stance. Yes, absolutely. Um, so for my athletes, like everyone's going to develop muscle differently just depending who they are. But I don't care about how well your quad is developed. I don't care how well, like I don't need you to, you're not getting on stage. I was like, I need, how much power can you produce? And at the end of the day,

if I could have your power production over and over for an hour in a given training session, and all of a sudden you finish that session and you're fine hey are you sore from last night you threw 500 kicks no i'm good well you also squatted x amount of weight for this many times yeah no i'm good all right beautiful that means we're our volume is right where it needs to be we're getting stronger and we're still able to train every single day i was like like, I need to have good sessions every day, all week. It does me no good to have one great session. And now I don't do anything for the next three days. So good sessions day in and day out are going to take you a lot further than one great session

and three days off. through your nose. We had James Nestor, author of Why We Sleep. Actually, that was Matthew Walker, but James Nestor, author of Breathe. We had Patch McEwen. We've had so many people talk about the importance of taping your mouth and breathing through your nose when you sleep for your sleep quality, which helps your recovery, which helps every aspect of your health and fitness. So hostage tape, if you want to get some of this to help you sleep better and it also stays on your face, if you're a bearded man, which is one of the big problems Mount Tape, head to hostage tape.com slash power project. And there you can actually get the power project annual deal, which will give you a year supply of hostage tape, 55 cents a day for tape pretty much. And you'll be able to save $150 along with getting two tins, a year supply of tape and a blindfold. That is going to be something that you want to

get your hands on. Links in the description along with the podcast show notes. Shut your mouth. Andrew, you got something else over there? Yeah. Last thing for me is I'm just curious, did you program any like bodybuilding style things just to kind of spice things up? So it wasn't the same like, you know, hard, heavy lifts every single time? Yeah. Like more so in our accessory work, we'll kind of do all right on our fridays we'll have a little feel good friday yeah everyone loves going into the weekend hey you gotta up the cup size you gotta up them downs get them biceps popping you know exactly like i i call those of my dad days hey you can't be a father and then not look the part you know

you have to have that bigger upper frame like i'll say you leave the gym with a good chest pump and shoulder pump you feel good you're walking on water that's true i love it man where can people find you and find out more about your uh your coaching and everything you're doing uh you can find me on instagram uh mr underscore nf. And yeah, reach out. But yeah, I'm always here to help anyone. Anyone that's really trying to improve or just

I'm sorry, everyone might be a little bored on my page. All I post is lifting. All I put up is training. So I don't do content. I don't do anything like that. You'll see what I do on my max effort days, my dynamic days and my active recovery days. Ain't nothing pretty. It don't do anything like that. You'll see what I do on my max effort days, my dynamic days, and my active recovery days. Ain't nothing pretty.

It's just what needs to be get done. I'll hit you up later on in the week, and we'll set a date for you to actually come here. It'd be great to have you here, and you can show us some stuff, and we can get it all on film and everything like that. Yes, absolutely. Can't wait to be out there. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day see ya all right thanks you guys have a good one you as well take care

that was dope it was man i like that note on the box watts because i've been doing them recently and uh i think i've maybe been a little bit too narrow so i'm gonna mix it up a bit wide narrow all that shit but yeah it's good um you know i I think in a lot of sports, a lot of people think that in sports that your feet aren't that far apart from each other. But they are. I remember like years ago when I was doing box squats and even sharing it with athletes and having high school athletes do it and stuff like that. And people were like, this doesn't make any sense for an athlete.

Their feet are never that far apart. It's like,'s like oh really their feet aren't that far apart huh basketball yeah yeah basketball playing defense um what about somebody trying to like dunk from the free throw line or somebody trying to just dunk period like you start to take these really long these really long steps um what about baseball throwing from third base to first base. They throw that fucking rocket, right? And they step into that thing with everything they got. Their feet end up being really, really far apart. You see it a ton in MMA, even just

the stance sometimes, depending on the athlete. Chuck Liddell comes to mind. Chuck Liddell had a really wide stance, and he would never get taken down. You're never standing straight up like that. No. Can you imagine? Your never standing straight up like you're wearing a fucking hip circle like someone's gonna take you down in tenth of a second oh man yeah no that that's that's awesome i know there's gonna be some people in the comments like oh picograms right well something that bo hightower pointed out

was that the rules have changed. So the picograms that he got popped for would have been legal today. There we fucking go. So it's like, hey. You're still going to have people talking shit on it. No, it's easy for Jon Jones to lift those heavy weights when he's on all those picograms. Right. Yeah.

Picograms, Instagrams. Yeah. And even when we talk about like getting big, there's going to be people like, Oh, he definitely found a way to do something right. There's going to be those people. But at the end of the day,

if you're trying to get big and you're doing multi sports, you got to give yourself time. And you, he was right. You do need a fucking eat an uncomfortable amount. The way you put it though. I ain't going to say it, but it was funny as fuck.

It was great. It was hardcore. I do think, to say it, but it was funny as fuck. It was great. It was hardcore. I do think John Jones has a really kind of relaxed aura about him to where he's got it. I remember when he was talking about when he was going to fight DC, and I remember being so excited because I remember seeing DC fight his first MMA fight. I went to some fights in San Jose and randomly DC fought. And I was like, wow, this guy is fucking incredible. And so I followed his career. And I was like, this is going to be really interesting watching these guys fight.

And then Jon Jones was like, man, I got it. He's like, I'm, he goes, when I, you know, make contact with him, I'm just going to download what he knows into my system. And then I'm just going to beat him with his own stuff. And I was like, what a weird thing to say. And then he talked about it after the fight. He's like, that's exactly what I did. And then when they fought again, he's like, I'll just do the same thing again. And it was just ridiculous.

It was like, how the fuck does this guy? But I think part of that is the belief that he has in himself. And part of that is him being able to actually do these things. He's able to actually perform these things physically. He does have a physique and a build and a structure that seems to work really well with the way that he thinks and the way that his body moves and operates because the snaps that he has on some of those kicks, even the leverages that you have in jiu-jitsu are different. With a shorter person versus a taller person, there's pros and cons to everything, but he's able to make it work in a way that we've never really seen before. Absolutely. He's a dangerous human.

I saw this clip and I was trying to find it right now, but do you remember him mentioning how he's like a god of war? Like he feels like he's a god of war. Do you guys ever remember him talking about that? No, I don't remember that. Gosh, we got to find it. We'll pull it up in another podcast. But he was talking about the way he feels.

He's like, I feel like I can take anybody. Like I'm a god of war. And he said a bunch of other stuff, but that dude, he really, he's shown it. He's shown the work. I think he's defended himself 19 times. He's gone unbeaten recently. But also, he truly believes he's unbeatable, and the track record shows it. The thing that he said after the last fight about the lion and stuff, how the lion wants to be there.

Cow. Cow or something. Clearly just doesn't want, they're both animals, but one clearly doesn't want to be there and uh cow cow or something you know does clearly just doesn't want they're both animals but one clearly doesn't want to be there like that's that's like just really interesting like because he's fighting against other it's not like he's fighting against people off the street that don't have a skill set he's fighting against other fighters that are some of the best in the world and we really haven't seen people in the ufc dominate i mean he has a loss on his record but it's like a blemish because it was like a dq or something against one of the one of the ufc guys but yeah he's been pretty much unstoppable

yeah man yeah the way he made the uh the goat sounds at the end of the like it's cool even he's calling it you know he's just like yep i'm the goat it's good he's having fun with it the dance at the end that's great it's like why not fucking hey man have fun with it i feel so bad for cereal man dude that picture yeah right that that shot when like he's just in the back he's just like oh yeah and then yeah but he's looking at him confused in that picture he looks scared and he's on the ground yeah and then john jones is just like right at the camera i'm like that's like in my opinion that'll be one of the most historical shots like ever like in sports just that look right there

because you again gone was just fucking hurting on the bottom and you can see in his eyes he was just like what the fuck speaking of great pictures i got a picture today of our buddy sean provost doing some jiu-jitsu okay i wasn't sure that was see if we can pull this up here why are you laughing so much what so you can get close over that uh it's sean getting worked really bad and uh oh god is that a bow and arrow and yeah that's a bow and arrow. And like he has his arm. Jesus. He's just getting worked.

And, uh, Wayne sent it to me thinking that he's funny, but Wayne said the best part is that Sean's son took that picture. And so Sean sent it to Wayne, like kind of messing around and being like, look at my son, like the fucking picture he gets from practice. It's me getting just completely worked. So they, they, they train at a Kyle Tara school in Woodland. I know. That's pretty cool. It's me getting just completely worked. So they train at a Kyotera school in Woodland. I know. That's pretty cool. I've got to go out there. I want to

train with them. Yeah. Good. I'm glad they're still doing it. And congrats to Wayne like you said. Yeah. Wayne lost 30 pounds. Shit. Yeah. That's fucking awesome. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Alright. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Drop those comments down below. Hit the like button. Hit the subscribe button. Follow MB Power Project all over social media.

My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ and hit up PowerProject.live for all things podcast related. And see my ending on Instagram, YouTube, and see my ending on TikTok and Twitter, Mark. I'm at Mark Spelling Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.