Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Saturday School Ep. 20 - Why Can't We Finish Strong?
Episode Date: November 14, 2020Last week Mark Bell read passages from Dr. Orison Swett Marden's "An Iron Will", today he breaks down the passage from Dr. Cuyler and helps us understand why we can't finish what we start. Why we star...t strong, but fade fast. Hope you enjoy today's lesson. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell
Transcript
Discussion (0)
What's up students of Saturday School? I hope you guys have your pens and pencils ready, and I also hope you have your coffee next to you.
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Three, two, one.
Here we go.
Dr. Kyler.
It is astonishing, says Dr. Kyler, how many men lack this power of holding on until they reach a goal? They can make
a sudden dash, but they lack grit. They are easily discouraged. They get on as long as everything goes
smoothly. But when there is friction, they lose heart. They depend on stronger personalities for their spirit and strength. They lack independence or originality.
They only dare to do what others have done.
They do not step boldly from the crowd and act fearlessly.
That was something I read from the last Saturday school.
It was part of an iron will.
And when i read that
andrew told me he said that one hit me right in the face he said like yo like why are you calling
me out dog yeah next time just at me bro oh yeah i said that i felt like um a sniper hit me right
in the chest like that exactly, that's the best
way I can put it. I just like, I almost like caved in when I heard that. I think a lot of people can
relate. You know, we tend to get so excited. Uh, I, myself, and very guilty. A lot of people have
seen, uh, the, the products that I've put out. A lot of people have seen the progress that I've
made over the years, but, um, you know, people haven't really seen, or maybe they don't know like that. I've tried
certain diets and fall, you know, fallen flat on my face. Uh, I've made certain products or tried
to make certain products. And as I was going through the process, they just didn't turn out
to be much. I've had a bunch of issues. I, you know, I've talked before how I
really badly wanted to bench press 600 pounds. And that was something that I really wanted to,
that was something I tried to hold on to. And then I tore my pec a bunch of times. I lost my
spirit and my strength. I lost my, I ran into friction and I lost heart. You get punched in
the face and all of a sudden your plan goes out the window and you lose
steam.
It's almost, it reminds me of, reminds me of running in really thick sand on the beach.
Like, imagine if you were like, Hey, I want to burn a ton of calories today.
I want, I need to start to burn a lot of calories.
I want to burn a thousand calories.
And I was like, okay, cool.
We walked to the beach and I have you like doing sprints in the thick sand. You wouldn't last very
long. You'd be like, I'm done. I'm toast. And I'd say, well, you actually only burned like 300
calories so far. Like we got a long, we got a long way to go. And that's what happens. You know,
the great Vince Lombardi, he he said fatigue makes cowards of us all
and we all have these ideas we all have these goals we all have these things that we're going
to do and man fatigue and that is powerful fatigue fatigue makes cowards of us all
like literally everybody. That is very disheartening right there.
But that is a true fact. Now, what could you do
about it? So in order to be able to
navigate some of this, I thought Andrew asked a really good
follow-up question,
kind of basically saying, how can we hold on? Because Dr. Kyler says that we
kind of stop holding on. We don't hold on for long enough until we reach our goal.
So I think a couple of things need to happen here. A couple, like you have to kind of really look at things in a very simplistic manner, almost like you're a little kid, you know, like a little kid. If you,
if you were to tell them, Hey, like, you know, this is what you need to do to kind of reach this
goal. Um, they might like, remember that one thing that you told them and they might hold
onto it for, for a whole lot of it for a long time, or they might just have a really simplistic view because they don't, they're not skewed
by anything yet.
And, um, you have to kind of like dumb everything down to its finest points.
Um, so a lot of times people are really just like, they're overreaching a lot of times
with their goals.
And then anytime you overreach, you're going to end up being fatigued.
You're going to end up being tired.
You're going to end up asking yourself, why am I doing this?
What is this all for?
You're going to forget the original reason why you went to do something.
do something. So, you know, if I, if I'm thinking about like, if I'm thinking about people that have accomplished great things, I'm thinking about like someone like, uh, say George St.
Pierre, one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time. Um, I remember George St. Pierre talking
about like stretching. He's like, I don't, he's like, I don't really like stretching,
And he's like, I don't really like stretching, but I don't like to lose.
You know, I don't like to get in a lock or get into a hold and be compromised because I can't get out of it because I'm not mobile enough.
And then so, you know, after everybody leaves, he's still there stretching.
Hey, you know, all right, champ, see you later.
Hey, dude, what are you doing still stretching? Well,
stretching is part of the process and it's part of me winning championships and it's part of me being the greatest fighter of all time.
So I'm going to continue to stretch. I'm going to continue to do these things.
But I think, you know, you have to understand that that's very progressive.
Like that's a, that's incremental progress over a very,
very long period of time.
We talk in strength training a lot about progressive overload.
That's what we're doing here.
We're progressively overloading our life, adding in small things over and over and over again.
When you struggle to continue to add to your plate,
you have to be in recognition of that.
One way kind of reminds me sometimes of policing your children.
Like we tend to give up on policing our children because it gets,
when we talk about fatigue, that really makes you tired.
Try to discipline your kids over and over again about the same thing.
Why do you got to put your phone away at six?
How come we got to put our phone away at six?
My friend gets to keep it till seven.
We went over this, you know, you got to, then you have to,
but what you have to do every time is you have to go back to the original
reason. Hey, remember we, hey, but what you have to do every time is you have to go back to the original reason.
Hey, remember we, hey, remember we talked about this before.
We talked about an unreasonable amount of time for you to be on your phone.
Let's get this phone away and so on. Right.
And so for people that are trying to set a goal and that are having a hard time holding
on, you have to go back to the original goal.
The goal, I think in my opinion, your goals
should never be too crazy. Your goal should be things that are fairly in reach, things that are
not too far. The things that are far away, I would put them in a different category and I would say
that they're a dream. These are things that you're kind of dreaming of and you can't turn your dreams
into a reality until you have enough things, until you have enough things lined up that you can rest
your, your strengths on that, you know, are going to eventually turn into something.
Your dreams are going to be the manifestation of a lot of goals being met over a
really long period of time. And then once that happens, once you've reached a bunch of these
different goals, you could say, wow, you finally look up and you go, holy shit, my dream come true
is kind of right in front of me, my dream home, my dream car,
my, you know, goal to bench press 600 pounds or whatever it might be.
So for me, I did fail with certain goals that I had, but I met a lot of goals.
And I also had an opportunity to do those goals.
That's another thing.
A lot of people don't even ever get an opportunity to do them. So I'm grateful that I ever even had a shot. But I also think there has to be something
there has, you need to be reasonable at some point. If you're unreasonable, you'll probably
reach your goal. But if you're unreasonable, you might reach your goal at the cost of a lot of other things. And for me, I didn't want to, the goal at a certain point,
I wasn't interested enough in it anymore to continue to hold on. So that's another major
factor. Whatever this thing is that you're talking about that you want to be able to hold on for,
make sure it's not somebody else's dream. Make sure it's not somebody else's goal.
Going to college or whatever bullshit you do
for your family or for other, you know,
to make other people happy.
Make sure it's something you're really interested in.
And it might take you a long time
to figure out what you're interested in.
It might take you years.
It might take you decades, unfortunately. I tell people all the time, I didn't really know much of anything
until I was in my like mid thirties. I didn't really start to educate until I was 35. And
that's because that's when my own education really started. I would say that I, I was educating
myself on fitness and strength and nutrition early on. So that was
helpful. But that was very, that was in a very narrow space. And that did help me much later on,
but I didn't really expand outside of that. That's all I thought I could learn or know.
And as I got older, I started to recognize I can learn more stuff.
And the learning of some of that new stuff is the stuff that was a catalyst
for me to recognize that I could reach a lot of these goals that I had.
I think, so a couple of things is number one is you have to make sure that you have a massive
interest, love, passion. You can use any of those words. passion is is an interesting one i don't think it's
descriptive enough i think interest is is great um if you're somebody who's around somebody
that you see they have a great interest in something encourage them whether it's your
own child or whether it's a brother or a sister say, Hey, you know what?
I recognize you're really doing that a lot. You're actually like, dude, you're getting really good
at that. Like, that's awesome. How long have you been doing it? You'll start to get some
conversation going with them because you might get their gears. They might not have thought of
something before. They might not have thought of it before. Maybe they've been messing around.
Um, I don't know, writing a lot and you see them writing all the
time hey man what are you reading what are you writing oh i've been writing this stuff i sometimes
post it up i got a blog oh let me check you might if i check it out you check it out sometime and
you're like hey that's fucking dope man that's cool i know with my own son he's been playing
the guitar a lot we watched um we watched walk the line the other night johnny cash movie and there's jake
in his room going now now now now i'm like fuck dude like that's awesome and so my wife and i
have been encouraging him about stuff like that we also have encouraged him to uh enroll in a
different school it looks like he's
going to go that route. I'm super proud of him, super excited. But I don't know if those things
happen if we don't talk about it. I don't know if he continues. He just has a guitar from his
grandma. His grandmother gave him one a while ago. He never really touched it, never really cared
about it. He started tinkering with it, playing with it. And next thing you know, he started to be able to play some pretty good music.
He watched a bunch of stuff on YouTube.
My wife and I were like, wow, that's freaking cool.
And I grabbed the guitar and I show him clearly that I have no idea how to do it.
And then he grabs it and he kicks ass, you know, and then Quinn will do the same thing.
And Andy will do the same thing.
And it's just, it's an encouragement.
Will he be able to turn that into something?
I don't know.
But if he continues to work on a skill set for a while,
then he'll start to develop a goal.
I think people maybe are so quick to have a goal that's so crazy.
If I think about Jake and what he's doing now, he's like,
I just want to be able to mimic a
couple of these tunes. So how do we take some of that extracted out to ourselves?
Let's say I want to lose 20 pounds, but we don't do this starting on Monday bullshit
that we always talk about on this, on this podcast, we do something different. We say, okay,
well, um, I'm not going to try to do cardio every day.
Let's just work backwards. Where have you failed? Where have you messed up? You can say,
oh, you know what? I tried a zero carb diet and I wasn't able to even follow it for more than a
couple of days. I tried doing cardio every day and I did it for one week. And then the
next week I went like twice. And the next week I gave up. I tried a lifting routine where I was
going to lift five days a week. I did it for one week. And the next week I lifted four times week
after that, I lifted three and then I quit. And you start to see this pattern developing. What
if you were to say, okay, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to start to implement some stuff.
I want to be able to, you know, walk to my mailbox once a day or whatever the goal is. That's really low hanging fruit for you.
Maybe you're just going to walk your dog.
I don't know what it is.
Something really simple, something that involves walking.
I'm going to lift some weights three times a week.
Lift some weights three times a week. Maybe just do one body part
three times per week. Maybe do a Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If you work Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, and that sounds hectic, go Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. If you have the weekends off, go Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday,
something like that. You got to suck it up one time during the week. We might have to wake up
early, hit the gym before you roll out to work. On the weekend, while everybody else is sleeping,
wake up before the family gets up and be fired up. get your ass out the door, get your training in.
That's your motivation. Your cue is your motivation and your cue is to get back before
everybody else really kicks off their day. It doesn't have to be before they really wake up, but
that can be motivational for you. That could be inspirational for you. And that could be
something that cues you to be able to hold on to some of these goals. But the main thing is to make sure the goal is something that's of massive interest to you. And then to make sure the goal is not too lofty.
sacrifice short-term goals just because your long-term goals are so crazy.
Like, don't go giving up on the short-term stuff.
You'll never get there.
It doesn't make any sense.
It's completely irrational.
It's not irrational to start over, though.
It's not irrational to say, hey, you know what? I need to back away from this because it's, I got to admit, it's a little too difficult.
I wanted to lose 100 pounds. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I'm not going to think about losing a hundred
pounds. I'm going to think about losing one pound. I even have a guy that measures himself in ounces.
He knows approximately the different ounces that he weighs, you know, give or take a few pounds
and give or take a few ounces. He follows that.
He's like, for me, it's not about the pounds.
It's about the ounces.
The pounds will follow.
He's got a good point.
The guy that I see every once in a while when I go to bodega, he lost like 60 pounds.
There's a lot of ways to get there.
And there's a lot of ways to mess this whole thing up.
There's a lot of ways to get there.
And there's a lot of ways to mess this whole thing up.
And back to that quote of people losing heart when there's friction.
You don't want to be like, don't be viewed like that.
Like, don't let yourself go out like that.
Don't be a punk.
Think about who you represent.
Think about the different values that you represent, the different things you learned over the years and how you want to represent yourself. Not everybody was made,
you know, not everybody was made to be a leader. Not everybody was born to be a leader,
but leaders aren't born anyway. They're, they're created over a long period of time.
People are in this day and age, they need people to lean on.
They need leaders.
And maybe you're the one.
Maybe you're the one in the making.
You know, if you go back and watch Bigger, Stronger, Faster, and you listen to some of the words that my mom shared with my brother,
she basically kind of told him, like, why are you trying to be like this guy?
Why are you trying to be like that guy? How do you know someone out there right now isn't trying
to be the next Chris Bell? And that's a cool statement, man. Like you, you know, you can work
your way into that position. Now, how many people nowadays want to try to direct a movie and make it
like bigger, stronger, faster.
Right? There's a lot of people that are mimicking some of the things that I'm doing.
There's a lot of people mimicking, trying to make some of these slingshot-like products,
knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, hip circles, and so on, and do what I've done with the fitness industry. I have friends that tell me flat out, I'm trying to do the same thing you're doing, bro.
They come in, they see the podcast. I just want to have the same setup that you got.
That's why we keep switching shit up.
Um, but that is a definite possibility for you.
You know, keep in mind, I was somebody that was always counted out and that's, it's a
story I made up, uh, for myself basically, cause no one's really out to get me necessarily.
It's just a story that I bought from the time I was young, that I was dumb and I wasn't
going to be able to learn, that I wasn't going to be able to get ahead, that I wasn't going
to be able to make much of myself.
And over a long period of time, I was able to kill that.
I was able to assassinate that, murder that, stuff that away, and make sure it never came back again.
And I was able to set some goals so that I can kind of pivot from one goal to another, keep knocking down those goals, keep knocking down those smaller goals, and then start to get to the larger goals.
the, uh, start to get to the larger goals. And so the main thing with being able to hold on, I think is the biggest thing I see people do is just a, a fucking try too hard, you know,
and that Yoda saying of, you know, there is no try there's do or do not, you got to do,
you got to start to do, you got to start to put stuff out there in the universe.
And once you do, that's when you start to really learn.
put stuff out there in the universe.
And once you do, that's when you start to really learn.
Okay, so my, just something that goes through my head and something that I struggle with,
you know, it does make sense to me now about,
you know, setting, I didn't want to say realistic goals,
but just like kind of setting the bar low.
So that way you set yourself up for success.
But it is difficult to really get like amped up and motivated when you're like, all right, I'm just going to hit the gym once this week.
You know, and then that day comes, you're like, ah, fuck, I'm just going to do it once tomorrow.
And it's almost like, you know, if there's really no like big, like, like awesome Superbowl ending to all of it,
you kind of don't get fired up to do it like period.
So what's something that we can do to make sure that we,
we,
you know,
we do set,
you know,
the three days a week that we want to go lift,
but we are taking it serious and we're treating it like if it is,
you know,
like for a,
like,
you know,
a gigantic goal um i think
i do understand what you're saying like if there's not something to rise up to you're
going to kind of play to the level of your competition sort of thing yes in this case
it's your own competition but the competition is uh maybe too little league for you.
It's too slow pitch for you,
but you have to be able to build up some,
some form of consistency.
You can't tell yourself that you're somebody or you'll never be anybody.
You can't tell yourself that you're somebody unless you've done something.
So you have to do something. You can't just
write stuff down and say that you're going to do this and you're going to do that and that you're
going to be great. Can't look at yourself in the mirror and have some chant. Can't get up on a
chair and start to yell and scream that I'm going to be the greatest of all time. I'm going to be
the greatest power lifter of all time. You can do that if simultaneously you're taking the proper steps because you'll actually believe it from the inside out.
You won't actually believe it.
It won't actually be part of you unless you're actually following through on some stuff.
So the things that you might view as being really simple or even tedious or even being a little bit boring, they might be really important.
or even being a little bit boring, they might be really important.
When it comes to training, there are some people that I, you know, there are some people that are like, ah, just one day, all of a sudden started lifting every day and I haven't
missed a day in 40.
I've heard people say that before, but sometimes that sketches me out a little bit.
Cause what happens when there's a pandemic or what happens when there's, I mean, the
pandemic is pretty wild and different, right? But it didn't bother me at all when the gyms were
closed. Like I know we have our own facility here and stuff, but like I still didn't come into super
training. I still didn't lift here for weeks on end. And I just figured out something else to do
because most of the stuff was already kind of built internally for me to continue to move and do something. So I think, I think movement is really crucial. And maybe some
of the things that I mentioned today, maybe are a little low or not that much for people,
but if you haven't lifted before and you're all of a sudden going to start lifting, then
you have to have, you have to have a realistic goal of setting that up. Because what
happens is, what happens is you're going to need to rely on motivation and leaning and relying on
motivation is not great. The number one way to stay motivated is to eliminate it as a factor.
That's my opinion. I'm of that, that belief belief there's a whole YouTube video on me from I forget
which which one of the guys set it up but like there's a whole there's a whole like 30 minute
video of me talking about it motivation is fleeting and you do need it every day and it can be really
awesome when you listen to Les Brown or when you listen to David Goggins, listen to Gary Vee and get all hyped up, that sometimes hits you well.
And when it does hit you well and you do feel like do something, go do it.
You know, when you when you feel burned and fired up and you feel like you got time to go do something, you should fucking do it because it's going to disappear.
That happens to me quite a bit.
A lot of times it's like, you know, somebody rips the carpet out from underneath you. Like, you're like, oh, I feel
good. I feel like going to the gym. And there's been times where I'm like, ah, I'm scheduled to
go later. I'll just, I'll go in a little bit later. And I come in later and I'm just like,
oh dude, wow, I blew it. I missed a wonderful opportunity to come in here and really get fired up. So motivation and
being amped up and being fired up and trying to figure out a way to do it every day. The way to
do it every day is to not do it. You're not trying to do everything in one day all the time.
You know, we all have a lot of obligations. There's all a lot, a lot of things to figure out,
a lot of things to do as a human being each and every day. And if you can just figure out
how can I do one or two, like one or two things a day, two things a day for your
fitness and for your health is a lot. Like number one, I swear to God that on a scale of one to 10,
lot. Like number one, I swear to God that on a scale of one to 10, I'm going to eat it at at least a seven. Normally you're like a four, right? Put your hand up. I'm going to eat it a seven.
How many days in a row can you do that? Like, I know it's not exciting. It's not as exciting as
me saying, Hey, you know what? Tomorrow I want you to try to fast for 24 hours. Then you're like,
Oh shit. Okay. Your, your senses are kind of. Then you're like, oh shit. Okay. Your,
your senses are kind of heightened. You're like, oh fuck. I don't know if I can even do that.
But then you kind of tell me how your day went and whatever. And you're like, yeah, yeah,
I may, I was able to make it through. You might sometimes need a little challenge like that to
spark you to get going in the right direction off the bat. But in the long run, from what I,
everything I've seen, I always think it's a mistake. I think a lot of these things are a mistake. I think you, when I've noticed that
even for myself, when I pour a ton of energy into, into a training session and I'm in there for like
two hours and I'm super excited about everything that I'm doing, but the next day is really hard.
You're trying, when you exercise, you're trying to make your life better. You
should leave the gym feeling better than you did when you walked in. You're trying to make your
mind better. You're trying to make your muscles better. You're trying to make your soul better.
You're trying to make your spirit better. You're trying to lift your spirits. You're trying to feel good.
That's what it's for. And a lot of times we go into the gym and we make ourselves feel like
shit. You ever actually work out and actually feel like shit? Like where you're like mopey?
I don't know, like something weird happened in there. Like you lifted really well for a minute,
you got a decent pump, something went well, and then you just were in there for way too long. You tried a couple other exercises and it just went south. Well, that's a giant waste of energy. And then what, where that wasted energy, where is that going to manifest? You know, the next day you're walking down the street and you've got kind of a grumpy look on your face as well. We wear masks now sometimes, I guess.
But, you know, other people are going to kind of see you, you know, in that mood.
Maybe when you go home, you're not as pumped to see your family.
And it just kind of bleeds off into everything else that we do.
And so you want to make sure that the effort that you put in, you know, that's another
thing is these these things where I'm saying, hey, you know, walk.
I'm saying walk to the mailbox just because I'm trying to give you like a really low example.
You can walk further.
You know, you can walk for 10 minutes.
You can walk for 20 minutes.
You can do it once a day or twice a day.
Make your own, you know, make your own goal.
Whatever is reasonable for you to be able to do.
But you can also do these things, you know, at whatever
level you want to do them. Like a lot of times when I go for a walk, I sometimes take off pretty
good. You know, I sometimes am walking pretty fast. Depends on the day, depends on how I'm
feeling. But a lot of times I don't just, I try not to just do anything. I try to, when I go to
do something, I usually, I'm usually kind of hopeful that other
people go, oh shit, like, oh, we're doing, okay, we're doing that for real. Oh, that's the way
we're doing. I don't do everything like that all the time. It's just not reasonable with the amount
of lifting and the amount of stuff that I do in a given day. It's not reasonable for me to be that
way 24 seven. But in general, I think that's the way you should treat it.
So when I'm saying to try to employ some of these things, to work out three times a week
and to, you know, walk once or twice a day and stuff like that, I know it doesn't sound
like you're setting the world on fire.
It doesn't sound like some crazy goal.
But if you set some crazy goal to lose 100 pounds and you try to start this crazy diet
on Monday where you're going to diet, you're going to run and you're going to lift.
Me and Andrew, who've been around this for a while already, are going to tell you, hey, that's fucking great that you're motivated and excited to do that.
But I would love to see you.
I'd love to see you toggle that down a little bit.
And let's just work on knocking off five pounds.
Let's just see what it looks like. You what because we have it's it's november
let's see if you can knock off five or six legitimate pounds before the end of the year
like that would be awesome when you when uh new year's comes we'll talk about you know stripping
another five through january and by the time February comes around, look, dude, you're already down 15 pounds. Like you're already really heading in the right direction.
You already lost a good, a good chunk of a body weight. And I think a lot of times people are
just trying too hard. And you go back to what I said earlier about fatigue. Fatigue makes cowards
of us all. Fatigue is going to make, is going to allow you to continually talk yourself out of doing stuff.
An example of that is I have prepared meals.
I'm lucky enough to be sponsored by icon meals.
I have icon meals in my freezer.
I'm on my way home.
My days are just the same and confusing as everybody else's days.
They're not any worse or any better necessarily.
I got a lot of shit to do in a day.
I know you guys do too.
You're on your way home and you're like, I just feel like fucking making a grilled cheese
sandwich, right?
Or I just want to, you know, grab some Cheez-Its and sit on the couch.
I just want to be a normal person, you know, for a fucking minute.
I just want to not be Mark Bell for five seconds. Let me just sit down and chill, right? But because I have those
prepared meals, I'm not tired. I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to let this fatigue fucking
bug me or I'm not going to let these thoughts come into my head about eating foods that are
off plan or taking my kids and going
to eat pizza with them or something. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take an icon meal.
I'm going to put the goddamn thing in the microwave, turn the microwave on for four
minutes. And four minutes later, I'm going to have a meal that's delicious. That's good for me.
That's nutritious. And then if I want to take my kids for pizza, I will. And I'll even have a slice
of pizza, but that's different than me eating six slices of pizza, right? And so these are the things that are important. This is why
being prepared is so massive. We're all looking around and searching around for motivation.
And we don't really need to be motivated if we're prepared. You don't need to be fired up. I don't
need to be fired up to, you know, if some random
person, a random person, a random regular person starts a fight with me in the street, I don't need
to be fired up to knock them out, I don't need to, I probably wouldn't have any emotion, I've done it
before, I've been in the fights before, where I've just punched somebody and I just fucking knocked
them out, I didn't need to be excited about it.
It's just because I have, I built up a lot of strength. I have, I'm sort of prepared for it.
I've boxed before I've done stuff before. So you don't need to, um, you don't need necessarily motivation all the time. I'm not saying that motivation is bad. I I'm the biggest sucker for
those YouTube videos with the music in the background. And
we're even making a lot of stuff like that ourselves. I love that stuff and I love to
crank it. But I also know that that stuff doesn't work all the time. Sometimes you just feel dead
inside and no amount of that or caffeine or pre-workout will do anything for you. But imagine
if you're well rested, imagine if you're well fed. Imagine
if you set your mind right the night before, or you were thinking about your squats from the last
time you did squats. You know, you did a couple sets with 225 and you're excited the next week
to try 235. Or maybe you struggled and you're like, you know what, next time I'm not struggling.
Next time I'm going to nail that just right. I'm going to get that. And you start prepping
yourself for it early. So I think being prepared is, is the king and, uh, don't allow motivation
to be, uh, such a factor. It can be a factor, but try to keep it to a minimum.
Yeah. And it was, I believe, so the YouTube video is called Motivation is Overrated.
The speech you must hear.
Mark Bell's message by the Mulligan Brothers.
There you go.
There's a couple other ones too.
The Machiavelli Motivation made one with you as well.
Sick.
So yeah, that's pretty dope.
And then we actually have a question from a MarkBell.com member that fits very well
with everything. Yeah. It's our buddy, Frank Mendoza. Dude's a dope. And then we actually have a question from a MarkBell.com member that fits very well with everything.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
It's our buddy, Frank Mendoza.
Dude's a savage.
Frankie.
What's up, buddy?
Yeah.
So Frank says, I feel great and strong like never before.
The family came over on Halloween, and I got so many compliments on how strong you look and how different I look.
Thank you so much for motivating me to lose weight and to get strong.
You've helped me so much. I love the advice you gave me on the Q and a and eating carbs and fats during training
days and not on rest days for the next four weeks. I want to continue to eating clean. I still have
belly fat. I want to get rid of, but I also want to increase my arm muscle and my get my bench up.
How can I reach my goal? So the ever elusive drop fat, but get bigger.
Yeah, that's always, that's always a tough one.
I think it's pretty simple, you know, keep, you know, he said he was having car, you know,
not having carbs on off days and things like that.
I think nutrient timing can be something that could be utilized.
I think also, you know, if you're trying to get lean, you have to
not consume as much energy. So this is where things get tricky because if you're trying to
get big, you kind of need to consume more energy. So what I would kind of lean into
where you can look bigger, but continue to drop weight usually, and even just body fat
is with protein, you know? So if you keep the protein high, whatever his body weight usually, and even just body fat is with protein, you know?
So if you keep the protein high, whatever his body weight is, I'd say you 1.5 at at
least, or 1.25 at, you know, if you weigh, if you weigh 200 pounds, you'd want to go
towards 300 grams of protein a day.
It's not the most critical thing that you hit that every day, but it's just a goal to
try to, you know, know get get up into that
range at least 250 if you weigh 200 i'd say and again this is per what you asked for um this isn't
like not everyone has to try this but um and then increasing arm size you know you you want to like
follow people like mike isertel, follow Renaissance Periodization.
I think it's called like RP Strength on YouTube.
Mike has great videos on YouTube.
He's a great resource.
I've shot, you know, thousands and thousands of videos.
But Mike has more precise stuff, especially when it comes to bodybuilding, especially when it comes to hypertrophy.
especially when it comes to bodybuilding, especially when it comes to hypertrophy.
But when it comes to hypertrophy and it comes to this style of training,
you want to make sure that every rep and every set counts as much as possible.
And you want to try to make sure that there's not a lot of throwaway sets.
You know, a lot of times people go in, they kind of just do their three sets of 10 and they just move around, which is okay for some things.
Like it's okay to burn some sugar.
It's okay to help shuttle macronutrients into the muscle cells and things like that.
But it's not great for being optimal.
So if you want to increase the size of your arms, I would say try to train your arms two or three times a week.
I think twice a week would probably be the easiest because when you do back work, you're going to get arms in them quite a bit.
And when you do chest work, you're going to train your arms quite a bit.
So training your arms twice a week, they'll actually really be getting trained more than that.
Should be more than enough. Have one day where you go heavy. Have one day where you go a little
lighter. And most people don't do that with their arms.
Most people don't kind of train arms with heavier weights.
They're usually just doing, you know, kind of higher,
higher rep sets and stuff like that.
But I would say the main thing for most people that are trying to just have a
physique transformation, that's something that looks,
something that looks like you got bigger and smaller at the same time, bigger and leaner at the same time.
I would say you would want to look into nutrient timing.
John Meadows has a great video on this as well.
Carbohydrates pre-workout, carbohydrates inter-workout, and carbohydrates post-workout.
That's a lot.
It's a lot of different things to think about.
and carbohydrates post-workout. That's a lot. It's a lot of different things to think about.
Essential amino acids and or branch chain amino acids during your training session.
I've been doing intra-workout shakes and post-workout shakes for 30 years or for 20 years at least. I've been doing it for a really long time and it's been something that's always been
beneficial for me for the last, I would say maybe six months, I've been doing essential amino acids and carbohydrates during
every workout. If you try to think about, there's just a lot of research around it. I, and I,
it's hard to say because it's like, well, who's doing research? It's like, well,
supplement companies kind of do that. And it's to prove that these things work in this fashion, but you can't really eat during a training session, right?
I guess you could, but that's going to mess everything up.
The type of carbohydrates I'm consuming and the type of amino acids I'm consuming, they don't cost your stomach anything.
They are basically pre-digested, I guess you could say.
You can almost look at it as if it's kind of going right into your bloodstream,
even though it's not exactly the way that it works.
But I've been doing that for a long time, had great success with it.
If you want to stay on the leaner side and you don't want the extra carbohydrates or something,
I guess you could essentially just do the essential amino acids.
I even think John Meadows has a product.
I know Tony Huge has a product that's just essential amino acids. I even think John Meadows has a product. I know Tony huge has a product.
That's just essential amino acids. That's what I use called anabolic IV. It tastes good. I utilize
it all the time. John Meadows has a product that has essential amino acids and carbohydrates
combined together. I don't remember the name of his company, but I'm sure you can look that stuff up on Amazon.
You'll find,
you'll find some of that stuff.
These are just shortcuts.
These are quicker ways to get there because your body already,
you know,
wants to soak up the nutrients.
Your body already is ready to soak up these carbohydrates.
I know some people like even in their,
in their workouts,
they'll eat like Skittles and stuff like that.
But the main issue with stuff like that is I just think that that starts to get into your digestive system a little bit and maybe cost you a little bit more.
I know back in the day, Jay Cutler would do a post-workout Coke.
He'd have a Coke.
Post-workout, I'd say is a little different.
You can do things a little differently. But anyway, that's, that's most of my take on it. Look into your, it's called
peri-nutrition, P-E-R-I, peri-nutrition. People don't pay attention to it. I've been doing this
for years and it's rare that I work out with anybody else that takes carbohydrates during
their training session. Some, some of the people in
here use some aminos when they train. Uh, but I've been doing it for a long time and I think
it's really helpful. And when I was natural, I think I noticed it even more. So give that a shot.
Yeah. Um, I don't know how these things work, but it looks like, uh, oh, that's why. Okay. So, uh,
Looks like, oh, that's why.
Okay.
So, Anabolic Ivy from Enhanced Athlete was, like, named the bodybuilding supplement of the year.
Damn.
By Generation Iron.
So, I don't know exactly what the credibility of it, but I know that, you know, you like it. And I haven't tried that one yet, but they make some pretty good stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
But, yeah, dude, that's um that i think with
someone like frank um he he was eating some crazy low amount of calories per day as it was already
so that's when you had recommended that he have carbs and fats and on his training days because
he was having like some like we'll just assume that a piece of chicken means that it's eight
ounces he was he was having just like 16 ounces of chicken a day and like that was it right right that in water you
know so i think for someone like him he just needs uh maybe just let time do its thing because he's
he's pretty damn strict with himself and yeah yeah implementing some carbohydrates around the
training session i mean there's just a lot of research that shows that it literally, you know, goes into that muscle that you worked for that particular day. So you
could even, if you wanted to, you could even, uh, just do it on training days where you think that
body part's a weak part and you could have, you know, 30 carbohydrates during the training or 20
carbohydrates before the training session, 20 or 30 during the training session and 20 or 30 after just to make sure you got everything
covered. Um, that might be a little overkill, but that's the other thing is you don't need a lot of
carbs. Like when I'm talking about, I have carbs during the workout, I have like 25 grams of carbs
or something like that. Yeah. I know we're like going pretty far off topic now, but, uh, we were
talking about creatine earlier.
Can you give us some info on that?
Yeah, creatine can be helpful, especially with some carbohydrates.
And if someone hasn't done creatine in a while, I think, you know, adding in some creatine can be quite helpful.
I know some people have, you know, sworn by it.
Some people really enjoy it a lot and
other people are like i don't know if it does anything there's a lot of good research surrounding
it but um you know i just think look it doesn't hurt to try some of these things right and
especially if you're somebody that's not eating enough red meat and it might be a great idea to
supplement it yeah that creptine creatinine creatinine and yeah that's all i got over here
man um i just i just like i said when when i heard that passage that specific part i just felt like
man if i feel this way i'm sure a lot of a lot of other people feel that way because yeah you know
we often do set the bar way too high we we're gonna start on monday and then we fizzle out before the week's
even over so i think this will be very beneficial because i know it's beneficial to me yeah you you
get super fired up you think you're going to take over the world and then the actual like the reality
sets in and you're like oh this is like a really big it's a really big hill to climb. But if you, you know, if you just went up a little bit of that hill every single day,
you can do that every single day, you'll be at the mountaintop before you know it without
it ever really seeming like much.
Then that's, that's, you know, for me with my dad, every morning I've been walking with
him and today we walked a little further and he stopped and he's like, oh, I'm going to,
I'm going to head back.
And I was like, I was like, no, it's, I was like, we're, you know, I was like, dad, we're close to the end.
Cause we've been walking the same pattern every, every day.
And, uh, he was like, yeah, I'm just kind of out of breath.
I'm like, well, no one said that you can't stop.
I mean, you could stop.
So let's stop, you know?
So he's like, okay.
So we stopped a little bit and then we kept going, but incremental incremental progress you know that that's where he needs to start
that's where he's at and um he's i think he's lost like five pounds so far so
it's just uh these small victories the small victories uh over and over and over again and
just it's frustrating because you want the big victories, but you can't have a big
victory until you have a couple of small ones. Yeah. Well, way to go, Papa Bell. I know. That's
what I said. Yeah. That's sick. Well, thank you everybody for checking out today's episode of
Mark Bell Saturday School. If you found any of this beneficial, which I know you did, please
share it with a friend, especially if somebody who, I mean, you probably know somebody that's
definitely the person that we're talking about here where, you know, they get fired
up and then they fizzle out.
Uh, this could definitely help them out.
So please send it their way.
Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram
at MB power project on Twitter.
And then, uh, Mark, yeah.
Where the heck are you at these days?
I'm at Mark Smiley Bell on a bunch of different platforms.
Strength is never a weakness.
Weakness never strength.
Catch y'all later.