Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 618 - It's Called Talent & Genetics, You Ain't Got Em

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Whenever an athlete at the elite level accomplishes something, drug tested or not, a lot of people will claim the PED's made their feat possible. People are assuming we are all created equally. We discuss how some people have talent and genetics and some people simply don't. Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vuori Performance Apparel: Visit https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: Visit https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb 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 ➢ 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

Power Project family, you know how much we talk about sleep on this podcast. A lot. Because sleep is one of the biggest things that you need for muscle gain, fat loss, I can't leave your cravings. You need good quality sleep. And that's why we are super pumped to be partnering with an amazing sponsor, 8Sleep. Now, 8Sleep is a mattress company that has something called the Pod Pro and the Pod Pro Cover.

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Yeah. So and then another thing also is if you sleep with a partner and they maybe don't run as hot as you, you actually have dual temperature zones. So I can set mine extremely cold. My wife can set hers not as cold, but still cool. And that really is like that in and of itself is like, it's so helpful. And especially again, like I said, when you sleep with a partner, they're happy, you're happy. You both wake up extremely happy. Everyone's happy. You got to head over to eight sleep.com slash power project. That's eight spelled out. So E I G H T sleep.com slash power project and you guys will receive 150 off your

pod pro mattresses again eight sleep.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes head over there right now down to i have to figure out a better one for for podcasting because for photos down to photograph with an f down to fitness down to fop down to film there's the day you said down to fitness i was just like bro that's such a like a dad thing like yeah i know it's like you down to fitness that's my shit it's so funny though like i i forget that dtf like you know down to, like, I will say that around my nephews. Like, you know, I say it all the time. And then my nephew one day was like, what does that mean?

I'm like, oh, it just means you're good to go. And then his dad was right there, and he's like, don't say that anywhere else. So I'm like, oh, shit, I'm sorry. You forgot what it was. I got an announcement to make. Let's go. What's up? It is not November today.

However, it is November because this is not going to be released for a little bit. So here we go. I got some Kratom right here. I got some Mind Bullet. Down the old hatch. We'll do halves. Man. All right.

Where's mine? Nsema left. He may have left permanently. Can you grab some capsules if you can, please? left he may have left permanently can you can you grab some capsules if you can please we have shut him down from you know the audio and we've tried to shut him off from the video that was so good we've been upset before anyway i have a coffee here too that i'm sipping on it is uh october 31st happy halloween happy halloweener man i i'm still not on the caffeine train. I'm still off. I miss it for sure.

But like now I'm going to have, um, I don't have a bottle here, but I'll have committed mine. You know, it's a nootropic and it has a hundred, a hundred milligrams of caffeine, which is kind of high, but, Oh, thank you, sir. But, uh, that's the first thing that I'm going to have. Full shot or half shot? What do you think? I'm going to do a full shot, brother. Well, I still have a little bit to cheers you with, even though I just tried to screw you over.

Try to get on. I'll do half first, and I'll take the other half a little bit. Try to get on the same level. All right. Well, come on. Because that's going to hit. I'm taking Kratom. We're going to be happy. That's going to hit. I'm taking Kratom. We're going to be happy.

That's going to hit. Woo. That should hit pretty good. You guys up to date on some of these podcasts that are out nowadays? There's some really good shows out there. You know, the podcast that I'm listening to, I listen to Flagrant too sometimes. Huberman. Who else?

Rogan. I listen to Rogan. I listen to Huberman. Flagrant, I need sometimes. Huberman. Who else? Rogan. I listen to Rogan. I listen to Huberman. Flagrant, I need to check out for sure. Flagrant's hilarious, man. I need to check it out. It's so good. Flagrant, too, with Andrew Schultz, if you guys don't know.

And Akash Singh. I got to check that out. Mark Gagnon and Alex Media. Funny guys. I love that they're just, I mean, from what I've seen, it looks like they're just having a good time, like just laughing their asses off all the time, which what I noticed in watching some of that is you just end up starting to laugh, which is great. Sometimes that's like just a great thing to set you off into being in a good mood. I've been checking out this podcast more recently, I Am Athlete, and I found it to be like a lot of fun man they get into some really good stuff ocho cinco is on it and uh brandon marshall and they bring in some

guests and stuff and i found this clip that we're gonna play in a minute i just found it to be pretty damn hilarious and uh it gives us a great topic to talk about today but it's it's perfect because when we made that uh we had this podcast where we talked a bit about – what did we talk about in that podcast? My memory is like lost. You know what? We were just talking about it. No, it's not just you. I was on a walk right after that podcast talking to Stephanie.

I'm like, what the – what did we talk about? It completely slipped my mind. But we were talking about fitness stuff. Let's see. What else? Was it the three of us? Yeah. But we were talking about fitness stuff. Let's see. What else? Was it the three of us? Yeah. I'm not talking about like habits and stuff like that.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But it's weird how like that just completely just got deleted from my memory. It was really strange. Isn't it crazy? It's been so hard. So we did the Ray Williams. Yeah.

The Ray Williams. We did that one. Yeah. But then we did another one after that, which they will have heard by now. But it was just so strange. I'm like, dude, we had such a good podcast. And I'm like, we had so many good comments. Okay.

I don't know what it was about, though. But it was a huge podcast. But the Ray Williams podcast, when we talked about that, right? So many people in the comments. The comments were funny. And it was interesting because, like, we mentioned LeBron in that episode, right? And people were like, well, LeBron isn't natural. You know what I mean?

I'm just like, God, it's like anybody who has a really high skill level at something athletically, people think they're automatically taking something. Right. Especially since they have money too. People are like, oh, if they have money and they have wealth, why wouldn wouldn't they be right there's no reason they should be not on drugs of some sort and it's just come on now just take yourself back to when you were young you know take yourself back to when you were 12 let's say uh the amount of 12 year olds that uh are currently on performance enhancing drugs but most likely zero you know what i mean? And if you think back to when you

were 12, or if I think back to when I was 12, which is over 30 years ago, there was zero people that were on performance enhancing drugs. How many people in the school could run faster than me? How many people in the school could maybe do more pushups than me? How many people in the school could maybe do more push-ups than me? How many people in the school could do more pull-ups than me? How many kids could do like a cartwheel? How many kids could maybe do a flip, a backflip, a front flip? How many kids are really gifted at soccer? You know, I started like lifting. I liked football. I could throw a football pretty good. I could catch a football really well. I could run decently. There's some stuff that I could do. When I was amongst just my friends, I was usually – I was just making sure this is accurate. I was usually better than them at anything that we would do most of the time in most cases.

But outside of my little group of my buddies, once I started to challenge other kids to races and things like that, then I would lose here and there. And then if I was to extend that outward and I wanted to compete in a sport, which I did. I did well. I won some, I lost some. Most of the time when it came to throwing, I was heavier than most kids. So I did really well. The whole point of me bringing all this stuff up is people back – even back then accused me of being on steroids. This is like 15 or 16 and not necessarily 12 years old. Yeah, I got my first when I was 16.

Right? And what about the people around me? Are they all on drugs too at 14, 15, 12, you know, however old we were at these given times, just because they could perform something really well. And you got to keep in mind as you mature, sometimes that band will just break apart even further and further. Somebody will get better and better as their body matures and as they lean into the things that they're good at. So it's just, it's absurd for people to kind of always put the onus on performance enhancing drugs. There's also a reality to everything though too. And I've been

wanting to shoot a video on this for a while and I wanted to shoot a video just saying flat out, you're not me and you never will be. And the reason for that is to challenge people because I don't think that I'm necessarily anything, but what I am is a better version of myself over a really long period of time. I just got better at stuff over a really, really long period of time. And anyone can do that. not being able to bench 95 pounds, to at some point being able to be 200 pounds, being able to bench 405 without drugs necessarily. There could be a genetic limit on maybe how heavy somebody can push before they have to get really fat.

And there's a lot of things to consider. But you can work your way. You always have the freedom to work your way towards getting and being better there's no question about it it's not even debatable you know what let's start playing some of this clip because let's just get into it let's not stop blue balling ourselves right here oops chef because you lost how many pounds so far? I'm down 25. You're down 25 pounds? And you think this is the reason you're down? Hey, that's what I'm concerned about.

Nah, nah. Eat what you want and come work out with me. I'll make you lose 50 in a month. No, listen to me. Inflammation. In inflammation, sickness and disease lives. Don't eat that stuff. Come over here.

Science, not Ocho. If you went to the candy lady house when you was young if you drink from the water during the summer back in the day when your mama ain't let you in the house eat what you want to if you're sweating the raw sewage like i did your immune system gonna take care of you that's real science wait wait if you made it to where you wanted to go but it just kind of stopped short just a little too quickly it's science not Ocho

right if you wanted to go to 35 40 like LeBron James Tom Brady eat the right foods hey pause alright so the Brady LeBron thing right i want to mention that real quick because we look at athletes like lebron and jordan um when we look at what they've been able to do

you kind of mentioned it like i'm not going to be six nine i'm not going to be brady's what six five yeah right damn he is yeah oh shit he's Dude, there was a guy from the Jets one time that tried to get up in his face. And it was funny. Brady just shrugged it off because the guy was like – the guy was yelling at him from a little bit of a distance. Then a couple plays later, Brady throws a touchdown pass, and they burnt that same exact guy that was talking shit to him. And Brady runs right up to him, sprints up to him, gets right in his face. And the guy's like a foot shorter than Brady. I was like, this does not look good.

Yeah. No matter how hard we work, we will never be able to be like Brady or LeBron. Like athletically. It doesn't matter how hard we work. I'll never be 6'9 or 6'10. I'm never going to be in the freaking NBA. But the thing that we admire about those individuals is the amount of work that they put into their craft to become as good as they – to become great in their craft, right? It's something to keep in mind.

And then as far as like, oh, everyone at the top is on something. But even with that, how many LeBron James are there? There's one. We were talking about Ray Williams. How manyron James are there? There's one. We were talking about Ray Williams. How many Ray Williams are there? There's one. And if it was the pharmacology, I think there might be a couple of them, right? Drug tested or not, wouldn't there be more LeBron James?

Wouldn't the whole fucking starting lineup of the Lakers be all LeBron James? Yeah, if you could do it just through some medication. Right, yeah. If that was the case, then we would have way more talented players. But no, there's one. Yeah. Let's just keep the clip going because there's something that

gets good. Tom Brady and LeBron James have something you don't f***ing have. That's talent. You don't listen to him. It's genetics. It's called DNA. You don't have it. And that's Yeah. It's genetics. It's called DNA. You don't have it. That's OK. Don't let him fool you thinking what you put in your body

is going to make you great. I'm going to tell you right now, it's not. But what you can do is live a happy life doing what you want to do. Because if you believe in God, when it's time to go, you're going to go no matter what the you eat. If you believe in God and you believe in your talent, and your ocho cinco, maybe you play 15 years instead of 11 years.

Believe in science, not ocho. Time is of the essence. He's reaching now. Time is of the essence. And God said at year 11 this ain't for you no more which is why I am where I am today it's like he's like running for president

or some shit so there's so much to talk about in all this and hey I want to apologize to all of our fans that have been following us for so long I want to apologize for having way too much fun in making some of these episodes sometimes. Oh, man. I just thought that this is something that we should bring to the forefront for many reasons.

First thing I want to say is I played football with Ocho Cinco at Santa Monica Community College. Oh, shit. Santa Monica City College. And he was never at practice i remember uh we had a day where we like time in 40s and doing all this stuff and everyone thought he for sure he would show up to that because he can run like crazy but he didn't show up to that uh he showed up for the games usually you know that's usually when he was there and the coaches would tell him like hey man you know what do you say usually you mean he wouldn't show up to the games usually you know that's usually when he was there and the coaches would tell him like hey man you know when you say usually you mean he wouldn't show up to some games

for the most part he was at i believe he was at most games but i think there might have been a away game or two um anyway when it came time to play he not only played but he was like one of the best players on the field and the reason why I say not necessarily the best player on the field, because Steve Smith was also on the same team. And Steve Smith is a Hall of Fame wide receiver. But when he did show up, when Ocho Cinco showed up, he played football and he went hard. And when he did a pass pattern or something, he ran it like something you've never seen before. And he ran way faster than everybody. did a pass pattern or something, he ran it like something you've never seen before.

And he ran way faster than everybody. I believe there was a time where he did show up to get timed in the 40 and he ran like a 4.4. I never saw any training. I never saw – I'm not saying that he didn't train at all, but I never – like we were all in the weight room together working out all the time, doing stiff leg deadlifts and leg curls and things that are supposed to encourage you to be able to run faster or are supposed to be things that help you run faster. But the fastest guy on the team was never part of that. And I don't know his background 100%.

I don't know how much sprinting and how much whatever he did. But it's very clear there's – even aside from whether he played soccer when he was young and so forth, which I'm sure he probably did. He's probably always very active because he's very, very lean. There's a huge genetic component to it. I mean he looks like a sprinter. He looks great. He's in amazing shape.

He still looks like he's 25 years old, and he still battles people sometimes. He's like, yo, try to cover me, and he will get with like a current NFLfl cornerback and he'll put some pretty good moves on him and stuff like that so sometimes there's a genetic component to some of this stuff that is uh it's just not something that you can even figure out how to get to but again you can always get better than wherever you currently are and when you get better you can even get better than that. With what, everything we're about to talk about, I want to kind of put emphasis on something that Mark mentioned early in the episode. It's that at the end of the day, with everything we're doing, with everything we talk about as far as fitness and getting better and getting stronger,

gaining more muscle, losing body fat, understand that at the end of the day, it's as cheesy as it sounds. It is you versus who you were yesterday, right? Are you, are you personally getting better? Not comparing yourself to everyone out here in fitness, but are you personally getting better? Are you getting stronger? Are you improving? If you are, you're going down the right road.

Don't be comparing yourself to everybody else who may have more or less results than you. Just continue to keep trying to get better. Okay? And you can get better. We've seen people get better. I want to say that before we get into some of this because as we talk about this, there's a reality. There's a reality. When people make content in fitness, a lot of people are talented when it comes to being able to gain muscle, when it comes to getting strong.

They train hard, but there's genetic component of talent that they have. The reason why they're so good isn't just because they've worked hard. It's because they've worked hard, but they had a propensity for something. It's like, oh, wow, I'm really I'm really pretty good at this muscle game. I'm really pretty good at this strength stuff. Right. Oh, like I can, you know, training. I can get pretty fast.

Right. So they not only is there a component of their training really fucking hard, but now they have this thing called talent. And like Ocho said, they also have this genetic component they didn't pick their parents but their parents that was a good set of parents to have for what they're currently trying to do i'm gonna give myself a rating and then let's see if you guys can follow through with giving yourself i'm not gonna give myself a rating i will not give myself so in terms of genetics in terms of the stuff in terms of the stuff that we enjoy uh which is you know lifting and in terms of uh i that we enjoy, which is lifting and in terms of, I guess, me holding a lot of muscle mass and being lean.

And I'm also going to consider that I use TRT, testosterone replacement therapy. So like that is factored in there a bit. Like there's probably a reason long ago that I did reach for it at some point. a bit like there's probably a reason uh long ago that i did reach for it at some point um but i also recognize like out of all the people that we've had come through super training gym um i in in comparison which we're not supposed to do too much of but in comparison to some of the people that have come through the doors i'm not stan efforting i'm not ericerding. I'm not Eric Spoto, but I'm also not half bad. So I will just say on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say I'm somewhere between like a 6 or a 7. Now, somebody else might say, hey, dude, you're way more than that. But in terms of the amount of work that I put in, in terms of the amount of time that I put in, I feel like that's where I'm at.

Now, in terms of strength, I might be higher in terms of strength because when I first touched weights, I was benching more weight than my friends and stuff like that. So I'm talking more from like an aesthetic standpoint and maybe I made myself – maybe I made it more of an uphill battle. Well, I definitely made it more of an uphill battle because I used to be 330 pounds. So I made it harder to achieve. So let's just say that I give myself a seven. to achieve. So let's just say that I, you know, give myself a seven. And you know, okay. Before we continue, there's one thing I had to outline here because you know, when people would be making some of these natty or not videos, number one, Mark, you've been doing sports for how long? Sports, not just lifting weights, sports for how long?

Yeah. Probably just since I was like five. So you were five, bro. I started playing soccer and running around a field four or five days a week when i was six started lifting weights when i was 13 like a lot of people that you see that are like yourself and people are gonna be like oh he's on drugs but even before you're on drugs i wish we could pull up a picture of mark at 25 prior to hopping on anything because if people see what you look like man see if you can find that i'll find it because people when they see what you look like, they're like, right. You, you ain't no chump. You were two 20, right? Two 20 in that picture.

I think you were like single digit body fat. Yeah. Six feet. Like, yeah, I think I'm, I was, uh, maybe about 15, 20 pounds lighter than I am right now. Single digit body fat. That's that's been training for 10 years. Like, okay, guys, again, people also like they compare things, but some of y'all cats haven't started lifting until you were like 16, 17, 18.

Some of you are in your 20s and you start lifting. You cannot compare yourself. Number one, you shouldn't be comparing yourself to anybody. But some people have just been physically active longer than you. Right. That's a big deal. Right. You know what I mean? I also recognize, you know, like I gave myself a certain you. Right. That's a big deal. Right. You know what I mean?

I also recognize, you know, like I gave myself a certain grade, right? I also recognize I'm not confined to that. And I can, like, I feel, this is really weird to say, like, out loud, but I feel so good about the gifts that I do have. Oh, yeah. Like, that's where my focus is. My focus is not on, like, I don't have this or, oh, man, I'm never going to be able to figure out how to look like that guy or I'm never going to be able to figure out how to – I got friends that have like private jets and stuff and all that. That looks great. And all I can do is put both hands together and just clap and say, hey, that is fucking awesome. And, yeah, there is a side of me that says, man, that would be cool to figure that out. But I also am thinking like for me personally to figure that out, how much like rearranging of my own life would have to happen?

that I can manage throughout a day so that if I put all my effort into, let's say, getting a private jet, where would that leave everything else? Because I've heard some of these guys say, man, I was depressed. My wife left me. I gained 80 pounds. But when I got that jet. Yeah, right, right. It all went away. Right, right. Well, and now they're able to maybe rearrange their life and make better decisions and better choices in some of those areas, right?

But it's – I think we have to be really grateful and thankful for the shit that we have and you have to recognize that you can get better. It's not always a drug thing. There we go. I don't know how old you are in this one. Probably like 20 – probably, yeah, know how old you are in this one. Probably like 20. Probably right around 20, actually, in that one. 20. Dude, look at the arms.

Look at the shoulders. I'll find a better one. Matt, you have aged well. Thank you, sir. You shaved the mustache and everything. You've aged pretty well, man. People are going to be mad about that mustache. Yeah.

When does the picture come out? I'm not going to say what it was. mad about that mustache yeah when when does the picture come out i'm not gonna say what it was but oh yeah yeah picture uh probably oh a couple days yeah tomorrow actually okay oh there's that picture that's amazing oh yeah so so by the time you guys listen to this episode the the picture has been released of um who was that who you're supposed to be in that pic? Let's make sure. I don't want to wait. Yeah. Okay. You know what?

I won't say anything. All right. If it's out, look in the link in the description to figure out what we're talking about. And also, there's a specific picture I was trying to find of Mark. I know which one. I'm looking for it. Yeah. But again, I want you guys to realize. And now, I want to get us to another part because I'm not going to give myself a rating.

I think because you've seen – That's really hard. Because you've seen so many individuals, you can give me a rating. But one thing I'll say is this. I would say you're somewhere between like an eight or a nine. OK. I would say you're somewhere between like an eight or a nine. Okay. And maybe even higher just because I also want people to understand that so many things are not just genetic.

They are also environmental. And they're also things that – like your mom seems to be really active. Oh, she is. So what you saw as a kid was your mom hustling around, always making sure that you were taken care of, always making sure other family members were taken care of. You saw her popping in and out of work. She was just – it seemed like she was a great role model. Literally, she'd go to work. All right? I'd be at school.

Then she'd leave work and take me to soccer practice and sit in the parking lot while I was at soccer practice, right? And that was like five days a week. Right. Single, single parent. Right. While my grandma was at home with my sister, like single parent. Like it's crazy. She also taught you the discipline of not even the discipline.

It was, it was, it was just your life. She taught you about food. Seemed like you guys didn't have, I mean, did you guys have M&Ms? Did you guys have? No candy, no soda. Like we didn't eat packaged foods. My mom cooked everything we ate. And you kind of got in trouble a couple of times

even for like having a soda and a couple of things in there, right? Yeah, my mom beat my ass when I was younger because we went to this one party. It was like a party and then I saw Pepsi, right? And I was like, it was in front of the other parents too. I was like, hey mom, can I have this?

And she didn't want it. Like she wasn't going to say no. She's like, like yeah go ahead in the tone of the go ahead i was like fuck it i'm gonna do it so i drank it and and when i got home i i got i got it damn so there's there's a lot of there's a lot of uh you know you learning about food there's a lot of you moving around. And so naturally, you're going to grow up to be leaner than most. From what we've seen on this podcast time and time again, most of the people that have great aesthetics, most of the people, not all. Mark Lobliner actually is one of the guys that used to be a former fatty. Lobe Liner actually is one of the guys that used to be a former fatty, but it's rare for someone to be a former fatty to have like a really good V taper and to have built appreciable amount of muscle to where they look awesome. But what I would say about you is that you're just – your physique and your amount of muscle that you have in comparison to your body fat percentage and so on is greater than almost every single person that we have on the show

pretty much all the time. And we have great experts that are in the field. And so you're in a different category. And so what I would also say about you is that anything that someone does, you're actually – anything that someone does, you're a really good mimicker. But in more ways than one, like more than just like an athletic move. Like if I said, hey, check out this scissor split squat that I'm going to do. I'm going to go back and forth with it a couple times.

I can do that and show that to you and then you could do it. You could do it the same as me and you could probably do it better than me. You can mimic stuff, learn stuff really fast i know that like vertical jump is not like a main thing for you because your knees have been banged up for a while once you got your knees better boom you're back to it uh i remember a situation in here where you were getting more heavily involved in your jujitsu i think your knee was bugging you a bit you didn't squat for a little while. And I came over to you. I'm like, oh, it's good to see you squatting again.

I'm like, sometimes it's kind of hard to get back into it. And you're like, sometimes. But that was actually a PR. I've never done that for six reps before. And I walked away. I was like, that motherfucker. That guy's got it together. There it is.

Yeah, there you go. And you were natty on the left still. Natty on the left, yep. Right, you're fucking traps yep shreddy shred so but anyway your genetics are your genetic you have you have good genetics yeah but like how much further do people want to push that like they want to pull that out every single time that you make a post if you flex your arm or if you say oh my, my diet is going good. I mean you don't even really do stuff like that because – probably because you feel that people are probably going to say all that kind of stuff, right?

Like, OK. So yeah, like I totally understand. Like genetics are a thing. I'm not discounting it. The only thing – I'm not even tripping when people say I'm on stuff. If people say I'm on stuff, that is okay. The only thing I hope is that they still take some of the stuff we're putting forward because the stuff that we talk about in terms of fasting and diet, et cetera, no matter if I have genetics or not, they've still

allowed myself, they still allowed you to improve in such drastic ways that we're like, check this out. This isn't bringing us results just because we have genetics. This will help you out too. So we don't want people to discount the things we're saying just because they're like, oh, they just have good genetics. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, baby. That's not how it is. You started bodybuilding at a young age too. Yes.

I didn't start. I haven't really even – I dove into some bodybuilding to do a bodybuilding show. I have not really put a real focus in on like, hey, I'm going to hypertrophy my arms. I'm going to hypertrophy my legs. I want to work this angle on my legs because I want to work towards getting this particular cut. I've really not spent much time doing that. So like what are you going to be good at? What are you going to be able to possess that you're able to represent really well?

It's going to be things you've been doing for a long time. And this is another thing I want to mention, guys. It's like we did that DEXA scan thing, right? Now bone density, my bone density was really, really fucking high. It's like nine or something right it's like seven right and when you you can't take drugs for bone density okay that like the bone density increases actually the more you lift so if you lift for a long time your bones will become more dense um i think i think one was it went from negative one zero to one which is like the the the standard if you're at two or three like you you you do athletics you do sport like you could tell four it's kind of getting abnormal five six and seven they don't see that shit often

right my bone density was at 7.2 right and i guarantee if somebody like russ swole if you see a lot if if individuals who are like fucking in gronkowski some of these individuals if they went and they got a fucking bone cena cena you see that picture of my hand in his hand did you see that yeah cena would be at a nine like they're they're i'm serious you know we probably have a bone density of like nine or eight, right? He doesn't even make any sense. When I put my hand up to his, what people might see is like, oh, yeah, his fingers are a little bit bigger than Mark's. It's like, no, no, no.

Zoom in on that thing and you'll realize that his hand is like a catcher's mitt. is like a catcher's mitt. It's so like, it's an extra like, it's an extra like maybe like quarter or so bigger than mine on the outside of it. And then his fingers are, they look like two fingers stacked on top of each other. I mean, it's wild, man. And his wrists and his forearms.

And I mean, he's just, there's people out there that are just different than us there's really not much you can do about it um I want to lean into this a little bit further not to sidetrack the whole entire thing but you've never taken steroids before no never taken uh anything that would be considered a performance enhancing drug that might be illegal by like never take no no no no, no, no. No. And I'm like – I'm going to make it like as so clear, OK? I've never taken any steroids.

I've never taken any type of pro-hormones that would get anybody past it. There's not like a cycle you did when you were 20 because those are the things that people would say, right? Like, oh, well, yeah, he can talk about it now and he probably has no problem talking about it now because he probably did stuff years ago. Maybe when you were a bodybuilder. He never took anything, period. No, never have. Never felt the need to. Growth hormone. Nope.

IGF-1. Nope. Some sort of clenbuterol. I think – and creatine, monohydrate. It's very useful. Right. This is funny. It's very useful.

Right. But it's going to – this is funny. As meme-ish as this is, it's like out of all the supplements that I've taken, creatine monohydrate would be probably the most performance enhancing. What about like old supplements that are banned – or not banned, but they're just like discontinued? Prohormones or something? No, no, no. What was that?

Never taken prohormones. Like what was that? It was like that powder, Jakt. Jakt 3D? Yeah. Did you ever take – I'm not saying – I don't even think there's anything in there. Jakt was a pre-workout. I took the second formula when I was in college. J. Jacked was a pre-workout. I took the second formula when I was in college.

Jacked 3D was a pre-workout. Now, it was supposed to be like something – I think it had – it had ephedrine in it. Yeah. The original formula. I never got any of that one. I wish I had some of that one. But that's what I mean. Like did you have like, I don't know, some old school supplements that we can't buy anymore?

Nah. Like I'm not even that old. I know. I'm reaching here. Where Mark had the good – like There was some interesting stuff with Mark. I don't know. I don't know Ochocinco's business. I don't know what he has done and hasn't done.

But look, man, not everyone is on steroids, and you can't always just blame everything on genetics either. I know that people would like to do both. I know that people would like to say, OK, Jordan, maybe he didn't do anything when he got into the league. But probably when he was in the league for a bit, he may have taken some stuff to get past the Pistons when he started lifting weights and all these different accusations. It's like, OK, well, maybe that is a reality. Maybe that did happen. Maybe something similar happened with Barry Bonds. Maybe Barry Bonds was – similar happened with Barry Bonds. Maybe Barry Bonds was, but who is Barry Bonds?

Barry Bonds has other family members that were amazing baseball players. Barry Bonds is just big and jacked. I mean, even before, you know, years and years and years ago, Barry Bonds was stealing bases. Barry Bonds was smashing home runs.

He was, there may have been a time where he took something to push his career along a little bit further i guess we'll never really we'll never really know the truth people can kind of speculate whatever way they want but people they're always going to try to point out these things that i believe are just kind of excuses so that they can justify not improving. It's about not improving. And the point that was made by Brandon Marshall was really smart. Keep in mind, Brandon Marshall, over 10 years in the NFL.

Keep in mind, Chad Ochocinco, also over 10 years in the NFL. These are high-level, high-level performers. Brandon Marshall's 6'5". 232. I mean, these are some mutant ass people. And also, you know, furthermore, if you were to hang with these guys and you were to go you know, somebody that's listening to the show right now

you were to go out to like a bar or something, ain't nobody looking your way. You know what I mean? They're going to be looking at these fellas. These guys are good looking guys they're in good shape their genetics are are off the charts so for ocho cinco to kind of throw it out there and say uh that you don't have the genetics of lebron and tom brady is also really interesting because there are so many nuanced levels to the entire thing uh that it's hard to break down and somebody listening it's

like well lebron's probably on shit too yeah brady he's brady's probably on growth hormone at least nobody has and think about all the people we've had on this show when we've had oh there you go check this out so somewhere around rookie year versus probably somewhere around where he broke the record but he's also probably 18 or 19 on the left. Yeah, he's a baby. I don't want to make excuses for the guy because I actually personally think that he probably took some stuff. Yeah. Zion Williamson.

He definitely did. Zion Williamson is somebody that is a good example of a guy with God-level genetics who's in the mix in the NBA right now. He did put on a little bit of weight from season one to this current season because I think right now he's like a cool 320. Or I think he's three. Yeah, he gained some weight.

Yeah, people were talking about it a bit. But Zion is the dude that can jump out of the gym. Listen, if Zion, look at him right there. This is a dude that's playing basketball, running around a court all day long. All right, not all day, but every – like multiple days a week, burning hella calories.

He does some lifting. But if Zion was like, man, this basketball thing isn't for me, I think I want to do some bodybuilding. I want to do some powerlifting. Again with the ringtone. Food – the food thing matters a lot too, and I want to kind of circle back to that for a second because what Brandon Marshall pointed out was really, really intelligent. Regardless of somebody having amazing genetics, what he said there was how do you know – basically how do you know you couldn't have done better? I think Jerry Rice is a great example of that. Jerry Rice is not Randy Moss.

Jerry Rice isn't as tall as Randy Moss. He's not as tall as Brandon Marshall. He was not as fast as Ochocinco. But Jerry Rice, it kind of seems like he did any and every single thing possible that you can possibly think of to make his hands stronger. I think the guy used to catch bricks to make his hands stronger. Some of the rumors go. People talk about how they couldn't even do a warm-up with him. The stuff that Jerry Rice would do before the game, people said would make you throw up and would make you sore and would make you tired during the game

how long was he in the league by the way how long do you forever for a thousand years like 22 years and this this is this is the big thing you remember you saw that ocho was saying like oh year he was in the year 10 11 there are some of these guys that are so genetically like they have great talents and genetics that you know they're able to do okay they do really well without really trying out alan iverson barely wants to practice but man, you saw the way Allen Iverson moved on the court. He's, he is a goat, right? But LeBron and people are like, oh, it's because he's on drugs.

No, LeBron spends millions of dollars taking care of his body. And he's one of the most talented guys in the NBA. Now that's why he's on year, whatever. Not because of drugs, not because of, you know, growth hormone or steroids, because like the dude practices really fucking hard. Also on top of all the gifts he's been given, he's not out here just using those gifts as the only thing he works with.

He's putting layering everything on top so that he can be there for year 16. Now. Yeah. So rice was drafted in 85, and it looks like he retired around 2005. Golly. Coming in at a cool 20 years right there, right? Man.

At a position that you get hit, too. Yeah, you get killed all the time. Golly. Something else to kind of consider when you think about stuff like this, it can be this simple to think of. Most of the time, in most cases, if you were to start yoga out of – if you kind of start yoga out of nowhere and you're – let's just say you're my age. You're 45 years old.

Who is most likely in most cases going to be able to perform yoga better, a male or a female. Usually a female. Yeah, usually. I mean, usually the class is full of females. And why is that? Because it feels like they feel better doing it because they're halfway good at it already. Why are we over here? Like when you see me work out, a lot of times you're going to catch me bench pressing, right?

Because I'm good at it and I like it. I do like working on the weaknesses and I like kind of picking things apart. But I'm not like over there like in a yoga pose, right? So a lot of the things that we even lean towards in the beginning are going to be things that we're already – have some sort of propensity to. When I first started, I always loved basketball, but I also am not 6'6". I'm not as athletic as a lot of the other people that play. And when I started recognizing like, oh, I'm not as quick as those other guys. I can't dribble quite as good.

I had a decision to make. Oh, well, I could do way better than I'm doing right now. But for me, just to kind of get on par with just organized basketball, that would take a lot of work. I'm not that interested in basketball to put that much time into it. I do love it, but I don't want to put that much time into it just to be able to play some organized basketball and maybe not even really make the team or just be like a role player and get on the court here and there. I'm not that interested.

I'd rather just play some pickup games here and there and not really work on my craft. Dude, it's the same thing. When I was young, my mom had me play baseball. She had me play soccer. She had me play basketball also. I played basketball and soccer for a good amount of years until I got to high school. When I got to high school, she's like, okay, you kind of got to pick one well i knew that my dad was six three so i'm probably not going to get much taller than that and i had more skills and gifts and

soccer so i was like okay i got to pick soccer and i'm gonna stick with that why because i had more talent there so i stuck with that right like you're gonna see in in anything like, again, this is the thing that I find kind of weird. People will, when it comes to lifting and getting bigger and getting stronger, I don't find it weird. I think it's not weird because you can just, the barrier to entry is just stepping into the gym and starting to lift, right? To the barrier of entry of basketball is most people like you had to play that for a long time, et cetera. But for lifting, you can just go into the gym. You can start getting bigger. You can work on your nutrition.

But even so, you got to realize it's still something that there are going to be people that are just they just have multiple things that you don't have. And there are some people that even if you do take drugs, even if you do take steroids and growth hormone and whatever, there's some guys that are natural that you will still not catch them. You will still not catch. You will not catch restful. You'll not catch restful. And a lot of you might not catch me. That's just and that's that's not that's not even saying anything. I'm not putting anybody down because at the end of the day, you're supposed to be comparing yourself to who you were before.

You're supposed to be trying to continually improve at whatever it is that you enjoy and you like. But don't be comparing yourself to a guy like Russ Swole who has multiple fucking IPF records, who's been playing football since he was a kid. Again, you got to realize like a lot of people have been doing things since they've been kids. And that makes a difference too along with their talent and their genetics. Right. So, and this is okay. Oh man, this is another thing. I don't even know if I want to go down this route.

Think about it. There's an it factor to everything. You know, there's a, you know, when I was a pro wrestler, somebody would get up and like cut a promo on somebody else and uh you know you'd see the uh the people that were uh you know signing people to contracts and stuff and they would make some notes and stuff and they would just say like got it you know and they'd circle it you know and they'd kind of like you know maybe take some other notes on the particular person and then the next person would go and they just wouldn't write anything down. They're not like sitting there trying to hate on anybody and be like, that guy sucks or they're not really being negative in any way.

But it's really – it was always really clear when somebody had this like factor. I mean we talk about Josh Settlegate all the time. We love that guy. He has an it factor about him. I don't know how to explain it he does but like everything the guy does is different like watch the guy like i've never even uh well i've gone on i guess like one 10 minute walk with him but i see him walk around the building all the time and i see him on his walks and he's walking so fast i'm like i ain't

gonna walk with him i'm like blow up my back or my hip or something. I don't know. Stomping on the ground too. Yeah. Are you mad at the ground? Yeah. That guy is on a mission, right? It's just very clear. Sometimes it's only clear after the fact, after somebody already made it, and then you start kind of noticing these nuanced things. But the second I met John Cena, we all always knew. It wasn't not a secret.

You're going to do some fucking crazy shit. We don't know when or how or what it's going to look like or whatever. But everything the guy did, it was always different. We would run a drill and practice. And so I'll talk about this too. He had attributes that sucked too. So I'll talk about this too. He had attributes that sucked too.

But whenever we did drills and stuff and it came to something like physical, like, I don't know, jumping over somebody else, he would jump so high it was completely ridiculous. And he would – because he – somewhere in his brain, he recognized in order to accelerate the fastest, I have to be – I got to figure out a way to be different. But he wasn't trying to compare himself to anybody else. He was just saying like what's going to be the best display of me possible? Okay, I don't move as sharp as those other guys because he would move around like a bodybuilder. That was the knock on him in the beginning. He was really stiff, really tight. him in the beginning is he really uh really stiff really tight and uh you know even if just got like punched or something like he he wouldn't maybe sell it really well or something like that because he just wasn't like relaxed he maybe wasn't part of the flow it's part of being new i sucked at a

lot of stuff too um but that was kind of the knock on him that was kind of like muscle bound and so he was like what are some traits what are some things that I can do that I can utilize that show me the best? He's like, you know, the stiffness thing, it's like, that's going to wear out if I just do this for a really long time. And if I love it and I pay attention over time, I'll be able to do that. Where he accelerated also was being able to be in front of the camera and to be able to talk. And when he did a promo every single time, you'd watch the whole class do a promo. Everybody did a good job.

A couple people get a good chuckle here and there. A couple people would mess up to the point where it got super embarrassing. They might have to stop and restart. Happened to me many times. Happened to pretty much everyone except for John. But he knew that that was like his spot to shine and he and he even kind of crafted it but every single time he went and when he was done you remembered kind of some of the stuff he said in comparison to everybody else you didn't remember what they said and you just knew that he had whatever this thing is it's like it factor yeah another example i want

to give is something we just had on the podcast, John Hack. And the thing is, is like we in that podcast, we talked about John's numbers before he got on any type of SARMs and after. And there is definitely a gain after. But before he got on the SARMs, he still did some shit that was at the level of greatness. Right. And this is a thing like I, like there's a, there's always a thing in the back of your head. That's like, I wonder how, how I stack up.

Everyone always wonders how they stack up to somebody next to them. Right. And with the, the, his body weight and the strength he had, I know that, well, I can't say I know, but there's a good chance that I could train and focus on powerlifting or whatever, and I would not get close. Like, I wouldn't be able to reach that level of strength that John had because John has it. There's a reason why he started lifting and bench pressing when he was super young, and he kept doing it because he was drawn to it. He had something there. He developed it. there was more there

he was really fucking good andrew the video game thing you mentioned oh yeah yeah no it's funny so like again i was talking to these guys off air like how i was listening to a podcast and i was actually watching it and there was like this podcast will have anywhere from like 8 to 12 people on at a time and i was thinking about this topic today. Nobody's going to ever accuse these guys of being on PEDs. No one's going to call for a drug test. No one's going to ever give them that kind of attention. What I was just blown away by, because what we've been talking about,

these people are built different as far as these athletes. I'm watching these YouTube or Twitch stream're like youtube or twitch streamers they're game streamers and they're being interviewed and there's again like eight people all at once some of them are just like legit just looking at the camera talking to everybody and then there's some other ones that are like playing video games while being interviewed and then even watching tv and we're not talking like uh like a point and click video games we're talking like they're playing online like competitive games and they're in the conversation they never once were like huh what was that like uh like i missed that can you repeat that everybody is engaged all at once and so that got me thinking i'm just like i, I could never do that. I mean, I could try really, really hard and get kind of okay at maybe learning how to hold a conversation while playing a video game.

But there's no freaking way I can podcast, watch a game on TV and play a video game. Competitively. Competitively, all at the same time. Yeah, and wreck people. Like, no, these guys are different. And then like what you've been saying with social media, it's like it seems like that's normal because now we have access to the small percentage of people that can do this. Because just like what you're saying, benching, although they probably some of them are starting to lift and get good at it, but they're really good at video games. So they're going to gravitate towards that. But if I try to do that, I guess I'm just never going to be as good as them.

And then I get all depressed or whatever. Some people, it doesn't matter a thousand hours you put into a game. You still won't be as good as the ninjas and all these other guys. His name is Ninja Tyler or whatever. You won't be as good as those guys. I won't. That's why I don't play video games at that spot because I know for myself I'm very competitive. So if I wanted to play something like that, I'd put too many hours in and I wouldn't be that good.

I'll give you another example. I don't think there's anything I could have done or anything I could do to deadlift 900 pounds. I know that people are like, you should never say can't type of thing. But I don't think it would matter who was coaching me or who was training me. I deadlifted 766 in competition and that's the best I, that's the best I could do at the time. Now I agree that I could get better. I agree that over time, yeah, maybe I could get 800. Maybe I can get, you know, but there would be some sort of factor somewhere along the line that would prevent me from, I just – it's just not in the cards for me to be able to do that.

And I think there's some things that are OK to like just be like that's not – I just – Can't do it. Yeah, I just am most likely not ever going to get there, and I don't even – rather than say the word can't, it's just not even something I just never even really thought of. not even something I just never even really thought of. I know people are like, why would you have that mentality towards it? But it goes back to what Ochocinco said, is that there is a genetic component to this stuff. There's different levels to it. When you think about something like singing, right?

Like you start at a certain spot in singing, and for some reason there could be like a five-year-old kid who could like belt pretty good, and you're like, what the hell? Like how are they able to do that? Who knows why? Maybe they heard mom or dad singing when they were young and they got into it and they got excited. And it turned out that they had pretty good like vocals and they could hear the music the right way. And there could be so many different factors.

But you want to try to think about what attributes do you have that you can do the most with. So Ochocinco kind of makes the mistake of saying kind of eat whatever you want. I know he's like halfway joking, but I think he's half serious, like live the life you want to live. And I'm in agreement with that 100 percent. But not live the life you want to live if it's to your detriment because he talks about we're all going to die anyway, which is true. We all are going to die anyway. but let's not expedite that process. Let's not speed that up. And while we're alive, let's not be half dead. Let's not have one foot in the grave because we have diabetes or we have some of these diseases that have been shown to be preventable if you

can control your food. So it's not like you just say, oh, to hell with it. I'll never be a singer. Maybe instead when you sing and it turns out that you don't really sound that good, that you, if it's something that interests you and your way into it, maybe your voice is just different. I don't think when James Hetfield started out with like Metallica, I don't think people were like, wow, what a beautiful voice. As he went along, he sounded better and better and better, and he found his own niche. If you listen to ACDC, you listen to some of these – some of these people have these really interesting, maybe even call it strange ways of singing a melody, and it works for that particular music. I mean, these are some of the greatest rock bands of all time. So it doesn't have to – what you build yourself into and what you work yourself towards doesn't have to look like – another reason not to compare yourself,

doesn't have to look like what everybody else has done in the past. Exactly. It doesn't need to look like what everybody else has done in the past. Exactly. It doesn't need to look like what everybody else has done. And it's a tough thing, especially, I guess, in fitness because, number one, yeah, you should absolutely go lift. If you're in powerlifting, you should try to get the strongest that you can. You should look at what some of the better people in whatever sport are doing and see maybe what you can take from them and do for yourself. But at the end of the day, it really just does come back to you. And the thing that the trap that you should not get caught in, especially in this social media age of fitness culture or whatever, the trap you shouldn't let yourself get caught in is being at a certain place, looking at somebody that's far ahead of you, and immediately saying, the only reason they're getting there is because of drugs.

Because number one, what that kind of does is that kind of makes you, if you put a limiter on yourself for what you can achieve, okay, that's fine. Because you automatically don't think you'll ever get anything close to what they're doing unless you hop on. So for some people, that gives you an excuse to start taking stuff. That's when we had Greg Doucette on the podcast. I was mentioning to Greg like, dude, if I was a teenager, because when I started lifting, I didn't have – there was no YouTube fitness or anything. There wasn't guys like this. There was no YouTube fitness or anything.

There wasn't guys like this. But if I was a teenager and I saw Greg's stuff and I was in the midst of like starting to lift and doing that. And I saw how many people that he says is on drugs. And he at this point, he he's taking steroids. I'd be like, fuck, man, maybe I should try to see if I can get my hands on something. Right. Especially being young and wanting to get things fast. But I was lucky enough that I wasn't at a place where social media was prevalent and I was just, I just had the ability to just go to the gym and lift because by the time I

learned about that stuff, I already put in eight years of good work. Yeah. I think, uh, you know, Ocho Cinco saying, uh, he's, he could have the guy lose 50 pounds in a month. I think his point is like, hey, the way that I train – what he's trying to say I think. He works hard. I don't want to put words in his mouth. But I believe his point was I work really hard. That is actually really cool that you lost 20 pounds, which he didn't say. But I think he's thinking that's cool that you lost 20 pounds, but you could do a lot better than that even. Like that's great that you did that. But he also is probably thinking in his head, why is this guy suffering eating these weird

foods? It sounds like he might've been leaning towards like a vegan diet or something. I'm not sure what they talked about in the entire episode, but it sounded like he was leaning that way. And whether it's vegan or carnivore, a lot of people could look at those diets and say, this seems like a lot of sufferings going on, because you're not eating like some other people, right? And you're missing out. So I think that's some of what he meant, was that he's putting so much into his training. But it kind of shows you the mindset of an athlete that is like Ochocinco because he can't even really compute why this guy has to go through this to lose weight because he's never had to do it. Because his genetics have been on point along with him exercising over the years and playing football at a high level.

So it's – you'll see that a lot and that's a lot of times why sometimes people like Ocho Cinco, why sometimes they're not coaches, because they already have so much excellence. They don't even – they don't know how to sometimes even communicate the steps from you to go from being maybe below average in something to get you to even be good. They know these like weird, nuanced things that no one else can see or even feel real quick though Andrew you need to tell the people how they can get some of this cereal what have you been munching on the whole time this is some chocolate or cocoa magic spoon

cereal guys if you guys don't know you know what you talk about it real quick I'm going to get a box a whole box go for it Mark people thinking that you can get away with kind of eating whatever. And again, Brandon Marshall, I think, pointed out like you're going to have to have good nutrition on your side if you're trying to be the most optimal. And you want to try to have things that are as least offensive as possible in terms of what you have in your day-to-day.

And, of course, you should be able to enjoy some delicious foods here and there. But there are more and more delicious foods nowadays that are also options that can still squeeze into your diet. They could still be part of your diet. And we got some magic spoon right here. We've been digging that. We've been mixing it up with some Fair life milk to give it a little extra protein you could uh you don't have to do that because it already has a good amount of protein in it but um even before we had fair life around i was actually mixing up some protein shakes before and just dump dumping it in with uh

the magic spoon it's delicious they got all kinds of different flavors. They got chocolate. They got cinnamon. They got peanut butter. They have like a blueberry one. That one's a little bit of a sleeper one. I was kind of like, I was like, I don't think so. And I had a couple bites and I was like, I'm not sure. And then you blink and Encima ate it all. Yeah.

But then I was like, damn, it's actually really good. And Encima, I think right now, is eating it dry. Yeah, it's really good dry. I've been doing this for days. It is really good dry, yeah. I was like, damn, it's actually really good. And in SEMA, I think right now, I was just eating it dry. Yeah, it's really good dry. I've been doing this for days. It is really good dry, yeah. I was surprised. It's delishy. How do people get it?

Yeah, absolutely. So you guys got to head over to magicspoon.com slash powerproject. No code needed, but you guys will receive $5 off a variety pack. So you're going to get four boxes. Not sure of the total price, but I know for sure that you're going to get $5 off of that. Like I said, no code needed. When you guys go to magicspoon.com slash powerproject,

you'll see a banner at the very top that's kind of letting you know that you're going to get $5 off that variety pack. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. We highly recommend them. Yes, we do. It's really good stuff.

But I think we kind of... We crushed a lot of that. I think that was really good stuff but i think we kind of what else crushed a lot of that i think that was really good yeah yeah i was digging it i got one more question for you what you're gonna see my um so i know that you say it doesn't bother you if people think that you're on steroids and that makes some sense because it used to yeah it truly did used to it used to bug you oh yeah it makes some sense that it no longer bugs you as you got older you're just like well they don't really know me they don't know they're not around they don't know my work ethic they're not they're not with me all the time i don't see like what my week looks like what my month looks like but does it still irk you because when somebody says – I think what can happen sometimes when someone says that you're not natural, then maybe that's implying that they're calling you a liar.

Does that part still bug you or are you just like, I just have no control over any of that. I'm just going to keep going, doing my thing. That also did used to bug me. just going to keep going doing my thing that also did used to bug me um and that one does irk me a little bit just because like it's because uh i there's this good there are multiple people that have gone to the comments and then said this they're like you know i can't believe like this guy is such a fucking liar like like it it's gonna come back and to get you soon and see why you keep it up so so that that in and of itself is annoying like if you think because yeah you know if technically if i am on drugs and i'm continuing to say i'm not then if you don't believe me then

you think i'm just lying to your face about it and that's unfortunate because at that point then you just think i'm a scumbag which i can't do anything about that so yeah i think that that aspect of it does irk me a little bit. Ain't nothing I can do about it. Yeah, it's annoying and probably kind of hurtful because you're working hard towards doing your best job of putting out information that you feel is like coming from your heart. It's all coming from a good place. You're trying to share information and ideas on fitness, how people can get better. And you might say like, hey, intermittent fasting has been great for me. Working on my sleep has been great for me. Leaning into eating more meat has been really

good for me. And now someone's saying you're lying about steroids and then they're kind of you know a lot of times people will put all that into the box and just think oh this guy's full of shit on everything why would i even bother listening to him yeah intermittent fasting would never work for me because i i'm not going to be able to be 240 pounds all muscle a because the guy's on shit and even if he's not his fucking genetics are crazy and I can't do anything that's even remotely close. And again, we just have to always point back to the fact that you are continually getting better, but there's never been like some weird spike in you getting better. There's never been like, oh, and Seema was deadlifting 455 and did you see him the other day? He pulled 755 for three.

Like we – I've not seen anything weird like that it's been a normal progression a natural progression uh if you will i i'm i'm in on this too and so is andrew um trying to keep the ball in the air that didn't seem as natural for as for as long as we can but you know that the big thing though is that i that i realize is that the people that i can the people i should focus on are the people that are taking the things that we're talking about and then applying it and then coming back and seeing benefit. Those are the people that that we put into the people that if they say, oh, you're on zero or whatever, if they still take something and they benefit from it. Good. If they want to discount everything because they think it's because I take drugs or steroids or whatever, I'm just not going to – I can't focus on them.

As much as, yeah, it does make me feel somewhat uncomfortable and it does – like it doesn't affect me like it used to, but it still bugs me a little bit. How did it affect you before? Did it get you like really pissed? Did it make you sad? Would you fire Matt? No, no, no. Comments?

No, no. Nothing like depressing Matt. The thing is I would – my mind would kind of focus on it a little bit out of sheer annoyance because I've been doing some shit for a really long time. I didn't get to choose my parents and luckily enough they were a good set of parents for athletics. And I've been doing this for a fucking long time. Yeah. Like a long time. Yeah. Like a long time, really consistently.

So when I would see that stuff and you know, okay, this is, this is what I didn't want to say because I don't like, here we go. Here's the good stuff. Okay. Listen,

I don't, I don't subscribe to the, the like race stuff. Like, like Greg Doucette says, we're all circles, right? We're all,

we're all, we're all circles, right? But when I was younger and I used to see some of these fucking videos, um, and, and even the, even the comments that I get from people to this day,

80 to 85% of the comments of people that say I'm on drugs are average looking white dudes. Same, same archetype. Like I don't, I don't, and this is, this is the thing I don't really have.

I'm not trying. I, again, I do not subscribe to this whole race shit that like, I'm not like that. I have a lot of friends of all types, but there's a type of dude that'll, that, that they, they sound off though. Like it's 85% of them are like, you know, just, just kind of just white dudes that may have been training for a little bit of time.

And they're, they want to compare themselves and they're like, oh, he's on drugs or whatever. And something that I just, it's just a core, it's a, it's a, it's a corollary line. There's this correlation here. The dudes that make natty or not videos on YouTube. Um, some of the more notable ones were like Vitruvian physique, right? There's this guy for Truvian physique. He used to make natty or nots when, when I was a little bit years ago, kind of decent looking white guy. Um, great.

You said good looking white guy. Um, who else? Derek, right. But, but Derek breaks some science into it. Like he, he brings some,

he actually makes, he, it's not just his emotions. He brings some science into it. Phileon, Phileon's tall. He's kind of strong, but with Phileon, it it's if you look better than me

it's it's kind of a trend with phileon if you kind of look better than me and you're jacked and you look better than me you're definitely on drugs i don't see guys like mike ross like my homie sam okunola who's's a world champion. I don't see... And it's just that that's just kind of annoying. You know what I mean? And this is where the conversation begins to get a little dangerous. This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable. For multiple reasons. Because when you do bring certain potential genetic differences into the mix,

you've got Gronkowski. He's a beast. You've got Hapthor Bjornsson, who even if he wasn't on drugs, he's a beast. You've got John Hack, who when he wasn't even on drugs, he was a massive – he was a fucking beast. When you look at the percentage of the top-level athletes in the NFL, when you look at the percentage of the top-level athletes in the NBA, when you look at the percentage of the top- athletes in the NBA, when you look at the percentage of the top level track athletes, what's the

common line there? And it's, it's massively uncomfortable conversation. It is, but you can't compare yourself to some of those motherfuckers. You, you really can't, you know what I mean? And, and that's where like, I'm not trying to say there are differences with a bunch of different types of people in africa there are you could find literally the tallest tribe of individuals that are like six eight six nine consistently in that tribe the women and the men and you could find the fucking pygmies who are some of the smallest people. Right. And then you got some people in the middle who are just like,

just big. There are some big fuckers that come out of Africa. Right. So again, I think it's an interesting thing. Like for example, the FFMI, which is this fat free mass index, the people that the FFMI is based off of,

who are the people that the FFMI is based off of? I don't know. A lot of these scales are based off of, they are made here in America and they're based off of populations here in America. What is the highest population of people here in America? White dudes. Yeah. It's based off of a specific in America? White dudes. Yeah.

It's based off of a specific scale of a specific type of person. And now we're taking that scale and we're putting it on everyone. Like there isn't genetic disparity through the world for different things. And this is a part where the conversation starts to get dangerous because when you do talk about physical differences, there's an uncomfortable conversation about mental differences. Because people then will talk about like Asian countries. People will talk about the IQ debate, all of that type of stuff. And that's where the conversation gets really muddy and really uncomfortable. It could or it could also or it could potentially just be science.

I mean, there could be a certain type of person that for whatever reason, maybe their whole body responds better to dopamine and we don't know why. It could be a whole culture of people. And then even within everything that you just said, there's so much other stuff playing into it because the NBA, the NFL, those are highly influential people for young athletes, right? And so then maybe you're striving towards that and maybe you already have a propensity because of A, B, or C. there's a lot of things and I think that the uniform that we walk around in the skin that we walk around in

ends up complicating things because we think that if I say something good about you that somehow damages something about me and maybe it might point out something different

where people are like okay well he has a physical difference. So what difference do I get? Like what thing do I receive or what thing do I have in my heritage that will allow me to float to the top or whatever it might be? And that's a dangerous thing because like at the end of the day, this doesn't come back to that. This comes to back to the idea that you mentioned during this episode, you, we all have the ability to improve and get better at whatever it is that we want to do, whether it's singing, whether it's lifting, whether it's whatever, like, even if you start off as a horrible singer, if you've got a voice coach, you could probably end up being kind of decent where you could sing in front of your family and they'd be like,

you're halfway good. Even if you don't have the most talent, you could probably end up being kind of decent where you could sing in front of your family and they'd be like, you're halfway good. Even if you don't have the most talent, you could get better. Maybe you could add a little humor to it because you're not great. And that could be like your own style. Exactly. Right. So with all of everything that we've talked about here, where we know that there are differences in talent and genetics, it doesn't take away from the fact that everybody

listening here can achieve something that they never thought they could if they put in some fucking work that's what it really does come down to so you're what you're pointing out here is anyone that says anything negative about your physique or says it's because of steroids, you didn't get that comment from like Ross Edgley. You didn't get that comment from somebody who's put in the work. Who's doing the damn thing. Yeah, someone who understands. I think this is a topic we should dive into even more, and it would be great to get someone on the show that knows a lot about genetics

so that they can intervene and they can kind of – because I don't think that while it may end up being interpreted to people as being offensive, there are scientific differences between us all that are huge. I think that genetics is something that – I mean, you still got to study. There's so many more things to study, so much further research that needs to happen in terms of like the brain and all the different things. But it is really interesting. Like some cultures are really good and really gifted at certain things and they pick them up faster. It appears by all accounts, by all the information that we currently have that there's some sort of underlying truth to that

and it'd be great to like know what some of these things are. And it seems like it's almost like a mathematical equation. Like this person is set up this particular way. So because they're 6'7 and because they are, they can, let's just say they have better insulin resistance than most, and they can handle carbohydrates better and A, B, and C, that that person might be better off playing some sort of sport than being a teacher or something like that. It doesn't mean they can't be a teacher. It doesn't mean they can't go off on their own path, their own way, but it just brings up a lot of interesting things.

It does. Anyway, that's our show for today. Andrew, want to take us on out of here? I will. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please leave us a comment down in the comment section below. Hit that like button and subscribe if you guys have not done so already. Follow the podcast at Mark Biles Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on TikTok

and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at I am Andrew Z at the Andrew Z on TikTok and SEMA where you be. And SEMA ending on Instagram, YouTube and SEMA ending on TikTok and Twitter. And guys, again, I really just want to like, again, harken down on the thing that we've been mentioning multiple times. The thing that Mark mentioned first in this episode, it doesn't matter where you start. If you put in work consistently over time, first off,

you'll get better. And number two, if you put it in work for actually a long amount of time, you'll be surprised at how good you can get at any specific thing that you choose to do. Mark? I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye.