Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 626 - Will Bodybuilding Kill You?

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

For the first live podcast in the new studio we are discussing a tough topic, why are bodybuilders dying of heart attacks as of late. These athletes and these supplements have been around for years, but what has changed to cause bodybuilders to die now? Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vertical Diet Meals: https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for free shipping and two free meals + a Kooler Sport when you order 16 meals or more! ➢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

And we're like, oh, Jesus Christ. And you just click the button. He's like, I don't give a fuck. No, I already had clicked the button the first time. Oh, you did? Yeah, because I was like, we're ready, and we're ready, and then we weren't ready. I'm just going to be here enjoying my element, although it would have been nice to put some fit aid in the element. Oh, that's what I did.

That's smart. That's smart. That's why my thing looks like urine. Yeah. As we're speaking, I will escape for a little bit and get a FitAid and run back. You're pretty quick with that stuff, too. Yeah, I am. We're a little bit further now, though.

Yeah, but I'll sprint. Dude, what do you think about the toilet that's going to be, that we're going to put in here? Yeah. For you. Dude. Okay. The stand-up toilet. Man, have any of you guys this is this is actually really rough i shouldn't even be talking about this because it's massively disgusting

the first podcast that we did today i had to you know go to the bathroom and i took a shit and thought it was normal and as i was wiping i was just like okay cool cool cool why is there so much shit was it like the slip and slide where you wipe and it's like whoops yeah like apparently rubbing on a marker it like ended up like endless color crayon it just like it was just like i had to go through many wipes before finishing and being you know that was just a rough one but this element is saving me right now it's good stuff yeah we're gonna get a toilet right where you stand it's gonna be great it's gonna be helpful man i'm always the only thing that people will notice i mean people that are here live they're gonna notice the smell probably

but they're just gonna no it's a stand-up stand-up toilet stand-up toilet so is it like uh i guess like a like a shoe horseshoe so like he straddles it? Yeah, he just has to poke his butt back a little bit. Oh, okay. And he'll be good. So people are just going to notice him. Smiling a little bit more. Weird faces looking off. And then everyone else is going to turn their head looking at him like, okay.

Yeah, we can't have him off screen for any amount of time. And it'll be sound controlled, so nothing will be heard other than you'll just be seeing my facial expressions, but that's it. We got poop problems around here. We do. Yeah. But I still, I think there can be a better design, though. For toilets in general? Well, for his specifically, it could just be a, like I said, like a horseshoe.

So he like, he's kind of almost straddles it. He's not riding it. It's not get weird, but you're just on top of it. And so if you pee, it goes forward, and then it catches you there. But if you have to take a dump, it goes backwards. Yeah, like a U-shape. Yeah.

I like it. Fucking genius. Like, why did we even get here? You're the one that started it. I didn't start any of this. I was thinking it. Yeah, he started it. No.

Because he started the whole get me a toilet thing. And now we're here. Well, tell people where they could submit us some Bitcoin so we can purchase this toilet for him. We got to get our digital wallet out there. And also, where the hell can people get some of this damn element? Because this stuff, listen, guys, we've talked about electrolytes. It's amazing in combination with other stuff, too. In water, it's really good.

But I don't know about you guys, but I put it in all kinds of weird stuff. I put it in Coke Zero and shit like that. It's fucking awesome. It's good. I put the new grapefruit one inside of zero sugar squirt. As you tell them, I'm going to go get myself this to put in my element. Squirt is good. Squirt is really good, but when you put the grapefruit inside that, it's careful.

Oh, he took his Crocs off to run. It's a party. But anyways, you guys got to head over to drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. You can pick up a free sample pack. You're going to get eight samples for free. All you have to do is pay for the $5 shipping. Or if you want to just dive in, pick up a value bundle. That's the best value, obviously.

But no, it's so great having this big old box that says Salty AF on it. It's freaking awesome. That's going to be four boxes for the price of three. And you can get any of the flavors. Hopefully they're in stock. Every time we mention grapefruit or watermelon, it ends up selling out. So hopefully that's currently in stock. But yeah, head over to drinklMNT.com slash PowerProject.

Links to them down in the description as Nsema walks by, as well as the podcast show notes. Head over there ASAP. All right. Well, today we got a kind of a shitty topic because we're talking about, unfortunately, we're talking about the severity of a bunch of individuals that have died in bodybuilding. And I just want to be respectful to the people that are left behind that have to deal with that. It's a shitty thing to have to go through.

But a lot of individuals in bodybuilding have had heart attacks. It's debatable on whether it's directly from particular drugs. I would just have to say being a person that has a pretty good amount of experience in rubbing elbows with a lot of really high-level people that have used performance-enhancing drugs and I myself using performance-enhancing drugs, I would just say that they're not helpful in terms of you being very healthy and the accusations that steroids are harmful to your heart, which we've heard for a long time. I mean, I think that information has kind of come all the way from like the 80s and maybe even earlier. I think this has been something that's been pretty well known for a while, and it's not one of those things that turns out to not be true. I think there is a lot of truth to it.

I think it can compromise your heart. But I think in my opinion what's going on here is I think we're dealing with a bunch of circumstances that are hard to really pinpoint. But I would have to say the main culprits, in my opinion, are that your blood becomes thick and you many in many cases will end up with high blood pressure. This doesn't happen to everybody. Doesn't happen all the time. It happens to some people sometimes, but there's ways of avoiding that. avoiding that. But just think about if your blood is thick and your pressure is high, your body wants to try to pump the blood through you quickly, but it can't because the blood is thick. So if you had high blood pressure and you were healthy, otherwise the high blood pressure would not be a huge concern. Although if it's too high, it's always a concern.

What drugs cause the blood to be thick anyway? Although if it's too high, it's always a concern. What drugs cause the blood to be thick anyway? You know, I don't exactly know the mechanism behind a lot of it. But I do believe that just taking testosterone will make your red blood cell count higher. Making your red blood cell count higher, I think, makes your blood more sludgy. I could be misspeaking. count higher, I think makes your blood more sludgy. I could be misspeaking.

So I know there's certain types of anabolics that do that more so, like ecopoise. I'm not sure about Tren. Tren's probably not great for that either. And blood pressure is pretty easily triggered by a whole slew of things. Water retention being like the number one culprit. And when you take just, I mean, how many women have you heard talk about their hormones and talk about how they hold more water during certain times of the month, right? With men, you start to alter your hormones around and you start to move them around a bit. You're going to hold more water as well.

So that is pretty common. And then a lot of times bodybuilders are trying to get real big. And so they're eating carbohydrates and stuff. Carbohydrates aren't bad, but they can help you to hold more water. You're walking around a lot bigger of a human than your body ever expected. You graduated high school, 180 pounds. You lifted from the time you were 18 to the time you were 25. You lifted from the time you were 18 to the time you were 25. You went from 180 to 210. You looked pretty good, looked pretty jacked.

But then you went on a cycle, and now forever you have an extra 50 pounds. That's quite common, actually, to have an extra 40, 50, in some cases even more, weight on your body. There's a price to pay with that. There's a cost of that. Your body's not used to that, and, that there's a cost of that. Your body's not, uh, not used to that and it may never get used to that. And with that in mind, you know,

when you're talking about like what, what somebody can take to thicken up their blood, snoring will thicken up your blood. So now think about all, what do you mean? Like literally like snoring. So like, um,

sleep apnea, sleep apnea. There you go. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. apnea. Sleep apnea. There you go. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Better answer. Sleep apnea.

Now think about all the things that cause sleep apnea getting bigger. All these other things, you know, that we're taxing our body. So it is the drugs, but it's also what they do to your body. And then that also leads to more other side effects that just all compound on each other i mean that's it makes sense why a lot of bodybuilders like jay cutler you know jay cutler seems to be doing pretty well a lot of these bodybuilders that have gone on there's a certain point where you you probably need to try to call it you probably need to try to get that yourself back to a normal or a semi-normal body composition for yourself. Because I mean,

I'm assuming when individuals do take steroids, it's not like there's something like growth hormone makes your, your organs get bigger. So your heart will probably hypertrophy a bit, but like, it's not like your heart gets bigger to handle the amount of muscle and tissue that your blood or that it now needs to pump blood to. So you're like, that's why I also see a lot of these individuals when they speak or when they're doing things, they have very labored breathing. You know what I mean?

They're breathing super heavy. They're winded. They're just like walking. Yeah. If you ever seen me bench press, you know, years ago, I would come off the bench,

not just like red and not even just purple, but like a grayish purple. Like it didn't look healthy. It looked like somebody was like holding me underwater for way longer than my body could fucking handle and that's just it's not good and i don't have any problem admitting it i don't have any problem facing whatever whatever's in my future you know if i have health issues and health concerns i i um and knock on some wood it's not gonna happen yeah happen. Yeah, yeah. No, well, I just want to make it clear that, like, I am aware. I'm aware of what I've done.

You know, I'm not fully aware. I won't be fully aware until, you know, who knows when. But I think these individuals have, you know, made sacrifices for certain things. And you hear people say certain things where you're like, I really wonder, I don't know about that. But sometimes people will say, I would die to be in that guy's position. And you kind of wonder, you're like, would, okay, that's probably, you're probably just speaking and probably just saying some drastic words to share with somebody how into something you are and you actually wouldn't want to die for it. But I think it kind of feels that way sometimes.

Man, I would do anything to be a black belt. Man, I would do anything to build a bench press 900 pounds. You hear people say that sometimes. And I think when you're caught up in the moment, it can be for some individuals, it can be enticing to go down a road of thinking I'm going to do whatever, whenever. I'm going to do anything and everything that I possibly can, not even within reason. I'm just going to do anything and everything I possibly can to be the best that I can possibly be. You know, it's necessary, and I think it's great that a lot of individuals have been making videos.

Seth Ferosi made a video about this. Greg Doucette made a video. I think Derek Moreplatesmoredates made a video about it. But this is something really important for a lot of individuals to consider because, I mean, you see these bodybuilders or some of these individuals dying of heart attacks. And, you know, I think what was your statistic on the rate of heart attacks in men under 40? Yeah, they said one in five. In general, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So that's one in five. But then, I mean, if you add in use of these drugs, that can probably compound that situation. It can get higher. So, I mean, if you're a young cat, think hard about that because a lot of this stuff, I mean, people hop on and some are on for a little bit, some are on for a long time. It's something that you really should think about. But, you know, we were having this conversation the other day. There are different types of bodybuilding. You know, there's competitive NPC level bodybuilding where if you want to be competitive there, you have to be using steroids. There's natural bodybuilding. And then there's

individuals who just, you know, they train with bodybuilding, but they just stay healthy. So they're muscular, et cetera. But, you know, they do it not to compete. They do it because they like the lifestyle. So it makes you wonder as far as, you know, the sport of bodybuilding, can it be looked at as health and fitness? Yeah, I don't know. I think that competition brings out some drastic times call for drastic measures, you know? And so when you start to feel like the opposition is overwhelming in some way, that's when you're going to take risks that you otherwise wouldn't take. You know, if you were dominating somebody in whatever sport it is, you wouldn't really take any risk.

If you're playing a football game and you run up the middle and your guy gets 15 yards every play, you don't even bother to throw the ball. You're like, okay, we'll just fucking run it. Just keep running these guys over the whole game. It's going to be kind of an easy day. There's no reason to take any risks. And it's going to be kind of an easy day. There's no reason to take any risks.

So I think competition naturally brings about you taking more risks than necessary. Sometimes it's a little easier if you're playing a sport recreationally to just say, I didn't go that hard to steal the ball because I was a little worried that I got a weird ankle and I was worried that I was going to twist it or whatever. But if you're playing on a team and it's competition and you're the defensive end and that's your job to tackle the guy that goes, you're not supposed to let anybody go outside of you. You are going to do anything and everything you can to get there to make sure that you make the play and therefore you might snap your ankle. But, you know, when it, when it comes to, it's interesting because when people have looked at, let's just say, let's look at natural bodybuilding versus, versus NPC level bodybuilding.

You know, people talk about it and they're like, who cares about natural bodybuilding? We want to see the mass monsters because those guys look really crazy. Those guys look really crazy. But one thing is, is like, even though with natural bodybuilding, when you get that lean, hormonal things happen. Like when you get that lean, your testosterone tanks, you don't feel good. You don't want to be there for a long time. But you don't see this thing happening to those individuals. Like you see natural bodybuilders living for a really long time. You see natural bodybuilders living for a really long time.

They don't – I mean from what I know, I don't know any natural bodybuilders so far who's been reported getting a heart attack early on. I would say bodybuilding in general is like – can be extraordinarily healthy. I will do bodybuilding practices my entire life. Same here. It's like doing three sets of 10 and lifting for hypertrophy and lifting under control. I mean, you can think about all the different people that you know. Anybody listening to this, think about all the different people that you know. Who do you know that can't embark on a bodybuilding regimen? I mean, every person that you know can do some form of bodybuilding.

Everyone can go in the gym and do three sets of 10 of leg extensions, three sets of 10 of leg curls, three sets of 10 of bicep curls, three sets of 10 tricep pushdowns. Maybe they can't do some of the full range of motion squats and some of the things you see the high-level bodybuilders do, but they can certainly participate in some workouts that have just enough intensity to induce hypertrophy but not so much intensity to kind of smash the nervous system and to really wear down your joints and stuff like that. On top of that, the practices of bodybuilding when it comes to your nutrition oftentimes are extremely healthy. Obviously, there's the far end of the range of like trying to bulk and there's the far end of the range of trying to get super lean.

But we know a lot of people that have utilized bodybuilding techniques and they seem to be extremely healthy, even those who have kind of taken it to an extreme, like a Jake Hutler, like a Michael Hearn. I mean, these guys, they appear to be really healthy. So whatever happened in these other cases, it's kind of hard to say. But when you get into, you start to kind of wonder, like, have these guys gotten their blood work done? Have they examined that? It would be really hard for me to believe that they haven't got their

blood work done. We've had a lot of these guys on the show and most of them have said yes. It was an important factor. They want to see how big they can get, but even though they might seem to be fairly irrational with the amount of drugs that they use, they actually still are checking in on it. And they're like, eh, you know what? I can't really afford to gain another 10 or 20 pounds. Actually, after this competition, I'm going to have to lose some weight and start to think about being a little healthier. So let me ask you this, because I mean, when we've talked about this, you, myself, and Andrew, you see everybody talking about the one side of it where they're like,

you see another bodybuilder died steroids, another bodybuilder died steroids. You seem not to be looking at it through that lens. Like, it's not just that. What else do you think is at play here if it's not just steroid abuse, you know, being super, being too heavy and dying of a heart attack? What else do you think people aren't thinking about when it comes to this situation? Man, I think there's a lot of things that can go into somebody, you know, somebody dying, you know.

First of all, I'd have to say, like, out of the several people that have passed in the last, you know, let's just say five years or so, there has to, I mean, just mathematically, there has to be a couple that it just happened, just mathematically, there has to be a couple that it just happened. You know, there has to be a few where it just literally just happened. And somebody could vouch for them and say, hey, look, I'm their cardiologist and I was watching them and like shit looked pretty normal. But sometimes things just happen to people. Or there could have been in some cases, I'm sure there may have been recreational drugs. And I'm not trying to take the blame or the stigma off of steroids because I definitely think that they had a hand in it as well.

But I also kind of wonder about the extreme weight gain, the extreme weight loss, the bulking and the cutting. I don't think that by itself would kill you, but I also don't believe that steroids by themselves will kill you unless you're completely reckless with them. If you were completely reckless with bulking and cutting, yes, I guess you could kill yourself with it. You could work yourself so hard that potentially anything's possible. But I think it's a combination of a lot of different things that have happened. And I also think that there might be some other types of drugs in here that we don't really know about maybe some recreational drugs to compound everything but as i was saying your blood is going to get thicker when your blood is thicker and your blood pressure is higher it's going to make your body work really really hard and at some point it's going to overstress your

body and your body's going to be working too hard i think oh god oh you're my god sorry i was typing i had to meet myself um i don't know if you have experienced this or if you know anybody that did go through this but when you're saying like these guys had blood work on a regular basis then maybe they had a cardiologist sitting right next to them like no you're actually pretty good i i know from like when I've gotten my labs done, depending on who I give them to to look at, they will say either you're totally healthy or you really need to focus on this or that. I'll just go ahead and just name names. But like when I gave my blood work to Tony Huge, he was just like, dude, you're so healthy right now. And then when I gave it to someone like Merrick, they're just like, maybe you might want to focus on this or that. You know what I mean? So do you think that while these high-level bodybuilders are getting blood work done,

whoever they're working with, maybe they will have an exception for them because of who they are and what they do. Meaning if they were a normal everyday person and their cholesterol is this, their hematocrit is that, they'd be like, holy shit, dude, you have to go address this right now versus bodybuilders like, oh, you're still going to compete? Like, okay, well, maybe after this next show, that's something that you might want to address. And I want to add on to what Andrew said as part of a question.

I saw a video from Derek recently where he was talking about this. And he was talking about there's something that a lot of bodybuilders, yeah, they may get their blood work done, but they're not checking or taking this certain thing that they should be, but they're not. So I think there's,

is there probably a lot of shit that they're just not paying attention to because they might be going to normal docs who don't know their shit? Well, there's that too. A hundred percent. There's, again, there's so many different things going on here. It's hard to like pinpoint. Yeah.

But what people will do that are sick in general, even somebody that has, even someone that's obese and they go to the doctor and they get their blood work done and the doctor says, oh my goodness, like this is, you know, I've got some bad news. Turns out you're diabetic. What do people usually do? They usually go for a second opinion because they're frustrated with the doctor. They're like, I don't have diabetes. Like I'm only 30 pounds overweight. Like what's the big deal? I haven't, okay, I haven't worked out in two years, but you're telling me I got to like, fuck you.

I get really, they get insulted a lot of times and they go in and they get, they want to get a different diagnosis. And sometimes people will hop around so many times, not any different than when you ask somebody, you say, hey, Encima, what's good for, what's good? I really want to build up my chest. What should I do? And he tells the inclined bench with an arch, you know, get full range of motion. But I wanted to hear something different.

I wanted to hear him say flat bench. It's Mark DiBregnoli. Yeah, Mark, keep doing those flat benches, you know. And then I go to Andrew and I go to – and I'm just going to keep popping around. I'm going to go to Stan and Stan might finally say, hey, flat bench. So Stan's going to be the guy I listen to. So I think a lot of times that's what's happening with some of these bodybuilders. Somebody gets their blood work done, their cholesterol's way off. Ah, you don't know the most recent science. You ain't got to

worry about your cholesterol. That's dumb. That's what people have been saying the last maybe six, seven years. But more recently, there's been people say, hey, hold on a second. Don't ignore the cholesterol. We got to look deeper into on a second. Don't ignore the cholesterol. We got to look deeper into your cholesterol. It's not just your cholesterol. It's your overall lipid profile that we need to be more concerned about. And if there's any issues with your cholesterol and your lipid profile, then there's other types of tests that we should do. We should look into getting a coronary calcium scan.

of tests that we should do. We should look into getting a coronary calcium scan. There's just a lot. There's so many different types of tests that you can do. And I'm excited because coming up, we have a cardiologist that will be on the show and he can help really address and really pinpoint a lot of this stuff. But, you know, I saw a video from Cali Muscle and Cali Muscle said that he did get a little bit of blood work done here and there. And he may have had one of those cases that Derek was talking about where he didn't get, like, precise, but he didn't want to. He said, he mentioned it in the video.

He's like, I knew some shit was a little bit off, but he's probably thinking, like, I'm fucking, I don't know, 8% bot. Cali Muscle looks amazing. And he's probably thinking like i'm fucking i don't know eight percent body cali muscle looks amazing and he's young for the most yeah yeah cali muscle looks and he looks incredible the guy looks awesome i think a lot of people would love to have that much muscle mass with that small amount of body fat he's fucking jacked so he doesn't look like he'd be an unhealthy person uh by any means but he although he's carrying a crazy amount of muscle mass. And I don't know if we know what the cost of that is, but I mean, maybe we're starting to learn. But anyway, in his case, he was just like, I was just kind of ignoring it. And I was just kind of going about my business. And he talked about how much he would brag about the different

kind of junk foods that he would eat. But look, man, how often – the guy looked incredible. Your genetics and even taking drugs, it's only going to take you so far. Cali Muscle was eating his chicken and broccoli just like everybody else. I'm sure he was eating fairly healthy most of the time. Sometimes some of that stuff is to sensationalize things. Just for videos. Yeah, to make things more – I mean, I I mean, look, I don't know his business. I don't know that to a T, but I'm just imagining that was probably the case with him.

Yeah. And he's still alive, by the way. He had a heart attack, so I just want to make that clear. Yeah, and we were also having a conversation about it. I don't know. I personally haven't heard about this stuff happening too much to a lot of power lifters who do take steroids. You don't hear about this as often in power lifting. And I wonder, is it because maybe, is it because they're not getting as lean?

Is it because of the substances that they're taking versus the things that high level body builders take? level bodybuilders take this is completely mind-boggling because if louis simmons has just some of the funniest quotes and this is not necessarily funny but they're just uh interesting the way that he words stuff if he said he said if steroids if steroids could kill you he's like we would have seen it happen time and time again in the gym he's like we've had some people to really rev up and take a lot of stuff and it's not to say that they they won't harm you at all but his point was it's not like we have we don't have a you know five six seven guys over the years and louis been at west side barbell uh he's had the gym for 40 years

again not trying to say that it's not doing anything because who knows how those guys lives And at Westside Barbell, he's had the gym for 40 years. Again, not trying to say that it's not doing anything because who knows how those guys' lives are right now. They could be in their 50s, 60s, and that's still way too young to die too, right? So we don't really know some of the ramifications of some of the stuff. But I guess what he meant by it was like they seem like they're doing pretty good now. Some of them are retired. They've been retired for a while and they still seem okay. And when you consider that powerlifting, especially at that time, back when the WPO finals were really popular and multi-ply gear was popular, these people were huge. People were massive. In my own gym, I had 10 guys that were over 300 pounds.

I had 10 lifters that were over 300 pounds. A bunch of guys squatting over 900 pounds. I mean, people just moving crazy weight. People bleeding every single time they squat because, you know, the blood pressure is so high. It's fucking shooting out of your nose. These things that when you are on the outside looking in, you're like, this is complete madness. What has happened here?

What is going on here? But if you start to look at some other sports, you look at NASCAR, you look at MMA, there's a story in MMA where a guy wrote a book called Blood in the Cage. And the guy that wrote the book, he went to Pat Miletic's gym, and one of the guys called him into the ring. He said, the guy who was writing the book, he said, get in the ring.

And the guy was like, no. And he's like, get in the fucking ring. And he's like, no. Like, why do you want me to get in the ring he's like because i'm going to break your nose and he's like uh he's like i don't need you to break my nose for me to write about fighting he's like no i i do i need to and so the guy the guy kind of refused and they talked it out and he ended up you know still writing the book but that for so in that sport that's what that's what these guys in this gym are thinking.

Like, you can't even relate to me unless I break some of your bones. And so sports from the outside looking in, they look crazy. MMA was completely rejected for years and years and years. Now it's all over ESPN. Now Disney bought it, for God's sakes, right? It's insane because the UFC was's all over espn now disney bought it for god's sakes right it's an it's insane because the ufc was banned all over the place you couldn't even i mean they had to switch a fight last minute from one state to another and i mean now the ufc is such a huge success because they they came in and they did stuff with the sport that allowed the state and the government to be like, okay, we can kind of recognize this as a sport.

You guys aren't just savagely like trying to kill each other. This is not untrained individuals. These are very trained individuals. Another sport that had a ton of scrutiny that had a tough start was professional football. There was a lot of individuals that were dying playing professional football before they invented the helmet. They used to wear stuff on their head. They had some sort of headgear, but they didn't really have a helmet.

The government or whoever was the president at the time, FDR, whoever it was, stepped in and fucking banned football. Like there's no more football. So somebody came up with the idea of a helmet. bodybuilding probably needs to come up with their own remedy that is similar to a fucking helmet and that might be the abolishment of uh it might be the abolishment of non-drug tested bodybuilding forever but would that the sport would disappear the The NPC bodybuilding would disappear. But it might have to because you add something. So let's just say bodybuilding carries on, right?

And for some reason, I don't know why people are dying more now than they were when Dorian Yates was at his reign and some of these other big dudes. Are they dying more now, though? I believe so. Yeah? I believe so. I mean, the sport could be more popular. So it could be a numbers game there could be exponentially more people therefore i mean people do die yeah yeah there's a heart attack every 40 seconds in the united states so i mean i don't know but at some point so anyway my point was going to be is that if it carries on and let's say that the amount of people that died in the last five years, let's say the same number dies in 2022.

Someone's going to step in and do something probably. And they're probably going to say, hey, look, you know, I don't know how it's gotten to be this way in other sports, but like USA weightlifting, that's all there is. There's USA weightlifting. There's no other, you can compete in other shit, but if you do, you're not competing in USA weightlifting. Yeah, yeah. USA swimming. There's not some other thing where you swim.

So I don't know. I don't know if the i don't know if the government can step in on something like that or if the states can step in on something like that but i would imagine that at some point if more and more people die somebody's got to step in somewhere maybe the leagues themselves maybe but i don't know what they would do i don't know how i mean drug testing would help, right? It would, to try to make it natural. We'd have to stop being used to looking at freaks.

Like, I mean, there are still freaks in natural federations that are tested, even though people say they like to cycle. But at the end of the day, like if you're actually looking at what is the body capable at at the top levels, the body's not capable of what we're seeing in NPC classic physique and NPC bodybuilding.

The body isn't capable of doing that on its own without substances. And these guys without substances would still be extremely impressive bodybuilders and classic physique guys. Sebum without drugs would still be huge. Like he'd still be a big impressive bodybuilder but i like when you have people i mean instagram would be or social media or you know some sort of unsanctioned shows or something might be kind of where things would shift to i mean i'm not saying that i i even have any information that the government would ever even care or step in on anything. I don't really think that would ever happen, but I mean, it could. I mean, I just kind

of am curious as to if things did continue, if somebody, you know, I mean, if I was a, if I was a competitor and I competed for several years and people were dying, I would want to be part of some sort of movement that started to figure out some sort of solution, but I don't know what that is. And I was just actually just thinking, strongman is one of the sports where these guys get the, if we're talking about muscle mass per, like on frame, those are the biggest guys.

Like you got Brian Shaw, you got Hathor, those are the biggest guys. I don't even really hear about that much there unless i'm uneducated and there have been some high level strongman deaths no those dudes are i mean those guys are huge they're huge but i just want to bring up the the numbers game again how many strongmen are there compared to bodybuilders you're totally right you're totally right that's true yeah not a lot. That's true. Yeah, not a lot. Yeah. That's true. There's a lot of people that do Olympic lifting. I don't know what the numbers would be worldwide,

but there's probably a good number of people that participate in really high-level Olympic lifting. But because it's tested, and again, tested just means whatever you want to think it means, but the individuals are tested. Maybe that's because I'm unaware of them dying either. And that's a strength sport. I'm curious from the listeners. Guys, you guys have been hearing us talk about this. I've got two questions, I think.

For those of you who maybe you've chosen not to take steroids or maybe you've chosen to take steroids, is this something that you think about? Is this something that you factor into your decision-making in terms of hopping on or not hopping on? For me personally, I'm not ever, because there's a lot of risk, personally. So there's that. But then number two, for those of you guys who are fans of bodybuilding um would you still enjoy bodybuilding if you weren't seeing the freaks on stage because these bodies wouldn't be this big these guys wouldn't be this heavy but would you still enjoy bodybuilding if they were just high level natural bodybuilders who still look amazing but they're not gonna be that big i actually put up a poll just now on the live chat we only got 25 votes So if you guys are checking out live, hit that poll and let us know. Because I basically just asked, would bodybuilding fade away if everyone was drug tested?

I don't think it would fade away, though. I just think it would be different. Because, again, you look at, and everyone likes to say, okay, drug tested doesn't mean drug free. It's the best we can fucking do. It's the version that we got. It's the best we can fucking do it's the version that we got it's the best we can do and like you'll like you'll say oh they're cycling whatever but it's it's the best we can do it would probably i mean i have to help it would and absolutely you don't see natural bodybuilders dying straight up no there's you don't see any natural bodybuilders dying of heart attacks

i'm serious you don't see that i wonder if you know how like the the ufc had to implement wada in order to make it a legit um corporation so that way they can sell it but you know like and i know like nfl nba everyone's always gonna say that some that everyone at the top is taking something but i wonder if and this is just like more of a um a wishful thought or a dream is if it was drug tested and it became more legit if bodybuilders would become household names like an aaron rogers or something you know what i mean like if we all knew for sure or at least we knew that they were getting tested and they were the most elite.

It had nothing to do with the best chemistry. It was just hard work and genetics. If that would boost some of these names to be even bigger than who they are right now. I don't know, man. I think it would take a long fucking time because there would be this time where people would be like. You just flipped everyone off. Oh. I was going like this because I was trying to hold my idea.

I speak with my hands. But there would be this shift in time where people are used to seeing massively big physiques minus 50 pounds. Yeah. Right? But I'm just curious if it would draw, I don don't know some of these natural freaks like uh like if francis and ganu decided like actually i want to do bodybuilding like you're telling me he wouldn't look insane on stage oh he would he would look if he trained that way he'd gain he wouldn't be over 300 pounds like a big rammy but yeah i mean i think that

would be really exciting i mean there is something interesting you know jujitsu is a sport that's been getting really big over the past decade um and yeah there are jujitsu athletes that take stuff but it is drug tested at the highest levels for the most part there are guys that have gotten caught like canin duarte who's a great black belt but he got caught because he was on some shit you know he's drug testing he ended up getting kicked out for a few years. So I think there is an idea of like there's I don't think bodybuilding will reach that type of level currently because I think because it's just really open about drug use. And that's for the general population.

That's not what's the word I'm looking for? That's not enjoyable. If you think about strongman and powerlifting, there are drugs that you could take for strongman and powerlifting that would help that maybe some of the bodybuilders use, but they don't really help as much. Things like growth hormone, things like insulin. Bodybuilding, it seems to like on the level of being like IFBB pro, it seems like there's kind of only one way to play the game. Yeah.

You have to be on a particular regimen of drugs. Like you're not just on like testosterone. Let's be very clear with that for people that don't really know what the hell we're talking about. This is not, these are none of these guys that have died are not individuals that just utilize testosterone and they do not use therapeutic dosages. They have been abusing anabolic steroids, all of them, for many, many, many years, probably decades in a lot of cases. And I'm not placing any judgment on them. I've done the same thing myself and many other

people have done it to each their own. But the point is, is that bodybuilding, the requirement of it is to be as big, as jacked as possible, to hold as much muscle mass as you can. A lot of the philosophies and a lot of the ways that that was being done, especially years ago, is a little different than it's being done right now. So I wonder in the kind of Chris Bumstead era, because he's driving kind of a new form of bodybuilding to where he's going to be. I mean, he might go down as being the most famous bodybuilder ever.

Who knows where it's going to take him. Arnold's physique was like that too, right? Where it just had this quote-unquote more natural. I know Arnold had like 22-inch arms, so forgive me for saying a more natural look. But it looks different than what Ronnie Coleman had going on.

Or Big Ramy. Yeah. I mean, those physiques are completely absurd, and they're not built off of testosterone. They're built off a giant cocktail of a minimum of three different types of anabolics, of testosterone, of Trenbolone, of trend balloon of master on or prima bowling or any of these things. They're all hormone and insulin.

Yeah. It's an, it's an arsenal and it's a, it's a minimum. You know how people say like pay to play, like this hand of poker costs, you know, 50 K just to play bodybuilding is like that is where it's like,

okay, the minimum requirements, you got to be on 10 different things. I mean, literally. And not only are you on 10 different things, but you're coming off of being the heaviest you ever were, where people were praising you, like, dude, you looked sick in the off-season. You got to 320.

That was amazing. And now you're coming down over maybe a long period of time. You diet for 16 weeks. Now everyone's praising you because you're leaner and drier. Oh, you look sick. Actually, you are sick. You're fucking dehydrated. You can't move. Your bones

are brittle. Your joints hurt. Your dick ain't working. Everything's kind of falling apart, but you hang on just enough to be able to get on stage again, to flex. You look great. You fucking win. Put that shit on repeat for as long as you can handle. That's kind of the way the sport is.

Yeah, guys. Yeah, somebody had mentioned, like, some of these guys are competing six, seven times a year. So what you said six times, and then do it again next year. Right. Fuck. So, I mean, that has to have,

that much tax on your whole body, you're not going to get away with that for free. In terms of strongman, you know, probably, let's see, probably about, I guess it would be like six or seven years ago now when I got a call on Thanksgiving that a friend of mine died, and he was a strongman competitor. His name was Mike Jenkins. Mike died of – basically he died of like – I mean, again, steroids and things like that don't help. I don't know the exact shit that he was on, but he was a professional strongman athlete who won the Arnold Classic.

So, I mean, make your own judgment call there. But he died in his sleep. And I think a lot of people have, a lot of these big athletes, a lot of these bodybuilders, they probably have sleep apnea. It's probably untreated. That guy Craig Kovach, I think he said he died in his sleep at 44 in 2013. Massive bodybuilder. Yeah.

So, I mean, I think, you know, I pointed out on a show previously that Reggie White, great football player from years ago, legendary Hall of Famer, he died in his sleep as well. I mean, sleep apnea is very, very serious. And for some people, it might not ever become a huge problem because, you know, their red blood cell count might get a little high because they're not getting enough oxygen throughout the night, their body stops breathing and so forth. That is still highly problematic, but it's not as bad if it's somebody that's not really trying to push their body, somebody that's not taking a bunch of drugs and really having

a lot of amplifiers for. So I think that's what we're dealing with here is there's a lot of amplification of the circumstances that kind of require a bodybuilder to be this current level of IFBB pro bodybuilder that we're seeing. And I think as a result, people are dying from it. That's where we're at. Just to double check, someone's asking how much do you weigh in SEMA? I range between 240 and 245. I was correct.

Actually, I recently got up to 249, but that was because of some extra carbohydrates for a few days. But I'm back to 240. All I did was up my carbs. If you want to put this shit in the calculator, overestimate my body fat percentage. Put me at 10%, 240.

And you'll get some numbers that you won't like in the FFMI. So I'm probably actually 9%. So we know the Icelandic motherfuckers are genetic mutants. We know that these guys can lift like crazy. We know that they're crazy strong. But John Paul Sigmason, which is an amazing name,

these guys have the best names, four-time World's Strongest Man winner, he died during deadlifting, supposedly. What? Yikes. I think people talk about dying and doing what they love there's a guy there's an example of somebody dying like doing the very sport that

they love um it's unfortunate when people pass you know under any circumstances but i also believe that jesse mirandi died after doing what are called breathing squats where you just – you do 20 reps of squats with a weight that you can probably squat like 10 times. It's a very common practice in strongman because sometimes they don't always have access to all the implements that they use during a competition. So they sometimes will just figure out ways of just crushing themselves in the gym. And my understanding is he did a set of breathing squats where he did 10 reps, and then what you do is you just breathe, breathe, breathe until you do another rep. You breathe, breathe, breathe until you do another rep. I think he did complete his set.

I think he got to his 20 reps that he wanted, and I think he just never was able to catch his breath uh after that and passed on and that was probably that was probably a good eight years ago and he was a strong man competitor as well but like we're talking about here i haven't really heard of uh you know my friend mike jenkins passed but it's been a that was six seven years ago we're kind of seeing it more from bodybuild, and it just kind of raises the question of why now? Like, why are we seeing it now? Does it have anything to do with what's gone on in the last two years?

I don't believe it does. I think it's coincidental to some degree. I think it has to do with sleep apnea. I think it has to do with high blood pressure, and I believe it has to do with high red blood cell count. But I don't know nothing. I barely know much about some of these things. I know the surface of it. I'm not even close to considering myself an expert on any of this.

It's just some of my thoughts. And a lot of these people, well, some of these people are people that I've been very close with. These are people that I know. I'm a huge fan of Charles Glass. You know, I love Charles Glass. We know Michael Hearn. These are people that have really been impacted by, you know, some of the deaths. So while they may not be some of these people that have passed, they may not be people that we associate with on a regular basis, but we are close to some of

their friends. And Sean Roden is somebody that I knew. I know he's leaving behind a daughter and it's just rough, man. It's brutal. And I know Charles really well. He's a really good dude. I hate to see this happening, and it would be really cool if there could be some way of figuring out something. I don't know what the something is, but maybe someone like Charles Glass would have some ideas on what can be done. Since he's seen the sport for so long, maybe he would have some ideas on what could be done to help so we don't see this trend continue. Andrew, want to take us on out of here? Sure thing. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. And thank you, everybody, on the live chat.

You guys were awesome today. Obviously, a topic like this will create a lot of back and forth. But everyone was very chill today. So I appreciate that because when you guys get into shout matches, it just kind of sucks for everybody. So I appreciate that. Please make sure you guys like this video on your way out. And please follow the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram, at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ at TheAndrewZ on TikTok. And a shout-out to Element for sponsoring today's episode.

DrinkLMNT.com slash PowerProject. Head over there. Get a value bundle. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. And Seema, where are you at? I'm Seema Iny on Instagram and YouTube. I'm Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark. At Mark's Belly Bell.

Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.