Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 657 - Do you NEED TRT To Stay Motivated?

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Mark made a post on IG which received a great response from someone claiming its easy for Mark to stay motivated due to PEDs and TRT. These our our thoughts and our response to the comment. Get the best Penis Pump here: https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Mark's post on IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CYaIPkGPqYD/ 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! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "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 #TRT #Motivation #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

did you hear that that's my man wow can i not speak it was maybe my headphones the fuck oh i thought you were just joking around no i i there was a there's a weird yeah yeah yeah like i want i put it on and i heard something i wasn't joking i thought you were farting in the heater again that was so weird right yeah are we on yeah we're on you always be doing that shit doing what you just like start i love it though i love it you don't warn us when we're going no which is great because then but one of these days someone's gonna say something so off color it is canceled and we get canceled why does it got to come down to color color. Knew it. Right? Once it came in my mouth, I'm like, mmm.

There was only one time where we were rolling like this, and I'm like, you know what? We're just going to go ahead and we're just going to start all the way over. And I faded to black, and then like, and we're back. I just did like, if you're watching, you'll see what I did. At least we weren't live. Yeah, thank goodness. Sometimes you do got to start all over, right? I think so.

Every once in a while. Yeah, give yourself a quick refresh, reset. Anyway, I don't know if you guys know this, but it's World Carnivore Month. It is. Did you guys know that? No, I'm not sure I did. Yeah, it's been amazing. I was doing no meat January.

The January? The January. The January. Yeah. That was a good one. The January. The January. The January. Yeah. That was a good one. Andrew, trying to get us in trouble over there. Maybe.

How are your old carnivore months going, gentlemen? Yeah, hopefully it's going good for peeps. For me, it's going well. I made a post yesterday. I weighed 224, which is just, it's kind of a dehydrated 224, so it was after some fasting and stuff. But I like to kind of do that. Just, I don't know, it's encouraging to kind of see the scale going down when the goal is to lose weight. I am aware that the second I drink water and eat some food, the scale goes right back up again.

But anyway, that is a different weight than what I weighed a week and a half ago. I was probably more like around 235. I've been consistently between 230 and 235 for a while, and now that has bracketed down at least by five pounds. And going to try to get like under 220 by the end of the month just because it's just a goal. I think it would be fun. It's been a while since you've been that light, though, even on Carnivore. Yeah, high school. Shit.

Yeah, high school was the last time I ever saw that on the scale. And peak natty mark was like 225, right? That would be my heaviest. Heaviest. That would be my heaviest that I could handle. And then usually what would happen when I got to be that weight is I would be like a little fatter than I liked. And I was like, this ain't working good. But I wish I knew about, I kind of wish I knew more about bodybuilding at that time. That would have been really helpful.

Because I could have bulked and like done it like clean, slapped on some good muscle, and then made some changes from there to cut. But I just didn't know what I was doing. Not quite enough. I'm curious, what aspects of bodybuilding do you think would have made a big difference for you? and then made some changes from there to cut, but I just didn't know what I was doing. Not quite enough. I'm curious, what aspects of bodybuilding do you think would have made a big difference for you? Because when I look at the information that's on YouTube, that 3DMJ, Jeff Knippert, all these individuals are putting out, when I see that information versus the information that you had,

I'm just like, damn, I was lucky too. But even now, the guys that are working out now as teenagers, that's why I think we see a lot of really freaky teenagers now. Not just because people are like, oh, some of these guys, some of these young cats are on drugs. No, I think they're just really smart with what they're doing these days, and they have a lot of good info. I think I was shooting myself in the foot sometimes. I think I had pretty good genetics. I think I still have pretty good genetics. You benched 365 at like 16. Yeah, I definitely got some pretty good genetics. I think I still have pretty good genetics. You advanced 365 at like 16.

Yeah, yeah. I was definitely got some gifts for sure. But I think I was shooting myself in the foot because I wanted to be like leaner, but I also wanted to be stronger and bigger, like kind of all at the same time. And I could have done it if I had good strategy, but I just honestly just didn't know what I was doing. Anyway, I made a post yesterday and I kind of started off the post by just saying how I think everyone else sounds. I talked about how stressed I am

and how the diet's not working and how frustrated I am and how life is just pulverizing me and running me over. And then I kind of just said, I'm just fucking around. The diet feels great. Everything feels, I feel fucking awesome. I feel a little bit better than ever even.

I am embarking on stuff that I've never done before. Like again this morning, I ran three miles. I mean, I just like would never think that I would be really doing that. Even when I started messing around with running, I didn't think I was going to be able to. Not that I didn't think I'd be able to. I just didn't think that I would even want to like run three miles or, you know. And I'm sure I'll have a goal to run five miles and ten miles.

And like I don't know how far. I don't have any idea how far any of that will go. But it's fun. And there's been some like drastic changes in my mindset over the years, uh, my body weight, um, and my diet. And I think the diet has had a massive impact on my mindset. I think it really, really has like a lot of this self-development stuff and a lot of this like inward look into myself and also just try to find ways to form better habits and communicate about habits. All that really started when I really honed in on my nutrition. I had a lot of discipline before. I was already lifting some big weights and doing some cool stuff in powerlifting. So

I already understood that you got to stick to something for a long time to be good at it. But there was a lot of other stuff that I just never thought of. I was not much of a thinker. I was more of a doer. And now I feel like I'm more of a combination of the two. And I attribute a lot of things to my diet. I attribute how lean I am to my diet. I attribute a lot of my motivation. A lot of it comes from the nutrition. And some people find that when they go more low carb, they kind of find that they pull out some of the clutter.

Or even some folks that maybe not even low carb, but they just dialed their diet into a point where they're now not over consuming calories. They've lost weight. They look a little better in the mirror. They feel a little bit more substantial. And next thing you know, like they're standing a little bit more upright. They're a little bit more proud of themselves. They're a little bit more confident. And so a lot of these things have happened for me in a drastic way. But when I made this post yesterday, there was a ton of positive comments,

a lot of great comments, and a lot of people sharing with how things went for them with the carnivore diet. But of course, you focus on the negative. Yes, you do. And there was a comment that was made, and I don't even really necessarily it's just this person's perspective and I actually do think that the guy had a pretty good point in some of it but I felt like we got to talk about this on the podcast

because it's too long I did respond to him but it's too long for me to really get way into it and Seema if you wouldn't mind reading Riffs and L? Riffs and Lifts, I had to say. Riffs and Lifts. Okay. But you use steroids for

years and years and years. He has to make sure to say that three times. And even have a documentary about it. What? Stronger, faster. You're talking about strength and your weight, but I guarantee you still take testosterone at high doses at the very least.

You're attributing all of your happiness about your conditioning and mindset to this diet while leaving out the fact that you still use PEDs. Maybe I use PEDs. I can't say due to job-related reasons. The point I'm trying to make here, Mark, is that you're talking about impressive, encouraging, and motivating lifestyle factors and attributing a lot of significance to the diet. I would argue that if you stop using testosterone altogether, let your natural, okay, altogether, let your natural levels restore back to 60 to 80% of what they would have been over two to four years. Would you still be making the same posts? I doubt it.

Well, let me just kind of point something real obvious out. Like if I just stopped lifting, my posts would be way different. Oh, absolutely. If I stopped running, my posts would be way different. If Andrew stopped being our engineer on the podcast, his posts would look, you know. So just about anything you stop that is kind of working for you, obviously there would be a clear change.

If I stopped taking testosterone, I'm sure that because of my hormones, I would imagine that like, yeah, my post would probably look a little different. Maybe there'd be less shots of me with my shirt off because maybe I would say, hi, you know what? Like I'm not quite as jacked as I was. And maybe it would take me a while to recover and to get some of the gains back that I would be looking for or something like that.

So fair statement, some of it. But I'd like to address more of it because I think that this guy is making a big mistake in a lot of different ways. I can't really ever share my entire story with people without including steroids. And that's why we talk about it so much on this podcast. I've written articles before. Back when I had Power Magazine, I wrote an article about this weight loss process that I went through. And I was like, I'm on T3. I take testosterone. And I don't know if I was on anything else.

But I listed out stuff at that time and said, this is the diet that I'm on. And the reason why I did that was to show people like, hey, your results might be way different than mine. Like I'm taking something that's going to allow me to hold on to the muscle mass a little bit better. So maybe you can make an argument. I can dip my calories down more. Testosterone to me, which is not really talked about enough, is a massive motivator. So I'm not going to deny any of those things. I'm also not going to deny that I wouldn't be the person I am today.

I think it's been a big factor. And I think if you look at Joe Rogan, if you look at Arnold, you look at these different people that have made huge successes of themselves, Jimi Hendrix, any of these people, there's been a history of some sort of drug involved. I'm not saying that it made them. I'm not saying that it's everything to them. But Arnold wouldn't have been

Arnold. Joe Rogan's not Joe Rogan without marijuana and without some other things. I don't know if he would agree with that. He might say, fuck you. And maybe he would be offended by that, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I got the utmost respect for Rogan. He's the goat. And same with Arnold. I got a lot of respect for both of those guys. So I'm not trying to take away anything from any of those people. But in many cases, in people's story, there is something similar of some sort of performance enhancement. But I don't ever really hide it. I've tried to be as open about it as I could. Another guy chimed in and said, yeah, I think that Mark

should say it as a disclaimer on every post. I think that's a little bit like overkill as I'm in a movie and I talked about it. And anyway, I don't think what the guy said is like truly like really unfair. But what I do want to address is the fact that some of the biggest changes in my life have been since the time I was a, I guess I'll call it pro power lifter for whatever that's worth. The biggest changes in my life was I used to weigh 330 pounds. I used to be very tangled up in the weight that I lifted was like a lot to me. It was a lot more to me than it means now. Nowadays, I was like tunnel vision.

I would do anything and everything to try to get better. Uh, even to my own detriment, not to the people around me is detriment. Thank God. I didn't get tangled in it that hard, but I did get tangled up in it enough to where, I mean,

it could have killed me. You guys seen me fall with 1,085, like, you know, falling with that kind of weight, who knows what could have happened with an incident like that. But the biggest changes over the last several years are, I used to be 330, now I'm 230. So I lost a hundred pounds. I used to take massive amounts of performance enhancing drugs. And I talked about it a lot in comparison to other athletes that I communicated with. It seemed like it was a very similar amount to what a lot of other people were taking. I've talked about that many times. So the biggest change nowadays is just that I take a lot less stuff.

I also lastly want to kind of finish with this point is that steroids are nothing new for me. So if I'm making posts about how I'm fired up and I'm excited, it's not only because of steroids because steroids are something that my body has been utilizing for a long time. It's kind of stupid to get into like amounts and dosages and stuff like that, but because I can't really, I think everyone's just going to think I lie if I say an amount. So it's kind of hard, but I mean I could show blood work, but I also don't feel like I need to prove myself to anybody except for myself. But I'm just trying to explain some of this so that it's not misconstrued. I'm not getting anything

extra from steroids at this point. They still assist me. They still help me. Of course, they're helping me, but they don't give you like an accumulative effect. They have helped me to stay a little bit better than what I would be without them. But they're not necessarily doing a ton more than that. I do believe that testosterone can be a big motivator. So that is probably tied into everything that I'm doing. But I'm also very enhanced by my diet, by my habits, by the things that I have adopted. And testosterone doesn't do those things for me. I still wake up on days and go, whoa, you kicked your own ass yesterday, man. Like, you sure you want to go do this? Like, this morning when I ran. It's like, my calf is real tight. I'm like, man, it's just annoying.

It doesn't hurt that bad, but it just sucks. I still went out there. I still made myself do it. Just like anybody else, I'm still, you'm still trying to push through certain pain points. And the reason why I do is because I know the reward is on the other side. And it doesn't matter. I mean, I don't know if we'll ever get to this point, but I don't think it matters in terms of performance enhancing drugs. I don't think they'll ever make anything that will be more powerful than you making the best decisions that you possibly can over and over and over again. The big thing is that when people do pay attention to some of the stuff you do, some individuals,

because they do know you're on steroids, they chalk almost everything up to steroids. Oh, he's big? Steroids. He has the motivation to go run. It's because he's on test. That's what gives him motivation. Um, he has this, this, and this, and the motivation to do these things. It's because of test. Uh, and a lot of those individuals do look up to you. So what's kind of going on on the mind of some people I believe is that they're like, okay, if I want to be like him, the main thing I need to be like him is I just need to hop on something.

And that's going to be the thing that gives me – it's like Popeye's spinach. That's the thing that gives me the motivation to go do X, Y, and Z. But one thing I want to actually ask you, when you were 330, when you were powerlifting and hitting those weights, you said that you're more of a thinker now. And you were much more – unless I'm getting it wrong, you were much more of just someone who did and just a doer then. What, like first off, do you think, do you feel better now? I know it's very different, but do you feel better now than you did then? And number two, if you do feel better now, what are the things that you're doing, the habits that you've picked up that maybe you weren't doing five, six, seven years ago?

I feel amazing. I feel really, really good every day. When I was lifting those big weights, it was kind of fun because I could have gone from like I could be squatting and some of our strongest guys in the gym could be deadlifting, and I could say, oh, I could just mess around and talk trash and be like, oh, was that hard for you guys? And I could just go and pick it up, which I would actually do sometimes just because it was fun. And just because I could. It was showing off, but it's like, I don't know, guy stuff, right? We're just fucking around, a lot of testosterone being thrown around literally, right?

And we're just kind of having a good time with it. So in some senses, like I felt really good at those times because I was very strong and I felt remarkable because like the weights that I was lifting were, um, first of all, it like meant a lot to me. The value assignment that I placed on it was like as as I could put it, basically. And because I was following through and because I was getting stronger, I was like, I'm getting better. This is awesome. That's why some people still to this day are like,

this is a cocky motherfucker because of some of the things that I did and some of the things I said at those points. But that was me trying to be the best in the world at something. And I wasn't the best in the world, but I hung with some people that were the best in the world. And I was fairly close at times. And I won a couple of big powerlifting meets where I had opportunities to defeat some of the people that were the best in the world. So it was, it was awesome. It was really, really cool. So in some ways I felt pretty good,

but with day-to-day stuff, I didn't feel very good just getting out of the car. And honestly, when I look back, I didn't feel that great about myself. I felt good about the accomplishments. I was not depressed or anything like that. I luckily for me, I've never really experienced a lot of that, but like I was always used to being pretty athletic and powerlifting. There's some athleticism to it, but I was just like, for a while, I was just like, you know what? You're just big and fat right now. Like this is not a good look. And you're out of breath and your back hurts and your knees hurt and this hurts and that hurts. And it's like, dude, if you're being honest with yourself,

you're kind of in a lot of trouble and you should make a change. But I didn't want to. And luckily, you know, I always kind of say that power of the thing, I think it chose me. But it also, it booted me out. It fucking kicked me out and said, hey, you're off the team. You're out of here. And it did so with that fall with the weight. And I didn't want things to end on those terms.

So I came back a couple of times and did a couple other lifts. But that was the end of me being able to lift like that. And me being so tunnel vision on, on one thing nowadays, though, I, I, I feel great. I feel really good. I would also say that because I, so I was also a lot younger. Yeah. I was not really as appreciative as, as I am now. Like I'm really appreciative of the people that surround me, the people that I'm around. I have a lot of loving and caring people in my life. You guys, my brother, my dad, my wife, my kids,

and some extended family and stuff. So it's just like I'm like so fired up and excited every day. When I was younger, I didn't even see any of that. I was like, all right. You're just tunnel vision on power. Yeah, I'm like GHRs, reverse hypers, squats. This is what I'm doing for today. You spoke in program.

Yeah. Exactly. And people that were around me at the time, they'll tell you, if I had to sit down, I sat down like I was doing a squat. If I would get up off the couch, I'd get up. I'd try to get up off the couch like explosively, like I'm like I'm doing a lift. I would fucking bench press in my sleep. Literally, I'd wake myself up. I'd be like, oh, my doing like some explosive weird lift. And I'm like, what the you know, because on, it was in my head all the time. And you probably get this way with jujitsu where probably you're like thinking, and you probably stand up and you're like, oh, if I, you're like, fuck man. And then you were like, I need to find somebody to,

cause it's just like so burned into your head. And so that time was very special to me. And I did feel really good in some ways, but I was a mess, like kind of more as like a functioning person because I was so obsessed with this one thing. Can we talk a little bit more about when you did fall with 1085 and you said that you didn't want to go out on those terms, but you were kind of forced to. but you were kind of forced to. I've never really heard you say too much. I've heard you say that, but I've never heard you really talk about that transitional period, about like what was going through your head, because you were still on stuff at that time,

and that didn't make things any easier to switch and transition to, you know, whatever, getting in shape and losing a bunch of weight and getting jacked. It's very humbling, you know, to get thrown on the floor. But, I mean, the reason why that happened, in training I did like an 1135 reverse band squat, which in accordance to like a lot of other stuff I did, I was like, I'm probably good for like 1110 or something like that in the meet, 1110 pounds. And 1085 was my second attempt was to try to sneak in a five-pound PR. I absolutely destroyed my opening attempt. I honestly didn't even feel anything from it.

The form was really good. Everything was locked in real well. And what was happening was my knees were wrapped pretty good on the next one, and they were wrapped a little early. And it takes a while to load those plates and things like that. And then also my suit was really tight because I gained a little bit of weight coming in. So I was wearing a, I'm wearing a squat suit. This is not raw powerlifting.

This is equipped powerlifting. Like do whatever you got to do to lift as heavy as possible. And my legs were falling asleep and so i didn't have the proprioception to like feel everything that i need to feel the way that i need to feel it i've had that happen before in training um but i've never had to have never had it before with like a big weight so i was like i can't have someone unwrap me i'm gonna miss the lift. Pull that bitch up.

Yeah, I definitely can. I think it's called like tumble or stumble. Yeah, I have it somewhere. So, you know, I just,

you're in that moment, you know, I mean, my knees are already wrapped. And if I was to get them unwrapped, I would have missed that attempt. And looking back on it, you know, if I was coaching somebody, but the athlete's not going to And looking back on it, you know, if I was coaching

somebody, but the athlete's not going to tell you that they're, you know what I mean? Like, so someone's like, dude, are you okay? I would, I would have been like, yeah, I'm all right. You know? And so I still wouldn't have said anything. Um, but my legs were pretty numb. Like they were pretty damn, like it was, it was really, uh, it wasn't smart. And, uh, yeah, so it just, it was a humbling experience and it just is something that, uh, forced me to make a lot of changes. I got, I got pretty hurt during this, you know, like I got pretty injured. Um, it took me, um, I think it took me two hours to go from my couch to, I went from a chair in my house to a fold-out bed

that came out of the couch because my wife had to prep that for me because I couldn't make it up the stairs. Yeah, there you go. I couldn't make it up the stairs, so I went from this chair or recliner thingy that was in my house to this bed thing that came out of the couch. And that took me like an hour or two hours. I mean, we're talking about walking 50 feet. So I was really, really messed up.

My ankles were really swollen. My knees were really swollen. You haven't got surgery for any of this either. No. No, I didn't get surgery. I didn't even go to the real doctor. I went to like an acupuncturist because I didn't really want anybody to tell me there's anything like really wrong, really wrong with me. Hey, but real quick, don't lose your thought. But I think what you just said right there is actually kind of not kind of crazy, but a big deal um you were controlling the perception of what happened like if you went to a doctor there's probably some shit that was torn up your knees

right now you're running you're squatting you're dead lifting this today right but if you went to a doctor they'd have been like oh this this this is fucked up you need to get surgery you'll never walk again you know something right or some wild shit like that but you're like uh that's you probably already thought those things, but you're like, okay, let me just not even deal with any of that. Let me just move forward and control the process of how I recover.

And now you're good, but that's a big deal. People need to take note of that. I've been around for a long time and I've seen people break bones in powerlifting. I've seen a broken arm. I've seen a broken leg. And I definitely knew that I didn't like, I could have broke something. Like I could have,

like they could have said, oh, you fractured something in your foot or something. That's why it's so swollen. Or, you know, the small bone in your ankle is, you know, but they can't even really do stuff for some of those things. Sometimes they can put you in like a cast or whatever, but you spiral fracture your leg or have a compound fracture of your leg. You know it. Everybody else knows it. So I was like, I don't think anything like that happened. It's just shit's really swollen.

But it took months and months to kind of lick my wounds from that day forward to try to figure it out. And like I said, Andrew, I didn't want to go out on those terms. So I came back. And those terms so I came back and and by the time I came back you know raw powerlifting was in vogue so I did a little bit um I did some single ply competitions I broke some records in the bench press uh for that just because it didn't matter to me if I was wearing a multi-ply shirt or a single ply shirt and had a little bit of success with that and did a little bit of squatting that was pretty good that way as well. And then just transitioned into messing around with some raw stuff, which I wasn't horrible at, but I wish I would have put a little bit more time into it because I think I could have done a little bit better but um it wasn't what i was trained in originally well i mean if we're going back to the comment

of this guy right his his main point was like um you're putting all this forward you're motivated etc and he's chalking it up to the testosterone that you're like it's it's this one thing that's allowing for all these actions. And if we're being real, we need to understand that you got to pay attention to the things that an individual does, the actions that they take day by day. Because whether a person is on drugs or not, first off, you started taking stuff so you could compete in a federation. And everybody did that. You guys were utilizing that to work with those weights, to work out that much, to get that strong. So that was for that specific goal.

But outside of that, it's like you're doing a bunch of things that literally anybody can do and see substantial change in their life, whether they're taking anything or whether they're not. You work out consistently. Can you work out consistently without taking tests or anything? Yes. You do carnivore or you fast sometimes, which has given you control over your food. Can anybody do that and take action without taking drugs? Yes. You listen to audio books and try to read something almost every single day. And now you're learning consistently other shit. Can anybody do that and see progress without taking drugs and feel motivated? Yeah. You pay attention to your sleep habits. Will anybody be able to do that without drugs and see progress? Yeah. So it's like, no, this is not just because someone is taking tests. It's not. Can't chalk it up to that. If you were taking tests and not doing these things, I highly doubt that you'd be motivated because I know of a lot of people that do hop on and they're just as shitty as they were beforehand. I wonder if people listening, they should kind of start to know this by now, but I wonder if they know what the most motivating thing in the world is. start to know this by now, but I wonder if they know what like the most motivating thing in the world is. The most motivating thing that you can ever do is to put yourself into action. It's to move. Because once you're in motion, you'll start to feel better and you'll feel, and I've been

somebody, you know, I can, I can like make up a bunch of stories about the way I used to be before testosterone because it was also probably pre-internet. But people around me, people that have seen me, they always know. When I was a kid and I was into boxing, I didn't just box. I went to Kevin Rooney. My dad drove me to the Catskills, which was like an hour and a half away. That's where Mike Tyson trained because I was a huge Mike Tyson fan when I was a kid. Nothing I

ever did was like, I wasn't like the most meticulous kid. Like there's some kids that are like on a different level when it comes to, you know, really being, you know, over the top meticulous with stuff. But like I never half-assed anything. If I thought there was like a better or stronger opportunity

to do something, when I first went to Louie Simmons, I moved, my wife and I moved. We lived in, my wife is a California girl through and through. She could barely handle the middle of the country. But we did it, we fucking went. And that was before I took anything.

And I went to Louie Simmons, I went to Columbus, Ohio. I'm like, I'm gonna fucking learn this. I know that powerlifting is my calling. I need to just face it. I'm like, I'm going to fucking learn this. I know that powerlifting is my calling. I need to just face it. And so here I am. I'm going to learn from the best guy in the world, the greatest gym of all time, Westside Barbell. Damn, Andy's a ride or die, bro.

That's crazy. Yeah. I just realized that. Y'all just moved. She's like, okay. Yeah, picked up and moved. When I was wrestling, same thing. wrestling you know same thing like the people I wrestled with um you know John Cena and I wrestled with a company called UPW and then moved uh well moved from Ohio then I moved to Kentucky for a

while and I trained in the WWE training camp that was like kind of one of the we should talk about that some other time like on a podcast by itself because that's like the thing that probably hardened me up and and really sort of quote-unquote made me because you're just like, I don't know, you're just forced into it when you're around some real savages like that. But that's where a lot of my habits came from was seeing like, all right, the only way, the only real way, okay, there's some people that have some gifts and there's some people that have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and they might get along a little bit easier than some,

but I think it's more of our perception that makes that so. But everyone I saw worked their fucking face off. Watching John Cena, they hated John Cena. The whole entire locker room of the WWE for years and years fucking hated him. He was isolated. He was on his own. He'll never talk about it because he's a fucking beast. He's a savage.

He'll probably never bring up one word about it. I don't think he would. They didn't like him. He was a new guy. All the women thought he was hot. All the guys wanted to be jacked like him you know you have like other people in the locker room triple h and some of these guys that have been working on their bodies forever john comes in looks better than everybody fucking shredded

jacked huge you know um and then like okay well what how is he on the microphone it's like well good luck with that he's better on the microphone than even the way that he looks if that's even fucking humanly possible but okay john he has you know uh nice features nice genet nice features from genetics right but also it's like his genetics aren't the thing that's making him talk that way and be creative and then be able to rap. It's like, what the fuck? Where does it end with this guy? You know?

I mean, it doesn't end with just what everyone else has seen. I've seen more of John Cena. And it doesn't end with any of that. Oh, shit. What? He's a little different all around. Head of that. Oh, shit. What? He's a little different all around. Head to toe. Head to toe.

I mean, people don't walk around naked unless they got something to brag about, right? Well, John's naked all the time. On that note, check out the penis pump. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, where can people get their penis pump, Andrew? I'll link it in the description and podcast show notes god dang because that shit be changing lives God was making John he was just like

maybe he wasn't paying attention yeah crazy shit he was putting in there in one person yeah he like and then he put it out he's like oh no oh that was supposed to be for a whole country. What the fuck? Oh, no. Oh, it's already cooked. Damn it. Okay. Well, all right. Have at it. Like hopefully, hopefully ends up being nice.

Yeah. Oh, man. And then he's nice. Yeah. Right. And ends up being amazing. Did you ever tell that story about how he would send you stuff like that says like, don't click here? I'm curious.

I don't know if i ever told that before um if you can uh yeah uh john you know john has a he's got a he let's just say he used to he used to have a crazy sense of humor and so he would send me like uh it was it was like a long ass time ago you know like when like i like emailing people like myspace days yeah but emailing people was like like i didn't get any emails because like i didn't have a business or nothing like i didn't i barely had an email account let's put it that way and i never checked it because there was like no point because like nothing ever happened on there i think you needed to have an email sometimes to order stuff. So that was like the only reason why I had an email.

But he would email me like all the time, just like stupid stuff. Like, what's up, bro? Like there would be nothing to it, you know? And then he's like, oh, me and Spray, we started a website. And I was like, oh, cool. So I check it out and it's like him and Spray and it's like all these like skits. He's like a doctor and it's like him and Spray, and it's like all these skits. He's like a doctor, and there's like a full explanation. Because John, he's fucking creative and just weird in a lot of ways.

And it's this whole story about how he's Dr. Von Heimenbender. And he's got the whole doctor get-up and everything. Because he's been doing skits and stuff from the time he was a kid. Him and his brothers, they like to mess around a lot. And I think him and his buddy, Spray, they just love to do weird shit. So one of the pictures that was on there that I remember, it's like Spr is like feeding him pizza and John's sitting on the toilet. It was just like, but like they're sitting on the toilet together.

Spray's like turned around, like trying to feed it to him. And it's just a lot of weird stuff like that. And then there's, yeah, the butthole incident where he sent me a picture. No, he sent me like this little tiny dot. Oh no. And it said, do not click here.

And of course you're going to click on it. And I clicked on it. And it's like, because said, do not click here. And of course you're going to click on it. And I clicked on it and it's like, because it's old and a long time ago, it's like, like little square, little square, bigger square, bigger square,

bigger square. And I'm like, but it's so close up of an asshole that I, I didn't even know I was looking at for a minute. I'm like, I'm like, wow. I'm like,

what, I'm like, what did he say? What did he send me? You know, I'm sitting there and it takes me way too long to be like it's an asshole oh my god it's an asshole anyway they're not used to be really fun in that way dude it was the wild west you could really just like just really prank people you know what i mean and pop And pop-ups. It was really the Wild West.

Now it's so tame. Too much censorship. Anyway, watching some of those guys, some of the guys at Westside Barbell, some of the guys at OVW, watching them just put in the time. Chuck Vogelpool.

Watching these guys just put in the time. That helped me develop a lot of habits. I remember Chuck Vogelpohl doing tons of grip work after a workout. He's just pacing back and forth. He's drenched in sweat. His traps are popping out of his ears. And somebody's like, hey, why do you do that much grip work? And he's like, well, I lost a meet one time because of grip. And we're like, well, I lost a meet one time because of grip. And we're like, okay, well, that's probably not going to ever happen again. It was just, that's what I've seen.

I've seen my dad work his face off. I've seen my grandpa work his face off. And so those were things that I learned. And I had a lot of discipline before I ever took testosterone. And so I do think it gives you a boost. And for somebody that's unmotivated, I would suggest that you get some blood work done. You know, if you feel really unmotivated and feel kind of sappy and stuff and you're not feeling good or you don't feel the way you used to, fucking get your blood work checked. Because it could be something that simple and it could be something that maybe assists you in some way. But I'll just kind of finish with this. It's like,

you know, I'm a results driven person. So I've made some choices in my life that maybe other people don't agree with. But I made these choices to kind of make me into what I like. And so maybe not everybody else likes it. Maybe it's not always their cup of tea. But it still has assisted me and still has helped me to reach a lot of people, to be able to motivate a lot of people. And I think in talking about this, I'm sure there's probably some fans like, why would you even address any of this? Well, the reason to address it is I always like to try to fully explain because I don't think that – and what this guy said is not hurtful to me in any way.

I think it's just – it's dialogue. I even sent him a DM. I was like, hey, I appreciate you reaching out in that way and you saying that because clearly there was a couple other people that felt the same way. And now it just opens up more dialogue. People can educate themselves more. He's following me for some reason. Probably doesn't completely hate my guts. And so I'm like, I think this would be good to talk about.

So here we are. One thing real quick, you mentioned blood work. Blood work, guys, isn't – because I've talked about blood work before and I've put it up and people are like, oh, people that don't take stuff don't get blood work done. No, blood work is for everybody. It's a snapshot in time of how you're doing at that point in time because you can figure out what type of deficiencies you have, if your cholesterol has issues, if you have low vitamin D, whatever. You can figure out a lot of things that you can take literal supplements or fix your nutrition to have better blood work. So blood work isn't just, and for example, we work with Merrick, it's not just if you want to get TRT. It's figuring out what's going on in your body so you can take actions to potentially fix those things. When I got my blood work done, they suggested I use some boron.

And also, I use Mind Bullet. So they're like, oh, your prolactin is kind of high. Not a big deal, but just keep that in mind, right? It gives you an idea of where you are in time. And then in the future, I'm 29. I think I have blood work from when I was like 23 or 24. Oh, you're going to be 30. Oh, no, no, no. Dude, that's crazy.

I'm going to be 30. I don't think I'm 30 this year, bro. I'm knocking on 40's door. Oh, shit. But 30 is going to feel great, and 40 is going to feel great. Right, Andrew? I'm pretty fired up, to be honest. Exactly. You're going to be a jacked-ass 40-year-old.

But just remember, guys, blood work is important because 9 years from now or 10 or 15 years from now or whatever, work is important because nine years from now or like 10 or 15 years from now or whatever, if I do ever choose to do anything to my hormones, I can have an idea of that. When I was 29, when I did my blood work, what was I looking like? What was I feeling like? Well, I know my nutrition, but what was going on under the hood? And then I can have a good idea rather than just randomly getting my blood work one time because you want to do something, but you don't have any history. So yeah, Andrew. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's strange that people said that people that don't take stuff don't need. I got a lot of those comments. They're like, oh, obviously you take stuff

because you get blood work done. I'm like, since when? That is so short sighted. I can't even, wow. Don't be like these people. And if you don't know where to start, we just, we're just going to tell you the best way to do it. And it's to get the Power Project panel. I already forgot how many labs there is, but it covers everything from testosterone to- 26 to 27. and it's at merrickhealth.com slash power project. So that's M-A-R-E-K health.com slash power project. And at checkout, enter promo code power project and you'll receive a shit ton of money off of it. It's like $101, I think. Sorry, it's been a while.

And yeah, so do that. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Can't recommend getting blood work enough. You guys got to do it. I want to kind of add that my education process was put on pause for a long time because of my own beliefs of myself when I was in school. And so, you know, for most people, their education probably really started, you know, after they got out of like

third grade or something. I mean, you learn some of the basics when you're young, right? And then I think the real learning starts to maybe occur a little bit later on. But once I got into the probably phase and the space where people start to take maybe like a foreign language, play an instrument, and start to get into those years, if you think back, like those are the years where you're really learning like a little bit more complex stuff. Well, those were the years that I didn't believe in myself. Those were the years that I really struggled in school. And so like my own education for myself didn't start until I was like 30.

It was after I did some stuff in powerlifting where I'm like, you understand kind of a lot about this stuff. You're now able to, like I have maybe had a YouTube channel at the time. I might've had super training. I'm trying to remember back. I don't remember all the details, but I was definitely coaching people and helping people. And I started to recognize that what I'm sharing about sets and reps doesn't matter unless I can convey to people that they need to develop habits. that they need to develop habits. And that's where this whole fucking thing came from. And that's why I'm such a madman with trying to figure out stuff for myself so I can help figure it out to other

people. This is what I love to do. And this is what I'm going to be, you know, shouting every single day. And steroids, I mean, I guess it's like debatable on whether those things were part of that or not, but I feel like I've gone out of my own way. I don't think they really like performance enhanced me to like go seek out this information. I just was really dying to try to figure out a way, especially with helping people with diet. I mean, helping people with diet is really an act

in trying to help people with human behavior. Everyone does, many, many people now do understand a lot of the mechanisms that lead to obesity, that lead you to be heavier than you want to be. But then just trying to figure out how to actually stop that is all like habit forming and all those kinds of things. So I dove into that years and years ago and just never looked back. Andrew, want to take us out of here? Absolutely. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. If you guys are not subscribed to the channel, please do so and ring that notification bell because we have some just incredible guests coming up right here in January 2022, which is still hard for me to figure out out how to say so yeah make sure you guys subscribe and comment anything below um really helps the algorithm uh really appreciate it and please follow the podcast at mark bells power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter my instagram and twitter is at i am andrew z in sima where you be and it's email

ending on instagram and youtube and see my yin yangyang on TikTok and Twitter also. Check out Faith's Kicks. Faith's Kicks. On Instagram, F-A-I-T-H-S-K-I-K-I-C-K-Z. If y'all want to get yourself some J's and some cool shit. What's up? My wife today, she had one of her best workouts she's had in a long time. Hey. Swimming.

And you know, I've told you guys she's been working out and stuff. And her friends are like, damn, like, what did you do? And her and I had sex this morning. And so they're like, what did you take this morning? And she's like, insert word there. So I don't know. Performance enhancing. I just thought that was funny.

And I thought I had to share. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later. Performance enhancing Zach.