Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 708 - Dan Grigsby: US Marine Broke The All Time World Record Deadlift, 1,025lbs RAW

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

World Raw Deadlift World Record holder and United States Marine, Dan Grigsby joins us today to talk about what it took to obtain this insane 1,025lb deadlift and life as a Marine. Follow Dan on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dan_grigs/ Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yJsNEMBr Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/ Code POWERPROJET for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% off your first order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ 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 ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Power Project Family, how's it going? Today we have an amazing guest for you guys. We have Danny Grigsby. This man just broke the all-time deadlift record at 1,025 pounds raw last week. It's fucking amazing. But he talks to us about his deadlift technique, how he prepared for this meet,

different ideas for hook gripping, his powerlifting progression, and his work as a Marine. So you guys don't want to miss this episode. And I want to add something in. Danny hit this record in a pair of fucking vivos. We've been wearing these shoes for over almost a year now. And if you're a lifter, you want to get your hands on these shoes. They're amazing. But how do you get them, Andrew? They can get them at VivoBarefoot.com. And at checkout, make sure you guys use promo code PowerProject to save 20% off off your entire order links to them down in the

description as well as the podcast show notes i hope you guys enjoy this episode yeah so we're talking about some big time deadlifting we had somebody big time yeah big time somebody recently just a couple days ago beat the all-time deadlift record and we're going to have him on the show today dan grigsby he did 1025 deadlift, somebody that served our country as a Marine, so we can ask him some good questions about all that stuff. But this 1,025 deadlift kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, this guy is really strong. I've seen him pull over 900 pounds before on his Instagram,

but I don't really know. Like with some of the people that are in the hunt for these big-ass deadlifts, I don't really know. Like with some of the people that are in the hunt for these big, big-ass deadlifts, I don't really know if he was like the frontrunner to be able to hit the all-time biggest powerlifting deadlift, meaning it was done in a powerlifting competition. Previously, Benedict Magnuson did 1,015, which I believe was like in an exhibition. But you got to tilt your hat to all these guys that have lifted these weights. Hap Thor Bjornsson, who's done over 1100 pounds. Eddie Hall has done over 1100 pounds. Those are in strongman where the rules are different. And sometimes these athletes will wear deadlift suits, which they do help some people like they don't do anything. Well, if they didn't do anything, people wouldn't wear them. They help. they just have different rules in in strongman they're

allowed to wear straps as well so this is 1025 deadlift now it was done sumos the internet erupted because automatically cheating it's cheating and seaman knows that firsthand because he loves to cheat on the deadlift as well all the time and uh you know the range of motion is changed but then there was a lot of questions and this this is what I'd like to address. There's a lot of questions about height. You know, people like, he didn't move the bar very far, things in the overall volume and in the work that you put in for that particular movement however taller athletes a lot of times have a big advantage on deadlift the all-time biggest deadlift for a long time was like 925 pounds it was held by a guy named gary heisey who did that deadlift like late 80s maybe early 90s and had the record for years. Gary Heisey was six foot eight.

So a lot of these athletes are usually actually a lot taller than what you'd think. Six foot eight? Pap Thorby Ornson is six foot nine. Brian Shaw is six foot eight. I mean, a lot of these guys are tall and being tall, you know, you can kind of think, okay, well, a taller person, a lot of times is going to have longer arms. And a lot of times they're going to have, uh, longer, larger, uh, hands to be able to grab onto the bar and to be able to make the lift a little bit easier.

So when it comes to conventional deadlifting, in my opinion, uh, it's not harder for a taller athlete. The only time it can be more difficult for a taller athlete is if they're mainly like all torso. Like if they have like a really long torso, sometimes that can be kind of hard. But again, usually a taller athlete actually has a pretty good advantage when it comes to conventional deadlifting. And he's ready to go if you guys want to have him on. Gravy. Gravy. Gravy. Don't you normally say groovy?

I did just say groovy. Did you not hear me? I thought you said gravy. Oh, look at that. He just bounced. I said groovy. He bounced that out? Yeah.

I'll just tell him to come back in. Man, you're getting old. You can't hear anymore. You can tell him to maybe wait a couple minutes. That would be cool. Okay. We can still chit chat. Yeah, okay.

I did say gravy, Andrew. What you got over there? No, no. I was just trying to fuck with you in your old age. No, you're not old. You are a young man and you're getting younger year by year. I don't want to implant any type of shit in your mind or anybody's mind. Let's get to this.

Yeah, I was looking over just some of the lifts that he was doing and it was really interesting you were saying before the podcast like um there was it's kind of wild that he pulled 1025 because there didn't seem to be an indicator and it's going to be really interesting to see what his training looked like leading up to it like what was he touching did he expect to be able to move something like this because when you watch the video of the 1025 the first thing you noticed and obviously 1025 crazy to say it's crazy to fucking say but the first thing you notice is how much slack he's able to pull out of that yeah because i was watching him work with like nines and eights and he was using a different bar that didn't allow you to pull as much slack out but that 1025 that bar one and then the plates moved before he

even started really it looked like yep he was able to really pull a crazy amount of slack out of the bar and it makes you wonder like he's ridiculously strong but that kabuki pr deadlift bar uh i i know like it's it's us it did 95 of the work it did all the work yeah Yeah, he lifted 125. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was nothing. No, but I really am curious because do other people within that federation, are they all able to use the same bar to pull those records? Or are some people using a Texas deadlift bar and then in some meets the Kabuki bar is there? Because, I mean, as you've mentioned, the Kabuki bar is different. Like there is a difference between that, a Texas deadlift bar and a stiff bar. It makes it big. I mean, it sounds silly, but the equipment that we have at powerlifting meets makes a big difference. And normally at a powerlifting meet, it's not really that big of a hindrance because usually you have kind of like in certain federations, you have a particular bar

for squats. So the bar doesn't bend and have a lot of whip to it. And then you have bars for bench pressing that, again, they don't have much whip to it. And then the last thing is the deadlift bar. And the deadlift bar a lot of times is going to be thinner. It has more knurling on it, like a Texas deadlift bar. That was an evolution in the sport years and years ago. But now we have a new style of bar that's allowing people to lift even more. And the comparison I heard being made was it's like comparing a regular stiff bar to a deadlift bar. So this bar is one-upping the Texas deadlift bar by who knows how much weight. Hard to say.

And I want to also say the Kabuki bar, I was talking to Jamal yesterday. Jamal Browner, he pulled 1,003 for a double. He's also like him. I think he's done like 1,100 in training with straps or something, right? Jamal's pulling some crazy shit. Like he's part of this conversation as far as amazing deadlifters, right? Strong overall, 250 pounds or something like that, right? It's ridiculous.

He's a monster. But he was mentioning how that bar also has a lot of knurling like even extra knurling and though both these guys jamal and danny they both pull hook grip which is fucking their thumbs are made of steel um but i also i mean literally when we're talking about so when i'm talking about this at least i'm not taking anything away from that record or that pool but if you before if we're having a conversation about like records, it does make me wonder, if a record is broken with a bar, shouldn't that be standard across the board for all of the meets within a federation so all of these lifters have the opportunity to pull on the same bar and

potentially break this ridiculous record that was just set? It's amazing. Context matters. I mean, one of the goats in MMA is Hoist Gracie. Unfortunately, the athletes don't have the opportunity to display the same guts and determination that Hoist Gracie did because Hoist Gracie went through three individuals to win his UFC championships, and they don't have a tournament like that anymore. They kind of just deemed it unsafe.

The athletic commissions won't allow it, and therefore you don't have a tournament like that anymore. They kind of just deemed it unsafe. The athletic commissions won't allow it, and therefore you don't have it anymore. And so sometimes, you know, you are trying to compare athletes or compare people to each other, compare people to the legendary Ed Cohn, but then, you know, certain types of powerlifting equipment came along. Rules changed. Maybe people don't squat as low and yada, yada, yada,

and then we end up with people commenting you know a ton about this particular deadlift versus thor's deadlift and versus all these other deadlifts one thing i would say that is something that you can really observe is a how far the plates move and b if you really care about this shit i don't think anyone should really care that much. These are fucking like record lifts and they're unbelievable, like regardless. Right. So the,

the plates didn't move very far because the, the bar bends so much. And because of the style of deadlift that he utilized, the other thing I'm looking at is where the guy's elbow is, where this, uh, where Dan's elbow is in relation to like his belt, his,

his elbow joint is like in line with his belt. Now, if you look at Eddie Hall and if you look at Hapthor Bjornsson, their elbows are way above because they have to pick the weight up X amount higher. So is it more impressive, less impressive? I don't think it's more or less impressive. It's just that you can make an argument,

look, man, they do have to pull the weight further. So go a larger distance. That's true. As far as the final type of deadlift, hey, I'm all for Danny pulling sumo. Danny, you're the greatest, brother. Let's go. Yeah, let me pull it up really quick.

And he's ready to go now. Cool. Hi, guys, and welcome back to- I love lifting vault, by the way. Do you want to talk about one of the longest- I definitely don't want to get- Yeah. This man is meaty.

9.48 deadlift. He just- Smoked it. Looked so ridiculous. That's what's interesting about this, too. We saw this years ago with uh is it believ he was just really smashing those deadlifts where he's in this crazy upright posture so i didn't even realize this i didn't realize he hit you know that big deadlift now he's hitting a thousand three

posture doesn't break like his torso doesn't that was so easy he just did a thousand three so easy and his coach isn't joking he does have more in the tank. By the way, I think 1,003 is the biggest sumo deadlift in the history of powerlifting. I think it's his first deadlift over 1,000 pounds sumo in competition. I could be wrong. Jesus. Keep in mind this. Dan also totaled 2071.

So this is at the end of a long day after he already pulled 1000 pounds, and then he just fucking rips up 1,000. It's just, I don't understand. How about the performance-enhancing shoes, though? Oh, yeah, dude. He did it in Vivos. He did it in Vivo barefoot shoes. He's got those fancy red socks. And look at that singlet, too.

That's a slingshot singlet, a strong singlet from markbellslingshot.com, which will make you brutally fucking strong. We already know that. It'll add like 70 pounds to your deadlift. Yeah, 70 to like 150 pounds. I do find it really cool, though, how he honestly just came out of nowhere and did this shit. It's like, who's this lifter that just deadlifted 1,025?

He's got like fucking wild. He came out of nowhere. I love the office. What's going on, my man? Not much, Mark. I just checked out of my hotel, so this was the best available spot I could find.

Are you sore at all, or do you feel good? I actually feel pretty good. The day after the meet, obviously, you're a little stiff, but normally for a few days i'm just not doing much i just try to walk and get the body flowing but yeah i'm feeling i'm feeling pretty good pretty happy with that how does it feel to hit an all-time world record i mean that's the biggest deadlift in the history of powerlifting how do you feel about that uh hey i mean going

into this meet my goal was just to pull a thousand because at the showdown i came really close and felt i just sat back too far and lost my balance because of those weights i mean you're packing your lats and stuff but the compression in your spine and in your shoulders it's hard to tell sometimes if you're locking it out because like you know it's just literally just pulling you down. But this time I made sure I didn't sit back that far and it felt great. I opened, I opened with nine 48 and then, and then I went straight to a thousand.

Originally I was going to do a smaller jump, but I was like, I want to, I don't want to conserve energy. I just want to go for it. And also at the meet, they had the Kabuki deadlift bar like the new the newer one and i didn't know that till the day before it weigh in so i had been training on texas bar like i mean there's very few people who have a kabuki right now but it was interesting i got to warm up with one and i could tell the whip people talk about the whip and obviously the whip is very substantial it's definitely it's a it's a notch or two above what a texas delif bar is wow and the knurling is just knurling is like a cheese grater but in a good way like

i mean you're not dropping if you do a hook grip or even if you have good grip in general you're not you're not going to drop drop a weight with this bar the knurling is that good so what kind of weights did you get in training to end up with 1,025? Like what was the last maybe three, four weeks of your training look like? So I'm trying to think. My heaviest double during training was 940, 942. I'm bad with kilos. So as long as it's within five kilos, I know I did my job because that's just overwhelming for me because I suck at math.

But my last heavy pull was 959. And I went for 983 like six weeks out and I failed it. That day I was just off and I've been having trouble with my hips being kind of uneven and crooked. And during sumo, that's like a nightmare if your hips don't feel even and centered. So my heaviest pull all prep was 959 and i did but that's normally as weird as it sounds normally i get 40 or 50 pounds more on the platform than i ever do in training and i think i account that for um i mean call it fight or flight adrenaline whatever the proper term for it is but at a meet i'm very dialed in like in training i'm

not saying i don't take training seriously but it's hard to replicate a meet environment training like no matter how hard you try you could have 100 people in front of you when you're training but when you go to an actual meet it's kind of like this like switch turns on i just feel very focused and very just there's no doubt in my mind and even if i had a shitty prep once i go to a meet it's like at that point you're not thinking anymore you just go on the platform and it's just like you do what your body's ingrained to do you know man i'm really curious about this because okay so you were you know you usually before me you're saying 40 to 50 pounds more is what you expect but you got 75 pounds more than what you get in training yeah so i'm. Oh, go ahead real quick.

Yeah, I don't want to make it sound like it'll be there on meet day, but through years, my last few meets, that's kind of consistently what's happened. So I know it's like a ballpark of what I expect. Like I said, at the showdown, I did 970. My heaviest pull in training then was 950. So like I said, every meet's different. But throughout the years, that's normally – now it's not the same with squad or bench i wish it was like squad i normally get 10 to 20 pounds more meat day bench around the same but i think deadlift just because it's so it's so taxing on your cns like i don't believe in fully like whatever you get in a meet i don't

whatever your goal is in a meet i don't believe in doing that in training just because of the stress that plays on your cns just proves that sumo is cheating but what i was going to really ask you fuck it with you i love sumo um but what i was going to ask you man is when you were backstage you've never trained with the kabuki deadlift bar and you know we were mark was talking about the comparison like the a normal stiff bar to a tex Texas deadlift bar is like the difference between a Texas and a Kabuki. It has so much more slack that you can pull out. So I'm like, do you, what kind of difference do you think that made? Do you think it made a substantial difference even though it was the first time you were working with that bar on that day? How do you feel about that?

Because a lot of people are talking about that as far as the deadlift is concerned. Yeah. that because a lot of people are talking about that as far as the deadlift is concerned yeah so i as weird as that sounds it's like like you just said the difference between a texas kabuki is like a sift to a texas because it's now i can't give a number or like a percentage of how much more reflection but it's enough where i felt like i wasn't exerting as much effort like i literally like when i pulled 960 compared to when i pulled a thousand it took less effort to break a ground with a thousand than it did with 960 on a kabuki bar so but but the caveat of that is so in as long as you know how to brace and create tension into the bar whether you're conventional or sumo it'll be easier off the ground but you can't lock your knees out too fast because people

were talking about the excess whip and all my attempts and that's why i held it for two to three seconds and even after that point you could still see the bar kind of like it is there's no way around it even when i was warming up with 600 700 800 it was doing the same thing and i was trying to i was lifting the weight as slow as possible you know to make it not but it was still bouncing up and down even once you locked out and you're completely motionless so it's definitely a different beast and i can understand how people have mixed feelings because obviously for probably i don't know how long a texas devil parts around 30 40 years however long it's been that's been the standard and that's what everyone's lifted on so now that there's this new bar in town and it's obviously different i mean i'm not gonna lie to you and say it doesn't help

it definitely does help if you know how to use it like i said you kind of have to be more conservative off the floor and just not too fast at lockout because any sort of excessive like whip or movement that's gonna translate into the bar it's going to feel like you have an earthquake bar even though it's a deadlift bar you know can you describe uh this like whip and bend of the bar for people that maybe have no idea what we're talking about and then also maybe like how you kind of wedge yourself into the bar and and create all that tension before you start to lift yeah definitely so when i say whip it's kind of just like so if you were to just lift the bar off the ground without bracing and without wedging

it's literally gonna feel like there's like a you're gonna you're gonna meet a point where it's just gonna pull you down because kind of the same with the texas bar when they say pull up the slack that's to ensure that that extra whip doesn't stop your uh forward momentum as you pull and what was the second part of that question so the bar the bar is basically bending right and so you can make an argument that maybe this kabuki bar bends like a little bit more and because it bends a little bit more it probably allows you to get in slightly better position as you're starting to pull. So like,

what are some techniques you utilize in training to like, I guess, get yourself into that amazing position. Cause you're just, you're completely straight up and down when you're doing the lift. And it almost like, I mean, of course your lower back is being utilized,

but it almost doesn't even look like it. Yeah. So that was actually, this is kind of off subject for a sec, but it almost doesn't even look like it yeah so that was actually this is kind of off subject for a sec but it'll kind of explain it so i did conventional my first few years and i only tried out sumo because i was getting lower back pain and at the time i didn't realize i wasn't bracing properly and i was letting my back sag too much but it worked out because obviously i realized very quickly i did sports like track and field football basketball and baseball so i did a lot of running and stuff as a kid and i did a lot of mobility drills to get my groin and hip flexors really healthy and strong so then when i

started sumo i already had a pretty good range of mobility and from the beginning i went really wide so i do some static stretches for my hips i like doing hip airplanes to kind of open up the hips and kind of get that uh kind of get used to opening up i use the hip circle no shame on the plug there i've been using the hip circle for years i like it just primes my glutes because especially because i pull so wide if your glutes aren't firing that's a huge part like i feel like my back is locked into place, but obviously my quads, my quads and my glutes are the main movers. Like, if my glutes aren't firing at lockout,

I'm not going to be able to be able to bring my hips through like I do. So glutes is a big deal, and I'll do all sorts of little things with the hip circle. Like, I'll do glute kickbacks. I'll do kind of glute side. I don't know what what you call them like where you just bring your leg to your side there's just so many different things you can use with the hip circles that's why i like it because it's a very like versatile little band or tool or whatever you want to call it but when i when i pull how i think about getting into position is first i kind of i learned it kind of from dan green how he used to kind of like you do that thing where he'd bring his arms up I kind of, I learned it kind of from Dan Green, how he used to kind of like, he'd do that thing where he'd bring his arms up

and kind of tense his lats up. So I think about tucking initially. And once I get to the bar, I open up, I set my grip, and then I'll lift my hips up, and then I'll brace, I'll brace and spread the floor at the same time. And I like doing it all in one motion because if you do, if you brace and then set your hips, it's kind of, it takes longer. And I feel like you can't wedge as well.

You can't get as upright. And the fact that I'm so upright, like you said, my back never really, it's not to say I don't feel my back, but I'm not a very back dominant puller. Like if I had to rely solely on my back to be the prime mover at deadlift, like I think eventually I could probably get, if i did it for a few months like mid to high 800s like i'm not i'm not no jamal browner i wouldn't be pulling 950 conventional you know i'm not like that's that's just insane seeing what he did recently so i know i know my strengths and that's how i learned to pull the way where I utilize my strengths the most. If you have a strong back, then you figure out the best way to use that.

I have strong legs. I have very mobile hips and strong legs. So I found the best way to utilize that to get me stronger, the best position possible to utilize all those muscles. You actually mentioned something that we talked about quite a bit but you mentioned you spread the floor like you like you claw into the ground can you talk about your cues for that because when people talk about deadlift some lifters mention that some don't but how like how long have you been doing that and what is that doing for you if you can describe to to the listeners what you mean when you say spread the floor with your feet so spread the floor is basically in my feet i think about toe down and i'm kind of just

like uh clawing so my toes down yeah clawing so my toes down and i'm clawing and spreading the floor is kind of just make sure your feet are your feet are rotating slightly but you still have contact with the ground. And that's how you generate all your tension. Because what I used to do years ago, back before I realized this, was I would open my hips up and I would spread the floor with my hips. My feet wouldn't be in good contact with the ground. So then I would have a lot of balance problems and I wouldn't be able to stabilize at lockout. So a deadlift, like anything else, it starts from the ground up.

So if your feet aren't secure and your feet aren't stable that's going to translate up the chain to the rest of your body and so i think about my feet toe down spreading them and then i i squeeze my glutes and i bring my hips in but you don't want to over it's kind of i kind of think about as your knees your knees stay over your your midfoot or your shins because you don't want your knees to cave in but you also don't want them now most people don't have the opposite problem most people don't bring their knees too far out which is what i do sometimes because i'm so mobile my hips but that can sometimes bite me in the ass

just as much as not being not having any mobility at all and the last few months i've been using this shoe called vivo barefoot and i've really been loving it there are there's a lot of brands like them just a barefoot like apparel a barefoot like shoe brand and i've always had wide feet and for years i mean all my life basically i'd wear shoes that were too tight all my toes would be crammed and then the feet in my the feet in my foot or the muscles in my feet became kind of dormant. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like if you wear shoes that aren't meant for actual feet,

the muscle in your feet start getting weaker and weaker. And that can translate to squatting and deadlifting and anything else. Like, so my feet have gotten, they've actually kind of sprawled out and gotten wider. I didn't believe it at first. They sent me a free pair. I was like, whatever, this is probably like every other barefoot shoe I've ever tried where it's they've actually kind of sprawled out and gotten wider i didn't believe it at first because they sent me a free pair and i was like whatever this is probably like every other barefoot shoe i've

ever tried where it's most barefoot shoes are very minimalistic but they don't last long because the materials aren't great and after like a week or two i just noticed i could feel the ground more like the muscles in my feet were just like they were just more in sync and then once i started using them for deadlifting, it helped with my balance and even spreading the floor on deadlift. And I think they're based out of the UK, the brand Vivo Barefoot. I don't know a whole lot about them, but yeah, I've been wearing, I wear them to work out and I have a casual pair too.

I try to wear them as much as I can just because once you, once your feet are actually working and they just feel like they're firing right, I don't want to wear shoes that are too tight and that cram my feet and aren't comfortable. All right, stupid deadlift questions. Ready? Yeah. I can't get the weight off the floor quickly. I can't get the weight off the floor explosively, and I end up doing a lift as a two-part lift. What do I do?

floor explosively and I end up doing a lift as a two-part lift what do I do well if you can't get off the floor quickly obviously I mean an old school one's deficits deficits help build up you build up your strength off the floor also I think pause deadlifts are really good too but I see a lot of people just do them too high you don't want to do them right below your knees just like like a half inch to an inch off the ground. It'll teach you to be in the position you need to be in because a lot of times people's hips shoot up off the floor. But with pause deadlifts, it forces you. You can't cheat it because you have to stop it pretty close off the ground. So those two things I would say are – now there's other things, but generically I would say those two exercises are pretty good for positioning and just overall strength off the floor. What about lockout?

Somebody has a horrific lockout. What can they do for their lockout? I feel like a lot of times lockout, it's either if they don't, if they don't know how to wedge their back right. And they're just, they're, cause if they're too loose in their back from the start cueing your yeah cueing your lats so i guess i remember seeing years ago when you had caller woolham on he was doing those crazy rows like any variation of rows will help with that obviously i was just amazed seeing them do 495 550 it was like in the fives bro yeah yeah i'm like that guy was up 200 pounds at the time i was like 240 and i was like i can't even do that what the fuck you know like yeah but also so when

people struggle at lockout i feel it's either it's either their back or glutes because if your glutes aren't activated from the very beginning you can get a weight off the ground but once you get past your knees your glutes is a big part of bringing your hips through so um i usually in the past i've done ghr that's mainly back but you can make it glutes um never really done hip thrusters i don't know i feel like hip thrust is an exercise where it's all over instagram because the bodybuilding and stuff but i've just i haven't done a lot of accessories in the past for a long period of time. I just get – I do a lot of reps and a lot of technique practice. And because at the end of the day, powerlifting is, you know,

a sport where it's like squat, bench, and deadlift. So, especially in the beginning, if you don't have a lot of experience just doing the lifts more often, you're going to, like – you're going to find your form, and you're going to integrate those motor patterns. Cause I've been powerlifting since 2014. So that's, that's like eight years and I've been lifting since I was 13. So it's like the more time I've gotten under the bar, you just have a better body awareness of what's going on, you know?

And if you're just in the beginning and you might be struggling with off the floor at lockout, it may just be, you're just, your technique sucks and you just need struggling with off the floor at lockout it may just be you're just your technique sucks you just need to ingrain better technique like i believe accessories are important but i focus on the compound lifts and perfecting them and then i worry about doing accessories like in the very beginning i worried about the compound lifts and then the accessories came along once i felt like i had a good i had a good enough technique and all the lifts where i was like okay i actually know what I'm doing. So now I can identify my weaknesses.

So your favorite assistance exercise for deadlifting is just more deadlifting probably. Yeah. Well, after I'm going to do the American pro in July, but after I definitely want to do a good long block of conventionals. Cause I feel like regardless of which, of which stance you do, I mean, there's great carryover. Like conventional is going to build up my back, and I feel like conventional is more I could gain a lot of strength in my back and that would carry over great to sumo, even though my back isn't a prime driver in my sumo.

At heavy lockouts, my shoulders can start to creep down and kind of get soft so i've gotten bigger i'm the biggest for this meet i went at 276 because i wanted to break the 308 record and last year i was 265 and for the showdown yeah i got to the low 270s i was like 271 and then i drank like three liters of water to the hour before weigh-ins so i gained like four pounds of it was but i've never felt so descended in my life i felt like i was kind of a bodybuilder i was like wow this is like i still had abs but my stomach was pushing out so far it was it was wild i didn't know that's possible dog how old are you now i'm 28 all right damn 15 years of lifting how do you feel right now like

in terms of your power lifting career you've been power lifting for eight years um how's your body feel like what are your what are your goals right now in terms of like the type of numbers that you're trying to get to because i mean i think i saw a post and said your coach said that i mean how much more weight do you think you could have pulled on that day? Because it came up fast. Yeah. So, like I said, the fact that I didn't have time to trade the Kabuki, I was going off of what I knew I was capable of on a Texas bar.

I knew I would get $1,000 on a Texas bar. There was no doubt. Now, the $1,025, who knows? I'm not going to speculate because that's if. There's no if. Now, the 1,025, who knows? I'm not going to speculate because that's if. There's no ifs, you know. But I think I probably had 1,040 to 1,050 because the 1,025, it was, it's like I thought about going for a fourth. But at that point, you're so fatigued, even if you're capable of a weight after that. I'm going to get two minutes rest, and I'm not going to be recovered.

And I forgot where I read this somewhere, but it takes four to six minutes to recover your your atp or your energy your energy system so even if i'm capable of it i'm probably not going to get it if i have two minutes rest so yeah but but i'm not mad because obviously i didn't even know i'd be at that point going into the meet so it was a it was a great surprise but yeah i think for my next meet now i did take it easy on squat at this meet because i've had i mean i've been in the military the last six and a half years i'm in the marine corps right now so all that running i've done i mean my first four years i would run three four miles a day it was brutal and then i'd squat and deadlift you know or i'd only squat once a week and then once a week but trying to trying to do lower body on days when you're you wake up at 4 or 5

a.m you got to do a couple mile run and whatever kind of pt they have planned for so for a few years my progress really stalled because people always ask me you know a lot of military people are like how how do i get stronger and do the military stuff i'm like well you can kind of maintain it but i didn't the last two years since i haven't ran as much my recovery's gotten better my sleep everything else and that's translated into my lifting like yeah i was i was stuck at i was stuck in a 750 pound devil for three and a half years and that was mainly because of the military just all my other obligations and whatnot but the last two years i just skyrocketed because when you can control

those factors, the best of your ability, it's like, it's like a drug within itself. You know, you sleep six to eight hours, you're actually drinking enough water every day. Like people don't realize how important that is.

They want to talk about other things that make, that can help you. But those things are just as important in the equation as well. What's your nutrition look like so mainly i was eating about 6 000 calories a day to to be able to make 276 and uh i don't want to say it's vertical diet but i eat a lot of red meat rice uh pasta well obviously pasta is a vertical diet but red meat rice pasta for breakfast i'll have like eggs eggs rice and toast or a bagel something of that nature so i kind of i keep it simple because i'm not a great cook i'm not i wish i could make these fancy dishes that taste good

but i can't so in order to stick to a decent diet i just now i put like seasonings and you know pick him aayan salt on it and whatnot but there isn't a ton of variety but i'm a kind of person who i love to have a certain amount of structure just in my life in general that it makes it easy for me to get things done having that structure in place so that's why i've always kind of been and people make fun of me sometimes like oh that's all you eat but like i know if i try to do other things and try to be fancier it'll just i'll just give it up my big fuck it where's the where's the nearest taco bell right now like i'm just hungry you know dude you uh you mentioned uh you did running for

multiple years right before you you you've you kind of started skyrocketing as far as your deadlifts concerned and it makes me wonder like in of your training, do you do a lot of higher rep work ever? Because, you know, you have a you've built up a capacity, right? The three to four miles of running. It's not like that strength training, but your ability to handle stress or volume, I think, is probably higher than most people since you have that background. Do you think that that's reflected into the way that you're able to train these days? Or what kind of difference do you think if that's reflected into the way that you're able to train these days um or do you what what kind of difference do you think if it's it's made if any i definitely think so early on during those days when i was running a lot i would tend to ease up on volume just a tad because i was worried about getting injured and but it's translated now to where even though i'm bigger i'm 265 270 i have a great work

capacity now i've obviously i still have to push myself from the gym to do the reps but compared to most people my size i can handle for for accessories i tend to go moderate weight i don't go too heavy like if i do barbell rows i'll do 225 to 315 sets of 10 to 12 i don't i kind of view accessories as a way to like after the compound lift the accessories is kind of to get blood in the muscle almost kind of start the process of recovery just get a lot of oxygen and blood in the muscle and also to work on imbalances because i've had i've had a lot of issues in the past with my lats back when i did over under grip it caused a huge imbalance in my lats because my underhand would always take over so much.

So I have a few little imbalances that I struggle with sometimes. So I use the accessories to help, like, counter those imbalances along with just – because I notice, too, when – if I'm, like, pressed for time and I only – it's a squat workout. If I only do my compound squats, then I have to leave. I'm always a lot more sore than if i do some accessories like leg press do a set or two one or two back exercises so i really do believe like accessories can have multiple benefits it's not just yeah it's to get you stronger work on your weaknesses but i did notice the recovery aspect now once again i don't go terribly heavy on accessories obviously if i was doing 495 rows i'd probably be a lot more sore.

But, yeah, I tend to have a different view on accessories. In the beginning, I kind of wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to do these crazy rows, these crazy leg presses, put 20 plates on the leg press. But, yeah, quickly right away, I was like, yeah, I can't freaking do that. That's not going to work. So I kind of found my happy medium. It's not going to work so I kind of found that my happy medium it's like it's not light but it's kind of moderate in weight because like I said

if I'm going to fuck my shit up it better be doing a squat bench or deadlift not if I tear if I tear a muscle doing leg press I'm going to be way more I'm going to be so pissed because I'm like I already did the hardest part of the workout and I'm doing an accessory and my legs just snap you know like so that's kind of that's why I'm doing an accessory, and my legs just snap.

So that's why I tend to be more moderate in my weight with accessories. I had so many people over the years, they were so excited to beat me on a lat pulldown. And I'm like, congratulations. Yeah, it's like, okay, bro, you win. You win. Yeah, I never cared too much about the assistance exercises. I do think that like maybe for the younger athlete, for somebody just getting in and they have trouble getting as much as they need from the bench squat and deadlift because they're not that strong yet.

I think that's where the assistance exercises pay off big time. Then also I think there's a difference between the upper body and the lower body. For some reason, bench pressing responds great to like a ton of overtraining, a lot of volume, a lot of variety. Most big benchers, you hear them say like they do tons of lockout work. They do a lot of incline dumbbell pressing and flat dumbbell. You're just like, Jesus Christ,

like what are you in the gym for like three hours? But a lot of times that's what a lot of those guys are doing. What are some of the other numbers you got in this meet because you totaled 2071 uh and what'd you end up squatting what'd you end up bench pressing so like i said squat i was very i mean i squatted 606 and my pr is 750 i know what my next meet i'm gonna do 800 i know it i'm capable it's just i've been having this horrible – probably the last year and a half, I've been shifting really bad in my hips. So my last prep, I actually – I didn't tear. It was just like a – I strained my quad because I was shifting so bad to my left side.

I ultimately ended up like – I was doing 650 for a triple, and by the third rep, I was so crooked, I basically squatted 650 on one leg. And then right as I went to lockout out i felt it kind of tinge up and i was like oh it's that's not good but i knew it wasn't bad because i wouldn't have been able to lock it out after i felt it like cinch up but within a week i was bending my leg again it wasn't anything serious but since then i've really i felt part of it to my glutes like i feel like one of my glutes tends to tends to overtake the other. Like I feel like my left my left glute stronger than my right or maybe it's vice versa. But I've been doing a lot of pre half stuff to kind of sort that out.

And since I'm doing another meet in four months, there is no point to squat. So one lift that I get injured the most on or I tweak muscles the most on. So I kind of pick my I pick my times to push my squat like I'd say six seven months of the year I stick between five and 600 pounds even though I squat around 750 I'll just do pause pause squats um you know SSB I'll do variations and things to make it harder but I don't it even the military too probably plays a part I don't if I squat heavy for too long i'm just really i'm really at a risk for injury in my opinion so squat i only did 606 bench i did 440 and i was really happy about that because bench has always been my weakest lift and a lot of it's

mental anytime i go over 400 i just start to psych myself out and i don't know why because i'm definitely really big now and i have the muscle in certain places and i'm powerful enough but once i did four a few weeks ago i did 400 for three for the first time and that's why i knew okay i'm good for 440 450 there's no way if i could rep out 405 i know i got 40 or 50 more pounds on me so that was good i felt like i had i felt like i had about five to ten kilos in me on bench so for my next meet which is the american pro my goal is to squat 804 bench i don't know the kilo like 472 473 whatever kilo that comes out to and then deadlift probably like 1050 to 1060

that's yeah nasty because my goal would be to break 2300 and possibly if it's there go for the total because i think it's 275 it's still 2319 or 2320 that's going to be in the back of my mind because i mean long term my yeah because i i've seen with other people when you try to go for these crazy goals, they're not out of reach, but when you try to go for them too soon, it kind of doesn't ever work out that way. It always works out when you train hard, you keep getting better, and then it just kind of falls into place with your training and with just how things are going. Yeah, giving it the time it needs. I want to go into that soon, but a question I want to ask you is, when I saw the video of the 1025, a lot of people were like, oh, he's double overhanding that. That's crazy. So a lot of people still, number one, don't know what hook grip is. But what would your advice be to somebody who's trying to be able to build up their hands. Most people, their thumbs can't handle it. So I'm curious, how did you build up your ability to hook grip?

And what are your tips for people trying to actually be able to hook grip well? Because you mentioned you're over under. That's one of the reasons why I pulled hook grip when I was focusing on deadlift because there's just these imbalances that you can't fix when you're going over under. You have to maybe switch around every now and then, and that'll cause lat imbalances. So can't fix when you're going over under you have to maybe switch around every now and then and that'll cause latin balances so why did you do hook and what is your if you're going to tell people this is how you develop hook grip what would it be how would you describe it i love how bad dan is sweating right now i'm in my car right now and i don't i can't turn the car on because then my headphones will be disconnected to my car Bluetooth.

So I don't want that to happen. It's complicated. And then I just open the door and it's going to leave me. Yeah. I was starting to get insecure because I was thinking they'd probably see me on camera and how bad this is. Some big guy problems over there. Yeah, I know. I walk a block and I'm already soaked. But, yeah, so with hook grip, I did it in high school when I was playing football for, like, cleans and didn't do a lot of snatches.

Yeah, snatches, remember that thing. So I had some experience doing it with very lightweight with cleans. And then once I started doing hook grip with a Texas bar, I would say, especially at first, like, people make the mistake. They're like, I'm going to try hook grip. Their max is 600. The first time they try're like, I'm going to try hook grip. Their max is 600. The first time I try to hook grip, they're trying to go for 600. It's like, you got to do it in baby steps. Like first, maybe at first to start doing a warmup to hook and then do some like light

holds with 50% of your max is things to help like desensitize your thumb. Cause I believe over time, the nerves in your thumb your thumb they kind of i don't know how to describe it but they die more numb to the they just get numb yeah yeah it's good numb smash with a hammer painful yeah no it's because people always say oh oh my god you do hook grip but to me hook grip is easier once you if you can get over the pain and if your thumbs start to become adapted to it yeah like i don't even feel like i mean i'm gripping the bar but hook to me is more of like you're just maintaining pressure between your thumb and i use my middle finger but some people use their uh their pointer finger you're just

pushing your thumb is pressing against the pressing against your finger and you're maintaining tension with the bar in your hands so i'm able to sit the bar really low and hold on to it most people when they do hook they sit the bar too deep in their palm and what's going to happen is it's going to it's going to have the tendency to roll because it's so deep in your palm yeah because people think about it like reverse grip when you do reverse grip you grab the bar and it's kind of in your palm somewhat but with hook grip you don't want to do that like that's i would not be able to hold on to any weight if i did that because like i said once the bar especially with a kabuki bar if you try to do hook like that that knurling is really going to tear apart your your hand your palm whatever it's in contact with so yeah once again i would say just a progression of start with very lightweight

and do holds at very lightweight because like i I said, it took me like a year. It honestly did. Cause I was tearing calluses left and right. But then after a year it started and no one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear, Oh, it's going to take more than a month, but that's the, I mean, it could be different for everybody, but for me it took a year and I had already had experience. Well, it was with us. It was with a lot softer knurling, but with Olympic lifting.

So I would say six months to a year is normally probably how long it takes but once you get to that point it's fun after that because you just you you feel you feel the weight but it just it's not it's not painful anymore and then I always do I do a bunch of my warms with straps just to kind of because with straps I'm closer to the bar because straps kind of pull your well unless you're using figure 8 straps but I don't use those, because I don't want to I don't want to get too comfortable with straps like that when I wear straps

it brings my hands closer to the bar so then I'm kind of slightly more bent over so it strengthens my back and my posterior chain because I'm not in as great of a position as when I grab the bar with hook so Do you do anything specific with your grip, or is it mainly just deadlifting?

I mean, not for grip, but I like doing, because I've noticed, this is weird, but I like to work my forearms, not like with heavyweight or anything, but do wrist curls and get a bar and do front and back forearm curls, because I noticed my wrists start to hurt when I don't train forums. I only do it like once a week, maybe twice a week,

but I've talked to other people before too, where they say if they don't train forums every so often their wrists and kind of the ligaments around their ligaments around the wrist, they start getting weaker and it'll hurt the bend and stuff. So I don't do anything for strict grip because i'm so far along that like i don't need to worry about grip anymore but like i said in the beginning i would just do like 10 to 15 second holds at lighter weights with hook or even just when i did reverse grip that's what i used to do to to practice grip um i remember back in the day i don't remember how many years ago but chris Duffin used to show he would do hook grip on a pull-up bar. I mean, I never tried that. Like, I never needed to, but that could possibly work, too.

Anything to kind of help desensitize your thumbs is definitely going to help with hook. Hey, I know you're enjoying this episode, but listen up. We partner with Merrick Health. They're a telehealth network owned by Derek for More Plates, More Dates. We partner with Merrick Health. They're a telehealth network owned by Derek for More Plates, More Dates. But literally, the amazing thing about Merrick Health and getting your labs done with them is that when you get your labs done, you work with a client care coordinator that goes over your labs and gives you specific supplementation or nutrition protocols or potentially hormonal

protocols for your levels. The problem with a lot of these other telehealth networks is that when they do these things, they give everybody the same exact things, which actually can hurt you long-term more than help you. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com. That's M-A-R-R-E-K-Health.com. And if you already know what labs you want to get at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject10 to save 10% off all of those labs. If you don't know where to start, head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. You guys will get directed straight to the PowerProject panel.

It has 26 different labs that will cover everything you need. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save $101 off of that panel. Again, MerrickHealth.com. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What made you join the marine corps so i was i was 20 going on 21 and i did a year of college and then i dropped out because i was only there to play football and i didn't really have didn't really have the best mindset for going to school i just wasn't in the right mindset to want to didn't know i was like oh i'll be i'll do exercise science because i love working out but i didn't

know much beyond that and i just didn't want to accumulate a lot of debt and just for no reason i don't know like i feel like in certain fields it makes sense but if you have exercise science that's a dime a dozen there's so many people with an exercise science bachelor's degree so i dropped out and then i was working Home Depot and construction for a while. And then I joined the Marines because I just felt like I still didn't have a concrete path. And I mean, think about it. Four years of your life is really, it's not, people act like it's an eternity, but it's not.

Like, especially all these kids, they join at 18 and they get out when they're 21, 22. Like, still got the rest of your life ahead of you. So even if you absolutely hate it, which I don't, but it's four years of your life and then you get benefits, you get free college, you use a VA home loan to get a home at a very reasonable percentage down. That was kind of wild. I was like, I've got nothing to lose.

I mean, what could really happen? I don't regret it. You could get deployed. That's what could happen. That's the one thing I wasn't regret it. You could get deployed. That's what could happen. Yeah, actually, yeah. That's the one thing I wasn't really thinking about. Well, I have been deployed, but I went to Australia in 2019.

So that's not like – Yeah. It's not – I don't know. It was fun. I did some tours in Australia. Me and them kangaroos. It was rough. Dude, it's so hot down there like uh and it's because it's in this the net the uh in the opposite hemisphere even though we were there from spring we were

there from spring to so we got there in march or april and we left in we left in october so but that's our colder months because like i said i i was so confused at first because it was still it was 80 to 90 degrees and they're like yeah this is like our wintertime weather i'm like the fuck and then like and then if we would have been there the other months of the year apparently i don't remember i think it's called suicide season but like it gets so hot down there it's like prime time for people that like it's kind of like people here when it gets too cold outside. Like when it's wintertime, a lot of people kind of get those emotions. Yeah, I would feel the same way if it was 110 degrees, 70, 80% humidity.

God dang. Yeah, that was brutal. But, yeah, I've never been deployed to Middle East or anywhere. And now, actually, I think, Mark, you've been to – I'm with the world-famous body bearers in Washington, D.C. Have you visited them before? Absolutely, I have. Yeah, I've been to that Marines barracks, and it was like – oh, are you still there? There you are.

Yeah, my battery 20% came on. go. Yeah, it was my battery 20% came on. Yeah, it was a wild experience. These guys are telling me what they trained for, and they trained to carry soldiers that have died in battle or otherwise, and I was like, holy shit.

I mean, it was interesting. They took me through their living quarters, and they told me how strong they need to be, uh, their living quarters and, uh, they told me how strong they need to be like to carry those caskets and things like that. It was, uh, it was interesting. And then when I was there, um, just for some reason there, there happened to be, uh, someone really high ranking that came through and everyone went,

they went flying up against the wall and i didn't know what to do i just saw everybody so i was like i'll go up against the wall i don't know what's going on and the guy was like at ease like you're you know uh you're not you know with with everybody else or whatever and i was like okay and i was like what the hell was that about and they're like oh that was a three star or whatever and i was like holy shit okay yeah general yeah general everybody everybody stands by when there's a general yeah that like scared the fuck out of me i was like holy shit okay yeah general yeah general everybody everybody stands by when there's a general yeah that's like scared the fuck out of me i was like what's happening is this guy gonna kill me yeah that was a cool experience definitely i've been there a year and

a half so far and it's it's been great because you're it's a very selfless job and you get back in a way that is unlike anything else. We go to our own national cemetery, we perform our funerals, we do it with flawlessness and bearing, and we just take every bit of our job very seriously because we want to make sure the family gets the best funeral possible for their loved one. And it teaches you a lot about this about life and how grateful you are because it can be sad sometimes, but it's also's also you know you realize how lucky you have it when you see all these these circumstances that you come across being in that kind of job yeah i never thought i'd end up at dc of all places i didn't even know i didn't even know uh the marine barracks existed until uh so i was in virginia in 2020 during right when covid

started so as soon as i got to virginia i had to be quarantined for two weeks for no freaking reason i'm like okay this is dumb but i was uh i went to the school to be uh to work at embassies so marines marines around the world help protect the u.s embassies that are located in all these countries and then fortunately that didn't work out i failed the school so then at that point I was weighing out my options. And my friend told me, hey, you know, in Washington, D.C., 40 minutes up the road, there's the world famous body bearers. And I was like, damn, you know, this might be it.

And I went there, I tried out. And then a few months later I came back and did the school and it took me nine and a half months to graduate. But, yeah, it's something I'll never forget because it's just it's one of those things it's one of the best biggest things in the marine corps that you could say you've done you know like how many people could say they've done the things the world famous body bearers and me while i'm there have done this is a very it's something i'll always forget always remember for the rest of my life honestly yeah i was in that's how great it is i was in the area with my family and uh i was like hey i want to hit up a gym where should i go and a couple

people were like i'm at 24 hour fitness or like they were to have all these kind of lame gyms and like want to come to the marine barracks i was like fuck yeah that sounds amazing and uh i met a lot of amazing people that day it was really incredible yeah are you yeah you know i first go ahead yeah like i still don't know if i'm gonna because i'll be at eight years in 2023 but regardless it'll just be a time of my life always never forget you know being in the marines everybody has different experiences with the marines but you know i guess i gave back in some way and even it's been hard to juggle powerlifting at times but i wouldn't have it any other way because i could say i've done both these

things and done them pretty well i feel so so at this point you don't have to do any of the marine running anymore huh like you can just focus on powerlifting training and still do that aspect no so we still have to do our physical fitness tests which i'm going to do in late may it's a three mile run uh you got to do max sit-ups in two minutes and then uh max pull-ups uh we just in in dc it's just we have uh our main priority is arlington so it's kind of like when i was at cap pendleton at the unit i went to it was was just ran differently. So we'd run every day. But as world famous body bearers, we have to be at least 220 pounds. We got to be able to rep 225, 20 times on bench press. We do behind the neck press 20 times with 135.

Yeah, 135. And then we did 315 squat for 20 reps and bicep curl bicep curl 115 for 20 reps that's the standard yeah that's to pass a school you have to do all those markers yeah it's crazy man and we still have to run we still have to be able to pass

the running test too it's not like everybody thinks we get a handout but that's definitely not the case trust me they hold these caskets for like long periods of time and they are just they're standing like with a posture like they're not moving you know so you i would imagine you got you better be fucking strong yeah it's cardio i mean i still do cardio i do steady state cardio i'm not doing crazy but three to four times a week i'll do 20 to 30 minutes of steady state cardio but even at arlington i mean i'm definitely out of breath by the end of

some of these funerals especially when it gets hot outside in the summer we're wearing these coats that is trapping all the heat but yeah i mean having a i feel like even if you're a powerlifter or just in general you need to have a basic level of fitness just for you overall for your heart and anything else like i mean sometimes people like to say oh i'm a power lifter so i can just you know my main focus is strength but then it's like even at the meet like the better like i've done a lot of uh stuff to build up my work capacity and it showed at my meet because i was warming up every time and i felt fresh still because i did all those reps and i paid my dues and built the foundation and when people don't do, I feel like that's why a lot of people could do bad at meets because if they don't have their work capacity built up, then they have to.

A lot of people don't do SBD days, right? So I only do squat, bench, and deadlift sessions. So in order to be able to handle that at a meet, you've got to have a certain level of fitness to be able to. I'm talking about in terms of lifting, but I also do cardio as well. To be well to be able to handle okay i'm warming up for squat then i'm warming up for bench cool now it's time to warm up for deadlift yeah that's that's my opinion what kind of cardio do you do it's usually this uh step master this basic treadmill it's it was more so for this because i had to be a lot bigger, it actually helped stimulate my appetite. So I was eating five, six times a day.

And by the third meal, my appetite was nonexistent. So it's kind of like how Stan Aferding says, you know, walk 10 minutes after a meal. Sometimes I would just do that. I'd be like, fuck it, I'll walk for five minutes right now. Maybe I'll be hungry. I wouldn't be totally hungry, but it would definitely help kind of get the digestion going and kind of kickstart my metabolism and especially when just as much if you're losing weight when you're when you're gaining weight cardio is actually still kind of important because if i didn't do any cardio and

i just tried to stay off my feet as much as possible i definitely i might have gained the weight but my composition wouldn't have been great it would have been just like i wouldn't have looked the way i did it Any specific mobility work? I mean, you did mention like the hip circle and you mentioned some stuff you do, uh, like kind of sounds like you just kind of warm up on a deadlift and maybe go, but like, do you do anything real specific, like to stretch your hamstrings or your upper body or anything like that? Mobility work.

So one of the problems I've had lately is i have really tight lats so what i like to do is well there's several things you could do so you get a a band with enough resistance and you kind of you put it you put your feet under one side of the band and then you kind of you bring your elbow up and it's kind of imitating doing that stretch but when you're big enough you can't really reach and touch your elbow and pull it back so i like using a band to open up my lat yeah i'm ashamed but i just can't do it or or what i've also another thing i've heard and done is you get a pbc pipe or something you can hold on to and you you lean over to a bench and kind of push push your elbows down once again imitating bringing your elbows through and in the process your lats open

up because in the past whenever i have tight lats it kind of inhibits me in ways on all my lifts if my lats are tight and squat i'm not going to be able to set my shelf and be able to be in a good position to set the bar down on benches a nightmare because if my lats are tight it's going to cause stability issues and sometimes even my pec tightens up because of my tight lats so i really try to stay on top of that i mean you could use a massage gun but i felt like those kind of module how do you say that those types of things yeah those types of things they only get so deep and when you have enough muscle and you're dense enough you need to find ways to manipulate your body to really open up those oh yeah those tight muscles yeah um i want to ask you man going back to what you were mentioning earlier where like there are these records you're trying to break um but you're not

trying to do too fast you know a lot of lifters they they start progressing they start feeling really fucking good everything's everything's the cards. Everything's going well. And then they rush towards it and then just bad shit happens. So I'm curious, where did your mindset for that start to change? Have you been that type of lifter who's like steady? The steady individual wins the race. Did you have a period of time where you were just going forward and you fucked up? What gives you that mindset?

So in the beginning i mean at least on deadlift i went from my first meet in 2014 i pulled 600 six months later i pulled 700 so off the gate i'm like sweet i added 100 pounds in six months so then i'm thinking okay i'll pull 800 in a year or something and then obviously that didn't happen i wasn't even close and then once i joined the marines that's when i started to realize i need to be more methodical because especially with my at times very physically taxing job i have to account for that so there's days where i'd have to like lift less weight or decrease the intensity to kind of be in the marines for so long it's kind of made me kind of more uh level-headed like even if i wanted to i couldn't just like put on the gas and like go

hard for six months not because if i get injured like that's not gonna go well with like yeah you're strong but you just tore a muscle that's not cool man like you can't what are you gonna do at work now you can't you're immobilized you know yeah so i kind of just i'm not scared of getting injured but i'm smart because I know this isn't my livelihood so if I get injured that can affect that can affect other things so it's kind of made me take things one one step at a time and knowing okay it might take me a year to do this instead of eight months but the trade-off is I'll be healthy and like I'll be slowly progressing I mean you in the beginning when you have the newbie gains from certain things, you can, you can bump it up very quickly, but you reach a point where your ligaments and tendons,

if you keep trying to go on that trajectory, yeah, things are going to happen. And so you gotta, you gotta take it in steps so that your body can build up to what your muscles already are capable of. If that makes sense. Um, you mentioned, uh, uh arlington national cemetery do you guys serve the i believe it's called the tomb of the unknown soldier is that what it's called yes well we we don't serve them they're their own separate entity but the tomb of the unknown soldier is it's they have their own thing down there i've heard stories about it i haven't been down there yet personally oh you've never checked it out no i haven't but i've heard stories about it. I haven't been down there yet personally. Oh, you've never checked it out. No,

I haven't, but I've heard if you make a noise down there, like they like to discipline you really fast. Like you're not, it has to be like a pin drop down there. Cause obviously they're, they're silent in acknowledgement of, you know, all the people who've died and stuff.

So yeah, I don't, anyone who brings a kid or something down there, I would, I would be praying for them because they're going to, yeah, it's one of the cooler experiences I've ever had in my life, visiting that. And it was just – I don't know. It's just like – it's a cemetery of people that, like, fought for the country.

I mean, it's hard not to have it move you in some way. It was really quite amazing. Are their names unknown or something? Why is it called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? So it's – like I said, I don't know. Don't quote me on this, but it's it's called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier because it's for all the people that haven't been accounted for. You know, during wars, people who've died and they've never been recovered. And, you know, there are some people know who they are, but they're not definitively known. So it's like anybody in the military who's ever died and has never been

recovered or never been found. It's still, it's like, uh, it's like, it's, um, it's honoring them.

Cause obviously a lot of people come to Arlington, but there's still a lot of people from world war two, Korea, um, all these operations that died and their bodies were never recovered. So that, that tomb is kind of a designated for them. Yeah. And it's a, it's a ritual that they do,

and they just kind of do it all throughout the day, like every hour on the hour, like the clock, you know, the bell tower does a ding or whatever, and then they come out and they do their thing and they have music and they got a soldier marching back and forth and people are just like surrounding the area and everyone's like just quiet and focused in on the soldier. It gives you goosebumps.

You're like, this is insane. Really cool experience. What do you got coming up next? You mentioned you're getting ready for a contest. So are you going to like – you probably need to drop some weight for a little bit and kind of like start this whole process over again, right? Yeah, the american pro is i think it's about four months out and my main the main thing i'm going to focus on is really upping my squad because i know like i said my bench is where i want obviously my deadlift where

i want it to be my bench is still improving but i'm really gonna my squat and bench are going to be more emphasis because i know i have i I have a couple of people within an hour or two, potentially going to have a Kabuki bar. So I know just getting used to a Kabuki bar and kind of being more comfortable with it. I could definitely get the number, the number I said earlier, like a thousand 50,000 60. So, but now it's time to put in work on squad because I want to squat 800. That's a number I felt I've been capable of for a few years now.

But like I said, just the wear and tear the running and just I'm not gonna lie squats the one lift where if I feel any sort of pain or discomfort it's really hard for me to want to push past that because I've you see all these you see all these people that quad ruptures you know ACL MCL like I mean I know medicine's better now but it's still something I want to avoid you know so but my I'm feeling better my hip shifts better so now it's just time to slowly do an uphill climb with my squat because I know if I squat 800 I know my bench will be 460 to 470 and even on a even on a bad day I'll still pull a thousand so I know I'll be really close 2250 to 2300 would definitely be there and that'll be solid because i don't know what i am i think i'm 10th or 12th all time at 275 raw so i would definitely be like i think i'll be

third or fourth or um it would be top five to get get that high of a total so i i love deadlifting and obviously all the success i've had with deadlifting but it would be really cool one day to at least get one all-time total record you know because that's the one thing no one would ever thought because in the beginning everyone always like oh you're great at deadlifting you know so people could say oh we knew that was coming but no i've always had a mediocre bend so no one would be like what you've been just 480 500 now you know like that would be really cool to like bring it all full circle and kind of show that i'm i do believe i'm multifaceted to kind of make sure make sure i fully show it and squat and bench as well in the future who's somebody you want to compete against like would

you have a lot of fun you know going head to head with like jamal browner or some of these other guys out there deadlifting some crazy oh yeah yeah it was was fun competing against Jamal Browner last year at the showdown. Yeah, probably him. And it was cool. Last year I met Shane Haller at the showdown. He is a big man. He is big, and he's got a big beard. Just as big of a beard as he is a man.

Yeah, and he just broke the squat record at 308 at the Ghost Clash. Yeah, he squatted like 925,29 25 somewhere in there so both of them it was cool to meet them and like i said as of right now i'm doing the american pro but it is kind of mixed feelings because i do want to compete with jamal again because both of us are pushing deadlift obviously at that high level and i feel like it's kind of a letdown if you if we're not there together because it's gonna it's fun when you have someone that close to you and it's just like a battle every attempt you know to kind of see who has more in you what's the deal with john hack it's like what's up with him john hack like what's like he's just fucking ridiculous right oh yeah man like if i if i actually would think about that fully knowing that dude benches

like 150 pounds more than me yeah like i would i would hang it up right now like i really would not i would never show my face in public again yeah it's all perspective but he's he's such a well rounded lifter and yeah he even uh when he was in the uk, he went to a vet in the UK, and he pulled like 900 on the Kabuki bar. So I know he likes it, too, because obviously that was a PR, and it looked pretty smooth when he did it. But, yeah, I've been following him for years, and his dominance is just insane, you know? He's just so consistent. And even if he has a bad day, he'll still break an all-time record. So it's like, how do you define a bad day for a guy like that? Like he's on he's on when he's off it's like well i only broke one record

okay bye and then he just leaves and collects twenty thousand dollars and then you see him a few months later do the same thing you know all right i have two questions man you said he the closest kabuki bar to where you train is an hour or two yeah so oh shit don't have the car um so i know a buddy who's an hour from me who just said he has a gym with one there's like one or two other people who are kind of in the same realm where they're a distance away like it wouldn't be the end of the world if i didn't have a kabuki but it's just the timing of it it's mainly anything over 900 pounds i would want to get used to that for reps kind of feeling out because anything under 880 is kind of just whether it's a texas bar kabuki anything under 880 pounds is like it's so routine that it's hard for me to

tell where i'm really at it's almost like once i'm like low to mid nines that's when i really know okay this is like warming up i knew that my last warm of a80 was good but i was like i'm not really gonna know until i do my opener at 9 9 48 where i really stand because my position you know it's so crucial so yeah if i'm just a tad bit off it just throws me out that's the one bad thing about sumo is just you know everyone always says it's so technical when i did conventional it's like i would pitch forward but then you could if you're strong enough you could kind of get back in position but you're not doing that with sumo like I've never seen someone completely completely get out of position and magically get back into position and finish a lift it's just not it's not a thing

they just give you the bar you broke that record with or send you one yeah yeah yeah we'll see hopefully yeah that'd be nice how much uh weight have you made just kind of float off the ground because you do aggressively like get into position and when we saw that 1025 deadlift like the weights look like they uh almost came off the ground before you ever even really started you like wedged yourself in position aggressively and it kind of almost looked like so like can you make like seven eight hundred pounds just kind of almost float or hover before you ever even actually start to deadlift it yeah it's normally so i've become a little less aggressive because like i said it kind of at lighter weights now i tend to be even more conservative because it can kind of throw me

off sometimes. I've learned to put less and less emphasis on breaking it off the floor. But that being said, anything under 850, like if I'm not careful, it'll just start floating. And one time I tweaked my back with like 600 pounds because I went to like spread the floor and it already came halfway up my shins and it kind of like tweaked my lower back i was like did i really just tweak my back doing like 50 or 60 percent of my max right now like this makes no sense but so that's why i wear a belt i tend to after my first or second warm-up already put a belt on just because i'm so worried about about when i pull the tension out being pitched forward or possibly throwing me off i believe a belt belt isn't like a – you have to work to use it, and I like using it for timing.

So I like to use it from the jump kind of with most of my warm-ups just to practice and cue my intra-abdominal pressure. I know some people say, oh, you should wait until 70, 80% of your max. But I don't – to me, the few times i've done that it just it almost throws me off when i put it on because like i said it's like anything else you need to practice with it you're not just gonna put it on and you're just gonna magically boom oh i'm tired as fuck like it takes repetition and just even till now i still need reps like i like warming up with it i don't want to wait till 800 pounds to put a belt on because it's going to kind of throw me off with my timing.

Actually, that brings up a good question. It might sound simple, but what is the way that you breathe into a belt? Like how do you what what is your cue for breathing into your belt? OK, so this is something I got wrong for so many years and it wasn't till literally probably a few months ago that I finally kind of realized something. So we always think about, yeah, you want to fill up your diaphragm. So you always kind of push. You push out in your diaphragm. But something people don't realize is your obliques, ensuring that it's 360 degrees of pressure.

So you're breathing out and out and to your side to the same time. So I've heard the analogy is kind of like a. What's it called? Not not a bottle but like a it's like a bottle where it kind of elongates and then it levels out i just think and i i tend to put the belt higher because i notice for the longest time i just keep my belts around my waist but now i like putting it kind of almost below my sternum it's weird like i used to think why would people do that that's dumb as fuck like obviously your diaphragm is more towards your waist but it almost i think with bigger guys it kind of almost helps better to have it a little higher and so i just cue i breathe out but also kind of inflate my obliques at the same time it's kind of i'm still so new to actually bracing correctly that it's still kind of hard to fully explain in simple terms.

But I just think about filling up my diaphragm along with kind of filling up my obliques. And then when you wear a belt, it all comes together. Because you'll know you're bracing right when the belt, you'll just feel literally your whole body just tense up against the belt. Like your obliques along with your diaphragm, it'll just all fill up. And then you'll feel the tension throughout the whole belt. And cool thing is that yeah go ahead go ahead so and i had low back pain for so long and i started to realize since i was only pushing out it was putting me into an anterior position with my pelvis and when you're dead lifting when you're dead lifting or squatting when you're dead lifting or squatting if you're in a very anterior position that's going to cause back pain so improper bracing can kind of bring upon

bring upon back pain that you can prevent through proper bracing yeah and a cool thing too is if like if people try to practice the bracing you're talking about if they stick their fingers into their diaphragm you know if you're someone who typically just breathes into your belly and you're talking about it, they stick their fingers into their diaphragm. You know, if you're someone who typically just breathes into your belly and nothing comes out of the diaphragm, but once you take a full breath and try to create that pressure, you'll feel your fingers pop out because of the pressure you're creating 360 degrees around. Yeah, that is a good – I've seen that in videos too. That's one thing I forgot to say is people always say you

you have to be able to you know if you could fit a finger inside it's tight but it's not too tight oh yeah because if your belt's too if your belt's too tight you're gonna be so restricted that you won't be able yeah i mean i gotta wear i gotta wear size 40 jeans just to like to fit my legs so i'm always latching down on my belt uh obviously with all the pressure building up have you ever had a you got a good poop story for us with all these heavy deadlifts i figured shit shit must have happened somewhere along the lines no i mean surprisingly i tend to before a workout i either have a very light meal or i have like a, I make like a homemade shake of like peanut butter, bananas, and like a scoop or two, a scoop or two of mass gainer or some

kind of whey protein to prevent that. Because yeah, I don't ever want to be in that situation. So I'm doing, I'm taking all the measures I need to, because if I ate a, if I had actual whole meal before workout, yeah, I probably, I probably had 10 plus stories like that and I could write a whole book on it. Yeah. You don't want to mess your strong singlet, right? Yeah. No, I, yeah.

I wore the new one, the newest one you have. Appreciate that. Black and yeah, no. So one thing I have to say is at the meet. So when I pulled a thousand 25, I was wearing, I was wearing the iron rebel socks, but it was only because he's like – I think it was – I'm not even going to say who it was, but someone told me – so I had my white deadlift socks on, and because there was blood visible on it,

they told me I wouldn't be able to pull 1,020 because I had blood on my socks. So then someone gave me a pair of red socks, and I just, like, swapped them out. But the whole time I'm thinking, man, it's just – and I put baby powder and chalk to cover it, so it's not like I – but, yeah, I concealed it the best I could because they still saw, like, specks of blood on my – of course it's white socks. I mean, they're not going to – I like looking fresh, so I had white shoes, white socks, you know, whole look.

But I never thought now that's the thing when you go to local meets it's kind of it's give and take sometimes how things are perceived that's why like the showdown even the American Pro I know across the board it'll kind of be at those meets they could care less about oh you got blood on your socks or oh do you

do you have your boxer or do you have your briefs you're going to wear for the day like they never ask stuff like that but at local meets they're stingy with that stuff you know like they really harp on the little yeah i've been a few years since i did like a local a local meet per se and it was it was cool because a lot of people they were surprised that i was there they're just like wait you're dan grace and i'm like yeah man what's up like i'm you know i'm just here i'm gonna work out and lift too it was cool you know just to like could I treat everyone the same you know I don't feel like I'm on this pedestal so I'll talk to anybody you come up to me I'll give you the time of day because I

just don't I don't see myself as like bigger than life or like I'm somehow better than anyone else you know I'm still the same dude who started eight years ago and had like a 1500 pound total and just love working out. So I still I still think that that same way to this day because I've never changed. You know, I don't as as maybe my following is grown and I've set a few records that doesn't that's not enough to make me change who I am. You know, so I like to kind of be transparent with people. Where can people find you? Where can they follow along on social media? Be transparent with people. Where can people find you?

Where can they follow along on social media? My Instagram is dan underscore griggs, d-a-n underscore g-r-i-g-s. And I had a YouTube. I'll probably start my YouTube again, but I don't remember what it was. But I used to post like random videos, and I wouldn't even put a title. I would just post.

This was like five years ago. But I'll start getting back into YouTube because that would just be another way to connect with people. Or maybe people are telling me I should get a TikTok too. So maybe that's the move. I need to get a TikTok so I can do all these dances or whatnot. Yeah. Tell these kids how to deadlift, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Educate them. We need more people deadlifting over 1,000 pounds, right? Yeah. Hey, thank you so much for your time today. Sorry that you were dying of sweat in the car, but we appreciate it. No, no, it's fine. I just didn't want any excess of sound to be in the car,

so I turned my car off, and I didn't want my door open for too long. But thanks for having me on, guys. I really appreciate it. I've been watching the podcast for years, and it's just I love hearing about the topics you guys discuss, and it's just an honor to be on here today. Yeah, it'd be great to have you out here sometime or us come visit you at some point.

Oh, that'd be awesome, yeah. We should definitely get that in the works. All right, my man. Have a great rest of your day. See you later. Thanks. You rest of your day. See you later. See you guys, too. Bye. See you.

Yo. That guy's legit. Yo, he has that chin that you're like, that boy ain't meat growing up. Oh, yeah. He's like, you know what I mean? Uh-huh. Yeah, he's got that. Looks like Mr. Incredible.

Looks like Mr. Incredible. That marine chin. Yeah, it's like straight up. Yeah, Jocko has the same chin. It's a marine chin. it's like straight up like a jocko has the same chin it's a marine chin i'm not lying when i say this my cousin went into the or not the marines the army sorry don't mean to offend a shit ton of people they're gonna kick my ass they get so mad i know but he went in as just like a normal kid he came out fucking big ass john like what are they what what like is it just the food?

Like, is there doing anything else to you while you're in there? Because you look like a man now. Boy, it's a meat. He's getting those masseters going, you know, built a chain. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. But man, he.

That guy's fucking awesome. He is awesome. He was able to like, I think he put forward a lot of really cool deadlift information. You know what I mean? I mean, the thing where he's talking about clawing your feet into the ground, some people talk about it, some don't, but that's very important for people being able to activate their feet. You know what I mean?

So that was really cool. It's cool that he did in vivos and like we've been having massive benefit from those shoes, but it's cool that even somebody like that felt the difference in terms of what you can do with your feet with those. I'm not even kidding. It's harder to get my feet into shoes now, like because my feet are, I think they're growing and they're spreading. They're meatier. And maybe I just haven't noticed before. Maybe I haven't been like looking down at them as much, but like it does feel like, and it does appear that my toes

are like starting to spread a little bit more. And I did some barefoot running yesterday just with no shoes on at all. and it keeps getting like easier and easier even though it's still hard but I'm actually excited to mess around with some a different version of that like running in a field but I do want to try it with the Vivo barefoot on because I'll be able to run a lot faster and still get a lot of the benefit of kind of clawing my feet in the ground but I I want to go like full man bun on this thing, and I want to get all the socks with the toes and all that stuff. And I got the Happy Feet things that I showed you guys.

I'm going to get those too. They're like weird. It looks like lifting gloves for your – you guys can check it out on my Instagram. It looks like lifting gloves for your feet, but it has like these kind of toe separator things, And it actually, it's actually kind of hard to wear for a while. It starts to feel uncomfortable because it spreads your toes apart quite a bit, but man, the feet are huge. I mean, he was talking about how he keeps his toe connected. I was doing some kettlebell swings the other day and you kept telling me like, I'll keep that toe down. And when

I did have the toe down, it didn't feel like I was, you know, of course, it didn't feel like I was going to get knocked over. Meanwhile, when I was swinging the bell without having my toe down, you know, I felt like the bell was swinging me rather than me swinging the bell. Yeah. So you're planted in the ground. Ooh, those feet. I can lick them toes.

They chose a good foot model for that. Look at that. Yeah, they do have some interesting colors. It's difficult to get on because, like, your pinky toe, the design of the foot is, like, so interesting. Like, your pinky toe is back, you know, it's like it's, you know, your toes, like, descend downward. I mean, sometimes that second toe sometimes is bigger or whatever or longer. But your toes come way down. And so like when I'm trying to put them on, it's like difficult to get that last pinky toe jammed in there.

But they're fucking awesome. Fuck pinky toes. Because like I always, it's always the pinky toe I stub against shit. It's always the pinky toe. It always manages to find the corner or the bed frame. So it's like, just get the fuck away. It hurts so bad. Yeah, when I'm doing corners, so that means I'm on my knees and I'm kind of like swaying back and forth.

Yeah. My pinky toes, like when I'm not like fully stretched or whatever, they always like overlap. And it feels like I'm tying my toes into a fucking knot. Like it sucks. So yeah, my pinky toes are they're kind of just there i don't know if they do anything right now just cut it off 1025 deadlifts yeah it's gonna be a very interesting year to be honest because i don't think that's it i'm glad that i quit i'm just not gonna pick up a barbell again in that way That way it's just like I can't even worry about any comparisons.

I'll do trap bar and I'll do other versions of a deadlift, but fuck that, man. I'm out. Yeah. How much longer do you think till we get to 1100? Oh, just in 2022 or 2023? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking by the end of this year sometime.

Jamal's already capable of it, you know? And Dan, I mean, who the fuck knows? It's fucking wild. Well, especially, it's like one of those things, right? Like now that people saw that he did it, how many more people are now going to do it? Dude, yeah. It'll be easy.

Nah, I think people have been unlocking that achievement. You know what I mean? Like you see Kaler, you see Jamal. You've just been seeing Uri Belkin. You've seen people do that you know now he did this we're gonna start seeing a lot of just freakish deadlift numbers like there's gonna be 1100 then i wonder what's gonna happen after that because it's weird jamal and and danny like these dogs don't look like they're stopping or slowing down

really like how old is jamal jamalal's, fuck, I don't know. About 30. Maybe he is 30. Around there. Maybe he's 30. Yeah, yeah. He's not old. He's not old.

And he looks healthy. And it doesn't seem like he's been suffering any injuries. Like he's just been trucking along pretty steadily. The big difference is the efficiency. Like these guys are lifting these weights really, really efficiently. You know, if you remember like when Eddie Hall did his lift and he's been interviewed about that lift, like he nearly died. Like he had a near-death experience. He was like blind for a while and just it was nuts.

And he had to go to like this deep, dark place. These guys are just like in the gym pulling 950. As for the gram. Yeah. Just showed up at a local meet. Yeah. cash for the gram yeah just showed up at a local meet yeah just doing 93 95 of their max but that's 935 or 950 pounds you know like they're just ripping these weights up and when you watch it i mean the thousand three that he did like it just i mean i i don't so i don't think i don't

think i've ever done a deadlift that looked that good in a meet, even when it was an opener, that 1,003 that he did. I mean, he did that faster and better in every possible way that I could even imagine. Like, it's awesome. And it's really cool to see that these guys have kind of locked down that efficiency. These are things that Jesse Burdick and I have been talking about for a long time we met we would mention how we thought you could do like the most optimal sumo deadlift and it was to follow a lot of what a lot of the Russian lifters were doing at the time but neither Jesse or I were talented enough to get ourselves into those positions although Jesse ended up deadlifting like 854, I think he did.

Jesse was pulling some big weight. But again, the big weights that we thought were big weights, they're not big weights anymore. 800-pound deadlifts, they're just not – it's not that they're not impressive. It's just that, look, man, there's just a complete different level to all of this. That was so weird. What was that? It's almost like he's pushing the floor away from him in some weird way rather than like lifting

the weight. I'm watching his feet right here. Oh, they're fucking technicians. Yeah, dog. It's crazy. Boy has a dumpy. Oh, yeah. Just lean into that dump truck back there. Hey, by the way, it's

great to hear that he had to change his socks. I'm just so proud of myself for still having haters out there. I've been retired from this sport for a long time. People are like, fuck Mark Bell and his G-Wagon. I love it. Dude, that G-Wagon is sick as fuck, too. How long he's holding that, man. That's amazing.

Yeah, he's going to walk around the block with it shit christ honestly though he's got the vivo barefoot he is wearing a belt he's sumo he's hook crimping gripping he has a special bar it's like i'm gonna give him credit for lifting about 225 pounds yeah give or take i think that's pretty much it right right i mean and that's rounding that's rounding up he. Right. I mean, audience, that's fair, right? That's rounding up. He cheated a lot. Yeah. I mean, guys, comment down below. I hope he feels bad about himself.

Comment down below that he's a cheater. That's pretty much it. If there's anything we learned, that's the point. I mean, yes. Danny Griggs goes down all time. All time best deadlift. Best cheating deadlift record. How many deadlifts have we seen done in the Vivo barefoots?

That's the only one I recall seeing. And look, the guy set an all-time world record. So it's obvious that that did a lot of the work for him. I want to say I think maybe I've done one at like 135. Yeah, I've done a couple. But I haven't even tried to go heavy. So who knows what would happen. I could have done that shit.

Right? Easy. Hook grip? Bitch, I've been hook gripping forever. I could have done that shit. Right? Easy. Hook grip? Bitch, I've been hook gripping forever. That's what I'm saying. But I'm saying hook grip, sumo? Yeah, easy. You'll probably get 11 by the end of the year.

No, no, no. Fucking no sweat, bro. Yeah. It's going to be easy for me. On a kabuki bar? On a kabuki? Come on now. They're just giving these fucking records away.

It's insane. The bar band. It's got all that whip. We got to quit because somebody's going to think we're serious. Take this way out of context. And they're like, Power Project's talking shit. And SEMA only sleeps two hours a night. That shit didn't die.

People kept believing that shit for years. Like, oh my God. He only eats 40 grams of protein a day. Yeah. And I meditate for an hour every morning. I do 800 push-ups. He still eats 1,000 carbs, only 40 grams of protein a day. and i meditate for an hour every morning i do 800 push-ups still eats a thousand carbs only 40 grams of protein a day i've seen it chill man we can't make any jokes without people thinking we're serious he does eat a lot of legendary pop tarts once he eats one

he does it's like everybody better get the fuck out of the way and open a can of worms when i do that shit but no one thing i will say one thing i will say this it's really cool like it wasn't talking about the shoes it wasn't the shoes that allowed him to do anything but let's think about this even he noticed a difference with how his feet have been able to strengthen how he's able to root into the ground like it starts from the feet right and if you're using shoes that have too much padding, you're not really developing them. You're leaking a lot of power. Like you said, you noticed the difference in your feet. I've noticed the difference in my feet too, with the amount that they were to spread, the amount of control I have in my feet,

the balance that I have now, because my, I have wide feet anyway, and I've been stuffing my feet into two narrow shoes, right? But now I'm actually able to feel everything. I think that it's going to be really interesting to see some of the top athletes change their footwear into something that's more comfortable, have a bit more foot development. It's going to be a small difference, but that small difference could be fairly substantial. What if you're like a boxer or you do like Muay Thai,

and every time you step and go to throw a jab oh my god i mean the way that you're stepping off of your foot if your foot's stronger i mean wouldn't it make sense that your striking would be better yeah i mean shit so a lot of these things they sound sometimes it can be a little boring to sit here and talk about like walking with your feet straight and some of this shit. But it's like if you don't have any problems, you don't have any problems. There's not anything to probably really overly be concerned about or worry about. However, if you do start to run into some problems, there's like ways to solve all these things.

And sometimes you got to investigate stuff the way that we do. Go down a rabbit hole of like looking into everything from your neck to your feet to your hands to your butthole who knows what else we'll get into yeah shocking that butthole greenfield talked about that back about to the shoes though it's like having you know in a thousand thousand horsepower engine and you're trying to drive around on flat tires like you can't transfer all that force into the street i'm trying and see what i'm trying how you go brother uh what happened here all right take us out of here okay okay so we got to find a an affiliate link for fun factory because me me and my girl we were kind of looking through uh some some stuff for some booty stuff right we got it right i know not yeah we we do we'll get it but we're finding

something for her you don't know her booty wall um and she's like you should get one too i'm like ah i mean i mean i know it probably feels pretty good uh but then we were like we saw this thing on the fun factory you're like okay don't tell anybody i haven't purchased it yet i haven't purchased it yet but i'm like i'm like that might actually feel pretty good but anyway it's like it's this uh it's a butt hook that also has a cock ring on the other side so you stick it in your booty hole and then you wrap a cock ring on the other side. So you stick it in your booty hole and then you wrap the cock ring around your gooch. Oh, it's like a, okay.

I'm like, that actually looks like a mark. Real pretty. Good. I'll be real. Double your pleasure. Amen. Like you would ride this thing. You wouldn't ride it.

No. That's what it would look like. No, you don't ride it. Okay, sorry. You do your thing. You strap on. Yeah, you got the, you know what? Ticks on out of here, it. No. That's what it would look like. No, you don't write it. Okay, sorry. You do your thing. Strap on. Yeah, you got the... You know what? Tick's on out of here, Andrew.

Stop. Just tick's on out of here. I believe I can make that affiliate link happen. If I do, make sure you guys check out the YouTube description as well as the podcast show notes for it. Yeah, let us know how you guys like that one. Go buy a penis pump. All right.

Definitely get a penis pump. Oh, oh like i'll tell you something offline but um yeah make sure you guys comment and like today's episode um drop us a comment down below um we're kind of we're jokingly talking shit about the sumo pool but let us know what you guys think about the deadlift and uh follow the podcast at mark bells power project oh sorry at At MB Power Project on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. New name change. Sorry about that. And then my Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at?

Also, guys, we're on Discord now. So Discord link is below. We're going to have a Reddit community soon too. So we'll have all those links in the bio. But yeah, at SeemaYinYang on Instagram and YouTube. At SeemaY my in yang on instagram and youtube and see my yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark do we have did you mention a bites page oh yeah the clips channel damn it that's right yeah dude we did a lot over this past week anyway yeah new clips channel just check the link down below um if you have already called the clips channel if we have bites because

the clips are like two to three minutes people know that it's clips yeah well because bites is like an internal thing that we use just to let it like for amongst ourselves but um yeah clips is where all the bites and short clips are got it got it yeah plus the clips it's pretty much like smaller snippets of like stuff that you know it's pretty short but it's pretty fucking impactful do we say stuff that's that good that we got to like take the content and then make more content out of it we don't but we just like to hear ourselves talk dude you know what though like this is a lot of people subscribing to this we do and i'm extremely grateful but also like when i drop a comment on like some random like video game

channel i get a comment from somebody being like dude i love your guys's show i'm like holy fuck you guys listen like this is fucking weird i love it why are you listening though the original power project when i did it years ago i'd always say that you know if you're watching the power project you're wasting your time and if you're not watching the power project then you're wasting your time so everybody you know i appreciate you wasting your time with us is that a catch-22 i don't know what the fuck a catch-22 is but is that it sounds like it it could be an oxymoron it's not strength is never a weakness weakness and never strength catch you guys later bye it's an algorithm what the fuck is a catch-22