Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 723 - Jimmy House:BJJ Black Belt, Pro Natural Bodybuilder, Elite Powerlifter & Next WWE Superstar
Episode Date: April 27, 2022Jimmy House is literally manifesting his best life and making all his dreams come true. He has his Black Belt in BJJ, he is a Pro NATURAL Bodybuilder, an Elite Powerlifter and has his sights set on mu...ch bigger accomplishments. Jimmy reminds us how powerful our words are and is a prime example of what is possible when words are backed with relentless action. Follow Jimmy on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jhouse182/ Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code POWERPROJECT 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 #BJJ #Bodybuilding #Powerlifting #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell
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Power Project family, how's it going?
Now, a lot of you guys are lifters, athletes.
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We'll hit the timer.
Let's go.
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Yeah.
There you go.
Shot clock is rolling.
So what in the fuck is going on we we look at
your profile we don't know what we don't know what to think of it it's like all right cool
the guy does jujitsu oh fuck okay he's a fucking black belt and then five years yeah and then we
and then we're like oh wow he's really built. Oh, shit, he's fucking jacked.
Oh, shit, he's a fucking bodybuilder.
You start looking at some other stuff.
Oh, it looks like he can squat really well.
Oh, he squats like 600.
No.
It looks like he squats like around 800 pounds.
Conventional.
Yeah, and a conventional deadlift of 765.
Like, dude, just fucking tell us what the hell's going on because we want some of this magic on our
end too yeah well i appreciate it yeah i i started lifting when i was five so the weights were
introduced me at a super young age yeah all of us are like we started living when we were 13 yeah
and homies here i was five i know you basically like my dad had a garage gym and i would always
watch him work out and eventually once i got to the age where I was old
enough to kind of comprehend what he was doing he showed me a lot of the basic movements and stuff
and I really didn't like it early on because most of my other friends are playing video games and
doing whatever else five and six year old kids do but I stuck with it and then it kind of bled
into a whole new passion being the bodybuilding and the power lifting using that to have strength
build into my combat sports and I just kind of an extremist, so whatever I have passion in,
I try to take it as far as I can.
Is Jimmy House your real name?
Because that sounds like some shit from the streets or something.
Like an Italian.
It's fucking Jimmy House.
Come over here, he's going to kick your ass.
Yeah, well, so my real name is Charles, Charles James House.
I went by the nickname
of jimmy when i was like in sixth kindergarten because i got bullied when i got called chucky
my nickname was chucky because it was like the offset of charles and then everybody started
making fun of me calling me chucking cheese and like chucky the doll so i was like screw this
my judo instructor when i was that age your judo instructor yeah you did judo too i started very
young judo but then i only did it for that, but then I only did it for about a year when I was younger. But long enough for the
instructor to take my middle name, James, and give me the nickname of Jimmy, which stuck for
my whole life. Yeah. So Jimmy House is my real name. House is the last name.
Yeah. Okay. So can you take us through like your your uh what you've done
athletically you start lifting weights at five was it like was your dad having you do barbell
stuff were you just doing bodybuilder stuff with dumbbells but then you also did judo and we talked
behind the scenes and you also did wrestling early so take us through what you've done to lead to
this so yeah i started lifting when i was five my dad basically i don't know if they're even around anymore it's called sports authority at least in my area we have some okay so he bought
like a little weight set from there like a little i don't know pvc type a bar and he showed me the
basic like curls and presses and squats and deadlifts and stuff and i liked it but then when
it started becoming like every weekend thing saturday sunday morning he would wake me up and
have me work out with him it was never something where he forced me to do it but I also am naturally pretty
obedient so I never really had the courage at the time to tell him no but it ended up being a good
thing because obviously it's kind of bled into everything I'm doing now the reason why I'm even
here on this podcast so I'm grateful for it that martial arts when I was young team sports that
bled into wrestling that I started in high school.
High school wrestling bled into powerlifting after I graduated.
By the way, before we skip, you were at varsity on year one of high school wrestling?
Yeah.
And so, I mean, it's like I didn't go to a super strong wrestling high school, but I did beat out people to get to that spot, which was a good thing because when I was a freshman in high school, I was about 500.
And at the end of the season, I saw that I was like one of the top ranked freshmen in
my weight.
And so I was between football and wrestling at the time.
But then when I saw that I had potential to be one of the best in the state at wrestling,
that was my green light to put football behind me, pursue wrestling, put everything I had
into that.
And as I talked about behind the scenes, I was number one coming into the state my senior year.
I bumped up a weight class.
It was between me and the returning state champ.
Six days before state, I got a concussion, so I couldn't wrestle in state.
So it put a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth with wrestling.
Went straight into powerlifting.
I went for my school squat record my senior year, like the very last day of senior year,
and that kind of sparked some motivation to want to pursue actual powerlifting records for my state different like usba national and ipo world record so on and so forth
when i was a teenager after that doing that for two and a half years like i said it went from 200
to 270 how old are you how old are you at that time i started power lifting at 18 and then i got
i started transitioning out of it like midway through being 20 and then by the time i was 21
that's when i was full go with
jujitsu what kind of numbers were you hitting by the way when you were 18 to 20 because you
that 20 was when you were 270 pounds yeah when i was 18 my first meet was at 198 i was still kind
of like keeping my wrestling shape a little bit i hit 625 on dead 550 something on squat and then
it was 319 or something on bench.
Bench is my weakest.
Okay.
I saw the sign back there that said,
you can't wear tank tops unless you fish four or five.
So that lived over seven.
So you're good.
All right,
cool.
I put the long sleeve on just in case,
but yeah,
so that was the first meet.
And then that led into,
I mean,
they're not super popular,
but WABDL,
I'm sure you're familiar with them and stuff like that.
I did a couple of their meets in Arizona and their world competition in Vegas and everything.
Did a couple of records in their organizations.
And then I stuck between them and USBA for the most part.
Then, like I said, I got up to like 270, had that experience where I went back to my high school, wrestled for a little bit with the high school kids.
And I woke up the next day feeling like I was 70.
wrestled for a little bit with the high school kids and I woke up the next day feeling like I was 70 and that was a huge wake-up call for me because I really pride myself in my athleticism my ability
to be very versatile in many different sports and then waking up the next day feeling like I
couldn't even do what I consider to be my first true passion being wrestling that was like okay
I need to switch something so after that point I was was in preparation for the Mr. Olympia Expo in 2017, something like that.
That's when I dropped 800 on my head.
Yeah, so I committed myself through that prep because I said I would, so I just finished that out.
Dropped 800 on my head, and I'm like, all right, this is kind of a nice little transition out now.
Let's start something better.
So I decided I wanted to lose weight. I thought to myself, maybe i'll do another bodybuilding show because i also did bodybuilding
show in high school i forgot to mention in high school yeah my going into my senior year basic
damn bro going to go into my senior year basically i wanted to try to find a way to give myself a
mental edge so i figure i want to do something that none of my opponents are going to do and
i could guarantee because everything else is subjective like I work harder than you you work harder than me that's
subjective but I could guarantee that none of my opponents were going to be doing a bodybuilding
show bodybuilding prep and so to me that was my mental edge going into my senior year and I felt
it big time suffering all summer going through that process and knowing that I worked harder
than the person in front of me helped me a lot. One of my first 40 matches without losing. And then, so now losing weight, I'm like, maybe I'll just do another bodybuilding
show. But I spent my first day walking 30 minutes on the treadmill at an incline like your traditional
gym goer does. I told myself I would never do that again, ever. And so then I thought to myself,
okay, well, I know how to lose weight. I like to wrestle. So let's try to find a way back into
some wrestling rooms and start that process. I starteding i started wrestling again i got the first 20 25 pounds to
fly off pretty easily and then i actually during the spring break of the high schools when they
were closed i had a friend invite me to where i'm at now tnt mma training center in north phoenix
arizona yeah and tried out my first class and i was like you know i don't know what i'm doing
but i also think that i did pretty well given the circumstances yeah that was my first class, and I was like, you know, I don't know what I'm doing, but I also think that I did pretty well given the circumstances.
Yeah, that was my first day of jiu-jitsu, and then my five-year mark on the day.
Dude.
So, 245, I believe, on my first day, and then that picture is about 203 or something like that. Do you think, uh, you know, your exposure to fitness, I mean,
it must've given you like a huge advantage when you played football or when you did any of these
sports. Um, and for you personally, did you, uh, was it a healthy relationship with training and
a healthy relationship with your dad? It really was because it wasn't just lifting. We also focused
on a lot of agility work, speed work. He was trying to give me the best opportunity possible to excel past my peers.
Even like I remember outside of athletics, like he was having me do like third and fourth grade math books when I was like in kindergarten and stuff like that.
And he's a psychologist.
So he's always putting me through like his different tests he does for his clients and everything to see what uh like different iq tests and stuff like that i was like five six years old i was
talking to my sister about it the other day laughing about it i'm like holy shit yeah i did
when i was like five or six
i made it out decently okay yeah so thanks obviously. Thanks. But looking back at stuff like that, I'm super grateful for it because, yeah, it definitely pushed me to be better than the people surrounding me.
At least I strive to be.
And with that said, now I think the biggest benefit to answer your question is overall body awareness and body control that I have now going into adulthood given all the type of sports and agility training and lifting training that I did when I was little.
Were you talking about like a scholarship when you were young?
Was that a goal of yours?
When I was young, I was really into football and baseball.
So the pros for that was something that I dreamt of at the time.
When I started wrestling, with how hard wrestling was in high school, I'll be straight up honest,
I don't think I was mentally strong enough to make the transition into college
and go through that grueling process all over again, especially with how my senior year ended. I was just like,
I just, I'm done, you know, mentally then, but that's good because let's say I didn't have that
mindset. I went through another four years of high school wrestling. I wouldn't have started
jujitsu as fast as I did. Some of these opportunities wouldn't be here either. So
that's why I'm also a big proponent of everything happens for a reason. And I don't question things
when they happen. And so I'm grateful that I did want to take a break because it led me into doing jiu-jitsu, got my black belt in relatively fast time, and then now I'm here with you guys.
So thank you again for the opportunity.
What do you think allowed you to get your black belt in a five-year period?
Because for a lot of – like I'm a purple belt.
I've been doing jiu-jitsu for six years, right?
So what allowed you to get your black belt so fast what do you think helped with that for you so i would say it's the it has to do with how
my high school season ended where i had put all my marbles into winning state as if it was the last
thing that i ever do and if i don't accomplish it then i'm a failure and that's how i felt
initially after that like i would kind of feel kind of lost. And so powerlifting was a nice way to kind of compensate, but I still
kind of felt a little bit unfinished with certain things. All of a sudden I found jujitsu. I'm like,
this is similar to wrestling, but I almost kind of like it more. And I, even now to this day,
I like jujitsu more than wrestling. But with that said, I saw jujitsu as like a second chance. So as
soon as I was able to get on the mats again, every single time I could, two to three times a day, I was always in the gym unless I was working.
And then my current job at the time, I started asking for more days off until I started working only once a week.
And I was just like, I just quit.
I'm going to do jujitsu.
Yeah.
So how are you making money?
So now I'm making money by coaching and teaching jujitsu.
But at that time i had
enough money saved up and i was i'm with my parents so they were able to kind of help me
through that process and i'm grateful for it too because it allowed me to build my skill
earn the type of respect at the gym to actually be in a teaching role and then on top of that now
actually have a career off of being a jujitsu competitor and coach that was my most recent
competition oh how did you submit him what was that it was a invert through into a inside sakaku
and then a farsight ankle lock oh of course everyone i just want you guys to watch how
well he fucking moves oh quick too the scary thing about you man is that you're not just like you're you're yacked out of
your mind but also your movement is just so explosive and smooth thank you you know you're
not just a big explosive dude you're also just like you're you're like a fucking panther you're
you're like a cat moving around these people i appreciate it thank you yeah you definitely look
like the alpha predator in this because like that guy turned around and he was just like,
all right, we're going to take a little breather.
And you're like, fuck no.
Yeah, I'm coming after you.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Sick, dude.
In Arizona, they're pretty well known for their wrestling too, right?
Do you have opportunity to do any grappling?
Because ASU is out there, right?
Do you have an opportunity to grapple with some people that are uh maybe next level not
just in jiu-jitsu but maybe in wrestling as well yes actually and so my recent training camp going
into adcc east coast trials you guys had nikki rod on he's famous for winning west coast yeah
my training camp for that one i basically had my team that was training with that tnt
i have an outside training group which basically has all the best black belts in our state. We call it Arizona Assassins.
And then I also brought in a lot of
my wrestling friends that
had graduated college, NCAA
qualifiers. My good friend Garrett
Ryan, he was competing at
Olympic Trials this past go-around before
he retired from wrestling. And my good
friend Josh Morin and my other good friend
Samson Imanote wrestled for Army,
ASU, and Columbia
University. And so they were nice enough to donate their time to me coming in, actually giving me
essentially wrestling privates, giving me that feel. I'm very confident in my wrestling, but
because I didn't go into that collegiate level when I started later, I wasn't exposed to a lot
of the, I wasn't exposed to how in-depth wrestling is. Everybody says like jiu-jitsu, chess, and wrestling is checkers.
I highly disagree.
I say jiu-jitsu is like chess and then wrestling is also like chess but like on fire and you're having to jump over holes and flips and then you could potentially die depending upon where you step.
It's a much higher, faster thinking process.
But it's a very similar thinking process.
A quick question about that.
thinking process but it's a very similar thinking process a quick question about that um would you say nogi jiu-jitsu and wrestling because like you know how people say jiu-jitsu's chess but a lot of
people are thinking about the gi but when you think about nogi jiu-jitsu at its speed like people if
they saw you there you see the speed of nogi would you feel that they're very similar except jiu-jitsu
just has submissions and different types of submissions and areas yeah and so what i would
get asked a lot,
especially by wrestlers wanting to start jiu-jitsu,
is do you change your takedown game at all for no-gi jiu-jitsu?
And at first I would answer yes.
I'm like, yeah, I don't shoot as much double legs or as much high crotches
because I don't want to get my neck taken.
Now the way I see it is if my technique is sound with the takedown,
the positioning of the takedown is going to prevent me
from getting submitted anyways.
So I actually try to wrestle in such a way as if I'm not even doing jiu-jitsu, I'm just
wrestling, and then trust my ability to react and fill certain positions out if I feel like I'm
threatened or the potential of being threatened. So for the most part, I think they're very similar.
Obviously, the person getting taken down might react slightly differently because they're
not going to belly out for you. But for the most part, the actual sequence of getting into the takedown, the setup, the different traps that you set up is very similar.
And training with those guys, going back into jiu-jitsu, it made the jiu-jitsu wrestling seem almost effortless.
Training with those guys, a lot of times, like five days out of the week.
From a lifting perspective, did your does your dad know
a lot about training or was it like he just did stuff by feel or and and is he pretty jacked
himself yeah he knew he knew a lot about training and given this was like early 2000s a lot of his
knowledge was from his own trial and error process or like different magazines that had come out
through the time but he gave me a very good base for sure. Obviously, a lot of new information has come out since the year 2000.
So there's progression.
But he knew what he was doing and he set me up well to where I did injure myself
once I started actually lifting on my own.
He's a stocky guy, probably similar build to me,
but at his peak of fitness, maybe like 185 or something like that.
So I have a little bit more muscle, but I was also lifting much longer. So, and my mom's like a tiny, like five foot tall Asian lady. So,
you know, genetically, like I'm not any shorter than my parents. I'm similar build, short stocky.
But I think the lifting itself allowed me to kind of surpass what would be considered
general genetic potential in my realm because I started early. Yeah.
Did he have like an emphasis on strength? And you mentioned agility,
like he had you doing a lot of other things other than just like lifting a
barbell, right?
Yeah.
We'd be doing like, we warm up in the backyard, some sprints,
some like karaoke drills, different,
like just basic footwork drills that,
that helped me a lot transferring into the team sports I was playing at the
time,
just so I didn't become so muscle bound and lifting that I couldn't transfer it
into like the team sports that I was doing with that said I also feel like that was super huge
and stuff that I do now because I the movement of my body not just staying in a stagnant plane
is something that I've been practicing for a long time so I I really appreciate the process from
being a little kid up to now and you know've been doing – I started karate martial arts when I was three.
So moving my body is –
Whoa.
Lifting at five.
Karate at three.
It's karate, but I mean –
But still.
Yeah.
That's –
Goddamn, dude.
That's awesome.
Brothers or sisters?
I have a sister.
She's my half-sister.
Long story short, i wasn't connected with
her for about 18 years she came to my black belt ceremony we've been strong ever since yeah so we
have a good relationship again it's great yeah i was just curious like what about uh neighborhood
kids like what about your friends where your friends are like yeah let's not go over his house
because like his dad's gonna make us train actually no so yeah to answer that question i have
matthew olsen and irving dominguez They've been my best friends for literally 20 years now.
We've all, we all have been, Matt lives across the street from me.
Irving lives literally around the block.
We've been hanging out since first grade.
Yeah.
And so when we're kids, yeah, there's a few times there when my dad invited them over
to lift and they would come to lift and then they didn't come back.
And actually a funny story with my friend Irving is when he and
I were maybe like I think third grade or something like that he was trying to bench like I don't know
85 pounds or something like that uh-huh and uh he he dropped it on his chest and I was laughing so
hard that he couldn't get it up that he was like screaming and I had to do the classic like teabag
over the face and it's still something that we joke about to this
day it's amazing but so because of that he was scarred and he didn't start lifting again till
like he was 16 but but i've been around the same friend group for about 20 years now i'm so
surprised that you didn't just like go over to the 85 and curl it like you do nowadays because now
you're over here fucking wall curling trucks where did the wall curl thing like why is that the one of your things
i would say that it has to do with my friendship yeah it's my best your strict curl jesus bro
that's some ct fletcher like shit right there so that was exactly giving my answer to the question
ct is a good friend of mine oh wow and so with him obviously having so much notoriety for a strict
curl i was like you know I'll try this out.
So I started kind of practicing a couple years ago,
and I've competed for CT, and I competed at the Arnold about a month ago.
I set the record for their organization there, 180 at 196 I weighed in at.
Wow.
Yeah, curls is a tough upper body movement.
Yeah, it really is.
And you have a belt on there.
I mean, you've got like 200 pounds. tough upper body movement yeah it really is it uh and you have a belt on there i mean you're you're
you got two like 200 pounds i mean i think that people don't really know or pay attention like
how much your abs turn on how much your core they're just thinking like ah curls are for the
girls and you curl in the mirror and it's all the show muscles but there's definitely some
application to uh athletics and just it's working your entire body not not just your arms. I find it very similar.
Well, I mean, it is lifting power lifting technically, not a traditional movement, but
the setup is very similar.
You get your back engaged, you get your core engaged.
The thing that I actually picked up backstage by Leroy Rock Walker, I don't know if you
guys know who he is.
Yeah, yeah.
So he was actually teaching me the leverage aspect of it is very similar to arm wrestling
where they want to beat them to that wrist curl position. so that's where you want to start when you initially grab
the bar so that your wrists aren't tempted to fold back because as soon as they start you want to
start yeah like here like crunched here and i felt an immediate difference having never practiced
that before holy yeah i felt i felt fighting fighting through the sticking point was much
easier yeah strongman guys do the same thing with a farmer's carry.
They shrug it to start.
Okay, yeah.
And then the next thing that goes is your traps start to go.
And the last thing that goes is like your grip.
Okay, that makes sense.
You start with like a little bit of a shrug in there.
I think one of the coolest things though, like even – okay, so a lot of times when you see individuals who are quite muscle bound, when they do something like that, a curl or any of these movements, when they're walking around, like they have this limited range of motion where you can tell
that's not too comfortable. You though, like you can tell when you're walking around, like
you, you can move well with all of that muscle where most people think like people who are
muscle bound, especially in jujitsu, they think that they can't move. So I'm curious about this.
Like you said, well, your wrestling has definitely
helped you out as far as movement's concerned, but you started powerlifting at 18, got out of it at
20. You're still doing a lot of the heavy lifts. What do you do if you do anything outside of
jujitsu and outside of lifting or maybe in the gym that helps you move so fluidly and move so well?
Do you have, and do you do any mobility work? What do you move so fluidly and move so well? Do you have and do you do any mobility work?
What do you do?
So the first answer would be I think it stems from like my childhood, like always moving and never leaving that except for that short two-year stint.
So it's an easier skill to pick back up.
As far as currently, my powerlifting coach, Dawson Windham, he's really well-known.
He works with a lot of the top powerlifters like Shane Hunt and stuff like that.
Sick.
He's a big proponent of knees over toes guy.
And when I started working with him about a year and a half ago, he started throwing in a lot of those movements.
Like which ones?
Like which movements?
Specifically the ones I started with was like the split squat and the sissy squats and everything like that.
And then that's progressed into pretty much almost everything that he does.
In fact, I even take some things that knees over toes guy does't just throw it in the program just because I enjoy it and whether
shoulders, knees, elbows or whatever. I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, no, I'm such a I'm such a huge
proponent of it. I even run like workshops at TNT where I train and do jujitsu for our jujitsu
students like shoulder knee workshops and whatnot. And I find it to be super beneficial specifically
for grappling. i feel like if
you're not having the knees over toe like kot type movements in your training you're missing out a
lot because of the fact that you're building strength and unpredictable ranges of motion
and deep super deep range of motions too yeah and so the reverse nordic uh would be similar to you
guys uh taking someone's back sometimes right like people blow out their knees that way often, right?
And generally like in jiu-jitsu, like a general rule is don't pull somebody back over their knees, you know,
because most people can't support that.
But if it happens and you train it that way, then obviously you're more or less likely to get injured from it.
And especially with shoulders and stuff now, I'm a huge proponent of the PVC circles.
I started doing them weighted now.
The rotator cuff that I saw, I'm up. How do you do PVCc circles so i'll take a pvc pipe and then stick some weights on it
i would put like a like a weight in the middle of it okay and then it's on my story right now
there might be a video of it but i'll just put weights in the middle of it and then do it like
that you know sets of 10 to 12 and progress like maybe two and a half pounds every couple weeks
yeah and i think that combined with that external rotation that he was showing you guys on the dumbbell on the bench with cables yeah those
two as well as what my coach dawson he refers to as like full range of motion face pulls where
effectively you're protracting at the top of the movement yep and then you're pulling your elbows
as far back as you can to where the metal part of the rope actually touches your neck. Yeah. Those are the three that – that one.
Yeah.
Wow.
I want to try that one before we get into the gym.
Yeah.
And it's – with the way that you're describing the face pull, it's very difficult to use
– if somebody is not used to it, to use hardly any weight on that.
Meanwhile, people try to like load up a bunch of weight on a face pull and they do some
like half-assed version of it.
And then they don't really get activation of their shoulders when they're doing that.
They're pulling a lot with their biceps.
It's not a face pull anymore.
Definitely not tapping into the rotator cuff at all.
Hey, take some drugs with us.
Oh, did you already take it?
Hey, Mom.
I don't have it.
Oh.
It's right there.
Okay, so we got some Mind Bullet, some Kratom.
Give it a little cheers
unless you'd like to that'd be a new way of doing it all right that'd be nuts something
would happen if we were like whoa he just snorted out of nowhere here we go three two one down
hatch and all three down the hatch didn't do the half taste is great that's what that reaction is nailed it
I actually did it on a podcast
I usually never do it on air
nailed it that was really good
that was a good shot how do you feel now
no I'm just kidding ready to go let's go
and we'll start the podcast
yeah right now
what's your coach's name you said
Dawson Windham
how do you spell it?
W-I-N-D-H-A-M.
I really hope I got that right.
What kind of stuff is he having you do?
So right now, my training has switched from jujitsu, powerlifting focus,
to now doing my best to prepare myself for what would be a potential WWE opportunity.
That's where my mindset's at.
So there's a lot more athletic-based movements in there.
The KOT ATG stuff stays in for sure. I told him that i don't want to give up deadlifts
i want to continue progressing in that so that that stays in there but because you want to try
to hit 800 right 800 or at least a respectable pound for pound deadlift more than what i've
done in the past yeah my best is 740 at about 200 so like 3.7 but i'd like to whether i have to get
a little bit bigger but
800 be nice at some point you know just be like i got it yeah yeah i just want to retire after that
oh yeah yeah that's awesome yeah extremely knowledgeable and he's actually not that it
really matters but he's actually younger than me but our story is interesting because
he followed me on instagram back when i was 20, when I was in powerlifting,
commented on my post asking me a question,
trying to get better.
And then it's ironic how things switch.
And now he's my full-time coach and I've completely given the reins to him.
And I just really appreciate him.
He's taught me so much and actually inspired me
to start my own personal training
and coaching business back home.
Something I never thought I would do personally so I'm very very thankful for
for him and the way he describes all the ko team movements and everything it's
very easy to understand is actually very easy to relay that information to my
clients so and he's even created I actually would like to show you guys his
own version of a Bulgarian split squat he also looks very tall by the way he's
I'm not sure how tall he is I haven't met him in person yet okay okay possibly he's wearing loafers and that i know yeah super comfortable yeah
and so but the bulgarian split spot yours i'm not sure if it's in here oh i'm sure it is i don't
know where to find it but basically he'll elevate the front foot like about eight inches he's on
your instagram uh no no no i'll show you guys the front foot's elevated about eight inches and then
the back foot's in a normal position, but he's like maximizing knee flexion as well as hip
flexion on the back leg, sending it down as far as possible. And I found that doing that version
of the Bulgarian split squat has become one of my favorite exercises and everybody that I show it to
say how, like how much beneficial it is, like athletically i really i really like the
benefits that way i'm not sure where a video would be but i'll definitely show you guys and see what
you guys think let's get that shit on video yeah we'll do it in the gym for sure we'll do it in
the gym for sure yeah but wwe opportunity what's going on with that well nothing's set in stone
yet but it's part of my manifestation to let something like that happen here in the near future once i got my black belt my goal in short is to be able to have the amount of success that's
going to be able to create careers for my friends back home and take care of all my loved ones back
home in arizona and so i feel very content and happy where where i'm at now my career at jujitsu
make pretty respectable money and and I'm comfortable,
and I do what I love.
But I've been watching wrestling since I was three.
Goldberg's my lifelong hero.
I think you guys saw that stuff on my Instagram.
There's one video a little bit farther down
where he hugs me at a smackdown,
and then one farther down from that
where I meet him at the Olympia,
and I start crying.
Every single time I've come across him,
I've cried.
Why is this guy crying?
There's nothing better
than watching watching wrestling back in the day yeah and uh the crowd would just chant his name
they just say goldberg gold and he'd come out and just like annihilate and slaughter somebody he had
the best wrestling gimmick because he just came out and killed everybody and so in like 30 seconds
yeah exactly and so when i was three years old watching that, not knowing that wrestling is what it is, I thought he was literal Superman.
When I saw him do what he did in the ring and then go up to little kids afterwards and hug them and hold them on his shoulders and stuff, for when I wanted to be that kid for so long.
Me, 23-year-old version, became that kid right there and I just lost it.
He's inspired me to have that same type of impact on others and then have that ability
to take care of my loved ones back home.
And to me, having the outlet like WWE would be a great next step into accomplishing that
goal.
And so that's where I've set my set or set my mindset to.
And I talked to him back in Dallas at WrestleMania about a little bit, and he's in full support
of the idea.
And I just really feel like it's a nice transition for me,
and it would be ignorant of me to not pursue that.
At least give it a shot.
Especially with how you can move.
Thank you.
We could totally see you in there.
Thank you.
Number one, you can move, but you are built like a wrestler.
Thank you.
You know?
Bill Goldberg is a great person to look up to,
because from my understanding, everybody I know that that knows him i did not know him personally i never had
opportunity to meet him but everybody says nothing but good things and then on top of that he was
former uh nfl football player and then i also heard that he's does really well financially
he's held on to his money so a lot of these guys uh unfortunately they end up in these like
disastrous positions from uh you know being on the road and getting into so much pain.
They kind of fall into these, I guess, shitty habits basically.
But he didn't do that, and he came out the other end.
And he's still in good shape.
He's still jacked as fuck.
Phenomenal shape.
I told him the other week when I was talking to him, in more ways than one, he's been like a father figure to me to look up to like a genuine childhood hero and we had a very special moment where he didn't break
down but it definitely looked like he was he was getting emotional a little bit it was very
powerful moment for me yeah because I was able to relay to him exactly the type of impact that
he's had on me my whole life even little mannerisms that I do like I might hit a deadlift and then like
shake my head or like you know I do a little
like you know just or like sticking my tongue out since I was a kid is and like even in my
bodybuilding shows my my pose is great yeah my pose is the crab pose and I always stick my tongue
out because of Goldberg doing that like over the ring flexing his traps yeah I remember being 16
and one of the first compliments I actually got in a public gym was like, your traps, like, who's that guy?
Goldberg?
And I was like, you're like, I'm saving it.
I made it.
I can die happy now.
Exactly.
So most things that I've done my entire life has been in some remnants or some respect of how he kind of does his stuff and things coming full circle.
Now, having met him because of CT, CT really helped me get in the door to meet him.
You put in a great word for me because they're good friends,
which is why I'm forever in debt to CT
for what he's done to help me out.
Now, being so close to
call my childhood hero an actual friend,
it only makes sense in
what I believe my story is to pursue that
next step full circle pro wrestling.
How'd you meet CT? Because you've mentioned him a few
times now. How'd that happen? How are you guys
friends? You probably heard of it.
He has this event that he does every year.
It's called Iron Wars.
The last couple of years it hasn't been because of COVID.
But a few years back, I saw it promoted.
And so typically when I see stuff like that, it doesn't entice me too much.
I'm not super excited about it.
But I had a certain vision at the time where i took my team my brand how strong and took all
the best lifters that i was around and i thought to myself well what if we went to a vet yeah yeah
that one me getting crazy there's my tongue it looks like a lot of fun yeah i could i called
a lifting mosh pit yeah and that was uh towards yeah there's my tongue again towards the end of that video.
I went for 765 for the first time, and then I let go of the bar and launched myself back.
You know what I love about just watching some of your Instagram and then now getting to know you a little bit better?
I just love the way that you express yourself.
A lot of people are reserved about that.
I'm that way. I'm kind of reserved every once in a while. I'll get like
fired up or something for a lift or something, but, um, I'm pretty reserved, but I like when
people have that ability to kind of like let loose and express themselves as much as they
freely can with a reason. I appreciate it. Thank you. Good slap. Yeah. God, you know,
you know, you felt that shit.
Yeah, absolutely.
What do you think is, I guess, kind of calling you,
or what do you think is the reason why you're in search of more?
Because somebody gets a black belt in jiu-jitsu,
and then they're like, I'm training for nationals or worlds,
or I'm training for this, I'm training for that.
But it seems like you want to do stuff beyond that.
And I think that you tried out for the Titan Games and some things of that nature, right?
So what do you think is that – I mean you did mention how you do want to kind of set up your family and some of your friends.
Do you think there's anything beyond that where you would love to be in a position to have maybe impact maybe similar to goldberg you know kind of
had on you that kind of deal yeah that's exactly where it stems from i've i say this confidently
i think one of my best talents non-athletically related is the ability to connect with somebody
and have a lasting impact to where no matter how short or how long we're connected you're always
going to remember who i am and i say that hum humbly, and I say that as a place of,
I want to use that talent to further impact others,
kids that are pro wrestling fans, people wherever they may be.
And I'm very blessed to have the small following that I do now
that impacts the amount of people that I do from Arizona or wherever else.
But to your point, I don't want to be satisfied with that.
If I have a true talent that most people can recognize, I think it's my duty to the earth, myself, my loved ones, my supporters to venture out and expand upon that.
And so I've already said thank you like 20 times.
But that's why I'm so, so, so grateful that you guys asked me to be on this because this is truly my first huge opportunity to actually vocalize my goals and desires on something as big as this
podcast and i've been a fan of yours for so long now i'm all of all of our friends like i have
your shirt now but we had all your equipment 18 19 always talking about mark bell super training
gym we talked about literally the day that you messaged me it was that's it's so crazy the day
you messaged me we're in la hang out ct and everything i was like it'd be so cool just to go to super training gym and lift one of these days and we're like yeah yeah yeah
and like literally i'll tell you the exact story of how it happened i was in the back of the car
we're driving to barbell brigade to lift and you know you get message requests so and so wants to
send you a message but then it says mark smelly bill wants to send you a message and my first
response i go what the fuck and then uh then my friend was like
what what's wrong because like sometimes i'll get angry and they're like what what did i do what i
do i'm like no no no i'm like no it's okay like look look at this and then we're all like oh my
god i'm like i'm like i told you guys you see it because when i had my black belt promotion
there's a good 250 people
that came yeah very very blessed to have such a good turnout i use that as a first opportunity
to start manifesting and vocalizing some of these goals that i'm telling you guys right now
and after that it's it's unexplainable some of the things that have happened you you specifically
thank you and i just want to keep that momentum going because if these things are happening by
just me vocalizing my goals
to back up the lifelong 20 years of work
that I've been putting in,
I think there's something to that,
and some people could think that's ignorant,
but it doesn't really faze me
because I know where I'm going in life,
and so with that said,
to answer your question,
I would definitely want to impact millions,
much like you have,
you guys have,
all of you guys have,
and you guys are all inspirations to me to continue pursuing that have you guys have all of you guys have you guys are all
inspirations to me to continue pursuing that because now being in front of you guys tells me
something like that is possible because i'm right here within reaching distance of you guys and i'm
very very grateful and you guys inspire me a lot so thank you seriously all of you guys thank you
but you could pick me up and put me right through this wall you could do the same thing to me most
likely i know i'm trying to he said within distance
i'm like i hope i'm gonna go over here let me ask you this man um when you said you started to uh
do you are you saying like before that you you had goals but you weren't as you weren't going
at them as strongly what do you mean really what do you mean specifically i would say that there's
been a transition period the last year and a half, maybe two years where prior to that, I've always tried to, I've always tried to
pride myself and being the most humble person that I can internally, but also externally to others.
But then there's a certain point where that can also be detrimental to where, say something like
this, I wouldn't want to talk about my goals in front of people as big as you guys and be like,
well, they're not going to believe, they're not going to believe me.
I would have doubts talking about it to my own parents or my own friends
or people around me.
I'd be like, I kind of want to do this.
Or I would be like, yeah, it'd be cool to do that, but I never owned it.
As soon as I started owning things and taking that humble demeanor
but turning it into genuine confidence, crossing that line,
but not going so far as being vain or cocky,
at least to my definition. That's where I started seeing a big change in my performance,
the way people view me, the way I view myself and the way things have come together more recently.
So I would say it's a mindset of before. My dad always taught me, be humble,
be have humility, all that stuff. OK, and that's a great quality to have. I took it so much to heart
to where, you know, um, people would ask me like in high school, how much might I bench? I would
never answer the question because I would always feel like I'm bragging, you know? And so now,
now it's like, I know who I am. I'm confident in what I've accomplished. I'm also confident in
where I'm going. And to me, that's not vain or cocky. It's just being confident who you are.
And there's enough people around me that can back that up and know that I generally try to be a humble person, but also very confident because
me being a leadership position, if I really want to take care of my parents and friends for the
rest of my life, I need to be confident in that and express that to anybody that passes by. I
always tell people like, be confident in who you are and what your goals are. And so if me myself
am afraid to express my goals
to say the most important person in my life
or one of the most important people in my life
because I'm afraid of what they're going to say,
then I don't feel like I'm genuinely owning that.
So there's a point recently within the last year,
I had vocalized all my goals to specific people
that I was afraid of their response.
Some of the responses were good.
Some of the responses were bad.
Point is, I got the
courage to actually talk about it. And now I'm at the point to where, whether it's you guys or
the average person walking down the street, I'm more than open to talk about where I'm going in
life because I'm just had that confidence in myself. Is there something that, I know you said
that happened a year and a half ago, but is there something that triggered you to change? I'm just
wondering, was there some, what was the shift for you? It that triggered you to change? I'm just wondering, what was
the shift for you? It's a great question
and I think it's
I'm not old
per se, but I'm getting older and especially
with WWE and stuff, at a certain age
You're only like 26 or something, right? I just turned
26, yeah. So
it's like
I think that at this point there's no
time to waste in my life and so with that said, holding off, whether it be vocally or physically or what have you,
is putting myself at a deficit that I don't even need to create.
So mentally, as soon as I started doing small things of manifestation, for example,
I just have a deep talk with my best friend about we're going to do this, this, this, and this.
All of a sudden, within a week, some crazy crap happens, kind of like this podcast where I'm at now.
And I'm like, you see what happens when we just put this out there?
And I'm not even super deep into all that stuff, but some of these things that have been happening recently are just too good to be explained.
And I'm just going to run with it.
I'm not going to question it.
There's so many things that I don't consider coincidence or luck or ironic.
There's always some reasoning behind it
and I'm just not going to fight it anymore
and just own whatever thinks I'm meant to be.
You know, I think that was the turning point for me.
How do you go about like literally
like manifesting some of these goals?
Because like, you know, like if I were to say like,
oh, I want to a wwe superstar one day
but it's like okay andrew like you got a ways to go and then also you don't fucking know any
boy i know mark but like i don't know anybody the way you know goldberg so like what's the
process there because i'm just really curious because the things that have come to fruition
you know it's like they didn't necessarily come out of nowhere.
Or I mean, yeah, how did that come about?
I think there's a lot of that that is almost unexplainable.
But what I can explain is there's a certain point
I posted about on Instagram a few months ago,
but I basically just said that
words are the most powerful thing in the world
when backed up by relentless action.
So if the work is there, the physical work
is there, say for myself, 20 years of just working for something until maybe just recently, I didn't
even know what it was. I was just working. And then now all of a sudden you put words behind it.
Now there's some true meaning because obviously, like you said, you can say whatever. And if the
work's not there, then it's just words in the air. But it's powerful when you yourself and people
around you know that there's a lot of work and dedication
and perseverance that goes into you vocalizing such goal.
And when I made that quote up or somebody said it,
I don't know, I made it up in my head.
So anyways, when I started kind of implementing
that mindset, I was like, there's something to this.
Every single time I say something,
something good happens that gives me this green light
that says, keep going.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if after this podcast, something cool happens too.
That's where my mindset's at.
And that's where I've almost conditioned my mind to think if you put in the work and you
put words behind it, there's very little in the world that can overpower that.
And that's
what I've learned, at least within myself. Yeah. You keep using the word manifest. And I think
that's a really powerful one. And then you said, you don't know how much you believe in it. And
all I'll say is that you're going to believe it in a whole lot more. Like it's just going to
continue to happen. And it'll be just too coincidental where these like law of attraction
things happen, where you keep saying stuff and you're like, am I, after a while you're like, I think I can almost talk out of my ass as
long as I follow it up with, with, uh, with some actions and kind of just back to what you were
talking about, about being humble. Um, that one is an interesting one to try to navigate sometimes.
Like it is, it is cool to see people that are mild-mannered it is cool
to see people that um conduct themselves like they've been there before like barry sanders like
one of my favorite football players ever he used to just flip the ball to the ref you know when he
scored a touchdown he scored many of them you know and uh his answer was always like well that's what
i'm supposed to do like that's my job is to get in the end zone i got in the end zone i don't see
any he's like i spiked the ball one time in college and like
thought it was dumb i was gonna respectfully like hand the ball to the referee and uh but i do think
just like with strength there's so many different versions of strength i can sit here and tell you
guys how strong i am and say hey i did these lifts even if i was in my prime and still had that same
exact strength you guys have skill sets that are different than mine. And you'd be able to take me down and like
choke me out or kind of do whatever you want to me because I don't have that skill set. I don't
know how to do those things. Right. And so I think there's like, and we could say like, oh,
like Nsema is incredibly strong, even like obviously isn't strong in the gym, but he's strong in jujitsu as well.
So you're strong.
There's many different versions of strength.
We look at an Olympic athlete like on the rings doing the Iron Cross.
Like that's insane.
So I think there's many different versions of being humble.
You know, I don't think it's always like that you just keep your mouth shut. You don't ever show anything flashy because I think you can wear a nice gold chain or a nice watch and still be internally humble.
It's other people's impression of that.
It's other people's interpretation of what you're doing.
If I show a new car or show a house or show this or that, I am just what I'm trying to express to people is I never really thought I
was much. I used to think I was fucking stupid, literally thought that I couldn't learn the same
way other human beings can. And I figured some shit out. And here is like an example of what
I figured out in our society. People put high value on people having money i was able to figure out some of
those things and here it is and i want to show it to you so that you think that you can have access
to it too with whatever struggle you had whatever your story is that's mainly what it is do you mind
if i ask you both actually your experiences with manifesting and how you would define it yourself
not to flip the podcast but i'll just it, I'll make mine real quick is,
so I kind of call this a cascade of disciplines.
Okay.
You know, when you say that you're going to do something
or you say that you're kind of like working on something,
I don't like to talk about what I'm never going to do.
And I kind of have a saying, say,
cowards talk about what they'll never do.
And it's really unfortunate.
You hear people saying these things
and they're never going to do them.
Falling short of something
and having something take longer times or shorter times,
those are all very understandable
because maybe you didn't realize all the things
that it took to get to this particular place.
But I just think that if you're going to say something
and put it forward, in my opinion,
it's best to have already had some of the work in.
So I don't even talk or show running until I'm already running a little bit.
You know what I mean?
Like I want to be kind of like off into the process a little bit.
So that's kind of my main take on it.
I like that.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Like, I mean, I, when I was younger, I read a lot of self-development books or whatever.
One of them was like think and grow rich. And that's where I started learning about
manifestation and visualization. And, um, there's this thing I did when I was 22,
it's called the, it's called self-authoring by Jordan Peterson. Uh, and that was seven,
seven years ago. Now I did that, but I, it hadn't, it has you go through all the things that you're,
you want to do or whatever.
Anyone can do this on the, there's a website for it, right?
There's a website for it. You guys can type in selfauthoring.com. It's something I always
suggest to my close friends to do because it was written by a bunch of clinical psychologists
where they have you answer a lot of questions about not just your present, but your past
and your future. As you reflect on things in your past, analyze it. It
takes maybe 20 hours to finish. So it's not something one can take lightly.
It's emotional.
It made me cry when I started writing about things in my past. But when I looked at it,
there was a question. When I looked back at it, there was a question where like,
who are people that motivate you? Or who or who are people that inspire you the, where you would like to have things that you can
replicate. And Mark's name was on that. Like I wasn't working as closely with him as I am now,
but I saw the things that he was doing and I was like, I want to be as charismatic. I want to be
able to speak to people in this way, et cetera. Right. And I also mentioned that I want to do
something with podcasting. And that was before I did anything on this podcast. It's just something that I knew I wanted to do.
Right. When I look back on a lot of that, everything that I wrote down that I wanted
to be able to do and attributes I wanted to have, I have. Right. And like what you said,
manifesting and truly thinking about it, I think there is a power in sitting down and
some people don't need guidance for that.
I needed, that's why I did the self-authoring thing because I needed some fucking guidance.
And it, when I read it, I was like, fuck, I'm doing everything I wanted to do, you know? And
it's crazy. But then I'm going through it again because obviously this, the progression doesn't
stop. So it's like, how can I continue? How can we build off of that? But I truly agree with you.
Like a lot of people, you know, I didn't sit down and think about all those things that
I want to be able to achieve for myself, for my family attributes I want to have.
But that helped me to outline that.
And I'm, I am my, I am where I wanted to be with that outline.
There's still some things I want to achieve, but the big things that I wanted to be with that outline. There's still some things I want to achieve,
but the big things that I wanted to be able to do,
I outlined that shit seven years ago, and I'm doing it.
That's so cool.
That's really cool. There's other attributes to that too, I think.
It's like, what does it hurt?
It certainly doesn't hurt anything.
I mean, you might listen to this and say,
these guys are crazy, like it doesn't work that way.
You can't just say that you want to be well off,
and then you're well off.
I mean, but you certainly can, especially if you have a handful of disciplines that kind of cascades from there.
Because if you and I are talking and, I mean, here's like the craziest thing ever, I think, is just simply like if you want to get somewhere, all you got to do is ask somebody.
Like, I was in pro wrestling for a while.
My brother used to write for WWE.
I know Triple H. I know Stephanie McMahon. to write for WWE. I know Triple H.
I know Stephanie McMahon.
I know Shane McMahon.
I know John Cena.
Like I know all these people.
Wrestling isn't the same as it used to be.
I used to be able to say, hey, man, I know this guy and see him is in really good shape.
And, you know, can you give him a look?
Like they don't really do that anymore.
But still, it still doesn't hurt to like know somebody that knows some of the process.
So you can just ask somebody, hey, what do you think are like the three to five things that I really need to know, you know, if I want to do this?
Maybe you have like one person that blows you off, but I think most people are going to be open and they're going to say, oh, that's a great question.
Here's a couple things I think you should keep in mind, you know, in your pursuit for that. So it sounds like we're talking about some magical recipe of like putting stuff out in the universe and it's going to
somehow cycle back and like land in our lap, but it only lands in our lap if we're prepared for it,
only lands in our lap if we actually have done stuff for it. It doesn't just come back and land
on you if you're not able to receive whatever that is in that moment.
Back to our family, how's it going now? We like to look good in the gym and out of the gym.
That's why you always see Mark and I and Andrew
is stepping up on the short, short game,
wearing shorts from Viore and clothes from Viore.
And honestly, the number one compliment that I've seen,
that I've gotten, and even Mark's gotten is,
damn, your butt looks good.
And that's because, well, the clothes we wear
make our booties look delicious andrew
how can they get it yeah you guys both have pretty big wagons uh you guys can head over to
viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash power project to receive 20 off the most
amazing apparel that looks so good inside and outside it's gonna make your ass look fat and
your ass will look fat.
Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.
God damn it.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
It's going to make your ass look fat.
Yeah, I agree.
And even to that point, Rob McIntyre is one of the people that I've talked to,
Sean Hayes, their strength coach,
a couple of different like executives in the WWE.
And to your point,
yeah,
I pretty much did just that and ask questions like,
what can I do to help increase my chances or what should I do to further
help prepare?
And all of them were more than happy to help in whatever way they could.
And it was very,
maybe shocking is a bad word,
but humbling for sure.
Where somebody like myself, I'm just
some kid from Phoenix, you know, there's not really anything going on out there. Reach out
to so-and-so because a good friend of mine put in a word or I worded something to where they felt
like it was worthy enough to help me. And they did. And because of that, I have more of a direction
of how to prepare. And I feel much more confident whenever opportunity comes to be ready for it. So
I agree
a hundred percent with what he just said. More often than not, I think people are willing to
help as long as you present yourself genuinely. Have you ever considered acting as well?
Yeah, I actually have. And I took a trip back out to Hollywood and a couple of weeks ago just to,
just to fill the area out. And to me, whether it's WWE or acting, i think things full circle would make more sense for wwe
just because of my childhood but i also wouldn't be against the thought of acting either one of my
students my jiu-jitsu students her she's been in a few films her name is lawson grayson and she gave
me my first acting lesson last wednesday just basic how to read a script and some of the basic
things that they do and i'm gonna continue doing that because why not? And it won't hurt.
Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting.
All the little things.
It's like the way she put it, acting is easy,
but then when you get in your head, it becomes really hard.
Like the different things that you would, what we're doing right now,
it seems pretty natural.
But now when it's on a script and you're not really thinking,
now it's all of a sudden hard.
Yeah, it's interesting, but I'm still learning.
You're being observed and then you're not really thinking, but now it's all of a sudden hard. Yeah, it's interesting, but I'm still learning. You're being observed, and then you're observing your own situation,
and it gets really hard to talk kind of naturally.
Yeah, I think setting you up with, do you know Luke Hawks by any chance?
I don't know.
Yeah, Luke is an awesome guy, and who knows?
Maybe your start in wrestling will be you acting as a wrestler.
Right, yeah.
Because Luke's on some TV shows like that.
Okay.
Heels and...
Yeah, he's in a bunch of other stuff
that I'm not allowed to talk about yet.
Nice.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you
about the journey from these two pictures here.
Oh, there's the 271.
Yeah, who's the guy on the left?
In SEMA, this is obviously a doctored picture, right?
Right.
Yeah.
There is a filter on the one on the right.
I will say that.
At least you admit that.
You can also see that.
A lot of people won't.
He also lined up his abs and the serratus and also all those veins.
I'm pretty sure they're fake.
Yeah.
You can't look like that naturally.
Super symmetrical and shit.
What the fuck?
No.
It's face.
How did you go from left to right on this?
That's fucking wild.
And how long?
Damn. 80 pounds. Damn. Dog. 270 at my biggest. How did you go from left to right on this? Like, that's fucking wild. And how long?
80 pounds.
Damn.
Dog.
270 at my biggest.
And then for that specific photo shoot, I hit 190 on the last day.
Honestly, besides just the general diet stuff that I was doing in high school to make sure that I was on weight for wrestling, I just kind of implemented that.
Stayed disciplined with the diet.
Had planned cheat days so that I was on track with my things i don't actually actually your podcast with nikki
roddy you talked about like tracking and all that i don't personally track because i think if you
can obtain the ability to make diet it sounds cliche but to make the diet the lifestyle no it's
not cliche that makes a lot of sense yeah yeah because then at a certain point if you're eating
for internal benefits as well as external and
actually those foods are going to be lower in calories anyway so you should be able to obtain
a calorie deficit pretty easy especially with the workload with jujitsu and lifting like it should
be relatively easy and if you find that you're losing weight too fast or not losing weight then
you just eat a little bit more a little bit less it's relatively simple to me at least and then
that way it's a lot less stressful from the diet side of things for that one specifically training
wise i'm pretty much doing similar to what i'm doing now except i'm doing a lot more
now but the traditional for me like training jujitsu one to two times a day and then lifting
about once a day now real quick question when you started training jujitsu did you start off like
doing many sessions per week or did you start off with lower sessions? How did that go for you?
Personally, me, yes. I was in there every chance I could. But if somebody, and I'm sure you get
all the time, ask me that same exact question or what they should do, I always say start small and
then build up. A lot of times with my students, if they have a demanding job or whatever, they sign
up for jujitsu and they're gung-ho about it in the first month. They come like four or five days a
week. They find out their body can't handle it. They have to take
a week or two off because they got injured or they're tired. And then they broke that habit
and then never come back. So I always suggest it's better to do one or two sessions a week.
So then that way you feel like you are needing more. And then once your body adapts, then you
can add in three, four or five. obviously there's people out there that are more conditioned
like myself coming from wrestling to add in more sessions right off the get-go but for your typical
person i find that to be the smartest way to go about it and then at the start for your average
person to keep the lifting and the jujitsu separate unless you're able to determine the
difference between a high intensity jujitsu day and a lower intensity lifting day. Yeah. Because if you, if
you like, if you do a high intensity jujitsu day, you can still lift, but just don't go super heavy,
go into the gym, move some weight around. Don't go too crazy with it. It's hard to do high intensity
on both on a single day. Yeah. Especially, especially right off the get go where you don't
know how your body's going to react. You don't know how many calories you're going to be eating
to support that, how much rest you need, so on and so forth.
And the thing with jiu-jitsu, as you know, I mean, there's so many variables that are out of your control.
Like you can go into a session thinking it's going to be hard, and it turns out being easier.
Vice versa, depending on who you're rolling with, how things go, whether you get injured or not.
You never know.
It's unpredictable at times.
And I'll have my set schedule where I know I'm training jits one or or two times a day and then I'm going to lift after that or prior.
And generally on most days, I feel pretty good after those two sessions.
But if for whatever reason, jujitsu session was much more intense, I might have to alter my training because of it, too.
So that's why on the lifting side of things, I have my set days, my set workouts.
But I'm not necessarily super contingent on making sure Wednesday is
always this workout. Monday is always this workout. That's more so depicted by how my body's
feeling day to day. Exactly. Um, again, I wanted to ask, so what was going on on the left side
here? Like what was, I'll just say, what was the plan and like, what were you doing to get this
big if there was a plan? But yeah, the reason why I asked that, because like what were you doing to get this big if there was a plan but yeah the reason
why i asked that because like did you have to do this in order to look like this you know i'm
thinking like bulking and shredding yeah was that the plan or like what was going on there
if you asked 20 year old jimmy in that picture i'd probably be like, yeah, bro, bulking. As you're finishing a donut.
Yeah, I know. The honest answer would be, sure, bulking has its time and place,
cutting has its time and place, but there's obviously a point to where you tip over that
and you went too far. Where I'm at now, body fat wise, is an area where I would feel comfortable
saying, yeah, I'm bulking up a little bit or I'm not as contingent on lowering my calories
to look a certain way.
That right there is just a combination
of lack of discipline, poor diet,
no cardio training whatsoever,
only lifting like three days a week
to recover for the powerlifting training
and be in a relationship where I wasn't able
to have the discipline to not eat out all the time.
So with all those different variables together,
two years and having genetics where I can put on weight pretty easily,
that happens.
But then at the same time, too, I know when I buckle down,
then I can also make the right happen.
But I'm at the point now to where I realize it doesn't have to be
an extreme one way or another.
It's probably much easier, much more efficient to stay within 10 pounds
of a weight range.
Do you mind going to my most recent one? much more efficient to stay within 10 pounds of a, yeah, of a weight range. Let's, if you go,
do you mind going to the,
my most recent one?
It's towards the top.
This one?
Yeah,
that one.
So that was 50 pounds in 10 weeks.
Oh,
come on.
250 down to 200.
Nice.
And so,
shit.
My,
and I put it in the post,
but basically my training behind that
Whoa
50 pounds
in 10 weeks
There's multiple pictures here
Oh yeah
What's impressive
I'm a fan of people
being big you know
in a lot of ways
just as much as I'm a fan of people getting shredded.
I think it's both kind of cool.
What I love about the picture on the left is you're big,
like you're thick.
You're not,
you're not fat here,
you know,
and the arm,
your arms are fucking gigantic.
Obviously where you're shredded down,
you look incredible.
Thank you.
Got some,
got some bulk to them,
right?
But that means like,
like you at two 30,
you're still pretty fucking lean.
I, I, I liked how I looked at two that time around yeah yeah for sure well that yeah wow what would you say your body fat's at right
now i don't know and i never i never honestly felt like i've gotten an accurate test yeah
it's always kind of gone by you know the mirror and everything but i mean definitely single digits
yeah maybe i don't know i i love i love
your guys's opinion i never actually gotten tested before but you know that that itself
was what seven or eight on the right i was thinking like i was thinking like maybe eight
or nine because his body composition is so even around that like i understand you know what i
mean like like he's got a lot of muscle mass he's got a lot of muscle too so like it could be seven but like i feel like seven would be veiny and stuff like that
super veiny already but like yeah you know um guys that hold more muscle and have even body fat
distributions like that's the thing too the even body fat distribution allows you to look really
good even when your body fat might be
a little higher that's why i was like you at 230 you would probably still look pretty fucking good
and you're athletic thank you i appreciate it and the way he looks on the right right there like i
think like i i don't think anyone should get any leaner than that i i wouldn't unless it was like
for a show obviously yeah you're doing a show like that but that looks Like between that percentage, whatever percentage body fat he would be right there.
Like that looks locked in and maybe even a little bit heavier than that.
And the hair is locked in too on the right.
I was digging what I had on the left, but it's okay.
I'm sorry.
Hey, I got nothing to work with.
So I ain't talking shit.
No, you look great, man.
You look great.
So now it's time to play Natty or not.
We already know Encima's story, I think.
You know, I was born with Trenton in the womb.
He doesn't even work out.
That's the sickening part.
Right, yeah.
I mean, that was my first thought.
When you see him, you can see that, right?
Yeah, yeah. So mean, that was my first thought. When you see them, you can see that, right? Yeah, yeah.
So what's the deal?
So bodybuilding, powerlifting, no one really cares.
There are tested divisions and stuff,
but people seem to be more apt to just seeing the guys lift the most amount of weight,
and people are a little bit more into the IFBB pros than they are into the natural bodybuilders.
But in jiu-jitsu, from my understanding, you get tested at some of these events, right?
It's not often.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I mean –
Yeah, no, I don't think so.
I've heard it in talks, but I don't know if it's actually been –
Remember Kenan Duarte?
He got banned because they found some stuff in –
Kenan Duarte is a really built jiu-jitsu guy.
And I think two or three years ago, got tested and he they got they found some
stuff in his system okay so with black belts um they'll they'll test like the ones that look sus
like if you're a little too jacked you know i mean they'll test randomly because you're not
supposed to but a lot of people do get away with it within jujitsu because the testing isn't very
stringent yeah yeah have you been tested yeah with multiple powerlifting meets, my bodybuilding show.
I guess those are the two.
But yeah, ever since probably when I first started powerlifting, drug testing for USBA wasn't even a thing.
As soon as they launched that, I participated in the first drug testing meet in Arizona.
Of course, you go in the subject of drug testing.
It doesn't mean drug-free, but it is a representation of what I feel like I fit into which is the drug free side of things people ask me why well i started lifting very young and so
now there's a few reasons the first reason being being lifting for 20 years and still seeing
progress there's there's an addictive factor to where i want to genuinely see how far i can take
my true genetic potential because i haven't seen any sign of stopping yet in that realm. It's slowed down though, because we have to let people know,
like you're still making progress, but nowadays the progress is slower. Yeah, absolutely. You
know, I've been in, I've been in the sevens for deadless, you know, up and down since like 2022,
basically. One thing I want to point out to people though, is even though the progress slowed down
there, you're also like in pursuit of a completely different sport.
Right.
You know, so I think sometimes that we only think,
sometimes as an athlete or a power lifter in particular,
yeah, as a meathead, you're just thinking about those weights.
And that's all you're thinking about.
And that's like our only measure.
Like, I can't really do that anymore.
That's starting to slow down.
But it's like, well, in the last five years, you been working on you becoming a black belt right jiu-jitsu which
is a pretty awesome thing so for myself too like i continue to gain i feel like i'm gaining all the
time and somebody would watch me bench press and watch my arm shake you know bench and three plates
nowadays and like he didn't gain anything but i feel like I've gained everything. I feel like I've gained, uh, you know, the ability to move a lot
better and that is improving all the time. So while there might be some things that are a little
tougher for you to get or have access to at the moment, um, you're gaining in so many other spots.
Right. And especially like, and that's why I've actually really fallen in love with the KOT
movements because they're so new to me. It's almost like starting over again, but not really.
But you see those beginner gains and everything, and I really like how well you can digress and then progress the movement.
And it's something that really motivates me because deadlifting, benching, squatting, it kind of gets old after a while.
But to finish my last thought, basically a lot of it also stems from when I was growing up at home, drugs were generally considered like no-go.
And I have a very tight relationship with my parents as far as obedience and loyalty and respect for them.
And so that's why until maybe like just five minutes ago, I never – I'm just kidding.
Sorry, mom and dad.
Sorry.
But yeah, I've never – I never even ventured in the recreational side of my drugs and stuff and
not to say it's bad if you have but it's just a moral that i've kind of instilled in myself so
if people knew me they would understand but i also if you scroll down in the comments you might find
a fake natty comment or two for the record you are natural and you've been lifetime natural yes sir there we go and this is the funny thing oh man it's like you there's no way you can prove you're
natural there's there's well except for the test that andrew's about to whip out yeah yeah yeah
you'll be on a stick you know we're gonna do that right now but all right here we go
interesting thing it's so interesting to wonder what you would look like or what I would look like if you hopped on something.
Because, I mean, it's interesting.
We can find out.
You can find out.
But then, you know, no longer whatever.
Anyway.
I mean, nobody believes you anyways.
Yeah.
I mean, for you yourself, like what is the reason that you chose to, I mean, you've been lifting for such a long time, you continue to see progress.
It's the same with me.
Like, I don't feel a need need but why do you choose not to because again there's no moral
thing i put behind steroids right um but i myself like i can continue i've been making progress
without it i know that that love that side of things is very complex. It's such a wild science that people that still know their shit about steroids still fall into health issues.
And I like being healthy.
I like feeling good all the time.
I don't want to add something weird just because it will help me gain some muscle or gain some strength if it could mess with my long-term health.
or gain some strength if it could mess with my long-term health.
For you personally, what's been the reason that you never chose to pull the trigger?
Because it's like, I mean, there would be athletically,
probably not going to get tested in jiu-jitsu, right?
Doesn't matter for wrestling.
So what's the reason why you choose not to?
So morally.
Morally, okay.
Personally, and goes back to the been listening for such a long time, I don't feel a need to, you know, where I see progress in various different fields and to throw a variable in that's not, quote, natural and kind of mess that up to where mentally I think would actually fuck me up more than it would do good because I worked so hard for like 21 years training and doing all this stuff, getting to where I'm at now and then adding something in that could potentially boost that progress. But then mentally, I would know that it wasn't.
And, you know, this is a subjective topic.
But to me, mentally, I would perceive it as not all of my own work.
OK.
Yeah.
From the perspective of somebody that's been lifting since they were like five, 20 years consistently.
And it's like to throw something in
where I don't feel like I need it. There's no reason for me to do it. And I developed a reputation
where at home I'm respected and looked up to by others by not pulling that trigger. And for
audience, I'm not necessarily against anybody that does. I have plenty of friends that, that do. And
it's like, that's your path and it doesn't affect me whatsoever.
But me personally, that's where that all stems from. And like you said, if we're even talking about health and you see all the bodybuilders that are fortunately passing away now, one of my
great mentors, his name was Vince Comerford. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He was
a good bodybuilder back in the nineties. He was called the blonde myth. He like competed with
Lee Preetz and stuff like that. Yeah, phenomenal physique.
One of the most impactful people in my life,
and obviously bodybuilding in that time was what it was.
And to see him pass so early when I was just a teenager.
How old was he?
I think he was in his 50s, like late 50s or something like that.
What was his name?
Vince Comerford, the blonde myth.
And seeing that firsthand and then seeing what's happening now.
And then like,
so you said you,
you,
you think you have control or you,
you could be prepared either by working with somebody that knows what they're
doing or you can know what you're doing,
but it's still not even a hundred percent guarantee.
And to me,
there's so much time and whatnot invested into where I'm at now.
I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that.
Yeah.
Makes a lot of sense.
I'm just so happy because we made it.
We're on more plates, more dates, I think.
Huh?
Oh, yeah.
So, Andrew, you're in on it, too.
We're pretending that these guys are both
natural, right? Yeah.
You got two fake natties and then two guys
who take drugs on the podcast.
Fake? Yeah.
We're fake fakes?
Jimmy, why are we such liars, bro?
How do we fool all these kids into thinking we're natural?
I don't know how you guys sleep at night.
I told my friends the exact same thing.
That's only sleep two hours a night.
That is true.
I only sleep two hours a night because I wake up with the guilt of being on drugs.
That's good.
Exactly what you said.
Yeah, literally.
Literally.
All right, dude, what's going on with this backflip?
Like, I've seen you eat shit a lot, too.
It took me three sessions.
Like, you nearly died.
I'm really concerned.
Like, what the fuck?
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
So I actually accredit that to like one of the
things that my dad
had me do early on
we had a neck harness
and before that
it was even really
known as something
to be
yeah
yeah dead ass
your dad had you
on a neck harness
god damn
I love your father
he's great
I gotta step my game up
that's how you know
someone like jumped
the shark you know
and someone's like
really deep in the train
and got the neck harness
it was like old school
like grungy, like leather.
It was like kills your ears too.
Oh yeah.
I got tons of like face burn from it.
Oh my God.
But yeah, he had me doing that from a, from a young age.
And it's something that along with traps, I never really start stopped working.
And when, if you look at those two fails, there is a little pad, but you know, it's funny because funny because like you know people look at that and
i just kind of like i was like shit well try again you know i didn't i didn't really get
sore from it for or anything i think i just have you know a lot of neck strength built up through
those movements if that was me i would just never try it again i'd still be able to you got up from
it and you were just like sore for a day?
Those videos in the dark, I probably tried 30 or so times.
I finally got into my last one.
I kept like getting the air, but then like basically bitching out right before you have to throw your head back.
And then you would end up like that. It looks great for pro wrestling because it's like I'm selling my own power bomb.
It's a power bomb.
It's true. My God, he got power bombs. wrestling because it's like i'm selling my own power it's a power bomb yeah yeah uh but i true
wait so so real quick though guys two versus session three so it took you three sessions
to learn how to backflip yeah so i did one session where we mostly focused on like
the mechanics of a back handspring okay the one in the dark was when
we actually started trying to do the backflip itself and then after probably andrew you can
stop playing the video it's it's it's getting to my neck i just want to see it one more time
hold on let me go full screen for everybody's uh foot like smashes them in the head i know i know
oh that's a good one yeah it, that's a good one. We'll end on that one.
I'm sorry.
What was the question?
It took you only three sessions to learn to do a successful backflip.
So the second one, I tried at least 30 times.
And then I finally got in my last one.
And then we called it good after that.
Then I probably had a good month of, like, mental recovery from, you know, that and, like, landing to where just this past weekend I'm like, all right, I think I'm ready again.
Let's do it.
A lot better this time.
I understood the body mechanics and whatnot.
It's crazy that it's considered the easiest of the flips,
but it's also crazy how technical it is
when you really break down a good one versus a bad one,
how you actually make it go through.
And you would think that my understanding
of how the body moves through my various different sports
would help, which it does.
But it's such a different feeling from my personal experience, like having to make those on the fly adjustments through the air to make it look smooth.
And it's not even perfect yet, but it's better than what it was.
No, I want to learn a backflip.
I think you can do it.
I think we all just can do it.
You know, I want to learn.
It's nuts.
But like we have this like proprioception that we can all tap into.
Obviously, there's massively different levels of it.
I think if I was to try something like that or even just any motion where there's a lot of kinesthetic awareness going on, something that I haven't done in a while, at first, it's almost like you can't see.
I remember playing football when I was really young, when I first started playing it was very difficult to like find where the hell the ball is
you couldn't see anything and like the play would go by so quick but as you got better at it as you
got more aware of it as you start to understand the game a little bit more then you can recognize
oh someone's probably going to block me this way and you could actually like almost like slow
everything down a bit and then you can kind of just find yourself to the ball.
And I think a lot of that happens with a move like a flip or some of these different things that we're trying to express in training.
After a while, somehow it just clicks like a golf swing or something.
And then you're like, I don't know, not sure how if I can express or share with other people how I did that.
But I want to do it again.
And then you kind of start to figure it out. And sometimes you're a little off, but most of the
time you're getting it like right enough, I guess. Yeah, I would say so. And I probably felt that
like come this past session where I'm like, okay, the confidence is there. I know I can do it.
I think once you realize that at the very least you're going to turn over and the worst case
scenario, you just land on your hands and knees, then it's not as scary. It's that point where you have to just commit to throwing your head back and then seeing the
potential when you don't. That's what's kind of trippy in the mind. But once I started getting
over that, then those last two were one right after another and it was relatively consistent.
Yeah. So also the biggest thing with that too was I hyper-focused on how important the arms are,
but so much so to where I actually wasn't jumping.
So I was just literally throwing myself up with my arms,
which I guess you could consider impressive,
but arms and legs at the same time generally would be the...
Goddamn.
Which is actually funny.
Going back to KOT stuff,
my first time doing the backflips,
it was put into my head that shoulder mobility
is actually really important when it comes to backflips or jumping or whatever.
Like as far as how far you can get your arm to come back and generate the momentum to extend through.
I never really thought about it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
You know, and this last session, I actually really appreciate it because a jump, a lot of times even I explain it to people a jump is is very similar to a deadlift positioning
wise and so those first fails i was coming over really far with my chest and so naturally there's
a much longer range motion to clear over when it was explained yeah when it was explaining me more
recently pretty much almost identical deadlift position i'm driving my legs into the ground like
i would and then just effectively getting my hips through that triple extension like i would lock out but now i'm just carrying that momentum through over the top so i think it
was explained to me like that it like it like clicked and i just literally like when i put
myself my arm comes back my chest stays up like i'm dead lifting and then i just throw and i see
in the video there's less range of motion where i have to go like chest down all the way over now
i'm just upright and then the then going back is much easier.
It's basically like a deadlift.
What made you want to do that?
Because of the WWE stuff.
So I figure
if I have certain attributes that
are good,
it would be ignorant of me
to not want to add to that to give myself
the best chance possible to
wow somebody absolutely so strength jujitsu a physique that's all great charisma but i'd never
been able to do the acrobatics and stuff before like kind of like there's a video if you want to
pull it up like me backflipping out of a single leg but i could never could actually do the
backflip itself yeah so then when i started learning the acrobatics, I'm like, this is another element that I could add to further wow somebody to want to
give me a chance.
No,
it's a jujitsu one,
right?
Yeah.
So go down.
It's my very first reel.
Oh,
okay,
cool.
That's easy.
Easy to find.
Yeah,
that one.
Whoa.
Holy shit.
Whoa.
You got out.
So he didn't keep like, what if he held your leg there i don't know
but he did not he didn't yeah yeah he didn't know what to do with it oh my man
he's like what the hell you just do what's uh you know so goldberg's your favorite wrestler
you must have uh practiced doing a lot of spears over the years oh yeah for sure uh what's
your fate what's your like favorite favorite wrestling move and have you tried any of these
wrestling moves on some inferior jujitsu practitioners like in actual matches or just
like forcibly upon them like when they're not yeah just for a figure four leg lock right in the middle
like i got like a white belt strolls in oh my god just, ah, I'm just going to clown on this guy
what's that, it's a Boston Crab?
yeah
naturally, yeah, so the spear
is my favorite, and naturally my favorite
wrestling takedown became a blast double leg
just because it's relatively simple, just spear
through the person, it looks very similar
as far as like actual, there was a
time a few years back where me and my
friends were messing around, we used the geese for some grips and we're trying to like do like the jackhammer that goldberg
does and stuff or like the suplexes that brock lesnar does and i couldn't understand how i was
trying to lift my friend that's like 150 and i can't get him up but then goldberg's over here
like doing it against like the big show 500 pounds or whatever and then doing it perfectly
but then but then i started to
learn you know the technique behind everything too but yeah i played around with a little bit
especially i guess kids and stuff actually if you want to hear a funny story with how
loyal there you go oh yeah yeah yeah this is i think this is it
jesus and he was freaking yeah he was huge yeah he was so big back then yeah and he's in pretty good shape then yeah yeah and he got in good shape again actually oh he did slam he did i'm not sure if they went
against each other a couple times just probably oh geez maybe towards the end yeah it'll come up
what were you saying uh you have a funny story about a funny i would there is like these oh here it comes he's getting too excited he can't
concentrate yeah no we gotta watch this though sorry for the people on audio
i do not even remember like look how big he's fucking god he's jacked yeah
i'd be three years old pretty much like doing that same thing
he was a little bit like the ultimate warrior like the ultimate warrior back in the day was I'd be three years old, pretty much doing that same thing.
He was a little bit like the Ultimate Warrior.
The Ultimate Warrior back in the day was a little bit like this,
where he'd just come sprinting to the ring.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
That's incredible on both of their parts, to make that happen.
But the funny story is, when I was three at Toys R Us, they had a Goldberg-stuffed thing that you could wrestle with and a Diamond Dallas Page one.
And you would think because I'm a Goldberg fan, I'd tell my parents to give me the Goldberg one.
But you're supposed to fight it and wrestle with it.
Because I'm so loyal to Goldberg, I told my mom, I don't want the Goldberg one.
I want the Goldberg.
So I had her buy the Diamond Dallas Page one.
But I would wrestle that and my pillows and stuff.
I would take a long pillow and set it up and then get down and go and run and do the spear.
Yeah, I did a lot of practice when I was young.
Did you or did you not go to a WWE event with a belt around your waist?
I'm not one of those people.
Oh!
I thought we had you pinned for that.
That's the best.
It's the best when someone's like 40.
They got the John Cena spinner belt and you're just like, what the hell is going on here? And then when you see how expensive they are, it's the best when someone's like 40 you know they got the john cena spinner belt
and you're just like what the hell is going on here and then when you see how expensive they
are it's crazy yeah oh yeah when i went to wrestlemania they they had a whole shop for
them and they're legitimate belts and you got people like three belts walking around like
roman reigns you know just world heavyweight wwe like it's crazy yeah just how much are they though
when you say i think some of them because i mean the real so i think some of them will range up like 300 400 depending on which one
you're getting yeah like they're legit but i'm thinking to myself like walking around all day
like i don't know i feel like i'd be just like uncomfortable walking around with you know but
you know whatever but i have to ask you this yeah well actually did you have another rest no no go
ahead okay because we we talked a bit about your nutrition, but I want to know like- They're on sale.
Sorry.
Hold on.
No, I mean, dude, look, they're originally $4.29.
What?
$3.22.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
Okay.
Use my discount code.
We need one of these.
What are you like?
Because you mentioned you were able to cut 50 pounds in 10 weeks.
you're like, cause you mentioned, you know, you're, you're able to cut 50 pounds in 10 weeks, by the way, everybody remember in our prior episode, we talked about how like habits are
necessary to be able to do that. So you've gone up and down, you know what to do. So now it's just
like structure. Like it's easy for you because you have the habits necessary to do that.
Nutritionally, what are your habits? Like what type of food do you eat generally? Like what do
you say, stay away from?
What are your habits?
So I'll be very transparent.
Up until probably that transformation, it was very unhealthy as far as extremities go because it would be 100% one way or another.
Like getting up to 250 there, eating fast food probably every single day.
Still training jujitsu like twice a day and lifting, but I'd be going into most jujitsu practices with like two burritos in my stomach.
But you can also counteract it because of your level of activity.
Right, for sure.
But then now, but at the same time too, it's like just because I can drop 50 pounds in 10 weeks, it doesn't mean I should because as far as efficiency goes and health, it's not worth it.
It's much easier, like I said, to stay within a range.
and health, it's not worth it.
It's much easier, like I said, to stay within a range.
Now I would say that I try to stay at an 85%, 90% threshold where I'm very disciplined in what I'm eating for both internal
and just being aware calorically what I'm intaking.
The other 10% is whatever comes up during the week
if I'm going out to eat or whatever.
But I'm trying to really make it more of a lifestyle now
to where most of my meals are eaten with the thought of internal or just keeping my calories at a certain range
and then if a birthday dinner comes up or what have you then then i have that extra 10 to allocate
for but now it's mostly i'm a big fan of ground turkey and mixing it with sweet potatoes because
the ground turkey itself is very lean, like 99 lean ground turkey.
So you generally eat slightly lower fat than most individuals.
I would say so.
Typically it ends out that way.
Yeah.
But outside of that, just your general like oatmeal, eggs, nothing too crazy.
If I see something that I feel is a little bit higher in calories,
I might try to take now like a half serving of that,
just trying to break old habits.
The old habits of that one are the 270 picture.
Every single thing I got, you can ask my friends,
I have to get at least two of.
Yeah.
Like mentally, if I go to, it's called Rubio's.
I know what Rubio's is.
Okay, cool.
If I go to Rubio's, like I feel like a failure
if I don't order at least three things, you know?
And so I'm trying to break that habit to where naturally I'm just making better choices
like instead of three burritos, let's just do one, Jimmy. And then take one
down to like a half and then have a side of fruit or just make better choices
overall that not necessarily in the moment I'm going to get
super shredded from this, but long term it's going to be a healthier habit that is better
to maintain. Yeah. And that's the question be a healthier habit that is better to maintain.
Yeah.
And that's the question I have for you.
Maintaining it.
Like I found for me, one thing that helped me to be able to, cause I've been the same weight for like four years now, I think.
But maintaining this body composition, body composition and weight, fasting helped me
out with that because I have better control over my hunger.
Cause I can also eat a disgusting amount of food.
But my thing was like, I was always responding to hunger.
So fasting helped me not always respond to hunger.
I personally eat generally higher fats.
I do eat carbs still, but generally it's higher fat.
But for you, what are some of your keys to being able to maintain it?
Because for most people they can get lean,
but because they don't have good habits as far as eating,
they can't maintain that for a long time
like they'll balloon back up so for you what what's been the big keys in maintaining your leanness
it's going to be an answer that's very unique to me because it has to do with my goals when i look
at some of these pictures extreme to one extreme it's and obviously most people say don't cut
yourself cold turkey well i'm one of the few people that can and just suffer through it.
And so that's where picture A to picture B comes from.
But more recently now, it makes sense for me to manipulate my calories up and down to maybe put on a little bit of strength but not gain 60 pounds in a year or something like that like I used to.
like I used to. So now it's like, because of the fact that my goals specifically have to do with me being able to perform, look a certain way, I need to get the whole lifestyle switch down to
where I'm okay with just eating healthy for the sake of eating healthy. Naturally, your calories
are lower because most healthy food are just calorically less. Now, if I got a call tomorrow
that says, hey, we need you in three months, then I've been at a point to where, good, I can make a
switch, drop some calories, and I should look pretty crystal clear by the time that trial comes
around. But because I made the lifestyle switch due to my specific goals. With most people, I would
say that give yourself a bigger reason other than just looking a certain way. Because I feel like
that's where people start to kind of fall apart. Because maybe they do achieve a certain look,
that's where people start to kind of fall apart because maybe they do achieve a certain look but they don't necessarily pick apart why they got so big in the first place whether it was
internally they were i saw one of your recent podcasts like broken or or just whatever mentally
caused them to get to that point if you don't do like the internal work and determine why you got
so far off yeah then you're almost bound to get back to that at some
point because you're not necessarily fixing the core issue. So I would say work like that is
extremely important to make sure that the weight stays off because then you almost,
I don't know how to put it. You may understand where I'm going with this, but you feel like
you're fixing yourself both externally and internally, not just organs, but actual mental health.
I saw your podcast with Josh Peck and stuff and what he talked about.
I found it to be very interesting too.
His background is a lot different than mine, both overweight at some point, but he went through his own struggles to get to where
he's at and he's been able to keep it off so i think that answer could be different for for most
people but i think the general answer is to target what the internal issue is like mentally yeah so
you can keep it off long term gotcha yeah it's hard for a lot of people to deal with they can
like they can do a sprint you know they can do a little sprint or they can make a little dash uh but they kind of lack like the real grit and kind of internal
i guess dialogue to recognize that they can do better and better every day and can kind of make
it more of lifestyle yeah but that is it's it's a challenging part of it all do you feel now that
you have it down to where you can keep your keep it a lifestyle without like going up and down
or do you have any where you're concerned that that might happen again i feel tendencies of
habits that i created for myself for my whole life where i feel like i really want to binge and go
i think currently right now my goals are just bigger than that temptation but hopefully through
the process of time and everything it starts to genuinely just become a lifestyle because I'm happy to admit now it's not perfect for me whatsoever.
I went when I went to Dallas, I came to Dallas 205.
I left Dallas 222.
And now I'm respected.
You ain't joking about gaining weight easily.
Yeah.
Now I'm respected like, you know, 210 or something like that.
And so it's like going through things like that. Like, like okay you went a little bit too overboard there obviously it's a
vacation it's a trip like enjoy yourself but where's that point and mentally i think i know
where it is but it's actually being able to put the pen to the paper and and and not restrict but
but be more aware that's what i'm trying to get better at personally because i know the work ethic is there to get extremely low if i need it to be but it's always been extremely low or extremely high
i've never found that middle ground until more recently and because i'm trying to break you know
a 20-year habit it's it's difficult but i'm finding progress hopefully we can get some
korean barbecue before you go i'd love to it's meat i know i love to yeah load up okay what's your uh
what's your sleep like good and good and bad so my schedule is is busy because i'm juggling
teaching classes clients three to four training sessions a day and then also running my business
at home the how strong stuff we have business meetings most most days of the week and so to allocate time for all that most of my days and also like say pro wrestling
training or gymnastics the different things that i do there most days for me are like a 7 to 8 a.m
to a 1 to 2 a.m is what it's been more often than not and that's just how it is but at the same time
i'm doing what i love so i'm willing to sacrifice some rest to keep that schedule if that's what it takes.
But I try to get about six hours, it seems, on average.
Last night was like two.
But, you know, coming here, I had to lift and then go to the airport.
But I would say six to eight.
I used to be such a huge proponent on naps, to be honest with you.
Like in high school, before I had anything to do, I always made myself and then the friends I was training came.
We're getting home from school and then we're taking a nap and then we're hitting legs.
And it was like that.
And I felt that I found that to be extremely beneficial.
But, you know, being a busy adult, sometimes that's not applicable.
But if there is time to actually invest in a nap or something like that throughout the day, I do like doing that.
If in the case that my nighttime sleep is deteriorated because of whatever outside factor that comes along. Yeah. It's not perfect,
but that's what I've been able to function on. But I do want to try to make it a little bit more
of a priority as I move forward to one of our friends, uh, Joel green. He wrote about this on
Instagram and he's talked to us about it before, but he has something he calls called super sleep.
Okay. So it's a real, it's a real easy thing for someone to get on board with
that kind of just doesn't feel like they have time to sleep.
And in this idea that he has, this concept of super sleep,
you just pick a day, like one time a month,
where you just sleep your fucking face off.
You just force yourself to keep going back to bed.
There's no jujitsu.
There's no gymnastics.
There's no lifting for the day.
You just keep forcing yourself to keep,
keep going to sleep for that day and just see how many hours of sleeping you
get.
You can get anything over like 10 hours like that.
I know there's a lot of research that says like,
they don't think that you can make up sleep,
but I don't know if people have tried it in a hyper sense that he has.
So I think like for, for me, like I don't love to you can make up sleep. But I don't know if people have tried it in a hyper sense that he has. So I think, like, for me, like, I don't love to sleep either.
For some reason, I just, I don't want to go to bed.
I feel like I'm missing something.
If I don't wake up early, I feel like I'm missing something.
Like, I feel like I'm being lazy or whatever it is.
It's a misconception that I have that I, like, live with every day.
And I just need to get the fuck over it.
But for me, trying to have one day and I just need to get, I need to get the fuck over it. But for me, uh, trying to have one day where I just sleep and I don't have anything else.
That's like an interruption has been pretty,
uh,
pretty helpful.
So maybe that'd be something to be helpful for you.
So you've tried it yourself.
Oh,
absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Have you tried it too?
I haven't tried it because it's pretty good.
I,
I make sure like,
I,
I think like,
man,
I think I'm more fragile than most people because I can tell and my body can feel like the wear and tear of training if I don't get enough sleep.
So because I know that it's so essential for me to be able to perform well and actually recover, I can't slack on it.
That's why I was curious for you.
Like, what are your recovery tactics?
Because not only are you doing teaching jujitsu and doing that three to four times a day you're also moving a lot of volume in the gym like you're
dead lifting like you're not dead lifting seven every day or anything but like you're moving
high not just high volumes but high intensity so what else do you do for recovery even though you
do get like six hours sometimes that slacks a little bit. So how do you manage that?
I would say like going back to the first answer, a lot of the KOT movements have been huge and not necessarily – well, you could argue recovery, but more so just adding durability so that there's not as much of a recovery process needed.
That was the biggest thing that I noticed, especially through that adcc trials prep where i should be feeling
really bad right now but i'm not for some reason and when you say really bad do you mean like
joint wise what do you mean i'd probably say fatigue and also joint wise and everything too
because it's like hard wrestling sessions with good wrestlers hard wrestling sessions with good
guys and still lifting relatively intensely with all that said to and also on very very very very low calories like
one two days two meals a day was like good at that point i don't suggest it but that's what it kind
of ended up being during that you're doing that to drop weight i was doing that too because i was
making i was trying to make the 217 class for trials okay and i wanted to get to the point to
where i was in a safe zone being the first time that I actually traveled to compete to where if,
to where I had a good window to float between.
So where I didn't have to worry about weight at all.
I just wanted to make it no stress.
So even though I came there,
like,
you know,
17,
17 pounds under the weight class,
I wanted to not have weight be an issue when I got there.
So that was part of it.
And then again,
being extremists,
I see that I'm close to 200.
I just got to touch one 99.
We just got to touch it. You know, like it becomes that thing, being an extremist, I see that I'm close to 200. I just got to touch 199. We just got to touch it.
It becomes that thing.
But the recovery-wise, the sleep, I do notice when I get more sleep, I do feel a lot better.
But when it's not there, I feel like I just recently started actually having an actual stretching routine,
which I can't tell you yet how it's helped me because I'm so new to it,
but I might come back and tell you guys how I feel because that's never something I've actually
committed to before. The KOT movements are great for mobility, but building strength and long
ranges, but now actually trying to open up myself and use that as a form of recovery.
I like sauna. I've done ice baths before. Breathing. One of my good friends is really into Wim Hof and we had a Wim Hof seminar come to our gym not too long ago. I find that all to be very beneficial and there's a lot in that realm that I have yet to venture into.
anything specific. I just think that adaptation has allowed me to get to a certain point to where I'm very durable. Yeah. Be it even in my, even if my recovery routine isn't picture perfect.
I think even just, you know, recovery is one thing and I think it would obviously help and aid in
recovery and maybe you'll even feel stronger for some of the stuff that you're doing. But
I think it would help a lot with, uh, like wanting to overeat because I kind of think that –
You mean sleep?
Yeah, sleep.
Yeah, yeah, getting a lot of sleep.
So I would encourage you like if you can – I think sometimes like it's like walking somebody through like a workout or like the people you train, the people you coach.
Like where am I going to start out day one in jiu-jitsu with you?
Like what are you going to
show me that's going to be something that's valuable, something that's simple, something
where I have a good experience? So like, what can you do for yourself in that same fashion when it
comes to like sleep? It's like, well, man, I don't want to have to try to carve out eight hours
because I got this, I got that. Like, you just think of all these things that you have to do
and you think about how that's going to just totally fuck up your life because it's too long,
it's too much sleep or whatever, whatever's in your head about it right
but if you just say you know i'm going to work on getting to bed about a half hour earlier okay for
the next couple days like i just i'm gonna i'm gonna work on that discipline just like the way
you worked on all your other disciplines and then if you say yeah you know what i'm going to try to
do super sleep i'm going to pick a day that I think doesn't have too much shit going on,
and I'm just going to try to sleep a little bit longer.
I mean that implementation right there might make it a lot easier
for you to stay away from something like binging.
That is really interesting.
I'm actually really curious about that super sleep concept.
What would you suggest if you yourself or other people you work with?
Because I find that I can't shut off very easily.
Maybe it's because of the caffeine
intake because I work out late at night that's probably has to do with it a lot you have caffeine
at night yeah probably but even in general even without that I still sometimes have trouble
shutting off my head sometimes like people talk about how as soon as they hit the pillow they
pass out they just never been me even when I was a kid before all the training and stuff like that
and so yeah what would you suggest if you were advising somebody with that issue?
I think if you could find a book to read or do something like a puzzle
or like a crossword puzzle or something kind of calm, something easy.
Even aside from that, go outside, do some grounding,
just go outside barefoot, get the cold grass on your feet
and just look at the moon for a little while like just something that's just like where you can
uh just really try to like just calm down and get away from other stuff i don't think you need like
a lot of it like i think 20 minutes of it and if it doesn't seem to work, you can go back to it. You can also like journal. We're fans of these glasses that are like red slash orange-ish.
What that does for me, I don't know how well it works with the hormones in your body and all that kind of stuff.
But I do know it like I can't read my phone when I have them on.
Watching TV, I can kind of watch TV, but it's not as enjoyable.
So it's like, all right, well, I'm kind of fucked.
I'm just going to go to bed.
And if you put them on about an hour or so before you go to bed,
yeah, I've found those things to be really helpful.
When you actually hit the bed, what's happening?
Is your mind just racing?
Are you thinking about literally everything all of a sudden? What's going on there? Sorry, when you actually like hit the bed, like what's happening? Like, is your mind just racing?
Like, are you thinking about literally like everything all of a sudden?
Like what's going on there?
Yeah, it could be what I did in the day, what I need to do tomorrow.
If I'm in a super like motivated kick, I could be thinking about what I want to do with my life.
And it just kind of never stops.
Yeah, just usually stuff like that, I would say.
And he's thinking about Goldberg.
Right.
Yeah.
So then like.
It's happened before for sure so like when you have like opportunities where whether it be your i mean
i doubt this happens but like you're waiting for maybe somebody in the gym or you're you're driving
somewhere or you have any passive time you're probably just knowing you right now you're
probably listening to a podcast you're doing something that's like i'm not gonna waste this
time i'm gonna better myself yeah which means you're probably never actually with just yourself.
Very rarely. Until that morning or I mean that nighttime happens, right? So then you're just,
that's the first time where your mind's like, hey bro, I got some shit I need to tell you.
So my recommendation is like, if you can just spend whatever amount of time that you can afford
throughout the day with literally nothing and then let your mind yell at you for that moment.
You know, it's not going to be very long and it may or may not help. But I've just noticed that
a lot of people are like, oh, I mean, as soon as I touch the bed, that's when my brain wakes up.
It's like, well, that's the first time you put your phone down too.
Yeah.
And I'm not saying that's what you do, but just knowing you, you you're a motivated person you're probably always going to be trying to learn
something or trying to communicate with the people that you work with or that you're coaching and
stuff yeah exactly so like maybe spend i don't know even 10 minutes just like all right i'm just
gonna fucking go ahead brain tell me what you want me to hear and then go from there it is very i
actually i think there's probably something to that because yeah i'm pretty much interacting
with people all day long.
Like most, most probably you guys are too.
So for me, it is the first time actually alone to myself.
And I think I valued that a lot as a kid growing up and only child.
So it's almost like my way to revert back to that before I have to restart that process
of being social again.
So yeah, I'm, I'm going to try that.
Thank you.
That's awesome.
Quick question.
Um, how much caffeine do you think you have a day?
Probably, like, probably I usually have a cup of black coffee in the morning,
and then for my lifting pre-workout, 250.
Not too bad.
Our last guest was in grams.
Remember?
Yeah.
He had grams of caffeine.
Really?
Yeah.
We were like, what?
Does your
pre-workout, what time do you think you usually take
when you lift in the evening?
Recently, it's been right after I get off of my
last client, which is like 7 or
8.
I think two of your biggest movers
would be trying to find a pre-workout
that potentially doesn't have caffeine
in it
especially at nighttime because you you probably don't want to really fuck with too much caffeine
for most people after 2 p.m even though like some people are like i could drink a cup of coffee and
go to sleep that sleep quality is not going to be as high as if you just kept the caffeine earlier
in the day so why are we trying to help him and make him better because he's already wanted to
be the freak freak he's already a freak but but we want him to be a freak freak.
This is going to be disastrous.
This is going to be amazing.
Everyone's going to be pissed off at us.
Like, dude, that last little chip I needed was just sleep.
Thanks, guys.
But, dog, no, no.
Sleep is huge.
WWE champ.
So, one, the caffeine.
Limit that after 2 p.m. if you can.
Okay.
Because there are pre-workouts that are made.
There are versions that are non-caffeinated.
Yeah, non-steminated or non-stem.
And the first thing would be when you wake up, do you get sun immediately or are you like indoors?
It's pretty much all indoors because I'm just going from the house straight to the car and driving where I need to go.
I would suggest, and it's made a big difference because I notice it because my circadian rhythm now is super consistent.
I feel extremely tired at the same point of time every single day, and I'm usually asleep now.
I used to go to sleep at like midnight or 1.
Nowadays, I'm asleep at like 9, 3, 10.
Really? Okay.
And I never used to be someone who would be like, I can sleep early.
I was not that guy, right?
And it's because every single morning I make sure to get morning sun in my eyes.
We learned this from Huberman, right?
Andrew Huberman.
Get that morning sun in your eyes immediately.
Maybe take a walk or just go stand outside and make sure you're in some sunlight. And then I always get morning sun in my eyes. We learned this from Hooberman, right? Andrew Hooberman. Get that morning sun in your eyes immediately. Maybe take a walk or just go stand outside and make sure you're in some sunlight.
And then I always get evening sun.
Because what that does is it tells your body, oh, it's morning
time. Let's start
the adenosine pump. It's something that gets higher
as you go through the day. And then once you're ready to sleep,
adenosine is high. When you sleep, adenosine goes down.
But that sunlight starts that
pump. And then when you, if you're
able to get yourself outside when the sun is starting to set, maybe 15 minutes in the evening when sunset happens, that also triggers your body.
Oh, sun setting.
Okay.
It's time to start feeling tired.
But if you're indoors the whole time and you're not really getting outside and getting sun, that can fuck with your circadian rhythm.
And when I started doing that i noticed every single
morning i get up at literally like 6 23 it's it's every i look at my clock every morning it's like
6 23 or 6 24 i don't use an alarm because my rhythm is so fucking consistent and i still get
tired at the same time every day and having that consistent circadian rhythm like whenever like i'm
in that i'm just like wow wow, I feel fucking amazing.
So the caffeine and sunlight I think would be your biggest movers.
Obviously, there's the blue light blockers, which are great and everything else.
But those would be – those are the big movers right there.
Yeah, especially within my own control.
Oh, yeah.
That's great.
Thank you.
That's awesome.
I've never actually heard of the sunlight one before.
Yeah.
Andrew Huberman talks about that all the time.
He talked about it when he was here.
And everyone, go find Matthew Walker's podcast.
It's on Apple and everything.
But he has multiple episodes on sleep, which if you listen to it, they're short episodes, 15 to 20 minutes.
And he goes over how alcohol affects sleep, how light affects sleep.
Very amazing podcast.
All very short.
Matthew Walker's podcast. Don't let yourself get all screwed up over it, though. That's true. holoflex sleep how light effects sleep yeah very amazing podcast all very short matthew walker's
podcast don't let yourself get all screwed up over it though that's just just take some of the tips
and some of the information and apply wherever you can and uh you don't need to be you don't
need to get crazy about this but like having the phone out of the room or or putting it on airplane
mode or something you know all these things can be really helpful try not to use your bed you know
you know where you're just sitting there texting and scrolling and
stuff like that.
So that way your brain and body knows like, hey, when I go in there, I'm down.
I'm going to sleep, you know, that kind of thing.
I noticed, I think, I don't know if you did too, but you have your notifications on silence
at certain times, yeah?
Yeah.
That's a feature I definitely haven't used, but I've been seeing more people use that. You, you, you enjoy that? Absolutely. Because like, if, if, if I'm,
I mean, I have it open for like my mom or people who like, if they direly need to get to me,
they can get to me. But outside of that, I don't, because like, uh, especially at night, it's like,
uh, I got to sleep. You know what I mean? And this, this is the thing, like, there are a lot
of athletes out there who are elite.
Like you are elite and you are doing all these things.
But I think that like if your sleep got handled, number one, you're going to probably be more efficient when you're working and having ideas during the day.
But then you in the gym and rolling, like everything just gets that much sharper.
That's why it's scary that your sleep is the way it is right now because and like mark said the effect on your your cravings whenever i
get good sleep man my cravings are like i can i can handle that easily but when my sleep gets a
little fucked i'm like i want to hammer and stuff my fucking face it's like the feelings they're way
more yeah so that's why like i'm i'm so big on sleep for people because it has a cascading effect on everything that you're trying to do, including the business stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
And that's, I mean, as far as diet goes, that's so true.
Whenever, if I binge, it's always at the end, at the end of the day when I feel the most tired, you know, from an inconsistent and lack of sleep schedule.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It can ruin kind of decision-making skills.
It can make you kind of grumpy.
That's the shitty part of it.
Someone just catches you on a day where you're a little more tired
and that's their first experience with you or something.
It's like, oh, shit.
Although we can barely tell you're working off of two hours.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
You're killing it right now.
The energy, the caffeine.
Sorry.
Dude. I appreciate it. You're killing it right now. The energy, the caffeine. Sorry. How did you manage stuff through like the pandemic?
Because a lot of gyms shut down and maybe you didn't have as much access to jujitsu and lifting and all the things that you really love and enjoy.
So I actually looked out because since I work at the gym that I teach at and train at, I have the keys.
So I was able to lift there. We have our, I have the key. So I was able to
lift there. We have our weight area in the back. So that was good. As far as rolling goes, I have
some mats in my garage. So I would just invite friends over and we get some sessions in there.
So I didn't roll as much, but I didn't stop completely. It was interesting though. I'd never
had as much energy as I did during the pandemic
because everything that I was doing was non-existent as far as training as much and working
with people and everything. So that was, that was actually when my sleep got the worst. I couldn't
sleep until like six in the morning on some days, you know, and just like, I'm just like sitting
there feeling like I need to do something. Maybe it was anxiety or maybe it was actual energy that
I wasn't burning, but that's when my sleep was probably towards the worst it has ever been
because of, because of that, you know? Uh, but training wise, training wise, it was good. It was,
it wasn't really affected too much, thankfully. Yeah. Let me ask you this too, because we didn't
really get to like, we, we kind of brushed over, you know, your, your deadlift and your goals with that. But how have you balanced that aspect of training?
And what do your squat – if anything has gone down, which lift was affected the most?
Because for me personally, the deadlift seems to be the movement that it will just stay, right?
The bench was mainly affected for me and the squat was affected the most after that.
But for you, how are you managing to keep that elite-level powerlifting strength
while also being elite at jiu-jitsu?
I would say that it's pretty much the same for me as far as effect goes.
Benches first, then squat as far as literal weight goes.
But pound-for-pound-wise, I find that the numbers stay relatively close to where they're at.
So pound for pound, what I was doing at 240, 250 is either the same or for deadlift actually much better.
My leverage has improved drastically.
Actually, this last go around, I found a way to actually maximize my length with my arms for the first time ever.
So where my lockout went from basically up by my crotch down closer to my knees and i found that that was huge whoa yeah and i never even thought i really had long
arms before until i actually like look in the mirror push my shoulders down like my hands get
kind of close to my knees and it's like why haven't i been using that leverage and i finally
learned how to deadlift like this past like five months ago. So yeah, so that was good. But to answer your question,
I would say that it really just goes back
to the adaptation process of doing it so often
to where I've gotten my body around a body weight
where I've found is great for both the jujitsu
and the strength to where I'm not necessarily
affected strength wise
because I'm going so hard at jujitsu.
But on the flip side of that too,
my jujitsu isn't suffering athletically or cardio wise because I'm going so hard at jujitsu, but on the flip side of that too, my,
my jujitsu, jujitsu isn't suffering athletically or, or cardio wise because of the strength
and schedule wise. I typically, if it's a deadlift or a heavy leg day, it's, it is paired with a
light jujitsu day, or if I'm able to manage it, just completely make it its own own day for the
most part. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but for the most part,
I try to keep them separate to where I'm coming into a heavy training day
with a true amount of energy that I would want if I was actually competing in a meet.
That's how I kind of see it.
And then that way too, I feel like it's better because your programming can also be –
will also be better because the variable of energy or lack thereof isn't as much
of a factor so if i'm basing my numbers off of a deadlift that is after three jujitsu sessions
may not be the same if i had not done those so i try to keep that aspect specific especially when
you get higher in the numbers the deadlift because as you know it can be really detrimental if you're
calling numbers at a way too high in a program
or numbers that you aren't energized for.
So I find programming-wise, it's actually beneficial
to stay consistent if you're trying to really increase
the deadlift to keep that separate
from intense training days with jiu-jitsu
for the sake of just programming alone, personally.
What happened to you with that big squat?
You were trying like an 800-pound squat.
That's kind of how I found you was like maybe like a few months ago uh you you you were working with a big weight
look i think you were in a powerlifting meet and you like fell with a huge amount of weight like
800 pounds and then i think you came back and eventually squatted that weight um kind of what
happened there and then how did you overcome your fear of like getting smashed by the weight if it's the one that i think you're thinking of it was it was when i
qualified for the olympia and back then i think it still is now but back then it was single and
multi-ply and that was my first stint was single ply so a lot of that was technical adaptation more
than it was strength so at the time i had my strength for certain numbers, but I wasn't keenly aware of how
to load the suit, how to use the suit.
And when I first failed that one time, it was scary for sure.
I had like, you know, eight different spotters.
It's almost like spinning out like in snow, you know, like your car is fine or like on
ice.
Right.
Your car is fine.
Then all of a sudden you're just sliding.
And the same thing happens in powerlifting gear the lift is like totally in your control whether it's a
bench or a squat then all of a sudden you get like kicked out and like you're on the ground you're
like i don't even understand what happened that's exactly how i felt and so after the first fail
so i needed to get that squat specifically to show that i could walk it out to then qualify for the olympia because i
i did a qualifying number at a upa meet but it was on a monolith so then when i sent the thing
into the head of the uspa he said it didn't count because i didn't walk it out so then we did an
actual walkout video show him i could walk it out with the same weight but then i failed and like
crap so if i didn't get that i wasn't going to qualify for the meet and there's a lot of people banking on me going and I wanted to do it myself so what I did wrong there
I just loaded the suit incorrectly and I just basically trusted I hope it's just a technical
error versus an actual strength issue and it was and I was able to fix it and come up through the
squat so it ended up working well but then ironically fast forward to the olympia like i said went for 804 which was the junior ipl record at the time came forward out of it had to dump it and then
it being the shit out of the back of my head and i'm i'm surprised right here this is what we're
trying to find oh yeah yeah it happened so quick yeah it looks like you got strength you got
strength and then boom it's gone it's wild yeah i'm just like oh you went out too huh did were
you out i wasn't i was visually there but he's grabbing me he's like you good you good i'm like
yeah i'm good i'm good and my legs are like dangling why what what happened there you kind
of passed out briefly maybe i felt oxygen that and then i also just felt myself come like an inch
out of position forward and with handling weight that's obviously well over your raw max like every inch you're out of
position is only going to work against you there so at that point i'm not strong enough to maintain
that that position i just had to dump it going forward oh yeah there's so much there's so much
pressure on you like when you are lifting that kind of weight in a lifting suit did you blow out your eyes and
like all that shit too yeah i did i also um i don't know if i should talk about this i also
crapped my pants in that same meet deadlift oh shit so you still went on to go for deadlift after
that yeah so where's that video what the fuck knocking myself well that that actually wasn't
visually shown but yeah uh yeah it was like i hit my head and like all right on the bench like all right on
the bench but there's like a big ass bump on the back of my head and i was like how do i not have
a concussion from this but then on the way home hey jimmy how is and i'm like okay so i never got
it checked out but i think i might have concussed myself a little bit from 804 you concussed yourself
and you shit your pants in the same day in the same day did you end up finishing with a total i did
i did i got i got i got second that mean i lost to a guy from russia so well so not bad it was
all right but like and you really like shit yourself shit yourself or just like i stay in
my underwear a little bit i didn't take note of the exact level.
I just knew that there was a lot of pressure.
My mom was watching.
I got nervous.
And then, you know, I just let it go.
But did this happen at the beginning of the lift?
Did your cheeks catch it or did it hit the undies?
Well, the suit's just so powerful.
Nothing seeps through that.
Locked it in.
In my experience, it's happened a few times.
I can't believe I'm talking about this.
But it's like typically like towards the top where you're trying to just push your hips through.
And then that pressure on the belt just maximizes it.
It's just like –
Oh, yeah.
There's sometimes in videos – I'm going to assume that this has happened to people besides me.
It's happened to people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool. But it's funny because in videos where I've actually seen it, it's like I'm going to assume that this has happened to people besides me. It's happened to people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.
But it's funny because in videos where I've actually seen it,
it's like I'm going, it's like, oh, it's going up,
and then I slow down a little bit because I mentioned like, fuck.
You know?
You can tell the point where it starts like,
oh, why'd you slow down?
You had it.
Don't ask me questions, all right?
Chipotle and powerlifting don't go well together no no
they do not they do not for sure power project family how's it going i want to talk to you guys
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Yes, that's over at markbellslingshot.com and at checkout, enter promo code powerproject10 to save 10% off your entire order. Links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast
show notes. Yeah. Oh man. Well, okay. We got to hit up a good poop story if you have one later. But I do want to ask you about cardiovascular, like your cardio and jujitsu.
Because one thing that a lot of people say is that you can't really be a muscle-bound guy and have good endurance.
So for you, do you have any problems with endurance?
If you don't, how do you think you've handled that because when
you have more muscle like you most people are not able to have good cardio with that so how do you
navigate that jujitsu wise especially right now where i've really found my groove i really don't
genuinely even if i'm not training super hard for a competition i could probably push myself to go
an hour and a half straight in a competition class, like nonstop rolling. And there's cardio aspect to it for sure. But one video that impacted me that I saw when I
first started jujitsu was Gordon Ryan talking about just efficiency and how you don't necessarily
have to be cardiovascularly impressive. But if your efficiency is on point then there's just less energy expenditure all
around and so it'll come off like your cardio is amazing which sometimes it is but more than
anything you are very timely in where you're expending and then you know the places where
you can recover and then that's how you can go 20 30 minutes in a match like the first video we
pulled up when i was shirtless i had two 30 minute matches that day.
And the,
the promoter was like,
if you guys don't tap each other out here,
I'm going to have to keep going.
I'm like,
it's fine.
I can go all day,
but it's more so like,
just once it finally clicked to me how to be relaxed.
And actually I was going to compliment you because I was watching your
match against Chad Wesley Smith.
And your demeanor is just,
it's phenomenal. Extremely calm. You know, you make your movements when you need to but you're not obviously you're not crazy
you're a good practitioner but you're you're very calm like almost more than you would see in most
people and I wanted to compliment you on that but that's exactly what in my opinion makes somebody
look like they have good cardio versus not yeah Gordon Ryan also said I don't know how true this
is but you know you can only hit a certain point of cardio.
Like your cardio can only get so good.
I don't know how true that is,
but I think it sheds light on the opinion that,
or the concept that with efficiency,
it's almost irrelevant.
Because let's say if I was doing what Mark does
and run all the time,
I'm probably better than your average person,
but I probably couldn't outlast Mark at all.
Yeah.
Because there's a different cardio when it comes to grappling and running.
But it may be not even a cardio thing, but again,
just Mark's really efficient with his energy uses with running,
just like you or I am with grappling.
And I think that's a bigger thing.
In fact, in high school, one of my biggest problems was
I was more muscular than other kids,
but I never really understood the concept of being relaxed.
And I would die by the second period.
And my coaches would yell at me all the time.
And it's like I'm working harder than everybody else in the room.
I'm going harder with our conditioning drills.
And it's like, so why aren't I showing it in competition?
It was very tense, the pressure.
And, you know, by the second period, I gassed myself out and I couldn't recover.
All of a sudden now, fast forward, forward jujitsu i'm doing harder rounds but i feel like i'm just warming up because i'm not using energy when it doesn't need to be used and i just i'm like i
wish i learned this in high school i have a question for you about being relaxed are you
and actually you too mark when it comes to how much better you've gotten with running, I know we've talked about breathing, but do you feel, does your breathing have anything to do with you relaxing or is your body just more physically loose?
Do you pay attention to the way you breathe or is your body looser when you're doing things?
Both in the respect that I don't have a specific breathing pattern or breathing strategy that I try to obtain,
but I'm, but I'm focusing on two things. Is the opponent breathing harder than me? If so,
then I'm probably winning. Yeah. And on the other end of that, I, I try to make it to where,
and whether this is efficient or not, but I always try to start breathing through my nose and end
breathing through my nose. Cause I feel like as soon as I started to have to breathe through my mouth i wasted energy somewhere you know that's
what i feel like i agree with you i want that was the the that was the switch for me when i started
focusing on just learning how to breathe through my nose and having control over that because when
my mouth is open i know okay right things are starting to speed up but usually if my mouth is
open my opponent's really fucking tired so that that's been a big thing for me yeah
and i agree and it's like well i was starting like the wim hof method i'm not an expert but it's like
why wouldn't we want to do that with something like jets i feel like i feel like that could be
inefficient too because you're almost hyper focused on how you're breathing and it takes
away from the actual match itself yeah so if you find a calm pace to breathe at and stick with that to where you're almost like sleeping through certain positions, that's how I describe it.
Yeah.
That's when the breathing – that's how I would strategize it per se to your question.
That makes a lot of sense.
How about you, Mark?
Yeah.
For me with running, I feel like my ribs and my shoulders and my back
and my whole like traps and everything, I feel like I can relax that a lot more when I'm breathing
in and out of my nose and just feel more fluid. I mean, anybody listening to this right now,
you can just, you know, breathe in and out of your mouth a lot and like almost like hyperventilate a
little bit and just do something simple like bend down like towards your toes and you're going to find that like everything's just like a little tighter and it's
not that's not a great way to uh it's not a great way to perform a large part of your a large portion
of your movements now there's going to be some portion of your movements that you do want to
breathe differently and there there's time and place for everything sprinting or something like
that you might be taking things to a point that your body's not currently ready for
and if you're only trying to nasal breathe in those spots that might be a decent training
method to get you to a new spot but it also can be a little dangerous so you got to kind of
you know find that kind of happy medium but for me personally just i found it really helps me
relax i think it's helping me recover from the run from
running easier and it was also a nice challenge you know it's like okay well i got some jogging
down let me see if i can go from like jogging to like running like i'll run a little faster i'll
get a little bit better time okay that went pretty good but man i really am breathing pretty goddamn
loud while i'm doing that let me see if i can calm that back down. Oh, it kind of turns out I need to go back to like jogging at a slower pace to do the nasal breathing. Okay, well now
let me see if I can run, you know, now it just gives me more variables to deal with.
Off of that, my question is, because it's funny because generally jujitsu would be more
cardio intensive than lifting. However, I get more out of breath from lifting than I do jujitsu
more often than not, you know, with powerlifting coming from that background, have you guys found it tricky or just counterintuitive with how you would brace your core with the Valsalva maneuver and getting intra-dominal pressure?
Do you guys find it counterintuitive with how you breathe during running or how you breathe during jujitsu?
Like, especially when you first started being so used to using your air to maximize tightness,
and now we're trying to use it to stay loose.
I found at first it was a little bit tricky, but then I caught on soon enough.
But I was always curious to hear how your guys' perspective is on that.
I think it can be a little confusing at times, and it's hard to relax
or it's hard to just calm yourself down a bit.
I think, you know, a lot of the bracing and stuff that we did powerlifting, I think it's important.
But you mentioned the word efficiency.
Like when you're efficient, then like we're not even really talking about bracing.
Let me see you squat.
Oh, you squat 900 pounds.
Like could it be improved?
Could you brace harder or brace differently?
Maybe.
could it be improved could you brace harder brace differently maybe uh you know it's kind of it's sometimes hard to tell on whether these practices are there just because they're tradition or are
these practices actually really essential to certain movements i see i would say like if you
were to squat and you're to brace yourself even without any weight on your back you can probably
like fine you can probably create so much pressure that you'll hover and you won't squat down very low and then if you let air out
you can kind of like you kind of let yourself go so it kind of depends on how you're lifting like
if you're doing atg stuff and you're trying to express more ranges of motion then maybe we do
want to breathe in and out of the nose and be very calm. And we're doing an ATG split squat.
I saw at the seminar, there was a lot of people doing an ATG split squat.
A lot of the coaches were giving great instruction.
And I went over to a couple of people because the coaches are,
they're looking at so many different things at one time.
I put my hand on a guy's shoulder and I said, breathe.
And the guy was like, oh yeah.
And he started to
breathe calmly and he went into like a much better position. He gained like three, four inches on
the range of motion he was working on. And then he was able to breathe and relax and even go further.
I see. So I think it depends on the movements that we're doing. If we're doing bodybuilding,
I found it to be a nice challenge to try to superset or to try to get through sets,
to be a nice challenge to try to superset or to try to get through sets mainly breathing in and out of the nose there is also like a feedback factor though of lifting where like making like
a oomph or a little noise might be something you're accustomed to and in your own head if
that's something that you've practiced a lot when you go to lift only breathing in and out of your
nose it might be akin to like driving
around in like a Tesla where it doesn't have that same room. And maybe you like, maybe you kind of
like that. So I think you got to kind of pick and choose when you do some of this stuff, but
breathing in out of your nose for sets of, you know, eight, and you want to do a set of 12 and
nine, 10, 11, 12, you're making a little bit noise. You're breathing in and out of the mouth a little
bit. I don't really have any problem with that, but I do think the nasal breathing is huge. And I think
it can really help, uh, bring up somebody's conditioning. It's a simple thing to, to, uh,
be able to mess with to that point about changing it for ATG stuff, specifically the Jefferson curls
where I've done the exact opposite. Cause that's where I see, I get the most range of motion out
of it in general.
And it's like it's really meant to build strength with the spine and flexion.
And so if I'm bracing my core through air, it's like you're kind of being counterproductive
and what the purpose of the movement is, I found.
So it's like I need to be as loose as possible so that the lumbar actually takes the majority
of the load.
And then again, like it's almost it's basically like a lot of these movements just like weighted
yoga in a sense. You know, you hit a position in yoga or stretching and that
last little bit like yeah completely relax bring up a really good point you can you can blow out
easier i found you can blow easier through your mouth so that is a really good point okay and
part of the whole wim hof principle is to get your oxygen your co2 to uh have a better ratio between
the two because in your brain there's no
there's no sensor for lack of oxygen it's just in ratio to your CO2 and so you want to try it like
Wim Hof stuff which might be effective for you guys if you are getting winded at some sort of
jiu-jitsu thing that you guys are doing or whatever it is that you're doing you can try to blow off a
lot of CO2 and you'll you should be able to recover quite a bit faster.
It's actually interesting.
If you just blow out a lot of air, you'll feel yourself getting –
you'll be back in breath rather than out of breath quicker.
My story from that, and again, I'm no expert,
but I was training one of my high school clients for wrestling,
and he has asthma, but I didn't know that until he started having almost an asthma attack right there.
I was like, do you have your inhaler?
He's like, no.
So then I'm like, well, Wim Hof.
So I basically started coaching him to my minimal knowledge on how to do that method,
and after about 15 minutes or so, we finally got him to calm down,
but it was kind of sketchy there for a minute because we're doing like somewhat intensive drills but nothing crazy but he was like
going down much faster than you would expect yeah and he told me he had asthma crap you know and
then and then his parents were there and it's like so like all right i told him the basic like
you know like breathe out in and then let it release and i kept doing him having him do that
and it ended up working
and so that's like my one experience from it i don't know if that's going to be successful across
the board with all asthma attacks but my one instance actually we're like this is like needs
to be done now it worked actually really well really well no it's it's very interesting because
like when we were talking earlier or when when you were mentioning the difference between breathing when, especially powerlifting and breathing with jiu-jitsu, it's like if you have 500 pounds on your back, you don't want to be exhaling at the bottom of your squat, right?
Yeah.
But if you have lighter weight on you, and I've messed with this quite a bit, I'll do breathing squats.
So I'll brace.
But as I'm squatting, I'll purposely be breathing while maintaining my spine.
I can allow myself to go here with the squat, but I can maintain this and breathe and squat down with a decent load.
And also when I lift and it's not like anything heavy that I need to make sure that I have all this intra-abdominal pressure that I cannot let out. I'll breathe through that because like when I'm thinking about moving throughout a day,
if any type of load comes at me, I need to be able to brace but also move.
Like I can't just brace and stay like super stiff.
That's necessary when it's a super heavy load, deadlifting super heavy, squatting super heavy,
even benching super heavy.
But outside of that in my other lifts i focus on breathing because a
bad habit that a lot of lifters have is they'll stop breathing when they're doing other types of
lifts like they'll do bicep curls and like you'll notice they'll have to try to gush in all this air
but if you have better breathing habits you should be able to breathe through all those other
movements and it'll help with recovery it'll help with recovery from set to set and it'll help the recovery from session
to session if you breathe better. So it's not that you need to be doing that on, you know,
one rep maxes or three rep maxes, right? But you should get a better handle on your breathing
throughout a session because that can yield better recovery. That's very interesting. So you find that to be very beneficial in regards to, well,
transferring into jujitsu, but just regular movements in everyday life to make it more
applicable? Yeah. I even tape my mouth shut when I sleep so that I'm breathing through my nose all
night long. I know 100% that I sleep better that way because my mouth doesn't open when I sleep.
And I always wake up much, much more refreshed.
So that's a habit that all of us here have.
But like outside of that, I noticed like we've been talking about nasal breathing and jujitsu for a while.
My buddy, Josh Settleidge, hopefully you'll be able to meet him and you guys can do some roles and stuff together.
I've connected with him on Instagram before a couple of times.
He's here.
Yeah, he trains at Casio's also.
Oh, cool.
And happy birthday. It's his birthday today what yeah absolutely yeah so
today the 25th this isn't going to come out on the 25th but happy birthday josh yeah he's 25 he's 25
25 on the 25th there we go but josh also started focusing on nasal breathing a few years ago and
i always check in with him like do you notice the difference do you notice the difference that he
also has a wrestling background just like
yourself and he's like yeah like my my endurance is better on the mats like since i focused on
nasal breathing so it's something that like i look at it as a secret weapon because like i can see i
can see my opponents their mouth is open and i'm still just chilling through my nose you're fucked
yeah exactly like you're 100% fucked to me that's my number one confidence booster honestly is when I can see you're breathing less efficiently than I
am then then I can then we can put it on like then we can go yeah yeah and I don't know like
being able to pick up your pace and still maintain that I can't say that I'm actively thinking about
it but it just I guess a skill that you just you acquire and it just doesn't go away no matter what pace you're really moving at yeah yeah like i'll notice like if if
my opponent's breathing heavier i'll start to speed up and i'll start to then transfer but
my breathing is still calmer than theirs but what like i usually don't do that until i see their
mouth drop open i'm like okay we have really turned up now yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's dope. I'm happy to
see that. Like, cause again, I think that for, especially for guys who are bigger, if they can
get their breathing handled, cause most of them don't, most of them a minute in or 30 seconds
into rolling, they're already here. But if they can get their breathing handled, they're not going
to have a problem with that. I think even the faces and the stuff that we make, you know,
it's very connected to everything you have going on in your body.
And it's really common to see somebody come in the gym and they do like a
little warmup.
And then the first thing they try to do is like do a squat and we'll do a
squat with the bar and like,
they'll kind of like wince.
And then like,
if you were to ask them,
say,
Hey,
are you in a lot of pain?
And they'd be like,
no.
When you'd be like,
well,
I don't,
what are you,
why are you making that face? And it's just that's i don't know that's we see other
people lift and we maybe start to get used to that or you're doing like tricep push-downs you start
making crazy faces it's understandable that sometimes when you get under a lot of weight
and there's a lot of pressure that your entire body is going to do all kinds of different things, right? We put hundreds of pounds on you. That makes sense.
But I've found it really useful just to try to relax my eyes,
relax my face as much as I can doing most exercises.
And I still find myself flexing everything and getting way too tight on
exercises where I don't even really, you know, it's like, Oh,
you're just doing lateral raises. Like calm down. your jaw doesn't need to be like locked down you know
you don't need to make this crazy face so i i found a lot of utility in that as well i it's
funny too because yeah you think about i don't know like bodybuilding videos and ronnie coleman
legend but he's doing like your basic like movements so like a lateral raise is like it
becomes like yeah like one of these and it's like why you know but it's my jujitsu comparison of that is i always tell people that if you're in
danger if you feel like you are always play poker face because sometimes if you play poker face well
enough the other person might actually think they don't have it when they do now with leg locks you
get into some like hasty territory with that but i have been in the situation in the past where I'm not saying this is
smart,
but where they might have a deep,
like let's just play it safe with the ankle lock,
basic ankle lock.
And they're cranking it.
I feel it,
but you play poker face and they see that and they're like,
Oh,
I don't have it.
And they move on to something else.
But like realistically,
I was probably like a couple inches away from tapping.
And yeah.
And so,
but if I'm the guy on the other end i see i see wincing
i'm like oh i'm so close i put even more on it so i i always suggest to people like be able to tell
when you need to tap but don't necessarily tell them that you're about to because you actually
might get out just because you played it well off with your face yeah yeah man let me ask you this
uh especially being as strong as you are with hell like no gi the whole
metagame is like the leg game right um and obviously i can tell by your your videos your
you you understand the leg game well do you ever get concerned with heel hooks i i i like to think
that i'm aware of what positions that i need to start thinking about safety in yeah that makes
sense yeah so and that comes through a lot of practice and understanding how the body works and what
ways things bend and everything.
It's interesting, like, sure, you know, Lachlan Giles and everything.
His perspective is interesting because he's actually an expert on knees itself.
So he's teaching people how to do heel hooks and everything.
And he's an actual specialist on knees.
But I would say that i'm
confident enough to play legs with a high level person to know when i need to tap but at the same
time too there was a there's an instance a couple years back where i went to open mat in california
and it wasn't even a heel hook but the guy threw his legs up in some type of inversion
and the mattress sweaty and he went for my leg didn't even go for a leg lock but my leg slipped and he came down and the inside of my knee popped and and thank god nothing happened because
it popped and and i got the mri and it didn't show anything and did you feel anything i did and it
was it was swollen and my ankle got swollen i i thought for sure that initially the doctor thought
it was either a meniscus or mcl issue yeah i thought for sure i was going to get surgery and
then the mri showed nothing and then it ended up healing shortly after that okay it was either a meniscus or an MCL issue. I thought for sure I was going to get surgery. And then the MRI showed nothing. And then it ended up healing shortly after that. It was very,
it was very interesting, but you know, situations like that to where it's not even actual submission
locked in, but your knee gets put in an awkward position. That's the type of stuff that typically
sketches me out more than actual leg lock itself to where I can actually determine, okay, am I
actually fucked here or not? Or can I fight through this?
Yeah.
Those are the positions that I'm more concerned about, honestly.
And maybe just from my experience alone.
Okay.
Yeah.
I got you.
Also, I've had some issues like with leg lock entries, just random thought where I don't position my leg well enough.
So there's a lot of pressure on my LCL on the outside.
I've had a couple of pops there.
Nothing too dangerous but if i don't angle my
leg well enough and i'm more externally rotated here then a lot of times i've had a lot of bad
pressure on that and so that's been a kind of an issue other than that nothing too crazy if it's
an actual heel hook that being applied on me i typically just play it smart yeah yeah by the way
i want to encourage people um as he's mentioning all of this
with the popping in the knees and shit understand that this isn't all a jujitsu because so many
people are like getting into jujitsu now and but that's a big concern for people injury understand
that tapping is a thing like number one if you're a big strong person you go to jujitsu and you're
in a place where you can get tapped tap don't be stubborn right either verbal tap or tap because
most of the time when people get themselves injured is because they are being too stubborn
with tapping and their opponent doesn't know like oh is this not working okay let's do it a bit more
snap crackle pop because the person doesn't choose to tap so that's always there you should always
tap when you want to um and secondly like you don't have to do the like the leg stuff like you can learn it. But typically people are very safe with those things.
Right.
So you injury doesn't have to happen within the martial art.
I know people who have gone to the jiu jitsu 20 years and they have gotten injured.
But it's just something where, you know, just be careful.
That's all.
It's not like Cobra Kai.
It's not like Cobra Kai.
It's not like Cobra Kai. I'm not like Cobra Kai. It's not like Cobra Kai.
I'm sure.
Love that show.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
Andrew,
take us on out of here,
buddy.
Absolutely.
Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode.
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Jimmy, where can people find you and everything you do?
You can find me on Instagram at jhouse182.
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My business, www.teamhousejong.com.
If you're interested in purchasing any House Jong merchandise, you can find that on there.
We got baseball tees, t-shirts, tank tops, rash guards, stickers, the whole nine yards.
And the last thing I just want to say is- You guys have head tops, rash guards, stickers, the whole nine yards.
And the last thing I just want to say is – Do you guys have headbands?
Not anymore, but we're going to restock soon.
Let's go.
Okay.
The last thing I just want to say is thank you, all of you guys, for the opportunity.
I really enjoyed myself.
Thank you guys very much.
Nice.
WWE, here he comes.
I'm at Mark Smelly Bell.
Strength is never weakness.
Weakness is never strength.
Catch you guys later.
Bye.
How'd that Kratom hit you?
Did you feel it?