Mark Bell's Power Project - Muscle Building Mistakes Costing You YEARS of Gains (and How TO Fix It) || MBPP Ep. 996

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

In episode 996, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza react to Pro Bodybuilders explaining how most people are lifting too heavy in the gym, mistakes people make and how to correct them.   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuori.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/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.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://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

The most common mistakes I see among amateur lifters is probably they all train too heavy. I want to say that I agree with him 100% and it's not too heavy just in bodybuilding. It's too heavy in general on just about everything. Maybe instead of actually trying to curl the 45s, maybe you have to use the 20s. Because you can curl the 45s with a little bit of momentum and restricting the range of motion, but you'd get a better connection better connection with the 20 i don't feel like i need to use any sort of heavy weight for anything whereas before that was the sport that i was in takes a little bit of pulling back from the ego pulling back from being worried about the weight that's on that dumbbell for the weight that's on the bar and actually moving the load with quality repetitions so lift light

is the message look like a bitch never push yourself in the gym that's kind of what we with quality repetitions. So lift light. Lift like a bitch. Never push yourself in the gym. That's kind of what we talk about. Power Project family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast like Kurt Angle, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman, and we want to be able to have more amazing guests on this podcast,

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You got the audio-video converter button. Oh, we're doing audio and video? TVVCR button. Tracking is a little bit off. I like how you just look over here. Man, you really changed over the years remember he used to drink the cancerous stuff on here all the time now he's changing to drinking something that's got a little fiber in it

alipop and some liquid death dog i've been so addicted to these they're great i love those things i've been going to, and they know me now. They know me. When I go in. Look at you going to Sprouts. All grown up. There's this Asian lady that works there. So when I go and I look at her, she looks at me, and we go to the back freezer, and then she gets me boxes, and I get a discount. Back freezer.

No, she goes and gets me boxes of Olipop because then I get a discount. Nice. I'm not sure where the story was going. No, no, no. Wow. She could be in that freezer. She's like mom. She's like mom to me.

Oh, I see. Is there artificial sweeteners in Olipops? Man, I don't give a... There might be. No, I'm just curious. I have been on this weird... Well, it's vegan and paleo. It has prebiotics botanics and plant fiber

and that's weird that you're saying it like that okay cassava root fiber chicory root okay looks all natural to me cool i'll have to give it a shot you go get him tiger yeah all right dude i'm just getting excited over there a little bit i'm blushing over here no trying to find like um quote unquote natural sweeteners is really hard yeah i went to uh the you know whatever they have all the fancy sweeteners and stuff and so like a lot of stevians because that's i was like i know stevia is pretty natural everything still had um dextrose in it and um maltodextrin which i don't even know what the hell those actually are um and then i went to monk fruit and then everything else had urethritol in it all the natural 100 natural sweeteners stevia leaf i see stevia leaf stevia

leaf's fine okay Okay, okay. But what I'm saying is if I try to go find sweetener just by it, you can't. It's impossible. You cannot get it. It's interesting because what is natural? And then you have some of this stuff comes from plants. And you're like, well, sugar comes from a plant. But you don't want the extra calories in there, I guess. So I think stevia and monk fruit are sweet, but kind of absent of all the calories that you might get from sugar.

Correct, yeah. Because some of y'all think whenever we have something, there must be sponsoring. No, these motherfuckers don't sponsor. I'd like them to. I'd like to not be paying for these anymore, but. I'd like them to. But Andrew, the funny thing you're saying is i do like xevious but xevious do give me the bubble guts i'll i'll drink through it they hurt my stomach but yeah they're why they

make me bubble up a little bit so it is what it is but these don't what i'm saying is i'm drinking it's also hard to find stuff that doesn't have um caffeine like everything's got caffeine in it yeah so i get the stevia passion fruit tea i get that all the time because it doesn't have any it's got no calories or five calories or whatever and then it has no caffeine because just i'm tired of everything having caffeine in it i want to be all you know i don't want to be all revved up trying to go to sleep yeah are you drinking less caffeine now than you used to because i remember you did do that for a while. Did you keep that up? Like you're drinking coffee not every day?

I have coffee just about every day. Okay. Okay. But usually just once. How about you with your new fancy coffee maker? Yeah. Yeah, that Jura is so nice. I just sit there and look at it, make coffee.

I have calmed it down quite a bit actually um so i'll do a double espresso shot in the morning and then i won't really have any caffeine the rest of the day scratch that i do have one shot of caffeine kind of almost right when i wake up i know you're supposed to wait 90 minutes because your blah blah blah doesn't actually yeah uberman that's the actually Uberman yeah your adrenal scenes don't wake up until 90 minutes after you wake up because they know exactly oh this fucker gets up at

345 okay in 90 minutes from now that's when we're going to get up but it's your fault because you're not taking the sunlight into your eyeballs yeah the sunlight when it's not out yet exactly I wish I could find that clip. Sorry. So about 100 milligrams of caffeine pretty early, and then a double shot of espresso, and that's it.

You fancy fuck. I just have a double shot of espresso. Yeah. Well, it's with Steak Shake, so that's good. But the thing that I noticed, I was like, dude, I have artificial sweeteners with literally everything I eat. Does that concern you? So yes and no. Yes, because what we learned over the past couple of years, it's like, oh, this is totally

fine. Like, this is good. This is okay. And I'm like, yeah, artificial sweeteners too. And I'm like, oh, wait, how can I be mad at them for saying this over here and then be like, ah, no, we're all good because this fits my narrative. So I just kind of looked at it. That's it.

That's just, that's all that matters. My narrative my narrative yeah good for me it's my truth so i just looked at it and i was like let me just see if i can get by without taking so many damn artificial sweeteners so that's like been my sober october is like just try to stay away from them completely i just doing okay but there's a couple of like i had gum the other day and i'm like ah motherfucker oh that shit shouldn't count i know that right that's what i said but it's it couple of them. Like I had gum the other day and I'm like, ah, motherfucker. Oh, that's just an account. I know that. Right. That's what I said, but it's,

it's in there. You're right. There's a toll. I don't know which one to oil. It's a, it's a sugar alcohol. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I think it's interesting. I can think about some of this stuff. Like, could you imagine the first people that like found caffeine? Like, would you, would you share that with anybody?

Would you share that information or? Would you share that information? Or would you just fuck everybody else up because you're all wired all the time? Caffeine's history is actually pretty fucking wild. What do they have on us over there, man? You ever notice those guys are so amped up all the time? They're building all kinds of stuff. They never get tired. Yeah, they seem indestructible. Even at night, their eyes are bugging out of their head.

They're just floating all the time. Caffeine actually did spur a lot of development. Yeah. It had to. I think coffee was like, or not just coffee, but tea. Coffee and tea. Coffee, tea, and alcohol was like the way that you

drank because you couldn't drink the regular water. It had to be heated and get rid of the bacteria that was in it or whatever. It'd be so cool to try alcohol from the 1600s or some shit just to know like what was different about this alcohol because it was definitely probably like it probably had a fresher or maybe not maybe i'm just romanticizing the 1600s yeah that's probably some bullshit i just said it's probably dirty it's probably dirty as fuck you're right you're right i don't know. Maybe it was stronger.

I don't know. I could see it being stronger. It's probably all super fermented. But I wonder like, you know, you go way back and it's the first time that someone's like had caffeine. You know, it's like we can't really remember the first time we had caffeine. It's hard, hard to place. I know like I do remember the first time i had like pre-workout i remember that which one was it well it was before there was pre-workout there was something

called ultimate orange and ultimate orange was fucking wild i don't even know what was in there yeah yeah had a fedorin had caffeine in it had all kinds of stuff and i was just like talking a mile a minute and stuff and i remember um my and I, we were going to go to the gym and then something happened and we couldn't go. And we went to my grandmother's house and I'm like sitting down at the table and I'm like talking to my brother and my grandma, who's super sweet. She's always like, Mark, honey, you want me to make you a sandwich? Like she wouldn't take no for an answer. She'd like make you something and bring you food every time and uh she puts her hand on my shoulder and i turn around like what do you want i'm like oh

like i i'm like hi grandma like i was just so amped up i wasn't even thinking i was just all like wired from and i felt all sick and stuff too i got so sick yeah i remember feeling sick and like my nose was cold but my but i was sweaty i uh i ended up um just typical took a pre-workout and just shit my pants for like half an hour straight didn't want to go and this was like you know 6 p.m at night taking pre-workout just like it was not a good idea oh my god i'm just reading i'm reading reviews because they still sell ultimate orange but like if you're an old school guy like me and you're disappointed in this product reason being is that there's no ephedrine in this product ephedrine is what made this and other energy

products effective back in the 90s sadly ephedrine has been banned by a bunch of government morons so ephedrine is what you had yeah good. Fucking hell. Yeah, some speed. Good stuff. Yeah. Those were the good old days. What are you going to do? Yeah. Cool. So anyway, today I put together a string of videos where some very high-level bodybuilders

were talking about not so much the crazy, insane PRs they hit in the gym, but how they kind of took a different approach to it not a different approach different approach than what we kind of we uh romanticize use that word earlier so i want to use it again sound cool ding ding pick up points yeah yeah no i just i thought it was interesting um it started with phil heath on uh modern wisdom and i don't want to see what you guys have to say about it why his forearm so jacked holy shit it's because he lifted light still yoked yeah let's see here let me make sure this is good those are very impressive forearms though like it's unbelievable wow i'm not a i'm not a guy that was bench pressing 500

pounds in college you know i'm saying like i wasn't that dude i was strong but i wasn't one of those guys like you get like so you got to know who you are like for me um never bench pressed over four uh oh five plays i did five plays before and that was a lot like what's that 495 so like all right so let's just say 500 pounds you know back he didn't say 500 he said 495 i think that's good enough for one rep max there's guys that can rep that out but i'm like but i beat them so it's not necessary that's stupid though that's the stupidest clip 495 is still fucking heavy as fuck okay yeah i didn't lift heavy i mean the most i did five plates four plates i did that kind of like still heavy as fuck yeah i don't i don't know like what kind of weight phil heath got up to he got But, you know, I think he would be, like, 270, 280.

So still, you know, benching 500 pounds around that body weight is still very impressive. But I guess, like, to his point, you know, we know this. We've seen this a lot, like, with especially pro bodybuilders. They kind of find their groove, right? They find, like, the way that they need to lift for themselves. And you saw Dorian Yates did less sets but more intense sets. He seemed like he worked out a little less in the long run and ended up getting bigger.

But there's other guys who really love doing set after set after set, and they love just hammering tons and tons of uh reps and they they train a lot lighter so it just kind of depends on the person i guess yeah and bodybuilding for if majority people just like actually took themselves close to muscular failure you could be surprised with what you can do that with with certain like try to see what a bicep curl but not just a your average bicep curl where you come down here. Let your arm come all the way down. All right.

See how many reps you can do with this type of range of motion on a bicep curl. And then tell me like you can't get away with lighter weight because most people are going to have to lower their weight if they did that. Right. Same thing with the chest press. Instead of stopping here, go a little farther. See what happens. So you can still get a lot done with lighter load. Get those reps in and also uh if

you're at a moderate rest period you know if you're to every minute on the minute or so or so or some somewhere in that range um that's gonna kind of make the intensity of the whole thing make everything a lot harder so your next couple sets it's all going to put you in the same spot i think is what people don't really maybe realize is that like, if you do like a set of five and, um, uh, set number or rep number three, four, and five are a little slower, uh, doing sets of 10, um, with, you know, a challenging weight, uh, is going to put you in that same spot probably on the last couple of reps. It's just that there's different ways to get it in terms of, uh, how much overall volume you're getting. Some people like to get it over the course of a couple sets,

and some people like to kind of get it done in like one shot. Yeah, this next clip goes along the lines of what you were saying in SEMA. We make it more complicated when we start thinking we need to handle more weight, more weight. The primary goal here is not to contract, not to lift weights. You're not a weightlifter. I'll never be a weightlifter. And for people out there that don't know what a weightlifter and a bodybuilder, what's the difference? I'm going to

explain it to you. A bodybuilder is primarily concerned with contracting his muscles. He contracts his muscles against greater and greater amounts of resistance. By doing that, he's able to stimulate hypertrophy and make his muscles grow. Hypertrophy. A weightlifter is just concerned about moving weight. You know, he can boast to you about how much he curls, how much he benches.

You know, how much do you lift? You're a weightlifter. It's really not important to me. Primarily what's important to me is being able to make my muscles contract efficiently. I'm going to get a stretch and a contraction. And I'm going to be in control of it throughout the entire range of motion. Does that make sense? Now that might not look impressive to people at home.

I'm a professional bodybuilder. I'm struggling contracting my biceps against 30 pounds of resistance. But somebody at home says, I can do more than each curling. Do you look like him, though? No. Pretty impressive. I think some of what he's referring to is like you know just people talk about it quite a bit is like chasing the pump you know you get a pump and

then you stay on top of that and the actual weight that you're using at that point um isn't the most significant thing uh although you do need something that does challenge you a little bit so um it's not like he was using 10 pound dumbbells. He was using 30 pound dumbbells and he's in a position where his muscles are kind of being isolated in a way. And that's what a lot of good bodybuilders do. They'll like isolate the targeted area that they want to train. And I do think that, especially the pro guys, I think they have something, I think there's like something special or something different about them that's probably hard for us to maybe truly understand. I think that they – I think as we pointed out in previous episodes when we were talking about how genius some of these athletes can be and a certain uh artistry that's involved in in

bodybuilding and being able to to get into that muscle and be able to make that muscle move because there's a lot of people that try there's a lot of people that do it and there's people that take performance enhancing drugs there's people that take it to all kinds of lengths and they can't seem to quite get it down uh quite as well as some of these guys that really stand out from the rest. Yeah. You know, one thing about that, though, is like there's definitely an aspect that's different just because the amount of muscle those guys can gain, right? But I do think that if people really do give themselves the time and like Kai was saying, if you just stop focusing on the weight, then you will be able to achieve a better muscular connection. But you might have to use some load that maybe in front of your homies or in front

of people in the gym, you're a little bit embarrassed about using. Maybe instead of actually trying to curl the 45s, maybe you have to use the 20s. Because you could curl the 45s with a little bit of momentum and restricting the range of motion, but you'd get a better connection with the 20s. And I think that's the thing, though. That takes a little bit of pulling back from the ego, pulling back from being worried about the weight that's on that dumbbell, the weight that's on the bar, and actually moving the load with quality repetitions. Do you guys think there's anything lost when, like in that clip, Kai was like kind of leaning back. So he was at like a mechanical disadvantage, right? It wasn't justai was like kind of leaning back so he was at a like a mechanical disadvantage right it wasn't just uh vertical he was actually leaning back almost like an

incline right so it was harder because again he's having to kind of pull against gravity and then some um if somebody is doing like because it's almost like a preacher curl also but like if somebody's lifting let's say 20 pounds that way, and it's really, really hard, but they can do 40 pounds normal, like just normal standing curl. Do you think there's anything lost because the 20 pounds feel as heavy as the 40 leaning back? Do you think there's anything lost when going lighter, but making it a little bit more difficult? I do think there's some differences, but I think it depends on the individual's goals. Like in the case of like a bodybuilder, and in case of what Kai Green was talking about, there's like something very specific that he's trying to get done within the

context of his workout. And I think that to his point is I think that he's demonstrating and saying that he's able to do that and he doesn't need a lot of weight. Whereas somebody else might feel a little differently. They might feel like they need a little bit more weight. Using more weight definitely has a different impact on the body in some regards. Maybe you can't flex the muscle the same way, but maybe it has an impact on your nervous system. And if you're a thinner guy and you're really having a hard time gaining weight,

this is where sometimes the heavier weight with a little bit of momentum might not be a bad idea if you tried other avenues and weren't successful. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds.

It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they can have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here. And I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. That doesn't happen anymore because of the Eight Sleep mattress. And I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro Cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash power project and you guys will

automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, eightsleep.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Check it out. Let's first talk about how most people progress to the sets of an exercise. Let's use standing dumbbell curl, for example. They'll walk to the rack, do an easier set, and they'll go, okay, I'm going to go up. They go up. It gets a little tougher.

Maybe they go up again. They go, oh, f**k. That's too heavy. Either keep that same weight, they drop back down, and that's their exercise. To me, that's all wrong. I think a better way to look at it is after that first set, instead of just unconsciously thinking, okay, I need to add more weight. Instead, just think of, how can I connect this exercise better? Or how do I make sure that this is the best exercise for me to do? By all means, if you have an incredible connection to just regular curls, add more weight and blow up those biceps.

You shouldn't have a problem. But I still think it's a good idea to always test different angles, tempo, mechanical disadvantages, range of motion, because you never know what you're going to connect with that day. And for me, connection is everything. Also, this is a long-term play because you can't lift heavy for years. It's only a matter of time before something gives out. I think what it came down to for me is when I let my ego go, as well as some of those old ingrained beliefs that I got from an old high school coach that wore way too short of shorts, things like you're going to grow the most from compound lifts. I don't think that's the case. I think it just comes down to whatever stimulates that muscle the most. Because once you lose the ability to purposely engage the muscles you're trying to work because you're obviously trying to get that fucking weight off your back,

the benefit of adding weight does not weigh the loss of control very well said i love the idea of like uh doing things from different angles different ranges of motion um i think there's like so much value in the way that we're training now in regards to some of this topic i think uh i don't feel like i need to use any sort of heavy weight for anything. Whereas before, that was the sport that I was in. You lifted the most amount of weight for one rep on bench squat deadlift. That's how I was judged. And that's what I competed in for many, many years. And then now I don't feel like I need that, but maybe if I was just beginning, I might still feel like I need a combination of some heavier lifting along with just some strict bodybuilder protocol where I am demonstrating better form, where I am working towards a pump. Yeah.

The thing is, even though I don't think it should make up a majority of the training, there is a benefit to doing partials. Some people do it with bicep curls where they'll do controlled eccentrics. So maybe they'll get the curl up here and then they'll just do partials in this range with a much heavier load. There's a benefit to that. But the thing is, it does not weigh being able to progress yourself to being able to do a majority of these movements with a really good range of motion because not only now are you going to get the benefits of yeah you're gaining muscle you might be a little bit slower on the weight progression the thing is is when you get to that point and you're doing things with a really good range of motion you won't move like most of the guys that are heavily muscled and can't move like a lot of

guys that are heavily muscled bodybuilders also tend to kind of have a blocky waddly walk. And maybe that's what you want, but I would assume most people don't necessarily want to move that way. And the way you move is really, there's a big effect of the habit, the way of which you lift does affect the way in which you move. And if you barely touch full range, if everything is pretty limited, short range of motion type of stuff, don't be surprised when you have impingements in your hips, your shoulders, certain things that pop up here and there and you move in a kind of shitty way. It seems like you're a fan of lifting better rather than just lifting more. Yeah. change the way that you do. I haven't seen you do this in a while, but seeing you do like a fly, like a dumbbell fly or dips or Copenhagen's or some of the movements in the gym,

I noticed that you are not increasing the difficulty necessarily by just loading up more weight. You're doing so through different ranges of motion or even what you're doing today with the kettlebell where you're doing the kettlebell flips with what, 40 or 20? It's 24 kilos. 24 kilos?

Yeah. Even progressing on that and just not putting as much oomph into it and trying to be smoother with it. So where did some of that come from for you? Because that's hard to adopt, and you've been that way since I've known you. I think stupid injuries when i started off like before i got to super training there's actually a video of it deep on my instagram where i was doing a 405 penalty row and i kind of got it up or maybe it was 365 penalty row i got it up it got to my chest but when i put it down i injured my back and i was definitely chasing weight when i was doing that it was like i was really trying to i wanted to progress to a four or five penalty penalty row that was the goal

um but i did get it up got down i tinged my back and that was like the one of the last injuries where i was like okay let me kind of just kind of reevaluate the way i'm progressing at some of these lifts and i still did for a few years progress weight but that's what i really started trying to and especially when i started jujitsu um that's when I kind of shifted the way I lift into really long range of motion versus kind of keeping it shorter because especially in jiu-jitsu you're going to be in situations where you're all the way out here there was a guy that I rolled with when I was a blue belt he and it was really shitty because it was his first day coming into our gym. He was traveling.

I put him in an arm bar, and he just got here. I didn't pull it fast, but he went here. He literally tore his shit. It was a shorter range of motion than what you were familiar with. Yeah, yeah. But for him, he literally tore his shit. And then his other side was also really, really tight, but I could tell if he had a

bit more range that wouldn't necessarily have happened right and these are the things it's like specifically in jujitsu you do want to be very strong in long ranges you don't want to be you can't go far if you're not a lot of the top guys are very strong and crazy long ranges right but um hey that's kind of why i do that same thing with lifting and i found it's played massive benefit because it's still like we were talking about earlier it's still very hard to do some of these movements with really heavy loads but you still get all that muscular activation that you're looking for you just the weight's lighter and it's hard to get behind that sometimes. I think people should treat themselves a little bit like a pro athlete.

You think about like Patrick Mahomes comes into your gym and you know a little bit about lifting. Like how would you train him? It's like kind of intimidating. You'd be like, I'm not sure. Well, why don't you pick a bunch of stuff that like he's going to excel at, he's going to do well at, he's going to feel good, and when he leaves the gym, he's going to feel good, and you can kind of observe the way that he moves, and then you can start to place more demands on him and challenge him.

Hopefully you could have an opportunity to train him a handful of times or something, and each time you can progress. But you wouldn't just dump everything on them all at one time. You wouldn't be like, oh, I'm going to see if he can lift the way I lift. I'm going to see if he could bench squat deadlift. And then the same thing, I would say the same thing with a family member. Like think about how you would train your mom or how you train your aunt or how you train your uncle. You know, you think about how you would train somebody that you really care about. You would probably train them with some tender love and care, and you probably would like to see them work

on these ranges of motion. So whether it's a family member or whether it's like one of the best athletes in the world, you're still going to scale upward. But the first workout, you're not going to just start by throwing the book at somebody. just start by throwing the book at somebody. And I think it's an important message to teach people that, yeah, these football players and these basketball players and these elite athletes, they are training. They are in the gym. And we're huge believers of strength training. But it might not look the way that you think it looks. It might not look the way that you think it looks it might not look the way that your favorite influencer looks they might not be loading up a 900 pound deadlift on a trap bar or something like that because

the risk to reward on that probably isn't great doesn't mean that they can't like we know some guys that do uh jimmy house comes to mind right there's some really uh extraordinary people out there that are kind of doing both and you're like holy shit but I mean we'd have to ask Jimmy House this directly but I'm sure if we kind of pinned him down and say hey does it make any sense for you to deadlift any more weight other than just it makes you feel good he'd probably say I mean I would have to ask him but he'd probably say no because you know we got Kenny Williams just getting into some jiu-jitsu now. And we were kind of talking about some of the same topic in the gym. But for him, it's like strength, check.

You know, strength in the gym, check. Strength on the mat, like, I don't know. I don't know. He's going to have to have a lot of experience with jiu-jitsu to start to understand his weaknesses in the technique, his weaknesses in terms of his experience with jiu-jitsu, and some potential things that he could maybe work on in the gym that would help him on the mat later on. In terms of strength, he's got it going on in terms of strength there's no reason to lift any more weight yeah but what kenny was saying which is actually pretty interesting is one of those things that big people deal with until you kind of start doing long range of motion shit like he was mentioning when he gets his he gets his hand here like his pec like he can get he he can he like if somebody mounts him and he's here he's gonna tap right it doesn't necessarily mean that he has to lose muscle but it means that he needs to build mobility through this area so that he's not so create some space because like you can flex this area but

this area doesn't have to be flexed when this comes above the head big guys that are listening right now they're like yeah man i almost go out when i'm doing uh lat pull downs yeah our shoulder raises yeah yeah just this yeah can be uncomfortable yeah it sucks for us big guys yeah i know no uh just real quick uh when you were talking about partials it just reminded me so like when i first started lifting and stuff i wish i just didn't have access to anything because i was always hearing and reading that partials were not a good thing to do. And as a newbie, I was like, but partials is when I actually feel that burn that everybody talks about. And I'm like, fuck, I wish I trusted my gut instead of what the influencers were talking about. Wait, but let's – so what do you mean? We wish you knew that.

Oh, that you could do partials? I wish I knew that I didn't have to listen to what everybody was saying and just go in and do like, hey, that I, because what he was saying, right, he was like, my, my high school coaches all wanted me to do compound lifts. And he's like, cool, if that works for you, he's like, but if it doesn't, don't force it. And so for me, I was forcing everything because like, oh, this is what, you know, they say on YouTube. So I'm going to do that. And that sort of thing. So that's, I was forcing everything because like, oh, this is what they say on YouTube. So I'm going to do that and that sort of thing. So that's what I meant. And not even to like – there's no hate on compound lifts. Who are you talking about?

Like him, Ryan Houston, right? Yeah. He wasn't really hating on it. He was just saying that his coaches were doing too much of it. But he was like, if you can make that connection, cool. Go for it. There we go yeah so he wasn't maybe take a second to explain like a little bit of what compound lifts could do

for somebody so let's say uh somebody goes to jujitsu and they weigh uh they're 6'3 and they're 160 and they don't have much experience in the gym and they they go to you guys and they ask you some questions like hey man i think i should probably i think i should probably lift you know you you may suggest some compound movements you might and the reason would be is that by uh focusing in on not overly focusing in but focusing in on overhead presses and rows and bench press, squat, deadlift, some variations of those movements could be with dumbbells or whatever. But some variations of those movements can give you like an overarching goal to where it can assist you if that person needed to gain weight.

Like if that person really felt they need, if you kind of assess them and you're like, you know, I think the main thing is just need to be a little bit more durable in here. You need to be a little stronger. And so that's where you might suggest some of those, some of those movements and some of those lifts to somebody like that, because if they go from benching 135 to benching 185 and they go from deadlifting 225 to 315 and so on. And I'm not saying that has to be the only focus they have, but it's just a focus over the course of some time, they most likely will have gained some weight

and they most likely might be more resilient. But again, it has to be in combination with them going to jujitsu class. It can't just be that they're focused in and trying to turn into a meathead. Yeah. Yeah, if somebody was starting from ground zero in SEMA, would you still prescribe some compound lifts like that? Like traditional, like barbell squat bench deadlift? Yeah, I probably have a lot of things done with some dumbbells and some kettlebells.

If someone has a barbell, squatting would definitely be a good idea I think that probably squatting on a slant board for someone who does jiu-jitsu to allow them to get deep into their knees would probably be better yeah and you could squat on a slant board with a kettlebell probably been more appropriate for me to say like football or something like where yeah you know if somebody's like yeah if someone's a defensive end or a tight end or something, they might need to weigh X amount to, you know, to be able to do well at that sport. But one of the advantages of jujitsu is that the weight, I mean, it doesn't really matter that much.

Yeah, no, like, no, you're right. Like, again, it's the nature of the sport. If someone's playing football and you're pushing into another human being and you're literally just trying to collide multiple times, right? And your pushing power makes a difference. So the fact that football players progress a lot of bench press does make some fucking sense, right?

But it's interesting how often some of these sports train. Football players, how often do football players get in the weight room? Like college? A lot. You know, one of the actual issues with football is that you can't play it nearly as much as you think you can because you smash each other. So you can't play it.

So the only thing you can do is lift. Isn't that kind of funny? All you can do is like lift. It's like boxing. Well, no. Because like boxing, you can't box at 100%. But football is different. It's like boxing. Well, no. Because boxing can't box at 100%. But football is different. It's different.

Yeah, football is really interesting that way. I was always frustrated with that because I love football. And as a kid, I loved it. I loved playing it. And I was just thinking, we only play 10 games a season. By the time I'm a senior, I to already be like in the minds of these bigger colleges if I want to get a division one scholarship. And so I'm going to really have my sophomore year and my junior year and that's it. Cause they, you know, by the time you become

a senior, they should already be well aware of, of what you can do. And I'm like, man, that's just not a, I'm just not good enough. I'm not good enough to be able to do that in that shorter period of time so yeah you don't play that much and so because of that you're in the gym a lot i would say um even the guys that feel they don't need it they're in the gym at least two or three times a week and the guys that uh feel like they need it they're in there like four or five days a week yeah a lot a lot of strength training let's just think about it. You'll see some killers in jiu-jitsu, some killers that are 140 pounds, 150, 160-pound killers. Are you going to see that on the football field, dog?

No. It's really, really, really rare. It's really rare. Really, really good kicker. That's about it. Yeah. The most common mistakes I see among amateur lifters is probably, I think everyone sees it, they all train too heavy. We see too many guys that don't do the full body part workout.

They do, you know, upper body. Can you pause for a second? I want to say that I agree with him 100%. It's not too heavy just in bodybuilding. It's too heavy in general on just about everything. The biggest thing I saw plague people, even high-level coaches that were programming for other people. The biggest problem was the people that they would help would be too ambitious and they would be like, hey, the percentage called for 72% and I felt really good, so I just did an extra 15 pounds or something. And then the form, the coach is giving a recommendation, thinking in their head that this lift is going to look a particular way.

It's going to be done a particular way. And your particular way probably is quite different from what they have in mind. And in Jim Wendler's book, 531, he wrote a ton in there. He mentioned it many times over. He wanted the reps – he wanted them to be kind of on the easy side. He didn't want it to be really hard. He didn't want your fourth rep to look like you're going to die and then you proceeded to do the fifth rep. And now you're like, oh, I'm doing five, three, one. He wanted it to, for you to have a capacity

well above and beyond. He wanted you to execute the lift the right way. So if someone's executing the lift the right way, it usually means they have the appropriate weight. And if they can do the amount of sets or they can accomplish what the main intent was, which in this case is bodybuilding, Jay Cutler talking, if they can achieve that, then they can progress and then they can put more weight on. But I think a lot of us don't have the patience sometimes, especially when you're younger, especially if you're on like a machine. You're like, click. You just put more weight on, more weight on, more weight on. And it's probably pulling you away from the intent of the day. But even worse, if you're trying to power lift, that is having a detrimental effect on your body's ability to absorb and to take in the correct information for you to get stronger.

Kind of as we pointed out with jujitsu, you can go to class so much that you can't even barely retain any information anymore. Like if you just went and no one explained anything to you and you just got your ass handed to you, I'm sure by like some osmosis and stuff, you would get a little bit better, but you need someone like really explaining it to you. You need some rest, need some recovery.

So then when you go watch a video on YouTube, you're like oh that's what the coach was saying then it sinks in but it sinks in when you're resting not when you're just completely getting annihilated every time yeah it's funny because like what i was about to say about like how i approach lifting early on is kind of already what i'm i mean it's exactly what i'm doing right now with jiu-jitsu. But what I was going to say was I would always go heavier than I should have because I wasn't being patient. Because I'm like, I want to get big, and big guys lift big weights. So the faster I can lift heavier weights, the bigger I'm going to get and the quicker I'm going to get there.

As opposed to being patient and like, hey, the big weight's gonna come eventually and then a byproduct of that is like you're gonna get bigger because you're gonna be lifting proper you know proper weight and the proper form all the above if i just it's just weird because being in the moment right now with jujitsu i'm like no i'm good like no i do need to slow down still so that sucks we talk about beef and meat all the time on the podcast that's's why we partnered with Certified Piedmontese Beef. But did you know this? That 85% of all grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries? 85%.

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is 150 dollars or more you get free two-day shipping again cp beef.com links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Fuck yeah! Where's my mouse? Anybody seen it? There it is. It's in there. They train the legs a lot easier. But most of the time I see people training too, too heavy in the gym.

They're picking up weights. They're using their shoulders to bench press or their triceps. They're really just trying to go for weight records. Remember, bodybuilding, and I stress over and over, it takes a pattern of a lot of things, but it's mainly working for the pump and doing repetitions. It's not about one or two or three, four reps. It's about eight to 12 repetitions, getting constant blood flow to the muscles and allowing your muscles to swell in order to get that round muscle look.

And that's how you win bodybuilding shows. So jacked. So huge. Golly. That's one of those things that I feel like, you know, when I watch certain people lift, I'm right in, like, Michael Hearn is very, like, when you watch him lift, it's really good. Because there are some people you see him, like, them like even do like a cable row in the gym. There's a lot of momentum.

There's like they pull and then they let their weight ride them back. They pull. They let their weight ride them. They're not controlling it all the way back. And then you see a guy like him who's doing maybe close to the whole stack and just hold, slowly bringing it back. It's like that. And then you just wonder, okay, what is that then doing for the muscle growth of this person who's controlling it all the way back and all the way and how much they're able to feel more than the guy who's like wrong with momentum and letting it go back doing the whole stack but

really not really doing much you know yeah and probably the range also right like keeping it nice and close to the to the stomach so that way they can yank it back harder as opposed to letting it pull them out. You know, it's funny. And this is like, there's a study that came out that Eric Helms, he put it out on his research review that kind of showed that mechanical tension during lifting does help with flexibility or like how, yeah, it helps with flexibility. So pretty much it's like, if you're someone who feels that they're not mobile, if you're someone who feels pretty stiff, if you just kind of also did kind of what we're talking about here, if you just kind of change the way you lift. Maybe right now on the bench press you can only go here. But kind of can you let the load take you a little bit deeper safely and come back up? That's going to increase your mobility and flexibility in that area.

And now studies show it even though we've fucking known it. But, you know, you can move better because of actually lifting. You can use lifting to help you move in a better way. It feels – it might feel kind of sketchy at first. And then that means you got to reduce the weight even further. You might go to do it and be like, oh, okay, hold on. Let me reverse those dumbbells, you know, and I'll put them back in the rack and let me grab the 30s, 35s and let me go elbows out as hard as you can and trying to keep them up higher and stuff. I mean, there's so many different ways to do a lot of these movements.

And I think that, again, I think bodybuilding, I think strength training even to a certain extent is more of like an art form than it is a science. And I think it's very difficult to study. But yeah, some of the research coming out more recently that I think some of it was kind of stating that stretching is like a form of strength and that stretching can help to make people stronger. Super interesting. It's like, what a completely different way of looking at it. And I remember that years ago, there was articles about stretching in between exercises to help gain some size.

And Tom Platz used to do that often. And some other bodybuilders followed and they believed by getting a pump and then stretching and getting a pump and stretching that you got bigger faster. Who really knows? It's hard to say, but there are so many different ways of being able to achieve all this. For people that really do love to just hit a heavier weight, this for people that really do love to just hit a heavier weight um my suggestion would be to still do that here and there like don't you don't have to get rid of that um it's a great signal to your body it's a great message to your body that you know how to do a particular lift um i would say that you know try to do it with like a particular form or something you don't want to uh just hurt

yourself every time you try to go heavy. But like I did this with some curls the other day. Part of the reason why I did it with some curls and a single arm overhead press was that I know that there's like a governor on those weights. Like there's only so much weight that I'm going to be able to curl. There's only so much weight I'm going to be able to even kind of hoist into position for like an overhead press. And so, you know, I'm like, all right, if I could do like the 70s, that would be really cool. So I did the 40s and the 50s and then played around with a little bit more and did the 70s and did a couple reps on each arm. And then was able to do, after I did the overhead presses, able to do some curls.

And it felt great. It felt like a good input. The form and technique wasn't, it wasn't the same. It wasn't, I wasn't trying to bodybuild. I was trying to handle the weight and I wanted to handle the weight, not for my shoulders and not necessarily for my biceps. I wanted to handle it for my body because I'm running. I'm trying to build my body to be more resilient. I want my back to be able to twist and rotate better. I want to be able to move side to side better. So I'm like, if I press this weight up with some good force, this will be some really good training for me.

And if I can control it when I'm coming back down. And so for some people that really love to lift heavy weights, maybe pick certain exercises where, like, for example, let's say you love deadlifting. Say you absolutely love to deadlift. Okay, I get it. You want to have the bar and you want to have five plates on there. Grab 90 pound dumbbells or 80 pound dumbbells, do some RDLs and do them until your fingertips touch the top of your shoelaces and do some reps there. That is a really great exercise, super challenging, but anyone that can deadlift 500 pounds for a couple reps would be able to do sets of 10 on there probably. Should be able to.

Yeah. And if they haven't done it before, you might've start lighter, but that's an awesome exercise and people have been doing movements like that forever. Also, if you're doing it without straps, it's going to start to be really challenging on your grip. It's challenging on your traps and your neck and everything else. So there's so many ways to kind of get to some of this. But reducing the weight, not even so much reducing the weight shouldn't be the message. Do the exercise the right way. Just learn how to do the exercise the right way and we're good.

We don't need to talk any further about it. You know. One thing that I think could help a lot of people, and this is hard. This was really hard for me when I was younger, but now I feel like it helps in how I progress with a lot of things and not get injured. Think about the way you're doing it and just think to yourself, does what I'm doing seem to be sustainable? Does the way I'm training, is it sustainable? As I get older, do other people that I train like or train like this, do I see them still training like this? Or are a lot of people that are doing the things the way that I'm doing it, are some of them fucked up? Do they have multiple injuries? Example, and I love Lane, but we saw that video with him and peter attia talking about

i believe it was um peter was saying oh you put cars on your back how long more are you going to be able to do this and lane said that there was just multiple times that he got injured where you know he had those workouts where he just kind of grit through it and then re-injured itself rather than just backing off like he knew he should have right and this is an extremely intelligent human being well lane norton has been hurt severely like he got hurt a couple times severely unfortunately and uh it's great to see him lifting again but man sometimes some of these injuries some of the injuries i've had um they're like they're not just threatening to where you won't lift again. They're threatening

to like your life, your quality of life. Absolutely. And that's the thing you got to think about. Think about your quality of life at 40, 50, 60. Do you want to have all the access versus like, just the intention of the way you lift can change that outcome. You can still gain all that muscle and gain all that strength. And it may in your mind take a little bit longer and require a little bit more patience. But at the end of the day, you will get through that athletic part of your career and ideally get to your older years still able to play the game. It would suck to be at that stage 40, 50, 60, and you can no longer play the game because of some stupid ways you were lifting when you were 20. That's some bullshit. How cool would it be to hang on to a certain capacity for a long time

rather than you're rolling the dice on this 725-pound deadlift? Like, well, let's see what happens. But rather than being able to deadlift 725 just one time when you're 25 or 30, how cool would it be to be able to still deadlift 315 for some repetitions when you're 60 or you're 50? And it's not even so much that you train that way and do that all the time. You just have that capacity because you've been training in these ranges of motion. Yeah. Just for fun, Mark, because it's 2023, when you were in your, I'll say prime of powerlifting, how much weight did the bar have to have just so that way you can bring your elbows like down to like your chest oh yeah that was a that was a good three

plates or so 315 just to bring that weight down yeah to get the weight to touch my chest all the way because built up some good uh stiffness and tightness in there that's when i knew it was going to be a good day did you do warm-up sets at all or did you like just start with like 225 or 315 i've done some stupid stuff where i just started heavy, but most of the time I warmed up. Most of the time. But I had to row the weight to bring it all the way down sometimes. That's what I mean. That's crazy to me.

Doug, I think I saw a video where Russ was talking with Jamal Browner, and I don't know if this was on deadlifts or if it was on bench, but Russ was like, Doug, I think you're one of the fastest lifters or quietest lifters, because one day he just walked in and apparently just put four plates on the bar immediately wow yeah he's man started with four places let's go he's not even warming up he's just going he's just like that's what it takes right well they're both built different but yeah yeah he what is he deadlift 11 something right but yeah yeah he deadlift something stupid like that he's done 11 somethingsomething, I think, with straps. But if you do watch Jamal, he said he's YOLO'd shit.

But at the end of the day, like, you watch his form, fucking pristine. He's not breaking down. A lot of people, when they start to approach those heavier numbers, like, there's breakdown. And if there's breakdown when you're moving heavyweight, you shouldn't be moving that weight yet. That's the thing, too. I mean, you watch, and that's what makes it hard. You know, you watch some of those old- Jay Cutler videos and he's preaching, he's saying, Hey, don't use heavy weight. But Jay Cutler was so strong. It's like one of those easy for you to

say kind of things, right? Because Jay Cutler is like rubbing his butt cheeks on the ground with like a 500 pound squat and doing it with like no problem you know so it's like he already feels adequate he already feels good and so here's the you know a guy in the gym trying to just do 275 for a couple reps and so it's understandable that you but you can't you can't rush it the work has to be done and there has to be uh a certain body of work has to happen for you to input that strength the right way. I mean, the goal could be, I want to make it look like Jay's. Not that I want to lift Jay's weight, but can it look like Jay's? I think I could do that. Yeah. 5,000 pounds on this leg press machine

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lifestyle that can boost your testosterone to the levels that they should actually be at. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the checkup panel, or any individual lab that you select. Again, that's at merrickhealth.com slash Power Project, promo code Power Project at checkout, links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. I don't remember what John Meadows has to say, but let's see. The bottom line is, okay, I'm trying to think how I can break this down as simple as possible. So you have a lot of muscle fibers that fire.

When you use heavyweight, you use a lot of muscle fibers. They all get involved because they've got to produce force to move that heavyweight. If you're using lightweights, you're not using all those muscle fibers. But if you go to the point where you fatigue those fibers, then it has to call other fibers into play to help. Then when you fatigue those fibers, you have to call other fibers into play to help. Then when you fatigue those fibers, you have to call other fibers into help. So you can get all the muscle. They call them high-threshold motor units, low-threshold motor units, all that stuff. You can get all your muscle fibers to fire with lighter weight if you go to fatigue.

Here's the problem. Think about doing a hard set of 30 reps. How does it feel when you're at 20? You're burning like fire right so what do most people do they just stop like oh my god that burns so bad i just stopped i just threw the bar down all right for you to get all those muscle fibers that i talked about you have to go pretty close to failure if not failure with a lightweight that's the only way you can engage those muscle fibers now if you're using a heavier weight, yeah, the weight's heavy. So you need every muscle fiber firing, you know, to produce

enough force to be able to move that way. Now the problem becomes, what can your joints handle? Can the connective tissue handle that? So if someone's out there saying you got to go heavy on everything, well, talk to me in a couple of years about how your rotator cuff's feeling, how your lower back's feeling, how your knees are feeling. Those are the guys that are always injured. If you're one of those people that says, no, you can do it all with light weights. Okay. I want to see you do those sets of 30 or 25 or 30 reps to failure every single set. See how long you last. See how long you can do that. So to me, the optimal approach is a mix of the two. You can't go heavy all the time, but it's just not practical to go on light to failure all the time either. So you've got to find a way to weave those in together for the best benefits.

Mountain dog. Man. He just explained some really high-level stuff very simply. That was really, really well said and really well done. Very simply, that was really, really well said and really well done. You know, what comes to mind is somebody like Matt Wenning who goes and rebuilds himself every time. Every time that he's built up strength, he'll start over. So you might think that when you're thinking about particular power lifters, you might think that because of what you normally see on their Instagram, that that's what they do. that because of what you normally see on their Instagram, that that's what they do.

But Matt Wenning is probably the most famous for the Wenning warmup, which is, you know, he's still handling heavy weights because he's very strong. But the Wenning warmup is, you know, he's doing three to five sets of 10 reps, maybe with some dumbbells on like an incline bench before he does his benching and stuff. But the main point in bringing that up is that he does a lot of lighter weight stuff to counteract all the heavy stuff that he does. And last time he was here, he's developing his system more and more, and he does a great job. But he was saying like, this is spinal compression, this is decompression. This is spinal compression, this is decompression.

Some of the things he was pointing out aren't that simple. It's not necessarily compression, decompression, but dragging a sled, you're dragging a sled forward and backward. It's certainly way different style of training than doing a squat where the bar is loaded on your back. Doing deadlifts is certainly way different than using something like a belt squat. So he brilliantly kind of meshed those things together where someone like himself can, he could still do what he loves. He could still bench over 500 pounds easy. Like Matt would be an example of someone that can probably just do that for however long he wants. And it's not because he's some genetic anomaly. It's not because of steroids it's because uh he really put

a lot of thought into it but without that thought going into it and just trying to get things done with lifting heavy all the time ain't gonna work and it's also not gonna work to only lift light so you're kind of screwed you got to do some sort of mesh of uh of both um i mean this is it depends on how far you want to push your body, right? Like you certainly can lift very, very light and probably make a lot of progress. But again, that would take a tremendous amount of thought around it. And that's why,

again, it's like, Matt's a good person to pay attention to as for a power lifter, because how old is Matt? Maybe he's in his forties. Yeah. He's probably a mid, mid forties.

Yeah. Right. But like, he's still one of those guys that that's that, that as at that point is able to do what he loves at a high level. And with like moving, yeah, mid-40s, yeah. Right, but, like, he's still one of those guys that is at that point and is able to do what he loves at a high level. And with, like, moving well, moving efficiently, he's not broken down. And so, like, it's like, I don't want that to take away from, like,

there are some older cats who maybe there is some breakdown, but there's still very good stuff in what they're doing. So I don't want to say, like, that's just bad, but there's lessons within good stuff in what they're doing. So I don't want to say like, that's just bad, but there's lessons within that, you know, there's like, okay, well, what are the things that maybe put this person in this situation, even though they are still a very, an amazing coach. Right. Um, but that's the thing. It's like, you need to look at where they are, how, what they're doing and why they're there. And then for the guys who are still doing it, maybe there's some other stuff that is really helpful in terms of what they're doing

that you could pull from. Stan Efferding still looks awesome. I don't know if you guys saw him swimming the other day. Did you see that? This is interesting. I didn't see that. He was swimming. Him and Bones Jones are doing all kinds of really cool training.

He had Jones pulling the sled for like a mile or something the other day. See if you can bring it up. I'll look at it. See if you can check it out on Instagram. Pull pulling the sled for like a mile or something the other day. See if you can bring it up. I'll look at it. See if you can check it out on Instagram. But yeah. The sled for a mile. Yeah. I know.

It's pretty wild. Stan sent me a video of, uh, of Stan swimming and just hearing breathing like a maniac. But the swimming was very impressive. It was awesome. Do you want audio then? Yeah. If you can, yeah. If you can get some audio.

Was he a swimmer at all when he was a teenager i don't know but he he did great i was impressed i was like holy shit but i mean this is a guy who squatted uh 887 i think in competition benched over 600 pounds raw deadlifted like 865 i think i mean all-time world records and in powerlifting and a professional bodybuilder and now he's swimming mid-50s he put music over top ruined it I have a clip here I'll email it to you or text it to you that is a good hack for swimming though get some flippers it's i didn't see that a lot uh but he's moving yeah such a such an awesome uh activity you know swimming is is unbelievable but also very challenging i mean these are like that's why we talk about on this podcast quite often is it's nice to have some other skill sets. You know, if you, it's great just to be able to get exercise in a bunch of different ways.

But dude, you know, the thing is, is I get why, you know, I get why someone who is lifting goes heavy when they shouldn't go heavy. Because there's this innate want to really push yourself. There's this innate want to really push yourself. There's this innate want to really challenge yourself. And if you're going through a workout and the only way you have felt currently to challenge yourself is by doing some heavy-ass shit, I get it. But can you figure out other ways in terms of the way you live to challenge yourself or pick up other activities that will challenge you so you can kind of get that same feeling?

You can figure that out. No, I agree. I think that that is a huge part of it. Like people need to they need to figure out a way to get that out of their system, get that out of their body, you know, and, you know, maybe maybe used to be athletic. Maybe you used to be fast or something. And maybe you can like simultaneously while you're working on the strength aspect. Go take a hundred meter sprint. Yeah. A hundred percent capacity. Exactly. Downhill. No, go do something,

go do something that you know, you're going to feel good with, you know, something that's like an underhand pitch for you, something that's like easy for you, whatever the hell it is. Find those things. And you probably, whenever you do that against some of your friends or with some of your friends, you're probably like better than them or at least on par and in some respect. And you're like, okay, well, I'm good at this. I suck at this other thing, but at least I have this. I mean, that's probably been helpful with you, with both of you guys with jujitsu, having a lifting background and having proficiency in soccer and proficiency in bodybuilding, like being a pro bodybuilder

going into jiu-jitsu even though you're getting smoked in the beginning 100 percent uh you still had something else that you could go and rely on and you could you know do your whatever the workout that was prescribed for the day and and still feel good about yourself yeah yeah no not just getting killed all the time. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, that is true. I was getting killed a lot, but still being able to go and lift was super helpful.

But that's the thing. It's like you know you're going to suck for a bit. It's new. It's new. Does that come over to you? Not yet. How often do you swim? Much or not?

No, I need to go back to the drawing board completely with swimming i i don't even really know if i know how to swim anymore really i mean i think i'd figure it out to like not die i jumped in the sacramento river like a couple years ago and uh oh god a couple years ago shit yeah yeah it was big it was like i had an anchor around my ass or my ass was the anchor you're just going down in the v because your boobies yeah yeah exactly a hundred percent and uh jake saved my life so he gave me a bunch you know it was funny because he gave me like those water weenie things and like a little pool noodle i put one under one each arm and i'm still going down and then i i had i put like he kept giving them to me and then other people were like throwing them to me.

I'm like riding it. It's like I was wearing it like a diaper. It's like in my crotch. That's like where it helped me the most. You had a raft built out of pool noodles. And then I tried to play it off as if I wasn't really dying, but I was pretty much like really on my way out probably. Oh, man, that's crazy. All right, so now we got the OG video.

Oh, yeah, see if we can hear that. Let's see, where's the play button? Here we go. Why is there no sound? Oh, there's sound. There's, okay. Oh, my bad. Oh.

That's the way he sounds on the podcast. Yes, sir. We're talking some shit over here. Stan is the one who's swimming. That's true. i cannot swim like that at all i would die i was impressed that he swam straight i sound like he was gasping for like just like he did say he texted me he's like i nearly died like three weeks ago hey good for stan man well look this is a guy who benched over 600 pounds he's got some uh

the shoulders are coming entry one We got an over Dude I didn't know what it was I first listened to it. I was like what is Where did my mouse go? Hold on. It's so... But the shoulder is impressive. You're right. He's got lots of mobility there. He was the noisiest power lifter of all time, so I think it makes sense. Yo.

What if he took that into swimming a little bit? Like, what if it actually helped him get better? Yeah, yeah. Push. Ah. Ah. Weird noises. Every stroke is just a different one.

Oh, my God. Oh, Stan. No, I'm pumped for him, though. That's great that he's swimming, because I remember when he came here, I think we were talking about what he's doing he's like a lift you know yeah so he's a little sweaty and red yeah he's training bones man i have it'll be interesting i think uh his fight is uh maybe two and a half weeks away or so three weeks away damn who's he fighting three weeks um the ufc heavyweight steepay yeah oh yeah oh yeah and gano's gone so it just went to steepay wait did steve had to fight to get that or did it like

literally pass i don't remember what happened but they um must have had to let's see uh rogan uh asked rogan was asking francis if there's a possibility that they could fight him and Bones. And he said even with the contract that he has, he still thinks that there is a possibility that he could fight in the UFC. That Francis could? Yeah. Oh, that'd be cool. If Dana White lets him, though. Yeah, well, I think he won't have a choice.

I don't think he'll have a choice. I mean, Bones has a tall order to beat one of the best UFC heavyweight champions. So, I mean, just because Francis Ngannou beat him doesn't mean that Bones is going to be able to, you know, I don't know, it would be interesting. Yeah, November 11th. November 11th. you know, I don't know. It'd be interesting. Yeah. November 11th, November 11th. You can talk about it on a future podcast, but it's been really cool to see Stan be able to help Bones Jones, not only gain all that weight. I think that people just think, I mean, there was all those comments last time about Bones' physique and everything. And, um, I thought, I think Bones

looks bad-ass to me. He like looks big, you know? Um, Okay, he's got some body fat on him, but that's not really the main focus. And having a ton of extra muscle on him, who knows what that would do to him in the ring, just having 30 extra pounds of muscle out of nowhere. So I don't know exactly how Stan and Jon Jones kind of figured things out, but it looks like they figured things out really good, where he still has a good gas tank, and he's put all that weight on.

The fight finished so fast. That's true. That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, we hope he has a good gas tank. But knowing Stan, he has a good gas tank. You know? Stan's not going to let that. Yeah, just seeing all the stuff that they do, it looks like he's doing really well, but like you said We don't know until you get dragged out into those

You know third and fourth rounds and stuff like that wouldn't be wild if you did another first round like not a joke Would that be just would you be surprised though? No, I? Would not man, but I his mindset is his mindset is just different bones jones mindset is just incredible um you know it's interesting that we ended up kind of talking about bones because bones jones lifts very heavy yes you know he lifts very very heavy but again there's a lot of stuff again you're on instagram and in terms of social media you're going to mainly see bigger lifts done by people And in terms of social media, you're going to mainly see bigger lifts done by people. They're not going to share the eight sets of rotator cuff exercise they did when they first got into the gym when they were tired or sore or whatever.

They're going to share with you the bigger lift. And so I know that Bones does some of that, but I don't think it's every workout. Yeah, of course not. but I don't think it's like, I don't think it's every workout. Yeah, of course not. Like I was thinking the reason why you only see those few videos is because it's like, it's probably spread out.

Right. You know, like he moves, he works up to that. But also when he does some of these lifts, there was a video with like the OG mass that disguise where he was doing deadlifts from the ground. But a lot of stuff that I saw his coach doing,

who we had on the podcast, his coach was, what's his other, what's his other coach, strength coach's name? I lost his name though. Damn it. I make, this makes me so mad i know i was looking at this page just the other last name close that sounds about right let me just check so i'm working some partial range of motion like it was a rack rack pulls yep you know was what he was doing still crazy load right but

that's a safe load for him with that type of load it's safe range jordan chavez sorry sir all right jordan love you anything else to add i think we've nailed some of this down pretty good yeah right yeah no no i nailed that down pin made sweet love because she liked she liked she she was it was consensual pinning okay she wanted to be pinned so lift light like a bitch never push yourself in the gym that's kind of what we talked about non-stop I know I wonder if people people are probably getting frustrated like these guys ever just go for it never just go hard, like to go to sleep. Right?

Try really hard. I try my hardest there. 9 p.m., bro. You're so lucky. Nah, it's been bad. Where you could just be like, I'm going to go to bed. Hey, man. It was your choice to have a boy.

No, you're absolutely right. You know? And when I make that choice, I'm going to be talking to you guys and winding my ass off about how, like, that kid's crying. And I'll be like Mark and be like, this is just a small phase. Just a blink of an eye. I might just get some milk and never come back. You never know.

That's what my daddy did. I never saw him. Yep. I never saw him again. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. I'll never leave my baby.

Howdy.