Mark Bell's Power Project - Proven Principles For Faster Muscle Gain (Training & Nutrition) || MBPP Ep. 1016
Episode Date: December 4, 2023In episode 1016, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about talk about how to get BIG. We've been talking about ways to drop weight, this is for those who are training to gain some size a...nd add a bunch of muscle! 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! The Athletic/Casual Clothes we're wearing! 🕺 ➢ https://vuori.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! 💤 The Best Cooling Mattress in the GAME! 🛌 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! 🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ 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 Best STYLISH Barefoot Casual/Training Shoes! 👟 ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! 🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel! Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes! Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night! 🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: You Need Greens in your Life 🥦 ➢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! 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
If you follow a regimented bodybuilding program for three months or so, you can look way different.
The first year or two is an amazing thing.
You don't even need to worry about main gating because for the most part, you're going to be gating muscle and losing body fat.
I think a lot of times you're going to look a little fatter just momentarily.
You do want to try to figure out what are the amount of calories that I should be consuming.
I just didn't have it in my genetics to develop my weak points.
I just thought, well, this guy's worried about genetics.
We're all.
PowerProject family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast like Kurt Engel, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman.
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Enjoy the show.
I'm ready.
I was on a run last night.
I really hate dogs.
I can cut that part out.
No, no.
Keep it in.
I want people to see how fucking disgusting you are
I'm not disgusting I just burped a little bit
you guys ready
okay let's
throws up on the microphone
let's just get back to the show
the way that it really is let's be serious
let's pause for a moment while I
set up to fart on the microphone
thank you yes exactly all right so you let out a good squeaky one you were doing your little
your little running yeah running around like a fairy i'm happy you said fairy i know every time
you guys uh hear me say that you just want to like break my arm or choke me out but that's what i
like to do okay i like to be independent yeah good and uh anyway
i've been running at night and it's been kind of fun you know switching it up because it is
chilly in the morning i would say cold but then people get mad because they're like it's california
how cold can it get it's cold for us i don't know it just feels cold it's not chilly at night though
uh it's no it's like it's like more manageable it's like 50
or something because i don't go at night night it's like i go like at like six or something
you're also not fresh out of bed though yeah yeah when you first wake up yeah you wake up and
the body's stiff and hopefully something else is a little stiff hopefully it should and it's a
little bit chilly outside.
You know what I'm saying?
So, yeah, I've been running at night, but it's been feeling good.
And I run over by, like, Aggie Stadium, and it's kind of cool.
I don't know.
There's just, like, there's some cool energy about a stadium.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah.
But the lights are on.
It just looks cool.
There's not even anybody really doing anything over there, but I don't know.
I'm digging it.
That's the thing.
They keep it open. Usually they lock those things up. know i know davis they leave everything open they got the track open over there so i'll sometimes go over to the track and
hit a lap or two but i hate running on a track it's like too too serious you know and then i
also get reminded of like how slow i actually am because it's like you know it's actually measured
i can't like lie to myself about how far i'm going yeah but i like running outside and i like running
uh places where there's just more stuff you know because i'll sometimes i'll stop and i'll do
squats i'll stop i'll do push-ups i'll i'm trying to move around more because i noticed that um
you know for through my powerlifting career that made me
really stiff maybe because i didn't follow up with a lot of other movement stuff
and my body just got super stiff and tight from that pro wrestling was kind of the same thing
it's like i would end up you know getting off the couch in slow motion and i would be
kind of in pain and then um you, you know, trying, you know,
do it, mess around with some bodybuilding kind of same thing. Like you tend to over,
or I tend to overdo it. And, uh, it would just, you know, getting up out of a chair or going
upstairs like is hard, you know, when you're training hard. And then I found myself doing
the same thing with running and I'm like, me okay i got the foundation down let me dial
it back a little bit so i haven't been running as far i haven't been running as often i don't
run every day and when i'm running i'm trying to like just move around more i'm like this is so
boring just to completely run straight yeah so let me like veer off this way let me run up this hill
let me run up these stairs let me stop and do some squats and stop and do some push-ups
and stuff like that.
When it comes to context,
when you say you haven't been running as far,
because like, yeah, there'd be days
you'd be doing 10-mile runs.
What is it, like, four, five, six-mile runs?
Yeah, I'd probably run just like anywhere
between 40 minutes and like 90 minutes, somewhere in there.
Okay.
And that sometimes is included.
There's also like a warm-up in there,
which is like a walk-jog. so it might be like 10 minutes of the exercise for the day like last night
felt really good so i was out for like an hour and 20 minutes yeah but yeah a lot of times it's
like i would say most of the time is probably rated like an hour cool how's that effect been
on your lifting it's been feeling great and that's the other thing is that it's allowing for more energy to lift. It's allowing for more energy for the diet, which is weird, right? But I have more energy to put into my diet, more energy to think about my nutrition and more energy to like not eat shit that's not good for me or not eat shit that doesn't align with what i'm do because i'm not so drained i feel like if i was
drained and more stressed then i would probably be easier for me to make bad decisions you probably
also have like probably also burn more calories so those bad decisions they'd still hit but they
wouldn't hit as bad but i get what you're saying when you when you tie yourself out a lot it is
much easier for you to just be like ah let me just door dash tonight right you know
what i mean yeah yeah when you burn the candle at both ends and you kind of just i you also feel
this sense of like victory or like celebration like i did a lot today you know and you're like
i'm just gonna kind of go for it and order sushi not there's anything wrong with sushi sushi is
delicious i'm having some sushi tomorrow night oh nice, nice. So I'm excited for that. But, yeah, I've been able just to keep everything on point.
And I'm going to get a body fat test done soon and check in on that and see where it's at.
I'd like to just, for the hell of it, like to get it down to like 6% or 7%.
I don't know what that will take or I don't know where I'm at now.
So just check on it and go from there.
What do you think you're at now?
My guesstimate is 10% to 11%.
What do you think?
That sounds probably accurate.
I think it's hard as you – like if you try to lose weight, you might be messing up your percentage, which I think that people don't think about very often.
But if you – it makes sense.
If you were to lose like 10 pounds, some of that is going to be muscle.
If you make sense, if you were to lose like 10 pounds, some of that's going to be muscle.
And just because you lost 10 pounds doesn't mean that you lost 10 pounds of fat.
Yeah, lost 10 pounds of fat doesn't mean you necessarily got yourself a lot leaner.
So it'd be interesting to see and just kind of go from there.
Yeah.
But some of y'all are focused on getting bigger.
Like we talk a lot about fat loss, a lot about fat loss, but you know, for, for everyone that's trying to like gain some muscle and get bigger, we got to get into you
guys. We got to, we got to help you all out because there's some certain things I think some
people are really forgetting when it comes to getting big. And when it comes to lifting to get
big, that it's just, uh, you should know. We have a friend that just started to like focus on peak contraction
and just started using tension and he's noticing oh god i can i can pop my pecs and it's just like
man if you've been doing like and the thing is it's cool because he's going to be able to see
a lot of muscle gain within the next six months but this is something he just started adding into
his training i wouldn't be surprised to see see just traditional bodybuilding in 2024 be a huge thing.
Somebody just popping off about three sets of 10 and how effective it is and three exercises
per muscle group.
The longevity people are going to get on it.
Yeah, nine to 12 sets per body part per week type of thing.
It wouldn't surprise me to see people get really hyped up about it.
But, you know, we've been talking about the importance of bodybuilding for a long time because you can utilize those methods forever.
Yeah.
It's a method that you can utilize some bodybuilding forever.
And it doesn't matter if you're a jujitsu athlete, a football player, a power lifter, a bodybuilder.
It doesn't matter what you do.
You can always implement some forms of bodybuilding.
Even for somebody like, you know, you hear someone that trains with kettlebells a lot.
Well, they could just simply, even with the kettlebells themselves, they could implement some bodybuilding rules.
So, for example, they could slow down the tempo.
They could do three sets of 10 of like a goblet squat,
try to get tension wherever they want to on their quads,
go within that range of motion,
get a lot of blood into the area,
use short rest intervals.
But there's a whole other side of bodybuilding
that's not really talked about either.
It's like the food is a huge part of it.
And I would say that I've only seen, I've only seen really drastic changes in people,
like physically seen drastic changes in people when they either took performance enhancing drugs or they just took their nutrition really seriously one way or the other. They either
decide to bulk and go all in and they're like, Hey man, I'm going to gain 40 pounds and I'm going to
let the chips fall where they may in terms of the body fat percentage and in terms of gaining fat
and gaining muscle. And I'm just going to go for it. Um, so I think it's, you know, trying to,
trying to be somebody that is trying to think about wanting to augment your body or trying to get a little bit bigger or even just trying to have a better body fat percentage, like what I'm talking about.
I might have to shrink down for a little while and see, uh, when my luck runs out with that.
And then I might have to go the opposite direction.
And then it might be like, okay, let me implement more food.
Let me walk around like a bodybuilder and have some prepped meals
and eat some more carbohydrates and kind of see what happens
because I could gain muscle that way.
You got to be careful, though.
I mean, you got to be careful how much carbohydrates
and how many calories you're eating when you're bulking.
Even though we talk shit sometimes on, uh, you know, on tracking, if you're, if you're trying to get bigger and you're
not trying to just get fat, right. You do want to try to figure out what are the amount of calories
that I can, that I should be consuming. You know what I mean? Like that's where, you know, you can
go to that precision nutrition calculator or whatever, and you can just get an estimate.
And when you like weigh and track your food, you can only maybe need to nutrition calculator or whatever, and you can just get an estimate. And when you weigh and track your food,
you can only maybe need to do that once,
and then you can just eat a lot of those things
continuously every single day.
But the thing is when you start trying to get bigger
and you're eating a gram per body weight of protein
and you have your fats and your carbs at a certain place,
you don't want to start having the excuse of,
okay, I can have a bowl of cereal here, I can have this here. Because you might see some guys,
like Sam Sulek is great and he's super regimented on his diet, but he does have a lot of calories
and he'll have his chocolate milk thing. I don't know if it's a whole gallon, but he's done that
before. But if a guy tries to imitate that and he's not on PEDs where his metabolism is a lot
higher and he's just trying to handle it through nutrition.
Even PEDs aside, Sam Sulek just has a tremendous amount of muscle.
And he trains hard.
So he's burning a lot of calories.
Even if someone was natural and they had that amount of muscle mass,
they're going to be burning through calories left and right.
They will be able to, but the thing is most guys aren't there.
So most guys aren't going to be able to drink the gallon of chocolate milk, and it will actually fit into their calories.
So what I'm saying is if you try to imitate some people, you don't have the muscle, you don't have the metabolism to do that.
You can still eat carbs.
You could still eat these foods, but you can't handle as much as they can because if you do and you do that on a daily basis, you'll gain some muscle, but you'll also gain a lot of fat.
So you do want to you do
want to find the amount that you should be eating every day and kind of stick to that over time
what are you what is uh your guys thoughts on um uh because like greg de set will talk about like
main gaining like he won't say he doesn't believe in uh like bulking and then shredding he just
believes that like i think this is what he believes at least, that if you just eat in a caloric surplus but not like in a huge freaking surplus to gain fat, but if you just kind of maintain a little bit more than what your maintenance level is, that you'll get bigger and you won't have to worry about like quote-unquote like bulking and cutting.
I think a lot of times you're going to like look a little fatter.
You're going to like look a little fatter. You're going to like look a little puffier.
But you got to just make the decision to do it and you have to understand that you're going to like look that way just for momentarily.
Not everyone reacts that way.
But a lot of times you might be like, man, what's that guy doing?
Like his face kind of – you know, gain some weight in the face.
And you might be gaining weight in places that you don't like because unfortunately the places that are your stubborn areas that you lose weight in the last
you also gain weight first in so so it might suck and you might feel self-conscious about it but
it's something you just have to if that's what you're working on for the moment and you're trying
to gain muscle mass and you're trying to gain strength, then it would make sense to have a surplus of calories, a surplus of nutrient
for that period of time. And hopefully what you're doing is the same thing with when you're
losing weight, you're trying to hold on to as much muscle mass as possible while losing the
most amount of fat. In the reverse form. When you're trying to bulk,
you're trying to gain the most amount of muscle,
but we're still trying to,
you know,
hold off on the fat.
Like we don't,
I don't think there's anybody that's really desiring to gain.
Maybe there's an offensive lineman,
a football player that like is a young guy and he weighs two 20 and he's six
five and he needs to be two 60.
Like every once in a while,
there's somebody who just literally needs the body weight.
But for the most part, even an athlete,
like that's just not a great decision
to throw on all that weight kind of out of nowhere.
You're always better off losing weight slowly
and you're always better off gaining weight slowly.
Both these things, in my opinion, should be done.
I mean, gaining muscle mass just takes a lot of time anyway,
especially if you're trying to do it naturally. And this is where it's like,
the body fat percentage anywhere between like maybe 13 to 17 and 18% is where a lot of guys,
when it comes to being in the weight room, they're going to feel the strongest. They're
going to feel like they can perform the best. And that's why I think that main gaining is a really good idea.
Some guys, some people don't like it because they're like, oh, you're not, it won't allow
you to train hard enough.
You're not eating enough.
But the thing is, the reason why it's not popular for people and people don't like to
do it is because it takes a lot of, it takes time and you don't see the scale, the weight
on the scale go up as quickly.
So it's like if you're a 180 pound dude,
and you're like, I want to see 200 for the first time, and you start eating 4,000 calories a day,
and every week or every two weeks, like two weeks later, you see 183. Four weeks later,
you see 185. Like, you're like, oh shit, I gained five pounds in a month. You probably gained like
two and a half pounds of fat and two and a half pounds of muscle, maybe. Or even maybe like a pound of muscle and four pounds of fat.
But like people like to see that scale go up
because it shows, for them, it shows like
I'm making progress towards that esoteric goal of 200 pounds.
But main gain is great because yeah,
you might not see 200 pounds soon enough.
But if you're paying attention to like your progress in the gym, right?
And every few weeks, you're going to see like you look a little bit better.
Yeah, the body fat isn't going up a lot or the weight doesn't seem to be increasing super fast,
but your body composition looks pretty decent as you're gaining weight.
That's a good thing.
And the thing is it's like over a year period, maybe you went from 180 to like 189 or 190,
but you have a similar body fat level
and a majority of what you gained was muscle,
that's better than seeing 200 pounds
within four or five months,
but you've gained quite a bit of fat
and now you have to cut back down
because that's what most guys do.
Yeah, what if you gain a quarter inch on your quads
and a quarter inch on your arms
and your chest circumference is a little bigger
and your waist circumference is about the same, but you like 10 pounds you know that's kind of what you're
looking for right yeah yeah and the thing is the thing also is you don't want to try to stay too
lean because a lot of guys will be like 10 body fat and they'll be okay it's time to maintain i'm
going to try to maintain 10 but some people can perform really well at 10 if they've been there
for a while and they might naturally be a leaner person period right yeah but some people can perform really well at 10% if they've been there for a while and they
might naturally be a leaner person, period, right? Yeah. But some people, most people need to be a
little bit higher in the body fat percentage. For me personally, I can perform well at 10%,
but I've been 10% body fat for years now, like for years now, right? I don't need to increase
my body fat percentage to be able to make progress
but when you're newer most guys are able to going to be able to perform well when they're 13 14 15
body fat they'll feel better and they won't feel as depleted as they would be at nine or ten percent
body fat these body fat percentages that we're throwing out too like you're probably gonna look
pretty awesome at around 12 to 14% body fat.
Legitimately, you'll probably look pretty fucking good,
especially if you're on the bigger side.
If you're on the smaller side,
then you might have to kind of continue to recomp
until you have a little bit more body weight on you.
But we throw these numbers around, you know,
but 12% body fat.
I mean, think about the people that you walk by in a given day a given day, more so the men that you walk by in a day.
It's going to be really rare to see someone that's 180, 190, 200 pounds and 12% body fat or under.
Really fucking rare probably unless you're – unless you are hanging out at like a sporting event or something like that.
That's the only time where you would see those individuals.
But for the most part, people are walking around with body fat percentage way higher than that, which I don't even know where the body fat percentage would be because I don't think that people on the heavier side tend to even want to get their body fat measured.
It's understandable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's where it's good.
Like you mentioned, you want to get, you want to see where,
are you going to see where your body fat is and then you're going to start
cutting down or are you going to cut down and then check where it is?
I probably check within like the next week or two.
Yeah.
And just kind of see where it's at and then,
and then make a decision on what's going to be the best way to get there.
I don't feel like the body fat that I'm at now is hard to maintain.
Over the last maybe a handful of days, I've been implementing a little bit more fasting.
And so I want to kind of see where that will take me. Yesterday, I ate like one and a half meals
and had a full carnivore shake as well. But yeah, I think it'd be really interesting for me to bulk,
which sounds so weird because I've never actually really truly done it.
I kind of did it for most of my bodybuilding career.
I was 330. I've never bulked.
Yeah, well, so here's the weird thing, though.
This kind of falls in line with what Larry Wheels was saying, and we can play a clip from him, is I never really did it in conjunction with bodybuilding.
I got you.
I only did it in conjunction with powerlifting, which is just like, hey, let's get big and fat and lift more weight.
Because in powerlifting, it's okay to have a little extra cushion for the pushing, and it's okay to have a little extra weight on you
for a long time that worked really well like it worked and worked and worked all the way until
i just got too fat at some point uh weighing 270 and 280 and 290 which those are tremendous
amounts of weight you look solid at 270 though yeah just do that like bsn thing yeah yeah i was
able to hold some pretty good, some pretty good amount of
muscle mass for, for some of the photo shoots and stuff that we did, which was a lot of fun.
But at a certain point, what happened was, is my, my body fat percentage was going kind of all over
the place without me even really recognizing, especially kind of like through injury, especially,
really recognizing, especially kind of like through injury, especially, uh, you know,
powerlifting isn't really, there's, there is a part of powerlifting that you do focus on hypertrophy. Um, but I was running into like injuries and stuff, elbows were flaring up.
So the activity wasn't as good. Um, and it's also kind of hard when you're that big,
it's like hard to tell what's muscle and what's what at some point you
know so i was i was kind of losing a battle that i that i didn't even know i was losing it took me
it only took me a couple of months to to recalibrate and to see like okay shit this ain't
working we need to go we need to go back the other way and we need to do what we were doing in the
beginning which was a recomp. So every time I
would compete, I would work on getting leaner and I would get on kind of a bodybuilding style diet
or like a low carb diet and I would get leaner. I'd lose, you know, 10, 15, 20 pounds. And then
I would restart and get back into kind of like, I guess you'd call it like a powerlifting bulk.
But it'd be interesting to try to do like a bodybuilding bulk where I have the nutrition
to support me, which I kind of felt like I did when I competed in bodybuilding, even
though that was kind of a short prep to the bodybuilding show.
Yeah, there's a good shot.
You know, one thing that on the nutrition side of things, because you don't, this thing,
you don't have to track, but you got to understand the bodybuilders that are like, yeah, they don't track anything.
They have six regimented meals that are pretty much a lot of the same things almost every single day.
So even though they're not tracking their food, right?
They have a meal plan.
They have a meal plan.
It's the same thing.
It's going to be close to the same calories for their fat, carbs and protein almost every single day that they're doing it. Right. So whatever whatever way you do it, whether you choose to track your food consistently and just make sure you're within that range or whether you choose to have a plan, that plan will still have a calorie amount, I'm assuming. Right. And you choose to do that every single like most days of the week, you still have to have a regimented meal. So you're not going crazy, right? You don't want
to add a crazy bolus of fucking ice cream here and there just because you can. You want to be
careful with that shit. Sleep is something we talk about all the time on the podcast because
it's your biggest driver in terms of your health and you sleep for a third of your life. So you
want to make sure that your sleep is optimized and that you're taking every advantage to make that recovery period as strong and as effective as possible.
That's why we've partnered with Eight Sleep Mattresses. It's the Tesla of beds. You can
control the temperature of your side of the bed and your partner's side of the bed. And the cool
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Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes.
I think like a bodybuilding method or technique is where it's at.
I think hopefully we see more and more people do it.
We are seeing people like Peter Itea.
We're seeing some other people starting to talk about it. And obviously we've got people like Lane Norton, who's, you know,
a PhD doctor, talks a ton about nutrition and he has been for years. And not only is he a
powerlifter, but he's also done natural bodybuilding for years. So hopefully more and more people kind
of get this, hopefully more people understand it because having muscle mass holding on to strength as we get older
is super important and one of the best ways to do it is through bodybuilding as i was mentioned
earlier um i did mention that you know some of the some some transformations i've seen
physically from people have only been where they got serious about the food or they decided to take
performance enhancing drugs.
I have seen people tell me that they're like getting into bodybuilding.
They're all fired up.
They're super excited.
They're like, yeah, I'm doing the whole thing.
I got the meals starting.
And they tell me the day that I could say in two weeks I'm trying to get used to the meals and all this stuff and the meal prep.
Sure enough, six or eight weeks later, they'll look way different.
Like you will look – they'll look way different. Like you will look,
you can look way different, whether it's a bulk or whether it's a cut, wherever you are right now,
if you follow a regimented bodybuilding, not just like program, not just the lifting, but the
lifting along with the nutrition and the hydration, and you do that all encompassing,
and you do that for three months or so, you're going to look way different. Like you can't even,
you can't even believe how crazy someone can transform in that time period. Obviously,
the more body fat that you have currently, the harder the transformation will be, the longer
some of that process will take. So, you know, if you're 60 pounds
overweight, you're not going to all of a sudden see
abs in 12 weeks.
However, you're still going to have a crazy
transformation in that time period if you
follow a bodybuilding program.
Yeah, 100%. Do you want to play
that clip now? Yeah.
Let's play that clip because
this is interesting and it makes sense.
It's from Larry Wheels, but this is good.
A lot of people are powerlifters.
How big he is.
Yeah, he's big, right?
His freaking arms.
He's fucking huge.
Let's see here.
Is this post him gaining like 60 pounds in two days or whatever that was?
I think this was before.
I think this was before.
This is still pre-show.
Sure, it's a little snug.
Probably doesn't matter.
No.
Probably a 3X.
With the 2 gram a week total cycle, I remember doing incline band.
Again, every week, struggling to grow upper chest.
Because I see what my flaws are.
And the biggest one being the
upper chest right it's just right there in your face you know and even on that much gear if you're
not training correctly like i wasn't to grow my upper chest it won't grow but on trt doses which
i'm on now and it's just a few months a few short months right a few short months so you know when i
see the comments years ago and they say slowly reps i'm like shut up like i know what i'm doing
shut up you know but now i'm like damn gosh you listen to you because i i just didn't realize how
important it was i just always thought it didn't it just was not important i assumed i just didn't realize how important it was. I just always thought it didn't, it just wasn't that important.
I assumed I just didn't have it in my genetics
to develop my weak points,
like my calves, my perchefs, triceps, hamstrings,
right, these areas that need attention.
I just thought, well, I mean-
If this guy's worried about genetics,
we're all fucked.
That's actually a,
that's a funny fucking statement coming from him, right?
Yeah, he's unbelievable.
I mean, obviously he, you know know i think sometimes people get genetics confused with somebody like just having it and just we're we totally are aware that larry wheels has worked
his ass off to get to gain the strength that he has but we've never seen anybody like him before
so it's a combination of him working hard and having awesome genetics larry wheels is not just
his genetics that guy he's worked so fucking hard
when it comes to lifting.
So let's keep playing.
Okay.
For so long, and it hasn't changed,
and I feel like I know what I'm doing
when it comes to training,
so I guess I just don't have it in my genes.
It's just I wasn't training as a bodybuilder.
I do have an argument for that, though,
that I think...
Yeah.
So the reason why this is so interesting
is because I think everyone has seen it
where people get super strong
and they've been training for powerlifting
for a long-ass time.
Usually only reps up to five, right?
Five through one, triples, singles.
But even though they're super strong,
they don't end up looking like a bodybuilder.
Maybe they get bigger, but they don't have that look. And part of the reason is because
of the intents of how they lift. The intent is huge. I mean, it's such a huge factor. Obviously,
there are genetics that do play into it. Some people have different muscle fiber types and
stuff like that. So maybe on sets of three maybe this guy can
get a little bit bigger than that guy but that is super interesting you know you figure if you could
handle 600 pounds anything over like 300 pounds really on an incline bench is wild like that is
some crazy strength so you figure if you could handle that kind of weight that you would have
some crazy upper pec development now he's talking about a weakness in bodybuilding and his mind is probably,
his comparison is probably to IFBB pro bodybuilders because he's Larry wheels.
He's kind of at the top of the food chain in terms of, again,
he's one of the strongest people ever walked the face of the earth.
And so when he's thinking of bodybuilding and when he's thinking of his
shortcomings in bodybuilding, he's probably thinking like, oh, this is like a shitty chest compared to what Jay Cutler had and what Ronnie Coleman had.
But still, it is interesting that he wasn't able to develop it quite the way that he wanted to until he had the intent.
100 percent.
I see this from like a lot of lifters.
When they're lifting, they're going through the motions of the lift. So when they're doing a dumbbell chest press, they're kind of just like pushing it up. They're doing it pretty fast. There's no feeling of what they're actually trying to work. They don't let themselves feel that stretch at the very end. They don't let themselves feel that peak contraction at the top. Or when they're doing a cable raise, they don't let themselves feel these different areas. They just
kind of go through the motions of the movement. And if you're not actually thinking of stimulating
that muscle, fatiguing that muscle and using that muscle to do the work, you're not going to get
the results you're looking for. Like he mentioned, slowing the reps down, he kind of looked at that
as a joke. But what does slowing the reps down do for people? It allows them to feel what's actually going on. You're not just lifting
weight. Now you're feeling the muscle group that's working and you're focusing in on that.
And if you can do that successfully while also getting probably going for higher reps,
right? And fatiguing yourself at higher reps. So like you go for 10 good reps and
maybe you only had 10 to 12 in the
tank, so you're getting close to that failure, you're going to be able to start growing, right?
But after a bodybuilding session, you'll feel wiped out, but it's a different feeling and your
muscles and stuff will be pumped depending on what muscles you worked and depending on how good you are at kind of
activating those muscles. A powerlifting workout, you don't really feel the same way. You might feel
wiped out. You might feel kind of fatigued. But when you go to drive home, you might notice that
when your hand on the steering wheel is like shaking, you're like, it's like you just,
you gave an input into your nervous system and it's a lot of nervous system
training.
I'm not saying that bodybuilding is not nervous system training because
there's definitely an effect on the nervous system,
but bodybuilding is more the muscular system.
Like we're going to go in,
we're going to dive in into the muscular system and we're going to work the
biceps.
We're going to work,
we're going to work the triceps.
We're going to work the shoulders.
We're going to work these different areas very
specifically. Whereas in powerlifting, you actually kind of want to run away from some of that because
what bodybuilders are chasing is fatigue. And bodybuilders will chase fatigue so much that
they do drop sets, they do supersets, they do things where their rest period is really important. In powerlifting,
the rest period is like, you just kind of wait until you feel good again.
That could be five minutes.
Yeah, it could be 10 minutes. And in a powerlifting competition, people might not realize this,
but 11, 12 minutes might go by before your next attempt. And you're kind of pumped about it.
You're like, this is great. I get to be like get to be like, you know, it's almost, it's almost too long. Cause you're like, I'm going to
start to kind of cool down if I don't get an opportunity to go again. And so with bodybuilding,
bodybuilders are chasing fatigue. You're not trying to make yourself so tired that you can't
lift any more weight anymore. But a lot of bodybuilders would do something called straight
sets where they'll use the same weight on each set and that's on purpose like they could use more weight they
could rest longer and use more weight but that's not really the game for them and we've seen the
clip of kai green he's like i'm not a weight lifter right i'm not a weight lifter and his
point is is that he's chasing after something quite different than what a powerlifter chases after.
Yeah, I've made the most progress ever just by kind of ignoring whatever the number on the machine or the dumbbell was and just going for the sensation and chasing that instead of like – when I first started, it was like, oh, I got to, if I want to get big, I got to lift big. But I was cheating every rep, you know,
like you were talking about like in a dumbbell press, like just going for it. Like I would make
sure my elbows were nice and tight, you know, and like, I would like push the weight up and stuff.
I wasn't, you know, going out wide or I wasn't because if, oh, if I go out wide, it's, it's
fucking hard and I can't lift the same amount of weight.
Whereas now I'm like, hold on, let me like, Whoa, if I go wider,
it feels even like, Oh yes, let me give me the five pound dumbbells.
Let's see what I can, you know, make out of that.
Once I started ignoring the numbers on the weights, the, the, my body,
like the physique totally changed.
Yeah. It's funny.
The like the amount of stimulus that like you're able to get from a lower weight
when you're actually focusing on that muscle group.
But did you have a similar experience to Larry when you started actually like,
because I know you've done bodybuilding style stuff before powerlifting
and even maybe when you were powerlifting, not that much,
but when you really focused on it and like how you've been training recently,
if you've been training with Kenny, have you noticed a difference even though you've been training for
years it can decades yeah yeah it can make it can make a big difference um for me um on certain
muscle groups i would say it's like a little easier on some stuff it's a little harder because
uh i don't always have like the mobility to like really get into certain muscle groups, which is kind of an interesting thing.
And then also I have like damage.
Like I've fucked myself up a bunch of times.
So my biceps are hard for me to get the sensation that I got when I was younger because I tore them a couple times.
Same thing was with pecs.
But yeah, having a more central focused on bodybuilding makes a huge difference
and that's why i was saying earlier i'd be interested in seeing what happens if i
give myself the support from a caloric perspective because i've mainly only been like
bodybuilding um with like either maintenance calories or some sort of calorie deficit or
some sort of restriction i haven't really messed with bodybuilding or done bodybuilding
where I'm really diligent about pre-workout carbohydrates,
post-workout carbohydrates, kind of that perinutrition type thing,
along with just having even just a small surplus of calories.
So yeah, I'd be interested to kind of see what I'll be able to do with that when the time comes.
A topic that has been, and this is still within this, but something that's been kind of going around for the past few weeks.
I've been seeing some posts from like Jeff Nippard and Omar Yusuf and shit.
People have been talking about, you know, power building where people will, you know, they'll have their strength movements and then they'll make sure to do their bodybuilding work at the end.
People are starting to be like, oh, powerlifting isn't viable or it's not necessary or it's like a bastardized way of training.
What are your thoughts on that first off?
Powerlifting or power –
Powerbuilding.
Okay, just making sure.
Meaning like you're still focused on gaining strength on your big three or four if you add an overhead press or any of these compound movements.
your big three or four, if you had an overhead press or any of these compound movements.
And then after you do that, you do your higher rep bodybuilding type movements.
Power lifting can be a lot of fun, you know, so just kind of having some numbers to plan for and to go after, like it takes a certain style of discipline. So I think
that whole setup can be really fun. It also be really dangerous you don't know what you're
doing there there's if you're trying to get big and gain size and be you know
and you're trying to pursue something in bodybuilding or you're trying to pursue
something in aesthetics either because you think it's fun or you want to be
somebody on social media you probably don't need to really worry too much about a squat. You probably don't really
need to worry too much about a deadlift. I don't need to worry too much about a bench press.
When you say that, you're also primarily meaning the number on the bar, right?
Yeah, the number on the bar and the very specific lifts of powerlifting.
Gotcha. Okay.
But you're still going to want to do deadlifts.
You're still going to want to do stiff leg deadlift of some sort,
some sort of hip hinge.
You're still going to basically need some form of squatting in there,
and you need some sort of pressing for your chest,
whether it's a machine bench press or whether it's dumbbells.
So to kind of just pinpoint it down to powerlifting,
I would say that, yeah, you, I don't think you necessarily need powerlifting in its most
authentic form, but I do think that it can be beneficial. I do also think that if you were to
take somebody that's, you know, 150 pounds and they're 5'10", you know, so they're,
and they want to be bigger. I do think that powerlifting would be a
great thing for them to start to look into because we're not just talking about building muscle.
We're talking about building the entire body and building your mindset and having a stronger body, having more bone density,
having stronger ligaments and tendons is going to build a tremendous amount of confidence.
If you're 150 pounds and you kind of, I don't know, you've been picked on and so on, and now
you can deadlift 275, like, you know, a couple of weeks back, you deadlifted 225 and your whole body was
shaking. And now you deadlift 275. You're going to be pretty fucking confident about yourself.
You can gain confidence through other things. You can go to different sports and stuff, but
lifting weights is like one of the best ways to do it. And for that person that's undersized,
the bodybuilding route is just going to take so long.
It'll take forever.
But to see some pretty good increases, to see a 30-pound, 40-pound, 50-pound increase in your deadlift,
that can actually literally happen in a handful of months.
It can.
For especially like a newer person.
So what an amazing feeling for somebody just getting into it who previously felt scrawny, they felt undersized,
they feel picked on and so on, and now they're lifting a little bit more weight,
that's going to do a lot for you. And then now you also, people lose sight on the fact that strength
is a fitness capacity. So now because you're stronger, you can handle more.
You can do more in your
workouts. So somebody that has spent some time bringing up their bench press and bringing up
their deadlift and their squat, they're going to be able to handle more weight for more reps and
more sets for more overall volume when they do decide to maybe hone in on some bodybuilding more.
Yeah. So the one thing to think about there too is like
it's a lot of people do that because it's super fun.
Like it's building strength with barbell movements
is a fun thing.
Like when you see your deadlift go from 225 to 275, 315,
then you're deadlifting four plates
and you're deadlifting five plates.
It's fun.
You might not see the size gain you want to see
by getting that strong, but it's like it gives you like, whoa, I'm dead lifting this amount of weight now.
And that's could be something, especially for lifters who are much lighter, that could be
something that gives them motivation. Because one thing I was thinking is like, yeah, they could get
bigger without having to do any of that. But the thing is, is like the, the, the, what they're going to be seeing over time is going to take so long and it's going to seem like such a slow process. And if they don't start actually enjoying the feeling of bodybuilding and seeing that, like the small five pounds progressions every few weeks, or maybe seeing the benefit of just increasing the amount of reps that they're doing on certain movements, or, wow, I'm able to feel this contraction way deeper
than I was two weeks ago.
If they don't feel like that's a fun way of progressing,
then they won't maintain fire in the gym for that.
Because you have, no matter what you do,
you gotta be consistent.
But the downside of power building,
even though I liked that way of training
and I did that for years, is that your sessions,
if you're doing it the right way, are long.
If you're doing compound movements,
a compound movement, you're doing that to a top set
or whatever, and then you're doing all your accessory work,
accessory work, you're doing your bodybuilding work,
your sessions could be like two hours.
Like, your sessions will be usually
like 90 minutes to two hours.
Exercise number one could easily take a half an hour.
Exactly.
Whereas if you just hopped into the gym and your goal was just like hitting all these muscle groups, you could have a very effective session within an hour, an hour and 20 minutes.
You could actually knock all that stuff out.
So the thing is, is like if you have the time, it's fun,
but you got to have the time and you actually got to do it. Cause most people, when they say
I'm power building, uh, they do their compounds and then they're, their bodybuilding movements
are half-assed. Right. And then they're like, Oh, why are my shoulders bigger? You don't really
work your shoulders. You don't work them. And for some of the guys that are maybe a little heavier,
it's discouraging to not be able
to see what the hell's going on so if you're 22 body fat you're not going to really see a vein
you're not going to necessarily see like a cut but you might be seeing progress you might be
seeing that the weights are going up on the bench and you might be seeing and then you can you know
hopefully over time you can get some sort of handle on your nutrition. But that's another one.
It takes a long time to figure out what to eat, how to eat it, how to cook.
I mean the evolution of my diet has changed so many times and it's changed from so many different things.
Before I knew a whole lot, I would just stick to like what I knew, which wasn't a lot, but I would just like make eggs all the time.
Like that's kind of how it started for me.
I'm like, I'm just going to make eggs.
I know eggs are like, eggs are healthy.
I think they're supposed to make you big and I think they're supposed to make you kind of lean.
So I'm just going to stick with these.
So I did a lot of that.
And then I heard stuff about like meat and chicken and shit like that and started getting more and more into it.
But I used to like not cook my own meals. I used to, you know, get food from wherever I could,
like protein sources, wherever I could from a restaurant or something like that. And it was like a half-assed way of like navigating some like, I guess like bodybuilding slash like bro
eating style.
And then now I just, I cook every meal because I'd rather, not every meal.
I do eat out sometimes, but I cook almost every meal.
And I'd rather know exactly what's in the meal.
And I'd rather, you know, but that takes a long,
you can't just ask someone to do that.
You know, you can't just, you can ask them to do it,
but like it's going to be rare that someone
just all of a sudden flips a switch and they're doing that. It takes a long time.
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the uh the other side because i think and see what you said like 12% to 17% body fat is kind of like a good sweet spot where you'll feel pretty comfortable and strong.
For most people.
Most people. So for me, my body fat percentage was probably 18 and above, but I was still like 165 pounds.
So this is the thing. When you started, right?
Yeah.
Well, so one thing is when you start eating enough food,
when you're actually working out, you're burning calories in the gym,
and you're eating enough food to fuel progress.
You said you were 18% body fat.
What probably is –
I would say, yeah, I'm just guessing, but it could have been even higher.
Yeah, but that's the thing.
What happens for newer people is a recomposition automatically.
They automatically recomp.
If you're 22% body fat and you just started training and then you start eating enough protein,
you start eating enough carbs to fuel performance and you feel good in the gym,
you're going to gain weight.
But it's like the first year or two, some people like two and a half years, is an amazing thing
because you will start seeing
weight increases and your body fat percentage will decrease a little bit. It's like that's when it's
like you don't even need to worry about main gating because for the most part, you're going to be
gating muscle and losing body fat. You're going to have an automatic recomposition. It's when you
start, like when you've been training for a while, right, and you've gained a good amount of muscle,
that you need to start being a little bit more careful with your nutrition.
Like you need to start paying attention to not eating way too much
because now your muscle gain is going to be slower
and your fat gain, if you go way too high,
you're going to be gaining quite a bit of fat
because you've gained a good amount of muscle already.
So for where you were,
that was a fine place to eat enough food
because if you eat enough food,
you're going to have enough energy to perform.
You're going to be gaining weight, but a majority of the weight you're going to be gaining is going to be muscle if you're eat enough food because if you eat enough food you're going to have enough energy to perform you're going to be gaining weight but a majority of the weight you're going to be gaining
is going to be muscle if you're eating enough food your body fat's going to slowly go down and you
probably would have found a sweet spot of like 14 to 15 body fat while continuing to train in the
gym your body fat percentage is where now uh it's like i haven't checked it um probably 12 or 13 but
it was it was 12 and a half during the summertime.
That's great.
So it's somewhere around there.
Weighing 185?
Yeah, 183, 184.
Yeah, I kind of top out at 184, but it drops down to like 181.
So I fluctuate between about three pounds here and there.
How do you feel now?
You feel pretty good?
Yeah, I feel great.
Energy and all that?
Yeah, the energy thing, like I had mentioned on a previous podcast, I think I'm just kind of wrecked.
So I didn't go to Jiu-Jitsu Monday, and then I didn't train, what's today? Tuesday?
Okay.
I feel pretty good right now.
I normally would have probably felt a little drained still.
So I think I'm just like i have to find the still find the
right balance between going too hard at jujitsu versus like lifting and that sort of thing how
long has it been since you've taken like a week off of jujitsu oh uh the last time i got hurt
uh no the last time i got sick so it's been a while but i've never taken like like i feel good
i'm gonna take some time off no it's always like oh i got sick i'll just i'll sit this out for a
little bit but yeah that's yeah no i haven't taken time off like that this dude this might just be
the week too because like again it's like you said you haven't found that balance but you did have
that balance when you're feeling great and you balanced that for a while and now you're feeling kind of drained.
Maybe it's like the perfect week just to get pumps, go get a sauna session in, go cold plunge a little bit, feel good, and then start again next week.
Because I was having a conversation with a buddy, Arian, recently, and he's like, he noticed, and I've noticed this for the past few years,
recently and he's like he noticed and i've noticed this for the past few years the times when like you start to feel fresh in jujitsu are always like when you accidentally get injured or you're
forced to take time off accidentally and then you come back and it's like well i'm doing shit i've
never done before but most people don't let themselves ever have that time no it's a real
thing it happens to me all the time whenever i don't go to jujitsu for like four or five days
like whenever that happens, I come back.
I'm like, ooh, shit's clicking.
Like this is great.
Think about how ridiculous that is too because like four or five days is like –
It's nothing.
It's nothing.
It's nothing to even really bring up.
But it is something to bring up because everyone wants to go all the time.
I found the same thing with running.
Like I said, I just pulled back a little bit and now I have more energy even for the diet itself, which I think is really important.
Yeah.
I'm not saying like I haven't missed days, but I haven't taken like that long of a break off to where it's like a scheduled thing where it's like, yep, next week.
All right, I'll see you guys the following week or something like that.
No, that's no.
It's going to suck, but I'll just take the week.
Yeah.
Like still go in the gym, like, you know, move around and shit.
I think some of it's like that push-pull thing, you know?
You want stuff to continually pull you, you know?
You want to be like, you don't want to have to push yourself.
Yeah.
You know, you want to sail.
You want to just, you know, if you're a boat in the water, you want to just throw your sail up and go with the wind and like let it – you know what I mean?
You don't want to have to like – you don't have to want to push everything so hard all the time.
It's just – it's going to make things more difficult and it's probably going to make it harder for people to learn like in lifting in general.
If you're pushing, pushing, pushing, there are points where you do need to push.
You do need to – like I think it's important especially from a mental uh perspective and a mindset perspective it's really important to to push here and there
but you push and push and push and you're like man i'm pretty you know and that's where you want
to see like how do i get to pull again the pull again is probably just to stop for a moment and
this kind of comes back into that bodybuilding thing because for sustained progress in bodybuilding, I know some people are like, there's a joke about deload weeks being
bullshit. And there's an aspect of sometimes they are bullshit, especially if you haven't been
training hard enough, but there will come a point when you've been training consistently, you're on
a four to five or six day split and you've been going consistently hitting those workouts week
on week. There comes a week where you go into the gym one day and you're just like, the next day you
go and you're just like, oh, don't got it. Take that week, still go into the gym one day and you're just like, ugh. The next day you go in and you're just like, oh,
don't got it.
Take that week, still go in the gym,
maybe get a bit of a pump, do some different shit,
but take everything lighter, get in, get out, right?
Do some recovery shit, get some good sleep.
Because if you just do that for a few days
and you come back to the gym the next week,
you'll probably be able to start making progress again
because you're feeling fresh, right?
That's what happens when you don't ever really give yourself
a little bit of a back off off of shit.
Either injury backs you out or you get sick
because you've been overdoing it.
But shit can happen.
So just back off so you can keep progressing.
Weights feel heavy.
Kind of have like a brain fog.
Hard to get a pump um joints hurt like these are all signs you know these are all like just because you have like one of those symptoms doesn't mean
that you need to take a week off but if you kind of have a bunch of them and uh oh and it's not fun
oh yeah yeah if it's not fun man you need to go home
you need to chill for a little bit because it'll be fun again it'll be fun again it's not like
you know if i if i miss running for two three days even if i was to miss it for a week uh it's not
like even though i'm still new to running it's like like, I'm not going to run again. I'm just going to feel better. I'm going to feel, I'm going to be like, oh shit, why
my body needs to run. You know? And I think the same thing with bodybuilding, powerlifting,
jujitsu. One thing I wanted to ask you and Seema is like, there's a lot of movements that just feel
different, you know? So like a deadlift can be like a bodybuilding movement. I mean, traditionally people leave deadlifts in there, you know, for particular reasons. Some guys will do like stiff leg deadlifts. We've seen Ronnie Coleman use crazy amounts of weight on just like regular deadlift.
Chris Bumstead, I think Chris Bumstead, like deadlift 675, maybe even for some reps. I mean, he's a monster. We've seen, we've seen people, you know, use these movements, but these movements
aren't, you don't feel them the same way. You know, you don't feel them the same way you feel
a tricep push down or like a lateral raise or like a crunch. Like if you do a bunch of crunches
or you do a bunch of leg extensions, that shit burns.
And it's kind of easy for someone to like do those movements and you can say, hey, that's,
that's what bodybuilding reps feel like. But when you deadlift, it doesn't feel like that.
Or sometimes like a bent over row, like I know that you, you, you know how to flex muscles in
ways that a lot of people don't know how to do.
And you're proficient at like a bent over row.
But for me, like a bent over row, I don't feel, I don't necessarily feel my lats, but
if I got stronger at a bent over row, my lats will probably get bigger.
So the kind of question here I'm kind of posing is like, there's some movements where, and
even a squat, a squat for some people, they're not going to
really feel their quads on fire. They're certainly not going to, unless again, unless they're
proficient at squatting, they're not going to feel their quads the same way they would feel them if
you just did a killer drop set on a leg extension. So while a bodybuilder is after a pump,
how do you kind of fit, how do you kind of think some of these other movements fit into the equation i think they're great movements but the thing is is like when you watch someone like
bumstead or kai green or even ronnie when you watch them do these movements usually they're
not doing them in a power lifting fashion and that means they're not like just lifting the weight up
they're not exploding with the deadlift or Or when you've seen Jake Cutler squat,
he wasn't just like exploding down into the hole and squatting up. There was like a 1-1,000.
So you can bring up some clips, Andrew.
Yeah, like pull up some Kai Greene stuff or, yeah, Cutler, but like there's like a 1-1,000,
2-1,000, 3-1,000 into the hole. Then there's a 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000 up. There's always
control, slowing it down feeling
that like having tempo but when you slow any of these movements down with the correct load for
however strong you are you're gonna you should be able to feel it in that muscle group but if
someone's like doing a row and they're just like just like rowing it with power you can get that
weight up but you won't feel that load in the place that you're trying to feel it
so i think that all those movements are great if you're able to feel it and if you can't like
for example whenever i did sumo deadlifts my erectors were on fire like i loved that movement
personally for my back and my erectors and people are going to say it's not a back movement it's not
that type of movement but every time i got done because when the way that i would deadlift, you've seen me do deadlifts before. I sometimes would do deadlifts fast,
but a lot of times you'd see me doing them slow and then I'd always be controlling the eccentric
of that deadlift. But then whenever I'd be done deadlifting, my back was just so, so pumped. My
erectors were on fire and they were thicker. That movement was helping me out there, but it wasn't
just because I wasn't just deadlifting, definitely from explos thicker. That movement was helping me out there, but it wasn't just because I wasn't just deadlifting,
definitely from explosively.
That movement was still helping me grow
because I was lifting that with intention.
So jacked.
Yeah, and that's why some of these guys,
that's why they like Smith machines sometimes
because they can get tension.
Yeah, look, Cutler has no,
he's got no regard for like depth or anything.
I don't think he cares.
Nah.
He's just like, let me keep my upper body, you know, kind of still.
And I'm not, he's not bending forward a lot.
He's just getting like a, knees are going forward.
He's just getting some weight on those quads.
Yeah.
Two plates.
But this is a fast forwarded.
Yeah.
In the video, he did like fucking an hour of legs of different types of machines and stuff.
He did like fucking an hour of legs of different types of machines and stuff.
Yeah, Cutler did a lot of leg extensions and stuff beforehand to get a better feel for his legs during training sessions.
But one thing to pay attention to with that squat is look how close his feet are together and how much more quad focused that squat is versus a powerlifting squat, which is going to be focused on a hip hinge.
You're going to be feeling that a lot in your glutes.
You won't feel it that much in your quads. But his legs are close together and he's going right into his knees that you will your
quads will fire up immediately right it's not the same type of squat yeah i remember uh we mark i
don't know if you remember we used to call it the uh the death trap we would get a trap bar but we
would elevate our heels oh yeah that would oh my, my gosh. That killed my quads.
I want to say that's probably like the best quad movement I've ever done.
Yeah, so that's Josh's edge.
And it's supposed to be a deadlift, right?
But you feel it only in your quads because everything else doesn't matter
when your quads are crying that loud.
Yeah, you're not allowed to, like, bend your chest forward.
You've got to stay upright the whole time.
Yeah, knees far forward.
Yeah, that movement's great.
But, yeah, you're right.
Even those old videos of Coleman, you you know squatting 800 for some reps or um in a regular squat he's
keeping constant tension uh on the muscle and he's doing it much differently than a powerlifter
he's not just trying just to get through the movement yeah so those women like i think those
movements are great you don't have to do them but if you choose to do them and you want to build muscle, try to still, like, after you're set, ask yourself, did I feel that? Like, did I feel those rows in my lats? Did I feel that in my back? Did I feel that in the place I'm trying to feel it? And if not, maybe you need to lower the load you know, staying on top of those rest intervals is critical.
So you're trying to do a row with like 315 or something crazy.
If you can't keep up with the rest interval, the weight's way too heavy.
If you can't keep your form, I think most of the time in bodybuilding, you're looking for like a technical breakdown.
If you start to have a
technical breakdown, the weight's a little too heavy. You want to be able to make it through
all your reps, all your sets with very little minimal technical breakdown. You're kind of
pushing that as far off as possible, trying to have, I mean, you don't have to be like crazy
about your form and technique. And I'm not saying that you can't have any body English because
sometimes body English is sometimes what's needed for certain movements it can sometimes be critical
because it can allow you to get a little bit more movement on a particular movement but
if you start to rely way too much on you know the momentum of your body uh you're a lot of times
you're starting to work different muscles and maybe you're not isolating the way that you want to.
And I think that's actually a good thing from an athletic standpoint,
from a standpoint of maybe power lifting.
It's not a bad thing.
But again, if you're trying to hone in on a particular muscle group
to try to bring that muscle group up,
you should stick within the rules and the laws of bodybuilding,
which are to try to keep that form as tight and concise as
possible yeah yeah one thing that we're not we shouldn't delve over and we'll come back to
training stuff is sleep yeah when when really uh when mark was talking about like sometimes you do
have to like push it or whatever dude i would get like the worst sleep, but like, nope, the guys on YouTube say I got to push hard. And so alarm's going to go off at 5 a.m. So like, let's get after it. And I made no progress. Sorry, Nsema.
try to get yourself a non-stim pre-workout.
So a pre-workout that doesn't have caffeine.
Because if you do work out at night, a lot of times you want to use pre,
but then that pre, that caffeine is going to fuck with your sleep quality.
If you're trying to grow as much as possible, as efficiently as possible,
you don't want to fuck that up.
You don't want to fuck that up.
You said you've been sweating when you've been sleeping?
Yeah, like my eight sleep, I had a malfunction. So I had to get it returned, and they sent me another one.
And for the five nights that I was without it, it was cold in the house.
It's colder now in Sacramento.
I had the AC on.
It was like 69 degrees.
But I was still waking up sweaty.
My girl was still waking up pretty hot because she's in prep.
It was shit.
Like I'm a little spoiled bitch now because I realized like, damn, like that thing was really keeping me cool at night.
Every night I woke up.
I haven't sweat like that in a long time.
You need a special blankie.
And it's back now.
I got it back.
But that fucking, that eight sleep makes a big fucking difference.
It's huge.
Yeah, it feels amazing.
Yeah.
You don't want to be all sweaty.
But make sure that you're getting enough sleep each night because, you know, you want't want to be all sweaty but make sure that you're getting enough sleep
each night because you know you you want your workouts to be productive you don't want to like
get lack of sleep is going to be one of the biggest things that cause you to potentially
get injured because you're not feeling as good or as strong or as like focused in the gym
so don't skip over that yeah part of the reason why this came up is i had somebody ask me about
peptides and um when they asked about peptides i I was just like, you know, I think a lot of times people are trying to take peptides as like a workaround to like not take steroids.
But we've talked about it many times on this show.
We've had a bunch of different guests on the show.
And the topic is always kind of complicated.
People are like trying to stay natural, but not, you know, they're trying
to like get on something that is going to give them some sort of edge. And so they're hearing
stuff about peptides from maybe from Dana White and Gary Brekka, or they're hearing about peptides
from this podcast or other podcasts. I personally have not seen a peptide do anything drastic to anyone.
It doesn't mean they don't work.
I might not have the information correct, but I've never – currently, I haven't had any –
I haven't seen anybody make some sort of drastic change, and they're like, oh, I'm on this peptide.
I have never seen that happen.
What I have seen happen is people are on a mixture of things.
They're on like TRT and they're taking peptides.
They're on, let's make no mistake about it.
Yeah, make no mistake about it.
Testosterone is a steroid.
So sometimes people get that confused a little bit.
Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it but sometimes people are on testosterone and they're touting how good these peptides are again i'm not saying that peptides don't work
i just haven't seen peptides make a real drastic difference in the way that someone looks or in
the way that somebody lifts or in the way that someone performs.
I wonder if I should start using peptides just to test this out.
Yeah, and just to be like, you come in and you're 280 and leaner.
Mark, he told me, he said they don't make a difference.
This shit don't work, huh, bro?
Again, what I have seen, people make drastic changes. The same individual that asked me this question, if that person went all in on bodybuilding, in eight weeks, 12 weeks, we would see drastic changes.
So people might not – they might not believe it.
They might not think what I'm saying is true, but it really makes a huge difference.
intent of bodybuilding along with a bodybuilding lifestyle, not necessarily taking form-tancing drugs, but having a lifestyle of getting the sleep and getting the nutrition in and making
sure you're not missing meals.
Remember, we had Chris Minnis on the podcast before, and he runs an entire bodybuilding,
he runs bodybuilding shows out in Tahoe.
And he said that he views it as cheating on your diet if you miss a meal.
Like, that's crazy, right? That sounds like crazy talk. But these people are regimented,
and it's important that if you're somebody that wants to get big, if you're somebody that wants
to get lean, it's important that you at least look into this. It's important that you at least give
it a try. And the reason why, you know, part of the other reason why the topic came up is we're just seeing a lot of different
stuff going on in the fitness space right now. There's a lot of movement stuff going on. There's
a lot of people twisting and turning and doing cool stuff. And I am a fan of all that,
but it's not bodybuilding and it's not going to get people. It can help improve people's bodies drastically.
But bodybuilding will get you there the fastest, in my opinion.
Improving your sleep quality is as easy as shutting your mouth.
And what I mean by that is putting some tape on, breathing through your nose will increase your sleep quality.
It's no longer just something that only the bros do.
It's now been researched and people understand that if you can breathe through your nose while you're asleep, you have better sleep quality and you will wake up more rested.
Hoss's tape is also really awesome because I know what I used to do.
I used to use a little bit of a cheaper tape.
And every time I'd wake up in the morning, the tape would be somewhere else on the bed or on my face, but it wouldn't be on my mouth anymore.
But Hoss's tape, if you have a beard or if you don't, will stay comfortably on your mouth all through the night. And if you're someone who has a problem breathing through your
nose, hostage also has no strips. So you can place those on your nose while you're asleep,
or if you want to be like one of those hermosy guys, you can wear it during the day.
Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at hostage tape.com
slash power project, where you guys will receive an entire year supply of mouth tape and the no strips for less than a dollar a night again that's over at hostage tape.com slash power project links
in the description as well as the podcast show notes yeah there's a difference between like
because like a lot of people they start asking about peptides or or trt etc but there's a difference between like oh i lift versus ice
i lift i train i train because if you train you're consistent meaning like each week on the same days
if you have a schedule for this you are in the gym doing what you need to do you are doing it
consistently there aren't like and don't get me wrong. Sometimes you might have to take a day off of your split, whatever it is, four or five days, whatever. But when you do that
consistently, just like Andrew, you've been doing jujitsu four days, three to four days a week,
pretty consistently over the past year. You've made really good progress, right? If somebody
does that same thing when it comes to bodybuilding and lifting within a nine month period, they will be bigger. But the thing is, most people lift for a little bit off. They get back into it a little bit. They take time off. Something happens. And then a year later or whatever, they're not they haven't made much of progress, if any, because there's just been too much inconsistency.
So if you start this, train.
Be consistent with it.
Take it seriously.
Look to try to make progress.
If you do that and be serious about your recovery, you will grow.
You will.
No matter how bad you think your genetics are, you're going to grow.
You might have to write stuff down.
You might have to research stuff a little bit.
You might have to write down the weights that you're using and then try to progressively use a little bit more weight. You know, remember that the weight isn't the end all be all of everything
because you can do more reps and you can do more sets, but the weight is an indicator that you are
making progress. It can be fun to go from the 40 pound dumbbells, the 50 pound dumbbells and so on.
So those are all
things that you can kind of track and you can kind of see. And then I think, uh, and SEMA has
always done a good job of, of telling people to measure, like measure your waist, measure your
arms, measure your neck, like whatever the areas are that are important to you, measure those.
100%. Well, uh, supplements, what do you guys think? I, I, i think creatine is always necessary electrolytes will
make you feel better during your workouts depending on what type of diet drive but i
think electrolytes are great what else do you think are just like things that people should have
i think a protein powder can be useful um it's not like needed but it can be useful i think uh
i think it's needed dog because usually
eating all that protein stuff yeah eating all that protein is tough for a lot of people um
and i i've been you know down in protein shakes for a long ass time i really i like them i like
the fact that it just gives you a different flavor you know you you might be eating chicken and
steak and hamburger meat or whatever and then now you have the influence of something that's like sweet and a little different.
So protein powder would be in there.
And then in terms of other supplements, I don't know.
Okay.
I take some like B vitamins and shit like that.
I take magnesium.
All right.
some like b vitamins and like that i take uh i take magnesium all right some of it's just like
you know merrick health tells me like kind of what to take and i i get that so that's what i was about some of it's in accordance to my blood work um but there are people that believe that our soil
doesn't have the minerals that it used to and so it makes sense that there's people that believe
that everyone uh should be on like a magnesium supplement. So I supplement with that, but I don't even know if that's right necessarily.
Get your blood work done. Cause I was about to mention, like I've started,
I had my blood work done a while ago, but I didn't start taking the supplements that Merrick
suggested. So I finally was like, you know what? Like I know that I could be feeling much better
than I am. I'm doing a lot of work. Let me start taking the suggested supplements because up until this point, I've been taking fish oil sporadically. I take creatine
every day, protein I use every day. I'd be using, what is that? Fidogea aggressive every now and
then. But Merrick, they suggested to me boron, P5P, magnesium glycinate. There's a thyroid support
supplement that I'm taking now, a fish support supplement that i'm taking now a fish oil supplement
that i'm taking every day now there's a few others but i've been taking those for the past few days
and i've already started to feel like i've already started to feel better like quite literally because
those those all the supplements that i'm taking right now are based off of deficiencies that i
had in my blood work right um and it been, like, one thing I noticed,
I don't know which supplements doing this,
but I've been having vivid fucking dreams
for the past five nights.
And one thing that I didn't really realize
is that I haven't been dreaming that often.
Like, that's something I just didn't really think of.
Or maybe I've been dreaming, but I haven't been remembering.
But for the past five nights that I've been actually
starting to take these supplements
that's a weird experience when you have like really vivid dreams like that yo dude what the
fuck was that about no man i woke up mad the other night because like i had a dream my girl was in
the front yard naked facing some other dude naked i was like hell no i looked at her when i woke up
i was like how dare you the fuck like what are you doing i pulled one of those girl things but either way like
i know it was odd it was it was quite odd yeah he was like sometimes he was a man with flowing locks
maybe that's it maybe it was an insecurity because of the bald ass head yeah right but
he was the anti-encema dude he was white jacked
with long hair there for a moment i just pictured your girlfriend naked i apologize it's okay hey
she's hot she looks great yeah she it's okay it's okay i look at it as a compliment i didn't mean to
do it fine man all right fine she wouldn't even take offense to that she's she knows she knows
but either way like um i think that's why i think it's important to get your blood work done.
Because, like, you know, I've been kind of just shooting a shotgun at what supplements are kind of good.
Right.
And they are good.
Yeah.
But nothing was based off of my physiology.
And it's I'm finally actually taking the shit based off my physiology.
Taking responsibility. taking the shit based off my physiology taking responsibility i would say that uh you know for people that are going to get into like bodybuilding powerlifting stuff they might want to look into
having some aminos during or around their workout they might find that to be beneficial if you got
the money for it and some carbs you know people talk about like dextrose or uh highly cyclic
cyclic dextrins some people uh are way big into that. And so those might be things that you look into as well.
Yeah.
I remember when I was trying to get big, I stumbled upon weight gainers.
So what is your guys' thoughts on, quote, weight gainers as far as weight powders?
They're usually awesome for making you gassy.
Yeah.
A lot of times they just are loaded with like a lot of you know i'm sure
things have changed you know uh i had a heavy weight gainer like 900 or something back in the
day from champion nutrition you know that was good gainer 900 yeah see if you can look it up
probably like weighed like 10 pounds it had a laundry scooper in there like like one of those
yeah holy yeah he just scooped it right, and it just made you fart forever.
It was a fart factory from that thing.
It's like, what the hell did they put in there?
What was it called?
Something 9,000?
Heavy weight gainer 900, I think it was called.
Heavy weight gainer 900.
I wish it was 9,000.
Maybe it was 9,000.
9,000 is so much more appealing.
Wow.
Right?
Imagine how much bigger you would have been if it was 9,000.
Champion nutrition.
There it is.
I think those are great for
people who just have a hard time getting in the calories they need to get like if you've been
you if you've been following and eating and just trying to eat and you just haven't been seeing any
type of progress oh that's not the original that's not the original no canister well
can be beneficial wait for yeah for people that for people that are having a hard time
getting the calories in but you can also just make a shake right like you just
throw some peanut butter in there um but i do agree with what you were saying and seem about
you gotta be kind of careful with how you go about your weight gain unless you don't care
something like that like a fucking like a laundry website oh my god
they're like enter credit card i'm pretty i'd trust them yeah why not seven pounds the rice
and grind stuff that you that that like was sent over your way has been pretty good that
shit's amazing yeah it's really good holy that's good a lot of delicious flavors i haven't
tried the blueberry muffin one yet that's one i need to take home and the uh Holy shit, that's good. A lot of delicious flavors. I haven't tried the blueberry muffin one yet.
That's one I need to take home.
And there's one that's a taco.
They have unflavored, but it mixes good with other food and stuff like that, too.
I did the maple one with the cinnamon steak shake.
Dude, it was so good.
It was amazing.
Did you drink it, or what did you do?
No, I just made it kind of like oatmeal. Oh like I just I I don't know I put like a full
scoop and a half of the rice and grinds I always have a hard time saying it and
then I just put a little bit of water in it mix it up through in the microwave
and mix it up a little bit more because it was still like pretty runny and then
after it was done the second time i put a scoop
of steak shake the cinnamon cinnamon whatever i have cinnamon roll over the mouth is all tongue
twisted mix that in with a little bit more water and it was a party it was so damn good because it
was just carbs and protein i'm just thinking about how good that'd be if you put some milk in there oh yeah like oh yeah if i had yeah yeah
uh vertical diet we talk about it all the time vertical diet is a great way for people to
learn about kind of how to eat and how to get big i think stan did a good job of um
just communicating with people on how important and nutrition is like nutrition needs to be
nutritious i think that somehow we forgot about that and somehow people are so worried about fat Communicating with people on how important nutrition is, like nutrition needs to be nutritious.
I think that somehow we forgot about that and somehow people are so worried about fat gain that they're not necessarily eating enough to make the progress or the gains that they want sometimes.
Yeah. from this too is one thing that you can try to do during your workouts is instead of really shifting things around and totally doing a new program, take almost every movement that you're
doing and try to focus on feeling it in that muscle group. So that could be slowing it down
a little bit, lowering the load definitely, but focus on slowing the movement down and feeling
the muscle group you're trying to feel it in. So that means with squats, maybe if you've been
squatting low bar for the longest time,
get yourself a,
try to use a slant board or put some plates underneath your feet.
Or if you have some Olympic lifting shoes,
use some Olympic lifting shoes.
Bring your stance in a little bit
and squat in the way that's going to,
like you just saw Jay Cutler squatting.
Squat in that high bar fashion
that you're going to feel your quads.
Because one thing to think about is like,
when you see Olympic lifters quads,
what do you notice?
They all have bodybuilder looking quads. Most thing to think about is like when you see olympic lifters quads what do you notice they all have bodybuilder looking quads most olympic lifters yeah but that's because of
the style of which they squat they squat driving the knees forward kind of a narrow stance and all
that tension ends up being in the quads because they need to be upright for clean snatches all
these movements they have to be fairly upright they can't allow themselves to come here and
like squat like in powerlifting so think about that when you're doing all your movements.
Slow it down.
Feel it in that muscle group and lower the load.
Don't forget about the mirrors.
Oh, yeah.
The mirror is a big one.
I think years ago, I think everyone was worried they'd get like made fun of if they're like kind of flexing in the mirror or whatever.
But part of bodybuilding is like you're trying to flex with your reps and your sets really is what you're trying to do.
You're trying to like pose with your reps and your sets.
And it takes a while to like kind of learn all of it.
And so sometimes you have to look at yourself in the mirror when you're squatting or doing certain movements.
Or you might have to look in the mirror like after a set of leg extensions and flex your leg and start to learn how you flex certain muscles in your leg.
Because it's one thing just to kind of flex a quad,
but it's another thing to kind of like flex the muscles
that are on the inside of the leg
versus the muscles on the outside of the leg.
It actually is way more complicated than you might think.
So don't be scared.
Utilize the mirror.
I want to mention, dude, I'm happy you mentioned that
because I think that's a microdose habit
that helped me be a better bodybuilder
because I do that every day.
In terms like outside of the gym, like whenever we're standing here podcasting or just whenever I'm at home.
Just randomly hit a double bicep on somebody?
Not even randomly hit a double bicep.
I'm just always like flexing shit in my like hamstrings.
I'm like flexing a hamstring, flexing a calf, flexing certain things in my back just to feel it.
certain things in my back just to feel it.
Because when you get the hang of actually activating
those areas, it becomes much easier to access those areas
while activating them while you're working out.
And that's something I do all the time,
and I've been doing that all the time for years.
But I think I've gotten so used to that,
I haven't realized that that is something that does help you
feel those muscle groups when you're in the gym.
It doesn't mean you gotta be going like this,
but I'm always driving blood towards different shit in my body because that's just a habit that
I've had. I'm happy you mentioned
that because I think that can make a difference.
When you're not in the gym, just be like,
can I access my hamstring right now?
How can I flex my hamstring while standing?
Or what happens when I flex my quads right now?
How can I access those areas?
As you start to think about doing that more, over time you will be able to do that more.
And then you'll be able to access and flex certain little things that you weren't able to before.
But then when you go into the gym and you lift, you'll feel those areas so much more with any type of load you use.
It can be a fun little game.
It really can be.
Yeah.
Well, actually, two things really quick um because you
had mentioned the vertical diet um yeah definitely check it out or there's tons of information on
everywhere online about the vertical diet but i just remember stan saying like okay if you have
your uh i forgot exactly what the quantities were but like let's say just like literally a cup of
ground beef and a cup of rice and you weigh yourself okay cool now do two
cups of rice are you weighing where you want to weigh or do you want to weigh more okay now do
more rice or is it the wrong way okay let's do half a cup of rice and go that way so it was just
like when he said it that way i was like i feel so dumb because of how simple you put it you know
like i was like all right well i guess that's what I'll do now, you know, and I did, and it worked out just fine. And then the other thing,
because when you're talking about, like, the power bodybuilding, power building,
and then you had mentioned, like, people do their compound movements, and then they'll go do
accessories, and they kind of half-ass those. But what I see is, like, somebody will do, like,
a big heavy bench day, and then they'll go work triceps on the same day. And it's like, okay, I get it. But wouldn't you want to kind of like preserve like let's say the triceps for its own like lifting session or own day even?
you probably smoked them pretty bad on the heavy chest day and then you're gonna go try to fatigue them more on a tricep like push down or something is that something that somebody should try to put
on separate days or do you think it's okay to do that like kind of like the same muscle group
going from like a heavy to a lighter but higher rep i think it's okay because if you're doing a
heavy push um you're not fatiguing your triceps that much. Like you're fatiguing your triceps when you do a heavy bench or a heavy close grip bench.
But afterwards, it wasn't your triceps that were doing the majority of the work.
It was your chest and your pressing muscles.
So you were pressing, but after you get done, your triceps might feel a little sore, but they can do more work.
Right?
Now it's different if you were fucking doing heavy overhead like skull crushers or
something that's a direct tricep movement but you can still do like skull crushers push downs dips
after like that's why people generally try to put those on push days right because you're working
all those push muscles right so i don't think you need to put your triceps on another day but
if they're a weak point for you that's like like, that's an idea of like, okay,
maybe I can work them on this day. And a few days later, work them on one of my other days,
so I can get more frequency towards that muscle group if they're one of your weak points.
Yeah, it's interesting, because you can do it like whatever way you want. But it is important
that people recognize that when you are pushing, when you're bench pressing, you are, the triceps
are getting worked a lot, the shoulders are getting worked a lot.
When you're doing pulling motions, you're working your biceps a lot.
So this is something to keep in mind.
You can still train your biceps further on your back day.
I know some people that like to train their back and their triceps on the same day.
And they like to train their chest and their biceps on the same day for the exact reason that you're talking about there, Andrew, because there is a slight fatigue of those muscle groups.
And it's a way to get those muscle groups to maybe work with a different frequency, like you get to do it more times per week.
So it really just kind of depends on the person and also depends upon, you know, always keep in mind, I try to mention this as much as I can, but so much of our weights come kind of via our elbow, you know, through our elbow, our elbow
bends a lot. There's a lot of pulling motions and a lot of curling motions and a lot of pressing
motions and push down motions and overhead presses and so on. And they're all pull-ups, push-ups,
dips, they're all like elbow derived so it makes sense
that people have you know elbow pain all the time it makes sense why i said fuck your elbow because
it can get jacked up uh really bad uh during some of your workouts so you might want to
just pay attention to how much it's working as you were kind of pointing out in that example
yeah no that's just another
thing cuz like I would you know follow the program that was written out for me and yeah I mentioned
it before it was like deadlifts bent over rows RDLs dumbbell bent over rows and I'm just like
fuck me by the end you know I can't even move but it's smoked yeah and it's like okay yeah the back
was smoked but like at the end it's like, what other body parts or muscle groups am I using just to fucking try to put a little body English on it to try to get the weight up?
And it just, I don't know.
The way I do it now is I try not to use the same muscle groups for multiple exercises in that same day.
Try to do non-opposing muscle groups.
Hell yeah. Wait, say that again do non-opposing muscle groups. Hell yeah.
Wait, say that again?
Non-opposing muscle groups.
So the typical push-pull.
So like I'll work chest and lats.
Or I'll do, I don't know, like shoulders and calves.
Like I won't do.
Antagonist supersets.
Yeah, I won't do like chest and then triceps right after.
But, you know I
think the way you put it was very well said and makes a lot of sense so I won't
be so terrified of it anymore so I'd like for people you know before they
think about performance enhancing drugs or before they think about a peptide or
before they think about taking this over-the-counter supplement that's legal
that mimics testosterone in some way.
I think you should just mimic your training or you should pay attention, pay more attention to
your training and pay more attention to your diet. And are you doing a lot of things that
people that have gotten to be big have done in the past or people that have gained size or people
that have made tremendous amounts of progress? Are you doing a lot of those things are you paying attention to your sleep your training your food
if you're not i don't think i understand the intrigue and i get it but research those things
simultaneously while stepping up your game with your training your nutrition and your sleep
one day we need to talk about Mike Mentzer.
Not today, but that shit, people have been eating that shit up recently.
Yeah, I know Isra Tell had a post about him more recently.
Yeah, we'll talk about it in a future podcast, but I'll just say this kind of briefly. I do think that you can get your workouts done in a brief amount of time,
and I do think that you can get your workouts done with high intensity and without doing set after set after set mike menser may have kind of jumped
the shark in saying like he was such a big proponent of like one set i mean that's a little
overkill but um there's ways of like making one set you know go on for a little bit right
there's ways of making what like you can do like what i one of the things i did in the gym today is
i did uh some dumbbell bench pressing and after the dumbbell bench press i did a uh i did some
pec flies and so that was kind of like one set. And I did one warm-up set of that.
And then I did one regular set of that.
So I kind of really just did one set when it comes to chest for that particular movement.
I did a bunch of bench pressing and stuff before that.
But I have a lot of workouts where I'll do what I would call like one set.
But again, a lot of times it's like i might do leg extensions and then do walking
lunges and i consider that to be like one it's two sets right or i might walk with sled and then
do a ton of hamstring curls it's kind of like two sets but it's it's a circuit it's a circuit and
it's done in a short period of time um a lot of times i don't want to lift. There's days where I could be in the gym for an hour and
a half, and there's days in the gym where I don't want to be in there that long. And so I think it's
important for people to understand that you can utilize whatever methods you want. Israetel kind
of saying that he doesn't think these methods work, I think is ridiculous. I think these methods do
work. They've been around for a long time.
A lot of people use them.
So, okay, maybe the research isn't exactly on point with doing this amount of sets or whatever.
But a lot of people have utilized it.
It seems to be working for people.
If it's getting people to move, it's getting people to exercise, it's keeping people excited, and they're making progress, leave them the fuck alone.
Yeah, we gotta talk more about it.
Strength is never weak, this week is
never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.