Mark Bell's Power Project - Saturday School EP. 1 - Why Did Mark Choose Powerlifting?

Starting point is 00:00:00 So it's okay if this rambles on for a few minutes. Got it. So in my head for Saturday school, I was thinking, you know, we shout out Perfect Keto, shout out Piedmontese. Explain kind of what it is. Go into the first question. Let that run. And then we'll just go right into the following questions. And then imagine a lifting question now gets turned into a really good lifting video for the Super Training Gym channel.

Starting point is 00:00:30 All right, cool. All right. Next question could be about something in regards to motivation. Then it's a motivational video, you know, good B-roll, good music, and that goes on Mark Smelly Bell. And that goes on Mark Smelly Bell. And then this whole thing can just stay on the Power Project as is because that audience, you know, they're already watching the podcast. So they maybe don't necessarily need the bells and whistles of a polished video. So I don't know. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Yeah. No, I think I think all those ideas are excellent. And we can just kind of we can think about it afterwards because sometimes hindsight makes it a little easier to see what we're talking about. Yeah. And, uh, maybe we do two of these,

Starting point is 00:01:12 like maybe we do it this week and next week and give it a minute to, you know, to, to process it a little bit, just make sure we don't record too much so that, uh, we don't have too much crap to kind of go through. But the way that I was kind

Starting point is 00:01:25 of envisioning it, is it like, yeah, it's like, it's kind of like a seven minute clip, five minute clip, something simple, something easy. And we record multiple. So that way you and I are kind of doubling down. You know, we spend, we spend one hour together on a Saturday and we create, um, content that people will listen to not only once, but to listen to it multiple times, um, because it will provide value to them. Um, I like the ideas of, of utilizing it for different formats. And I've talked to you about this idea before I talked to Soper about it before we've done it before, but I really love the idea of using images, just a still photo, like a sick photo or sick photo or two or three. Really just one is probably enough though. But just a cool photo and having that just be like on IG and maybe even on YouTube. Like it's kind of different for YouTube. And maybe even on YouTube, like it's, it's kind of different for YouTube.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Um, but that's okay. You know, having things that are a little different, I think, I think are kind of cool. So, I mean, picture, you know, we're talking about motivation, inspiration, um, how to not hit that, uh, snooze button. And there's a picture of me with the sledgehammer, you know, wailing down on the thing, or there's a cool shot that you, uh, got of me, uh, deadlifting at sledgehammer, you know, wailing down on the thing, or there's a cool shot that you got of me dead lifting at ST or something, you know, something along those lines. So I think all those things would be interesting to explore, but to keep it, to keep it simple let's start out with trying to have a five to

Starting point is 00:03:01 seven, seven minute question and, and or-up questions, but I will do my best to try to keep it short. And anytime that I, you know, run out of something to say, I'll just, I'll just stop. If you have a follow-up question and we'll go for it. And we'll just start and stop each one. We can mention the ads each time. I think it's probably the best way to do it. And then if we think about it later and like, hey, that kind of sucked, then we could always revert and change things up. But, yeah, Andrew and I are trying something new, trying something different.

Starting point is 00:03:44 change things up. But yeah, Andrew and I are trying something new, trying something different. We got rid of our cancer, aka the natty professor. We had to fire him. No, that's not true at all. We love Encima, but Andrew and I, we wanted to just try to provide something extra for you guys. Andrew came up with the idea of calling this Saturday School. So welcome to the first episode. And some of what you just heard right there is just Andrew and I talking it over. I thought that you might find that interesting that we're like making it up on the fly. And this is an interactive podcast and we do listen to your comments. So if you're listening to this on wherever you're listening to this too, please comment back to us. If you want to comment on our Instagram, you can check out Mark Bell's Power Project. You can check that out and you can comment over there or you can comment in the comments below if you're checking us out on YouTube. Wherever you can stick a

Starting point is 00:04:40 comment, stick a comment and we will get to it. If you want to slide into Andrew Zaragoza's DMs, he is at... I am Andrew Z. I am Andrew Z on Instagram. He is answering as many questions as he possibly can. You can also go to Mark Bell's Power Project and throw some questions in those DMs. throw some questions in those DMS. Uh, it's hard for me to get to everything, um, on my actual Instagram, but I do try my best on there. So just like wherever you see this, like, please, um, you know, let us know, like if there's something in particular that you want to see, you want to start firing out questions, say, Hey, this is for Saturday school, you know, put Saturday school in quotes, put it in caps. We'll see it. Maybe

Starting point is 00:05:25 hashtag it, like do whatever you can to get our attention. And, uh, we will put your question, uh, in for a Saturday school and we'll, uh, do our best to get to it. But let us know, you know, if you, if you dig this format, I think this is cool. We were just had the idea of like doing these five to seven minute clips. Uh, so way, you don't always have to watch all three hours of what we got going on with every single podcast that we do. Although we want you to listen and watch that too. Yeah, guys. We're super easily accessible. You know, at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram, at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Although Twitter, you know, we're not utilizing it enough. But how easy is it to at MB power project Saturday, hashtag Saturday school, and then just go on with your question. And then, you know, that's, this is super easy way to get in touch with us, but especially ask your, uh, get your question answered by Mark Bell. You know, we have, um, some really cool opportunities at expos and stuff to meet people. And, you know, these lines are insane and people are waiting hours and hours and hours to meet people. And these lines are insane. People are waiting hours and hours and hours to ask Mark one question or two. Some are good. Some are not as good as others.

Starting point is 00:06:33 But here's your opportunity to do it whenever the heck you want. And without further ado, I'd like to jump off with my first question, Mark, if you're good to go. Yeah, let's do it. All right, Mark. With your recent, we'll call it cross training, you've been doing really well. You had a stint in bodybuilding, which you did really well. You won your first competition. What was it about powerlifting that just made you gravitate more towards that than any other type of fitness?

Starting point is 00:07:04 What made me gravitate towards powerlifting from the jump, from the get-go? Well, in a galaxy far, far away and many, many, many moons ago, fitness used to kind of be lumped in as one thing. It didn't have all these different categories. The gym I trained at in Poughkeepsie, New York, shout out to Mid-Hudson Bodybuilding. You can already get a visual of what that place looks like. It kind of looks like Dorian Yates' dungeon that you see videos of. But everyone had the same goal.

Starting point is 00:07:42 And the goal for the people that were in my area, I'm not sure why, they just wanted to be big. They wanted to be big as fuck. They just wanted to be jacked. That was the goal of Mike Paesano, Sean Sorrells, Mad Dog Mike Bell. That was the goal of everybody in the area. And I don't know how to do with like that. Everyone wanted to play football. Some people did some wrestling, but we're all fans of pro wrestling. But I really gravitated towards that at a young age. You know, my brother, my oldest brother, Mike, being my hero growing up. He was about six, seven years older than me and you know i just when you're young and you see what you know big bro can do or your cousin or some older kid in the neighborhood you're like you're so blown away by it like oh my god they're so strong they're so huge they're so this they're so that and so i was always very envious of that. And I was like, how do I, how do I do that?

Starting point is 00:08:45 And when I first started going to the gym, I started seeing like what my brother's friends were doing lifting wise. And it just happened to be, they were spending their time bench pressing, squatting, deadlifting, overhead presses. Um, back then it was kind of behind the neck, uh, presses like you don't really see people do that anymore. Um, and like bent over rows and, overhead presses. Back then it was kind of behind the neck presses. Like you don't really see people do that anymore. And like bent over rows. And people still back then doing the things that you see today, like where somebody like will grab, they'll, they'll use a machine. They'll use like a, like a T-bar row or something like that. And they'll grab the hand,

Starting point is 00:09:24 they'll grab the part of the T-bar row or something like that. And they'll grab the hand, they'll grab the, the part of the T-bar row that you put the plates on. And they'll do like a single arm row with that. Like these guys were doing shit like that back then. Cause they're like, I just want to add thickness and add mass to my back. They didn't really necessarily care about like, you know, doing pull-ups, not, not that pull-ups are ineffective, but everything they did, they just wanted to have heavy weight on there. And heavy was like commonplace and it was very relative. So I would see guys moving around six plates routinely. I'd see guys moving around seven plates routinely. And there I was, you know, shaking like a leaf on a tree, trying to lift two plates and three plates and, and things like that. And I learned, you know, they taught me to like, as I was going,

Starting point is 00:10:14 they taught me in like, not such a nice way, you know, they would see me do something. And they'd be like, what in the fuck was that? And I'm like, um, I was, I was like, well, I guess that was my rendition of a deadlift. And they're like, no, no, no, you don't, you don't lift. Like, I mean, you don't have your background at over, you don't slam both your knees together. You don't look like you're having a seizure in the middle of a deadlift, you know, deadlift should look like this. And they would get in this like pristine position and they would, you know, pick up an extra plate or two than when anything I was doing and they'd move it perfectly. So I saw a lot of that, like bodybuilding, powerlifting, it was all like kind of mangled into one thing because even though these guys were into bodybuilding, they weren't necessarily,

Starting point is 00:10:58 I guess I left that out. They weren't necessarily competitive powerlifters, but they understood the value of being strong. And they knew that the most bang for their buck was in the bench, the squat and a deadlift because those exercises lend themselves to allowing you to use the most amount of weight. So I did some CrossFit seminars, CrossFit powerlifting certification courses for, for CrossFit years ago through Louie Simmons. And when I was doing that, I'd go around the country. And one of the first questions I would ask everybody is,

Starting point is 00:11:34 who here has lifted 300 pounds? And a bunch of hands would go up. Men and women. That's a 400, 500. And usually stop around 500, 600 pounds. Despite the criticism on CrossFit, CrossFitters are actually very strong, especially given their body weight, given the fact that most of them are natty and things of that nature, and they're responsible for so many other things.

Starting point is 00:11:56 But the point is, is when they would say, you know, 500 pounds, I'd say, okay, the three guys that lifted 500 pounds, please come up here and to the front of the room here and explain to us what lift was it that you did the 500 pounds in. And I would say, you know, I'm not a betting man, but I'm going to guess that it's not in an overhead squat. I'm going to guess that it's not in a push jerk. overhead squat. I'm going to guess that it's not in a push jerk. I'm going to guess that it's, you know, not in a, in a, an overhead, you know, a front or a front squat or something like that. And then, and then I would say, Hey, you know, what lift was it? And almost every single time it was a deadlift, you know? And so again, the point is, is with powerlifting, what drew me to powerlifting, what got me excited about it, got me fired up about is the fact that that's the, those are the movements that lend themselves to allow you to use the most amount

Starting point is 00:12:49 of weight. And the first draw, the first memory I have of seeing powerlifting without even really knowing it, it later kind of came out, um, of my like subconscious as I started getting into powerlifting and started competing and stuff like that was I saw Ted RCD on WWF at the time, bench press 700 pounds in an insert blast bench shirt. And he only wore the bench shirt for sponsorship reasons, but I don't think he needed the bench shirt. I think he was benching 680, 690 without it, but he's the first guy to ever bench 700. And Ted RCD, you know, I never really went that route to look like Ted RCD, although that would have been cool. He really slapped on like a lot of mass. I don't even know if I could even dream of or figure out how to be big like him. He just had like massive arms real real powerful

Starting point is 00:13:45 powerful look but i always thought that that look i always thought that that was awesome i always i always admired uh just how just how powerful he looked and i remember there was ted rcd and in wwf there was also the warlord there was a hawk and animal from the road warriors and i i always appreciated that there's a bunch of uh wrestlers at the time that had that powerful look ivan putzky was another one the polish hammer there was these guys that um you know they were uh uh as wide as they were tall you know they had that spongebob square pants uh look to them really you know, they had that SpongeBob SquarePants look to them really, you know, and they just they had the look of like, holy crap. I think that guy can just like rip my arms off and whether they could or not, it didn't really matter to me. I just thought it was a cool look. And so I was fascinated with it from a young age.

Starting point is 00:14:38 And then as I started to lift, I started to realize how challenging it was and something that still to this day has me pulled towards the iron, has me like even when I get back, when we get back inside a super training gym, I'm going to be an idiot. I'm going to be benching, squatting, deadlifting. I'm going to be doing one rep maxes. Like, who am I kidding? You know this is true. Everybody knows this is true. Everybody knows this is true. What draws me to it is how difficult it is to be good at all three and to keep all three up for long periods of time. Even for me to this day, like I would not even really I had perceived me to go i never felt like i was good at it because i never felt like i mastered it i would hit a big bench you know i

Starting point is 00:15:32 benched 854 i squatted 1080 and i pulled 766 but that didn't all happen on one day and it was really rare for everything to come together on one day. And part of the reason is the mechanical leverages involved in a bench press, a squat, and a deadlift, they're not very related to each other. They're very different. You know, Olympic lifting is a beautiful sport as well and a hard sport. But you only have two lifts that you need to worry about. Power lifting, you got to worry about three. And you might be gifted in the bench. You might be gifted at a deadlift, but then you're not gifted in a squat.

Starting point is 00:16:10 You might be amazing at the squat, but then maybe you struggle in a deadlift. We see that a lot. A lot of times people can really squat a ton, and then they have a little bit of a hard time with the deadlift. The people I admire most and some of the kings of powerlifting, the king of powerlifting was Ed Cohn because he was so strong on all three. I don't think people understand how strong Ed Cohn was on a bench press because his bench numbers were low in comparison to what you saw later on in the bench shirts. But Ed Cohn could bench press, I think around 585 or 565 raw. And he only weighed, you know, 220. Um, he also

Starting point is 00:16:47 deadlifted 900 pounds and he also squatted, I think he squatted around 900 pounds and just a pair of knee wraps squatted over a thousand pounds and some power thing gear. And so, you know, him guys like that, guys like Stan Efferding, um, there's so many other legends I'm leaving out of this picture, but those are guys that I got close to that I became friends with. Stan, he lined up his or slapped a 600-pound bench press dead center in the middle of an 800-plus pound squat and 800-plus pound deadlift. powerlifter and anybody that is getting into powerlifting, that's your job. Your job is to have a really good total, to have a kick-ass total, and to try to figure out a way to always better your total, even without getting PRs in a bench, a squat, and or a deadlift. You should be able to have kind of a quote-unquote rough day and still get out of the building with a total PR because you're a well-rounded lifter and you start to figure out the sport and you start to understand the

Starting point is 00:17:47 strategy, uh, behind, uh, picking weights and stuff like that. Boom. That was awesome, dude. That's some stuff that I never heard of and that's what's great about this is like, you know, I'm just asking Jen, like genuinely asking questions about you that I had never really, you know, learned of or knew of beforehand. So thanks for sharing that. And, uh, I guess we just wrap this one up real quick. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Thank you everybody for checking out smelly Saturday school. Maybe that has a good ring to it, whatever the case. Um, thank you again for

Starting point is 00:18:19 checking out today's episode. Um, thank you Piedmontese B for sponsoring this episode. Thank you. Perfect keto for always supporting us, uh, for more information on them, please check out the YouTube description and wherever links are going to be posted for this episode. And, um, yeah, Mark, where can people find you? I'm at Mark Smelly Bell on Instagram, Twitter, and, uh, I got the YouTube channel that you want to check out. So check out all that good stuff. You can also check out markbellslingshot.com. If you have any needs for, uh, throwing some stuff on for powerlifting to protect your wrist, protect your elbows, protect your knees, or even if you're just kind of the casual

Starting point is 00:18:56 lifter, you're not a competitive lifter and, um, you want to grab yourself a hip circle or slingshot, you can go over to markbellSlingshot.com and check out all that good stuff. Thank you, everybody, so much for the support. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you all later.

Mark Bell's Power Project - Saturday School EP. 1 - Why Did Mark Choose Powerlifting?

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