Mark Bell's Power Project - The BEST Old School Lifts You're NOT Doing - Atlas Power Shrugged || MBPP Ep. 1065

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

In episode 1065, Atlas Power Shrugged, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the best old school lifts we are not doing in the gym and why they're so beneficial. Follow Atlas on IG: https://www.instagram.com/atlaspowershrugged/   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!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 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   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   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:      ➢ 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 ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢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 & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

What would be your top three old time lifts? I think the Jefferson Curls, because it's like, you know, that's the exercise that can do anything from helping somebody's grandma all the way down to some high school wrestler who just wants to be able to exert more force in those crazy positions and wrestling matches all the way to a bodybuilder who just wants really good spinal erectors and hamstrings. I think pullovers need to make a comeback. Obviously, they're beneficial for training the lats. Some people are going to disagree with me on that. I'm going to go with a windmill. It's so bang for your buck as far as stuff that the modern world isn't doing as much. Now, we just start people off on exercises they can just lift the heaviest weights in right off the bat. We bring somebody into our gyms, have them do squat bench and deadlift, they're going to grow. But then eventually, they do kind

of run into a joint issue. Now, you look back at the old days, what are they telling beginners to do? Pullovers, deep knee bends, Jefferson curls. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz who roasted us on air, but we did that for you to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show.

Tell me how long you've been doing some of these lifts. I know you mentioned it on other podcasts. You've been doing it for a handful of years, some of these odd lifts. Right. Most of the stuff I started about four years ago um i've been dabbling with a few things here and there earlier i'd you know some of the simpler stuff some of the stuff that's a little bit more meathead accessible like exercer squats i've been doing not training them seriously i ended up training them more seriously and got a lot more out of them but i yeah i'd max out on some things here and there before but as far as really getting seriously into a lot of them about four years and you're not really against a lot of those other lifts you still utilize squat bench and deadlift here and there or have you um not really

messed with them much anymore you don't desire to do it maybe right it's not it's not that i'm against them i'm in favor of them i built a lot of muscle that way i'm not out here to tell you like the conventional stuff that normal people are doing is wrong and like you know everybody else is wrong and i found this one secret what i would say is i i spent a lot of time on them and i i feel like i got a lot out of what i was going to get out of them um and there's probably there's probably just more low-hanging fruit in other areas doesn't mean i don't use them at all i mean the one that i probably kept using the most is back squats i mean how are you not going to use back squats um i don't i don't they're not essential to my training now as they,

as they had been at one point in there, you know, probably not as much as to a lot of people, but I still use them. Um, I mean, bench press is just hard for me to set up. So I don't typically use it that much, but I do, uh, uh, a variation of the floor press, which is essentially a decline bench press, just putting it, putting it in an arch. You're basically doing a decline or you can just do you know regular foot presses so i do that too but that's not to bash bench it's just a little bit difficult for me to set up so it's just not

practical i mean deadlifts not so much anymore but again i put a lot of time into them so it's not like i'm saying don't deadlift i'm just saying don't do nothing but deadlift for your entire lifting career let me ask you this do you feel like you have more confidence in your body, like being able to do these types of lifts? Because for example, if we pull up you doing the, whether it's a Jefferson curl or a Zurch or deadlift, you were bouncing this weight off the ground.

Every single rep you're doing it while you're in a folded position. And I'd imagine that new people should probably have a bit more control, but you seem to be able to just like move your body and contort your body into these odd ranges with really heavy weight. And that's not something that most people can confidently do. They're going to be really careful, you know? Well, it's all been a slow process. And, you know, none of this was something that I just, you know, woke up one day and

started doing. And that's something that I want to be very clear on. We're not – if you treat this as something, oh, I found this cool lift on Instagram. Let me go max out on that. That's probably not going to be a good approach. But keep in mind, I've just been doing this stuff for a while, so I have confidence built up in it. And that's – I think that's going to be the case with anyone. You don't want to take somebody and put them under a really heavy squat and have them

do that either. Yeah. It looks like you're the mayor of snap city. When we start watching some of these clips that you're doing on conventional techniques, what do you think is something that triggers you sometimes? Cause I've seen you be inflammatory sometimes on social media. What are some things that, uh, I don't know, kind of get you heated and, and maybe why you're so passionate about it? Um, well, one, I mean, one thing that I've been getting, getting after people a lot recently is when people try to fear monger, particularly, particularly around exercises that I think are valuable, like the Jefferson curl. You do have a lot of people that fear monger about that exercise. And I'm, I'm the last person to tell you like who who? Oh, yeah.

Well, of course, there's a guy, I don't know if any of you have heard of him, who goes by the handle of Squat University. He's been consistent in putting out anti-Jefferson Curl content.

And obviously, that's not something that I like because I think it's a very valuable exercise in just so many modalities. What sort of your rebuttal to him? Like if he was here and you could communicate to him, what would you want to communicate to him to have him understand your side of things?

Okay. So, I mean, his basic position is that loaded flexion is just unsafe. You just can't. You can't do it. can't you can't do it it's a vector for uh spinal injury and there's no the risk doesn't doesn't outweigh the or the benefits don't outweigh the reward right i mean it's just to him um i think he's a hardliner with um kind of the no flexion ideology that comes from i guess stuart mcgill yeah um interestingly i i listened to a podcast with dr mcgill um with e3 rehab they did a great podcast where they actually talked to him and asked him about all this stuff. And I didn't get the impression that Dr. McGill himself is actually that much of a hardliner. He seemed a lot more nuanced. And it seemed like a lot of the things that he was saying, I think he got controversial recently for kind of basically saying that people shouldn't deadlift if they want longevity i think he's more hard into the rules if you have a lot of pain if you have a lot of pain he's like i really think you should focus in and listening on my instructions and remove some of these other things out of your life so we can see what the hell the problem is right that i i think i think the comment he made

he was he was thinking of a particular context right and you know like it gets clipped in like on social media we do and you know then that got taken maybe a little bit out of context but he didn't seem like that much of a hardliner um and as far as the if you're in pain if or if more you know if you have an injury you shouldn't be doing this i'm i'm on board with that um you know i don't have the qualifications that i would say that i need to just assess your back injury if you have like a you know a disc injury or whatever i don't have the qualifications to tell you you should be doing it or you shouldn't. I'm going to tell you, go see someone who is qualified and, you know, see what they tell you. And now

some of them, some of them are, um, of the opinion that all spinal flexion is dangerous. Some of them may actually tell you to do something like Jefferson curls and that that's up to them. But I'm, you know, I'm mostly talking to, you know, healthy people. And I do think that healthy people absolutely can benefit from this. If you don't have an injury, you have over 100 years of proven track record that this is a valuable exercise. It's been used with efficacy among healthy people who didn't have any particular qualifications. We're not going to get assessed for any possible condition they could ever have. It's got a proven track record and it's beneficial. And I think people ought to have that information out there to be able to

implement that into their own training. I'm not telling them to go do anything crazy with it, but you know, here's the exercise, let's put the best information that we have out there and, and, you know, let people make their own decisions. I think, you know, he's obviously, he's coming from a rehab perspective and maybe, and I think there definitely are some cases and, you know, in rehab where you have someone with an injury and you wouldn't want to do it, but for healthy people, absolutely not. I think, um, and yeah, my understanding, I, I'm not going to get into the like science of how discs is that that that's out of, that's above my pay grade, but just into at the practical realm, it's very clear that your range of motion can increase.

Your muscle can increase your ability to withstand load in that position can increase. That's all kind of beyond doubt. It's not just my personal experience. Tons of other people, tons of people throughout history have found that. So, you know, this is clearly valuable. So we shouldn't be just, you know, blanket statement fear-mongering. Another person that, not quite on the same track, but kind of the same result I've been in conflict with is Andrew Locke.

And his thing isn't you should never do Jefferson curls. I mean, I'm going to be strawmanning him here, but it's not my fault. I am strawmanning him here, but there's a reason for it. And his position is basically only Andrew Locke gets to tell you when you can do Jefferson curls. And I am strawmanning him, but I did try to ask him, okay, can you tell us what you know?

Then tell us what you know. When is it safe for people to do Jefferson curls? Oh, well, you're not educated. You don't know that, right? I want to pause you just for a second. You tend to go into people's DMs, which I think is a better, like, I'm sure you, you know, scramble with people a little bit on their actual posts, but then I think you take it further and you actually go into their DMs. If they want to, absolutely. Not to harass them, but to communicate, because you've done that with me. You and I have had conversation about particular

lifts, how safe they are, how safe they aren't. But we had an actual discussion. It wasn't like, you're an effing asshole. You shouldn't be teaching people this stuff. Right, right. Yeah, I want to have open conversations and just get this stuff out there.

And if someone has a better educational background than I do in something, well, okay, we're on social media. Let's try to get that information out there so everyone can make the most informed choice that they can. But if the people that have certain qualifications are going to just say, nope, no one can use this unless you have this qualification, and they're not going to put out the information to let people make that choice. Well, sorry, I've seen too much personal benefit. I've seen too many other people that have benefited from this. I think the general public should have the best information that we have. So I'm going to put out the best information I have. And I'm not telling you go take your back injury and go to a Jeffery Grill. Absolutely not. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I want you to be as cautious as possible. And I'm not going to, if I have a client that

comes, if someone comes to me and wants to be a client says, Hey, I have a back injury. Can you fix it? I'm telling them, no, go get it fixed by someone who knows what they're doing, you know? But as far as general population, yeah, let's, let's build some resiliency there, you know? Yeah. I think, I think what a lot of people have found over the years, a lot of people that lift, a lot of people that like to explore their own body and figure out how to recover from injuries. I think a lot of us have kind of stumbled upon this idea is like, you should maybe kind of like flirt with stuff that's halfway sketchy or halfway iffy.

And it's iffy because of what we've learned over the years. And maybe some of the things that we've learned, maybe they're not all correct. Maybe they're not all wrong as well, right? And so, you know, you think about, oh, I'm supposed to be in this particular position when I deadlift, my back is supposed to be pretty flat and supposed to relatively speaking, stay pretty flat. But what if I wasn't trying to lift maximum weight? What if I wasn't trying to get the maximum leverage and everything? What if I, what if I actually just wanted to do the opposite?

Because if you lifted away from leverage, wouldn't that also make you strong? Like wouldn't that be – you're lifting from a position that is less advantageous. And so now you put yourself in this weird compromised position, and that happens in sports, especially something like jujitsu. If you can't get out of something because you're not mobile enough or you have a slight injury in that area, that's going to have to be addressed somehow. And I think a lot of people over the years with lifting, I know for myself this is true, but it sounds like a horrible recommendation to people. But it's a recommendation. horrible recommendation to people, but it's a recommendation. Like if something is hurt, mess around with that area, flirt around with it, use some weight with it, whether it's your neck,

whether it's your shoulder, whether it's your, I mean, we have these exercises that people like to, you know, they put names on them and then it's like, oh, do this motion. It's called a car, you know, and you do this circular motion with your, your shoulder or your leg. And kind of to something you were saying is like, I'm not qualified to help some of these people. I think actually you are, you're very qualified to help. And a lot of us that have been lifting and paying attention for many years are probably just as qualified. However, you are, we are talking about people's health and there's so much context around us trying to share something with us and i think that we say those things sometimes to protect ourselves because we don't want people just to clip something that we said like heavy deadlifting

is great for your back we don't want them to clip that and then with their slightly already injured back go and hurt themselves right i mean that's always the struggle is balancing those two. I mean, yeah, I definitely don't think just not putting the information out there because someone could misinterpret it. You know, that's not the right approach. I have to feel that we, you know, it's best to, it's best to try to help those who can be helped, which is going to mean people who can listen to context and nuance and, you know, follow instructions to some degree and, you know,

are taking, you know, active agency and just taking care of themselves and doing things correctly. So I, I have to kind of bias towards, I think we have to bias towards those people who are doing everything they should and not just, you know, take everything down to the lowest common denominator because, you know, some people, if they can't listen to everything you say, if they can't listen to the nuance and follow instructions, I mean, are you going to be able to help them at all? I mean, a lot of things just try to dumb it down for beginners, and that's all well and good,

but there has to be some content out there to give people some agency to use some more advanced stuff that can also be more beneficial, I think. And on top of that, with the amount of weight that you can Jefferson curler Zurcher, uh, Zurcher lift, uh, you're in that 1% with the amount of weight you're lifting. But I think something that we have to realize is that just because you're doing that doesn't mean other people can't do that. It's just, everybody needs to start at the earliest level at the lightest regression. Because I think when people see people squatting a lot of heavyweight or deadlifting heavyweight, we've seen so many people do that now that people are comfortable just like, you know, putting a plate on and then putting two plates and progressing cleanly.

But seeing what you're doing, I mean, we haven't seen a lot of that since like older lifters. You made a whole book on this. You've shown people doing this, right? But the thing is now guys like squat you and i love aaron horshing but squat you this guy what's his name andrew lock i just looked up his page interesting he looks like majin buu good information on that i think he i think he does actually no i think he does actually know a lot it's just he won't tell us he just i mean he kind of just tried to shut me down and say you're not educated you're not educated okay see, I like, if you have such a

good education, please like put out that information so that we can make our own decisions. But I find the unfortunate thing about this is that like, okay, I think one of the, you know, one of the things that you had against squat you is like when he was showing the Jefferson curl, he showed it incorrectly. So if you're going to tell people you can't do this exercise or it's unsafe for you, and I understand the context of where it's being unsafe. If you've had back injury, you've had disc herniations, you probably don't want to load this movement,

but then you show the movement and it's done incorrectly. Right. Like, come on, dude. Like you can't say you can't do a movement. If you yourself, you can't even do it correctly.

People can progress these movements safely. Right. They can. It was frustrating because he, um, he demonstrated that. And then a Romanian deadlift, which is one of my favorite exercises, by the way. He was saying, don't do the Jefferson curl, do the Romanian deadlift. And I agree.

I do both of them in the same workout, but they look the same. They look almost the same. I mean, the guy's back was almost completely flat. And maybe that guy has issues rounding his back like a rounding his back. Like a lot of people do. A lot of people are kind of locked in with, and really just can't get a lot of motion there, but maybe, maybe we can get a different test subject to,

to demonstrate what it actually should look like. Just, you know, we have a big audience. Let's, let's put out quality information, make sure at least we're like steel manning the thing we're attacking instead of just like, you could barely tell the difference between the Jefferson curl and the Romania deadlift.

You know, it's like, those are different exercises and both very good in their own way. And then lastly, to just mention this last difference between the Jefferson curl and the Romania deadlift. You know, it's like those are different exercises and both very good in their own way. And then lastly, to just mention this last thing about the Jefferson curl, like the way I treat the Jefferson curl is like a movement to maintain an ability to bend the spine. Right.

I'm not competing for Jefferson curl. So I'm not loading the movement as heavy as I possibly can. I'm doing a comfortable load that my body can do well. And I think everybody can do their own version of the Jefferson curl with adequate load, body can do well. And I think everybody can do their own version of a Jefferson curl with adequate load, whether it's you're holding a 10 pound dumbbell or 365 pounds, your own version of a Jefferson curl will allow you to show that your spine can bend and come back safely. Why live without having that ability? Exactly. What's the focus you guys think when you're, because both

of you are proficient at that exercise, What do you think someone should focus on? Not so they necessarily don't get hurt, but so they can make progress on there. Because I'm imagining you guys are able to maybe feel some things that maybe other people are having a hard time locking in. So I would say it really, it kind of shifts in the early part of the exercise. It's all about just trying to deliberately just segment your spine sequentially. Just trying to just not getting ahead of yourself. This is a slow movement.

Like it's going to I mean, it's going to there's going to be a lot of time under tension. It's going to take a while to do this properly. So just, you know, take your time. Just try to segment everything from your neck down. I know your neck's not under load, but it still helps around the rest of the spine. Now, just neck, shoulders and just try to visualize everything rounding down sequentially. Obviously, you may not necessarily live up to that ideal, but that's the ideal. That's at the start.

And then at a certain point, it is going to basically become a hamstring stretch, a hamstring and glute stretch. And at that point, when you're down at the bottom hanging, you're trying to let the weight pull yourself down, pull you down as far as you can and even assist it along. Maybe not, maybe I wouldn't do this like the first time you get into it, but eventually you're going to ideally want to be, um, you know, compressing with your abs and with your hip flexors to try to pull yourself down even a little bit further than the weight can pull you down. Um, and you're just repeating the process up, just trying to get the most out of the movement by just unrounding deliberately to get the, you know, the most range benefits for the spine. That's what I would say. Focus on. Use low enough weight too, to where you can actually feel what's going on. If you start to, even if you just start this exercise, you might think

135 pounds doesn't sound heavy. No, no. It's a lot of weight. So maybe just start out, you know, see how your own body can do. And then maybe grab a dumbbell, 25 pound dumbbell, like just practice it and work on it. What's something that you feel or like, what's a thing that you're trying to think about on an exercise like that? I think he kind of hit all the things there. Cause like you want, when you're starting off, you want to take it slow. you want to get yourself used to rounding every part of your spine and having control of that because a lot of people and especially if like your focus has been lifting you're so good at maintaining a rigid thoracic spine that now when it comes to rounding your spine in that area it's a very difficult thing to do and kind of what will happen is like you'll bend and then you'll almost kind of hip hinge and the middle part of your spine won't bend.

Now, if you don't want to build that capacity, you don't have to, but when you're starting out, it's good to try to slowly. And I think a cue that he gave is really good there. Like use your abs to kind of crunch yourself down. I think a good regression for this too, is something that you've done quite a bit is grabbing like a cable machine, grabbing a handle from the top and using it, pushing down against it. It's almost like a regression. Using that so you can like activate your abs to help round your spine more. So that's a way to regress the Jefferson curl before doing something where you're adding load if you can't allow if you're if you're not able to round out the thoracic spine it's an interesting thing to do something

like a leg lift you know like just old school like you're either on the ground uh lifting your legs or pulling your knees towards you uh or you're hanging off a bar and you're trying to like take your hips and pull everything underneath you i think a lot of people will be surprised at how poor they are at some of those exercises sometimes. And we had some of the functional patterns guys in here last week and they were just had me do a plank. And because my spine doesn't round well in that spot, I have a hard time kind of articulating that part of my spine.

As soon as I was in the, in the plank, my body started to shake because it's like kind of a newish position for my hips to be turned that much. And so I think exploring some of these exercises is a great idea. And then trying to think about like, oh, what's this motion? And then what's the reverse of this motion? We're talking right now about bending forward, but what about bending backwards? Like if you can't bend backwards at all, like that could be an issue too. If you can't bend to the side, that's also going to be an issue. Absolutely. Those are both, I mean, really good points that you brought up.

I have so much, they're both extremely important. I mean, first the training the opposite side, like you said, the regression that you mentioned using the cable, that's extremely important because I'll tell, I'll speak speak from experience i got a little early on when i got into jefferson curls i got a little carried away about just doing that and you know i wasn't doing enough um of the reverse and that is something actually that my coach lucas brought me into doing when i was trying to increase my range of motion and like training that side that exact exercise you described the reverse of jefferson curl that was helpful. And just a bunch of other, you know, leg lifts, like you said, L sits, just training, you know, we're not just, the Jefferson curl is a back exercise,

but that ability, the ability to forward fold is not a back ability. It's, it's, you know, you need the front half of your body. And, you know, a lot of that gets neglected. And I can say from my own experience, I didn't build that mobility just by beat, just by being pulled and stretched into that position. That's not enough alone to get you there. You need to train the other side, just like you said. And yeah, extension. Everyone's afraid of flexion.

Everyone gets so paranoid about flexion. It's scary. It's going to hurt you. But what people aren't even paying attention to that can also sneak up on you, extension. I mean, just like you said, I mean, that's so many people, including myself until very recently. I'm still very bad at it, but I've trained a little bit at it. But so many people are like, I mean, maybe somewhat flexion intolerant,

but man, even a little extension can be devastating. I know, like looking back at it now that I realized that, so many of the back injuries that I had were, you know, extension was somehow involved and I wasn't even thinking about it. But yeah getting some kind of training and extension even just really basic stuff i would say the same thing for me i think i think almost every back injury i've ever had is almost probably related to almost like hyper extension um like or at least it felt that way i don't know how to exactly diagnose that 100 but it felt like i and and it wasn't anything where i was actually trying to bend backwards, but it was just like trying to stay in this like hyper fixed position for some lifts, you know. You're probably wondering why am I wearing these glasses? Well, it's because I'm

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red light therapy devices on the market. And if you want to save on them, Andrew, how can they do that? Yes, you got to head over to emrtech.com. That's emr-tech.com. And check out InterPromoCode PowerECT to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's EMRtech.com, promo code POWERPROJECT. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I'll tell you the dumbest back injury I ever had. And this is one where I had the thing where I couldn't get out of bed the next day. The dumbest one I ever had was doing thrusters with 75 pounds at CrossFit. I did CrossFit for a year, but what happened now, the truth comes out, but what happened was we did handstand pushups before it. And that was pushing my back into more extension

than it was comfortable with at the time. And I looking back, like I, I remember feeling that that was uncomfortable. And then I went straight into thrusters and pop it's like 75 are you kidding me but yeah i was just extension intolerant so doing a little bit of um you know doing some extension training i think will pay massive dividends as far as like avoiding back injuries i mean i'm doing some stuff now with like pullovers where now it's a beneficial training stimulus for me but i promise you i would have gotten snapped up if i tried that just just a year ago i love pullovers one thing I wanted to mention too on all of this is like, think about this right now, if you are somebody who's flexion intolerant or you have hard problems with extension or they're just ranges where you have pain, do you need to be like, do you want to be

like that for the rest of your life? Because again, I love squat use information and I've learned a lot from him. But at the same time, I know he's working with individuals who have these issues, but don't you want to have more ability? Like don't you want full access to everything your body can do? Why, why be okay with this limited access? If you can, if you can build the capacity to have more is think about this when you can build the capacity to have more. Because think about this when you're 60, 70, et cetera. And I know I talk about being older when I'm only 31, but at the same time, a lot of people

have lost those abilities because they slowly stopped doing it. They never did it again. And then when they try doing it, at some point they injure themselves. And then it's like, this is a bad range of motion or this is a bad movement. I would say even on top of building it to be better, just being able to hang on to it or hang on to some capacity of it. For me, I would say like, I don't want to be negative, but like, I don't think there'll be a scenario where all of a sudden I'm like super bendy and mobile.

However, I do believe I can make a lot of progress. I do believe I can move at some point. You guys go, wow, that's like way different than the way you were moving, you know, six years ago. And so I think, you know, for some of the people that are getting older, that maybe get frustrated, they try some of these exercises, maybe not seeing the big return. Well, part of the return is just not to get hurt. I don't get injured. I've never had a surgery and I'm never going to need one. exactly i don't get injured i've never had a surgery and i'm never going to need one like i i'm confident in saying that i'm not trying to you know uh throw some bad voodoo on top of me

or something like that but i i feel great and um i put my body through a lot nowadays things are a little different the intensity isn't as crazy on some of the stuff that i'm doing but i am sprinting you know i am working on jumping and there's, you know, definitely potential for injury. Now I do tweak stuff here and there, just like anybody else. I'll get something. I'll go, wow, that's really weird. I wonder what's going on in my shoulder. I didn't even train shoulders yesterday or something, you know, sometimes something gets

thrown off a little bit, but, you know, having this knowledge and exploring the body continuously, working on things, trying to figure out like, man, why am I so poor at this thing? And not getting discouraged by that, actually getting excited by it. Being like, man, I really stink at this, but that's kind of cool because if I just work on this for a month, where will I be in one? If I really suck at this thing, you're going to see massive improvement in the course of one month. Absolutely. I mean, that's so key.

That's the whole difference between, yeah. But where I used to be is just kind of a meathead who lifted. And now it's like, I mean, I'm probably more mobile, more athletic in every way in my mid-30s than in my mid-20s because I had that mentality you're talking about. I'm just not good at this back then. It's just like, okay, that's something I can't do. All right, so I'm going to not do that, right? And now it's exactly like you're saying. My hardest workout with range of strength is usually hip mobility because I'm terrible at hip mobility.

And so I'm always dreading it, looking like, oh, man because I'm terrible at hip mobility. And so I'm always, I'm always dreading it looking like, Oh man, I got to do hip mobility. But then, you know, you know, which, which workout I'm always the happiest after hip mobility. Cause I always, cause there's always something I did that I couldn't have done the previous time. It's always, it's where I'm getting, making the most progress. So it's, you know, that's, it's exactly like you're saying. It's like you change that mentality that the places that you're weakest at or where you have the most possibility for improvement. And that's the fun of it. That's what we all fall in love with is the progress.

It's not like, oh, I need to – if I can just lift this one weight for the rest of my life, I'll be happy. Even if it's a good weight, it's progress, right? So yeah, that's exactly right. What you got, Andrew? I was going to say, and Seema, to your point, you're saying you're 31. We're thinking about further ahead. But yes, I was going to say, and Seema, to your point, you know, like, you know, you're saying you're 31, we, you know, thinking about further ahead, but like, yes, I'm only 31. Well, when I was 31, I moved like crap. And I'm not saying I move great now, but in comparison to what I, how I moved when, you know, almost eight years ago now, like, dude, it is like, I'm a completely different person. So like to have that mentality of like, oh, and Seema's young,

like, why am I going to listen to him or whatever it's like it's so irrelevant and just sorry maybe it is relevant to what we're talking about right now with like you know uh fear-mongering and all that stuff and like you know standing up and being like no actually like you should probably pay attention to this and you know don't worry about you know this fear-mongering stuff it's just, it's wild because it's like, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it. And if you've never used it, you never had it, you can get it because that's kind of what I'm doing right now. And it's just, yeah, it's just really cool that we have been able to learn all this stuff as we do this podcast. Yeah. You have that video? Yeah. See if we can bring up that clip from, uh, from Dre, you know, kind of the use it or lose it thing is, is an interesting thing because you always have to keep in mind how you're using your body.

So I think that that's a big factor. Oh, man. This is why you need to be careful with injury advice on social media. People feel crackling in their joints because they're misaligned and the muscles aren't firing around them correctly. People feel crackling in their joints for a lot of reasons, but that's not one of them. In most cases, it's physiologic. Gas bubbles popping in joint fluid, ligaments brushing past each other. Those things are normal and totally harmless. But he says that sound is a brittle joint alert. I don't know why he'd say that because that crackling is often present even

when there's no pathology. Plus, there's ways to tell if it's part of a problem. Unless there's a combination of pain, swelling, and a history of injury to the area, it's probably just a normal joint alert. But he's not done yet. The crackling is one of the telltale signs that surgery is coming sooner than you think. Not only is that just not true, it's not even a sign that your function or quality of life are going to get worse. Because as we've discussed, most of the time the crackling's normal. But here's the worst part. He says if you move and a joint crackles, don't do that motion. That advice literally makes things worse. That's how we how we fail patients everything he's saying makes people anxious which causes people to fearfully avoid movements exercise activities and leads to poor outcomes this is fear-mongering 101 he takes

a normal thing like crackling joints makes up a problem like misalignments and muscles not firing cites zero research to back up his claims and just happens to sell you the solution this interesting damn one thing i got to say though okay we we were talking about this before like uh fp fp is great like fp is great because uh we had talked to them on the podcast they're working with the population of people that a lot of people aren't working with. The people that have gone to FP are a lot of them because they do work with athletes like Kyle Dake and Johnny Ebelin. But most of the people have tried working out in gyms or have tried working with trainers and they've gotten injured or things haven't gotten better. They go to FP. They're out of pain, which is absolutely amazing but the the on the other side of it there's a very dogmatic approach to everything must be through the lens of becoming better at sprinting um and there are a bunch of

movements that are in the gym that are going to make you more dysfunctional than functional right and then there's there's stuff like that where it's like you know dre does a lot of unconventional type movements that they would probably deem as dysfunctional, but fucking look at Dre, Dre. If you wanted to, he could build his capacity, go back to sprinting.

He's doing a lot of running right now. He's built like a fucking tank without using PEDs. It's, it's, it's unfortunate that there's such a dogmatic approach to the way those things are put forward. I think both guys are probably speaking from experience. Dre in his post was talking about how maybe you shouldn't really be overly worried,

I think was something that he kind of, I'm paraphrasing, if you have a crackling joint, because a lot of us have joints that pop. My elbow crackles and pops all the time, but I don't notice any particular pain from it. That doesn't mean there's nothing going on. And then I think Naughty is probably speaking from his own experience and working with people that maybe he's found that every time there's a snap, crackle, pop somewhere that there's a problem. I mean, yeah, you were explaining this to me before.

And, you know, I don't really know much about these people. I just see what they put on social media. I had no idea what they do. I mean, all I see on social media is they're just bashing. You can't do this. That's bad. You can't do that. That's bad.

So I'm looking at them as the people who say, like, where's the solution? Don't do anything. That's bad. I don't know what their product is. I don't know what they sell. And, you know, you were explaining to me that, OK, they actually do, you know, some things that are that are good. And that's and, you know, it made sense to me. I just I don't see that on social media from them so i guess that just brings up that i wish people would

just stick to what their what their specialty is like you know squat you i'm not going to take anything away from him as far as what he does with rehab i don't know anything about that go to if you get injured you'd probably be better off going to him than you would to me but i wish he wouldn't talk about things that he's not an expert in that I know, you know, and that's mostly been my, you know, my videos critical of him. It's like, if he's getting into an exercise that I'm familiar with, like one hand deadlifts or Nordic curls, Jefferson curls, and he's just not having his, you know, his client demonstrate it right. And he's, you know, maybe saying some things about it that are not correct. Like, just stick with what you know, like you have your,

you know, what a million, a million followers. And you're a fancy rehab guy with all sorts of great clients. That's cool. You know, that's, that's a good thing,

but let's just, let's just stay in our, in our, in our lane a little bit, you know, but you're, but you're blocked by him now. Well,

you know, I put a lot of work into that video. I put a lot of, I put a lot of work into that video. I put a lot of work into correcting some misconceptions about the one-hand deadlift, and I thought it was very good, and he blocked me. If you don't want people to remix your videos, you can click the don't be able to remix this thing, you know? But yeah, I mean, a lot of people that I have conflicts with,

I don't think that they're not good at what they do. Just, you know, like, let's not talk so much about something that we aren't personally familiar with yeah yeah i mean somebody might think some of the exercises that you do maybe they're not great for you know bodybuilding because you know maybe uh when they see you demonstrate some of these things maybe they're not done uh to bodybuilding standards where you're trying to work specifically for you know hypertrophy but there's so much to strength training that's unknown we we uh we tend to just say like okay this is the way this thing works and if this isn't if what you're doing specifically doesn't touch some of the things

that you need for hypertrophy or for bodybuilding then it has no merit and we don't really know like if you i mean we i don't think there's been like particular studies on people doing a lot of these odd lifts without the other lifts in there. I mean I don't know how you conduct such an experiment. It would probably be quite messy to try to figure out. But people have experiences though. And there's a lot of people that do the types of lifts that you do. We're seeing a lot of guys like Dre. We're seeing a lot of guys like yourself doing some of these movements, and they're unconventional.

They're a little different, different than the way we're used to loading them. I don't really think that Dre does – well, Dre doesn't mix. He does a little bit of hypertrophy stuff. He does a little bit of stuff like that. But we're seeing more and more people like that, And we're not allowing that evidence to come forward. It's like, no, that seems good enough. Like that guy is doing these exercises. He enjoys doing these exercises.

And he's clearly getting a lot of benefit from it. I wonder what that would do for me. Right. I mean, I think there are a lot of people that want to be the smartest guy in the gym. They want to have it all figured out. They want to know everything. And so I think a lot of them, specific expertise and they're correct on certain things, but then they, they think that that translates to something that they don't have

the same experience with. Um, and it doesn't always work that way. You know, there's, there's just so much complexity to it. Not every exercise follows the exact same rules. You know, some exercises work pretty well when you just, when you really do focus on kind of that mind muscle control, just really being, just really being attentive and mindful on exactly what the objective is. Like we talked about Romanian deadlifts, Jefferson curls, you know, you really want to be focused on that. You know, some other exercises you can just heave weight around and get good results. And if you, you know, if you just try to have a grand unifying theory, you're going to be missing the nuance and the reality. And we talked in the last one about power shrugs.

I get a lot of criticism for that. People look at it based on their experiences. And I get it. most other exercises, that's not how you would conduct that exercise because, you know, most exercises, heaving weight around using a bunch of momentum from your quads is not, it's probably not going to be, some people like cheat curls. Most people don't get a whole lot of results out of cheat curls, right? So most exercises don't work well that way, but I'm here to tell you it works. I mean, I have well-developed traps and they grew from that exercise. And there are a lot of other people who do power shrugs and swear by them. And

you know, then there's, you got plenty of people who are going to tell you, oh, well, natural athletes can't develop big traps. Okay. Well, did you try heavy weight? You know, now some people are, some people are strong enough that they can just deadlift enough to grow big traps. I'm not. So I need to find another way to do it. You know, some people do strongman and they get big traps from doing the really heavy farmers carries, but something about the trap seems to respond well to really heavy weight and doesn't seem to be quite so picky about, oh, well, we're going to do a squeeze at the top and, you know, and, but that's not always, that's not always bad either, because there's some exercises where you would want to do it that way but the problem is you know the problem isn't with

um you know one one technique or another but just with thinking that you figured out one exercise and so you know exactly how they all need to be performed it's you just kind of like look at it with fresh eyes and just see how this exercise is going to tell you it wants to be performed you know one major aspect of uh strength training is stretching you know there's like some stretching going on when it comes to something like a shrug you know your your shoulders need the ability to like decompress they need to be able to go like downward and the more uh usually the the better suited somebody is at kind of performing an exercise like that i don't mean strength wise but a lot of times they're built like yourself where your, your shoulders are real pronounced. They're, they're out. And that's because your shoulders are like kind of sitting more downward and you have a good, strong lat

development and trap development. And I've seen this time and time again from deadlifters over the years. You've seen even someone like, like Arnold kind of stands out to me because Arnold's shoulders and arms and stuff, he's jacked beyond all belief. But they also look so robust because where his shoulders are in comparison to his ears, they're actually fairly far away from each other. And you notice that. I've been observing people that are good at these lifts for so long that you just start to see that time and time again. And you see that with people that deadlift huge weights. And a lot of times they're not really saying the same exact thing as you, but in some way they're saying something that is very similar. People that have strong deadlifts almost, almost always have really strong lats. I'm sure there's a couple of cases where maybe they don't. Why do they have really strong lats? It's to hold that shoulder down and back into place so that their arms are kind of going to hang a little bit longer.

And when they pull that weight up, they're going to statically be able to flex their lats to be able to express the full power of their extremities, their arms and legs. That's the way I look at it. Let me ask you this, man. You said Lucas Hardy? Hardy. Lucas Hardy. He was able to help you a lot with progressing some of these lifts as far as your mobility is concerned. So what are some big

concepts as far as improving your mobility that maybe you learned from him that you took into other lifts? I'm still working on being able to have that as something that I know well enough to teach well. But I mean, the main thing is you just need to find you need to find ways to train both halves of, you know, of any motion. You're not just you're not just holding a static stretch.

I mean, not that I'm bashing static stretching. It can be valuable, but you're you're trying to build both the capability to pull yourself into it given you know what whatever muscle um is you know the antagonist of your stretched muscle you're trying to have the you're trying to build the ability of the stretched muscle to resist being stretched you might want to do those alternating you know if you're doing a static stretch you're not maybe you're not just holding it maybe you're actively pulling into it for 30 seconds and then, you know, holding on to something or however, you know, bracing up and then actively kind of pulling out of it still in that stretch. Just so you're not passively flexible, but you have the ability to move in and out of that range.

Right. And that seems to be what, you know, what gets the body to, you know, loosen up and give you that range. I mean, I'm not going to try to tell you what's going on on the inside. That's not the level I can i can observe but i mean that's the main thing and then just you know finding good exercises that are you know that are a good way to target that because there's just so much to it that each each joint has each joint has so much that it can do more than we typically see um you know in general training just finding you know finding tools that work for it you're not just moving your own body you're trying to find okay well here are the tools we have barbells finding, you know, finding tools that work for it. It's, you're not just moving your own body. You're trying to find, okay, here are the tools. We have barbells, we have, you know, blocks, we have,

you know, cables, bands, whatever, you know, how can we use these tools to actually get the body to do what it's supposed to do. And then kind of in, in that, you know, in that in range kind of pulling ourself into that in range and then also resisting and controlling in that in range. And that's kind of, I think that would be kind of the overview of it. What's your favorite old school book? I remember, you know, looking at some, some books years ago.

And I remember the book twisted conditioning by Bud Jeffries. I don't know if you've ever seen that one. I haven't read it, but I was a big fan of Bud Jeffries. Rest in peace. What a legend. I mean, that, i mean that what a yeah it's not like he was doing all this stuff he was uh picking up kegs and doing zurcher squats and uh doing anderson squats in his backyard oh man amazing it's not like it's not like we never got to see the old time strongman because he was right here with us and yeah unfortunately passed too soon but yeah um i didn't get to read that haven't i haven't read yet. But as far as books from the older period, my favorite is Super Strength by Alan Calvert.

He was a barbell manufacturer. I believe it was from the early 20s. It's got a good overview of a lot of these lifts, but it also provides just a good overview of the time. He discusses a lot of prominent lifters at that time, you know, good descriptions of, of all the lifts, a little bit less detail oriented on the lifts than we typically like now.

I mean, we're, we're kind of used to like a lot more in-depth breakdowns and it wasn't quite, they didn't hold your hand through it quite that much. But that being said, it was extremely well-written. I mean,

the guy's got a, you know, a good command of the English language, better, a barbell manufacturer, I would argue, writes better than a lot of academics today. Um, to read. And you'll find yourself laughing at random times. But I think that's the one that I would direct people to first.

We had, I don't know if we still have it here, but we had a book by George Hackenschmidt. And he was talking about like cold plunging. And it was like, I don't even, it's from like the 30s or something, 40s, a long time ago. And he's talking about like cold plunging and it was like i don't even it's from like the 30s or something 40s a long time ago and he's talking about like when you get out of the cold plunge don't just you know get warm right away just try to get your body warm like through exercise and stuff like that just really cool that they were talking about some of these things from so far back and they were talking about using these kind of odd implements. And maybe that was driven by the fact that at that point, there was like, I don't want to say there was no machines

because I don't really know, but there was probably not much. Arthur Jones didn't come around quite yet and start to invent like Nautilus equipment and so on. Well, I mean, that's not entirely true. It's kind of a misconception that there weren't machines back then. I think the difference is it wasn't mass produced. Like you said, we didn't have the access. We didn't have mass production, but what we did have is just access to tooling shops.

And so there wouldn't be mass produced machines that be in every gym. But, you know, all the big gyms would have access to someone in their town because now we're kind of post-industrial. We, you know, we import all most of our manufacturers, not everything, but we import a bunch of stuff. Back then, that was like the height of the industrial revolution. So any gym, any big gym, they had access to people who could machine anything that they wanted. And so what you would have is just a lot of custom one-off stuff in gyms.

And I think I would say a lot of the stuff that we have now, a lot of the machines that we're familiar with now existed in some form, you know, by even the 1800s or certainly early 1900s. But it would have been like custom one-off pieces for gyms. You know, get into the 50s, you know, like Vince Gironda would have a bunch of just custom stuff. They would just come up with, you know, they had a particular need for something. They had it fabricated, but it wasn't being mass produced. So they did have the equipment or access to it. I mean they were very creative.

If they saw a need for something, they'd have it created. But I do think they made – they did a lot with just kind of the kettlebells, barbells, and dumbbells because that stuff worked. But yeah, I mean they were experimenting with all sorts of things. barbells and dumbbells because that stuff worked but yeah i mean they were experimenting with all sorts of things each guy that you read you know saxon um sandow all of them have they have their own thoughts on health sometimes things dovetail sometimes they don't some of them had different dietary ideas different than others some sometimes they had um you know similarities yeah vince gerondo was steak and eggs yeah i mean it's taking like liver pills or whatever Yeah, Vince Girondo was steak and eggs.

Yeah, I mean – And taking like liver pills or whatever. The original liver cancer. Oh, yeah. It worked. And it worked great for cutting. And I think – I should look this up sometime. But I do think it was better known in the 50s that something like a keto or almost carnivorous diet was good for fat loss. You even had – this is – I'm not advocating for this.

But you even had a popular book in the 50s called um i think it's called the drinking man's diet and it was basically just saying like if you you know if you like to drink as long as you keep the carbs out of your alcohol and you eat um and you eat kind of a kind of high fat you know meat and eggs diet with no with no carbs you can somehow still lose weight i'm not i don't think that's a good idea, probably. It's not something I recommend, but it just goes- Drink vodka instead of beer or something like that to kind of cut those carb calories down a little bit. I'm not in any way suggesting that, but it's just-

2.4 million copies of this book sold in 13 languages. What the fuck? What book is that? The Drinking Man's Diet by Robert Cameron. So it just goes to show that people were aware of cutting carbs a lot earlier than we think. I think it was

probably maybe better known than we think that you could just lose weight by cutting carbs back in the day. Everybody asks us about drinking. We've got to refer them to this book all the time. Yeah, it's low carb. Wow. I mean, I would probably, you know, probably you want fat loss advice.

I'd probably cut out some of that alcohol, but hey, you know, whatever floats your boat. Yeah, you did the wine diet, right, Mark? I did, yeah. Drinking a bottle of wine a day. That actually became a challenge after a couple days, especially like how to figure out like when and where to drive, you know, drive and stuff like that. Did you and your wife split the bottle or did you just do? Nah, kidding me. That's a lot of wine.

Why would we split it? Two a days. Yeah. All right. Let me ask you this, man, because like obviously in your book, you have so many old time lifts. What would be your top three old timetime lifts, your top three favorites, and why? Okay, so top three. I'm going to base this basically on not so much looking at the lifts in isolation,

but looking at them relative to what we have now, because obviously we have a lot of great solutions for a lot of problems. People aren't really struggling to build their pecs. We have bench press. People aren't struggling to build their quads. We have squats. So we do a whole lot of things really well now. So we don't need to even if something is good, we're not going to necessarily we don't need any

redundancies. I mean, we've already beaten this horse to death, but obviously it's not going to be surprising to anyone that I think the Jefferson curl because it's like, you know, that's the exercise that can do anything from helping somebody's grandma just maintain mobility and avoid injuries you know for the next couple decades all the way down to you know maybe some high school wrestler who just wants to be able to

just exert more force in those crazy positions and wrestling matches all the way to a bodybuilder who just wants really good spinal erectors and hamstrings and doesn't care about function you know any of these people can benefit from the jefferson curl in ways that not a whole lot that's that was out here before that came back into popularity could really do you know so that's that's number one pick i do think that is also like the biggest fuck you move to like the the standard fitness injury uh industry the jefferson curl because it just goes against brace your spine donerson curl because it just goes against brace your spine don't let it move it goes against everything round it round your fucking spine with a weight yeah right you know and then they you know they want to be oh this is dangerous trend

but yet this dangerous trend has been around longer than most of the exercises they do yeah but um that's that's number one obviously i think pullovers need to make a comeback um now that that's like saying i mean it's not even a pullover isn't an exercise it's a category of exercise it's like a squat you know what's a squat is it a put the bar on your back on your front you know goblet squat zurcher squat and you know pullovers are like that too there's a ton of different ways you can do that. And, I mean, obviously they're beneficial for training the lats. Some people are going to disagree with me on that.

That's actually been very controversial recently. People have been saying that pullovers are not a lat exercise. They're purely a chest and tricep exercise. And the basis for that is an EMG emg study that they did it's probably on like you know all these are there's like probably eight people or whatever i think it's like eight to ten people something like that um and it basically found that you you had pec activation you had tricep activation very little lat activation so based on that people are saying that it's not a lat exercise i would kind of say who cares though too you know it's like

that's cool. Like if, you know, if you're trying to target your lats, I guess maybe there are better exercises, but it's just a good movement. I mean, I totally disagree, though, that it doesn't target the lats because I looked into how they're doing it. They had the participants lying flat along the bench. So they're basically, you know, they're lying like you're going to bench press. You're just lying on the bench and just sticking your arms over your head in you know like a barbell pullover movement and i wouldn't necessarily that's kind of what i would expect because you'll see other people using the little biomechanic skeletons um i made a i made a cute little video i don't have a

skeleton in my house because i'm not a weirdo but um i i made a video i used i used a a little rubber band and like one of my kids teddy bears to like approximate um so what they'll basically show you um is if you're when you're sticking your arm all the way overhead your lats don't have any any leverage on the um on the arm to act to break it down like the only muscle that has leverage is the pecs so your lats cannot meaningfully contribute right that's what they show you so that's i'm approximating what their skeletons are doing in this in this position but that's not how you do a pullover if you're trying to build your lats you're going to be getting a lot of extension whether you're leaning like whether you're across the bench or whether i

like to um i like to kind of hang off a bench and pull myself into a lot of extension um that wouldn't now that that doesn't work if you haven't trained extension, like kind of directly, if you're a little bit extension intolerant, that's going to mess you up. So I'm not saying you just like jump into that, but if you are trying to use that movement for lats, you're going to want to open up. And what that does, you're, you're going to reach, you're going to reach the stretch point in your lats before your arms get to the point where um they have no leverage anymore so it's you know you're gonna you're gonna still get the full range of motion now that's not to say the pullover has to be used for last because like i mean the old-timers thought that you could expand the

rib cage i'm kind of agnostic about that so many of them believed it that i want to i'm not going to tell them they're wrong i haven't personally seen it so i can't speak to it personally but i'm not gonna say it's wrong so but I mean, additionally to that, you just get so much benefit in like shoulder mobility, overhead, you know, like that's, I think that's one of the, one of the lost keys that we're missing. Now we just start people off on the, the exercises. They can just lift the heaviest weights in right off the bat through sometimes a limited range of motion. And there's something to be said for that. Cause we were good at packing on a lot of muscle on beginners it you know we that works we we bring somebody into our gyms have them do squat bench and deadlift they're going to grow but then eventually they do kind

of run into a lot of you know joint issues right now you look back at the old days silver era bronze era what are they telling beginners to do pullovers deep deep knee bends, Jefferson curls, stuff like that. Um, so we're, you know, we're using lighter weights to train those fuller ranges and just kind of build that, make sure we're strong in those long ranges. And then afterwards we're piling on the heavyweights. And I think if pullovers were used like that more like, Hey, oh, you're new to the gym. All right, let's do some pullovers with you. I think, you know, maybe people wouldn't have all the shoulder problems we do today i mean back in the day folks had no problem

you know doing behind the neck press all manner of things now we're told you can't do that you can't do the upright rows bad for the shoulder it's bad well you know maybe if we were building people's shoulder capabilities from the start you know we might have a little bit less of that so that's in addition i do think they are a good bodybuilding exercise for lats i really if used properly because you can use them and i mean i'm not saying you can't use them for chest you if you if you do them in a way that's going to work with the chest more you can do that and if you want to do that that's perfectly fine i do agree that i try i mean they're always going to hit your triceps i i'm you know there's no way not to is that a feature or a bug that's up to your your training goals i i think it's you know bonus tricep work but um

but yeah in addition to kind of the bodybuilding benefit which i think there is one um yeah i think there's just just kind of built building that base right up right from the ground with people so that they don't run into problems down the road i think that's a huge benefit to pull overs Um, let's see the last, last, last one that I would pick. I stopped three. Um, in, in my book, I'm going to go with the one I picked in my book for this. Um, I'm gonna go with a windmill. Um, I haven't actually, I didn't actually show that one yet, but the windmill is basically a side bin with a, um, with a weight over your head.

Okay. And I mean, I've, I've seen you do them, I think. And, and it's, um, I'm just picking it because it's so bang. It's so, it's so bang for your buck as far as stuff that the modern world isn't doing as much. You're getting side bending. I mean, that's extremely important. Um, you know, that's something that I think a lot, we need to do more of, whether it be just regular side bends or windmills you know because uh you know a big function of the the qls and everything is to bend to the side that's a

common injury we only train it one way we don't train it multiple ways now where does that work out well uh but you know it's also stabilizing weight overhead again building shoulder mobility uh builds hamstring mobility again like just bringing that up so it's and i think um especially you start beginners on it, it's going to put a little muscle on their shoulders too. So we're going to be building up some muscle at the same time as we just strengthen things up and build a good foundation. If you're someone that's taking supplements or vitamins or anything to help move the needle in terms of your health, how do you know you really need them? And the reason why I'm asking you how do you know is because many people don't know their levels of their testosterone, their vitamin D, all these other labs like their thyroid, and they're taking these supplements to help them function at peak performance.

But that's why we've partnered with Merrick Health for such a long time now, because you can get yourself different lab panels like the power project panel which is a comprehensive set of labs to help you figure out what your different levels are and when you do figure out what your levels are you'll be able to work with a patient care coordinator that will give you suggestions as far as nutrition optimization supplementation or if you're someone who's a candidate and it's necessary, hormonal optimization to help move you in the right direction so you're not playing guesswork with your body. Also, if you've already gotten your lab work done, but you just want to get a checkup, we also have a checkup panel that's made so that you can check up and make sure that everything is moving in the right direction if you've already gotten comprehensive lab work done. This is something super important that I've done for myself.

I've had my mom work with Merrick. We've all worked with Merrick just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing guesswork with our body. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at Merrick health.com slash power project and at checkout, enter promo code power project to save 10% off any one of these panels or any lab on the entire website.

Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. You know, I hope as more people watch more of your content and they see some of the stuff that we put out here too and every goddamn jury, I hope it gets them open. If you've been lifting for a while to explore your movement capability with weight. You know, start with lightweight, but, you know, see how you can move those dumbbells. I mean, we'll bring him up actually. Michael O'Hearn is famous for doing those dumbbell flies all the way up here and then coming all the way back down.

And an exercise scientist is going to tell you, well, that's going to cause shoulder impingement, right? But why is he able to do it with heavier loads? Because he's lifted and his body has built the ability to move safely with that, starting with a lighter weight, right? So you're not lifting yourself into worse movement ability. You know? Yeah, I will say, I mean, his training is good. I don't think that's ever been the controversial part about him.

But I mean, you know, I will say, you know, his training fundamentals are good. He's not somebody out there just, you know, pushing some, you know, routine that's just, you know, pump and fluff and no substance to it. I will definitely say that. He did some strongman stuff years ago and was excelling at that too. It was actually pretty amazing watching him pick up like stones and shit like that because you think like what he does is like maybe you know not functional but if you add in some things and you you know he he is always conscious of movement full range of motion also i mean uh genetically he's you know there's pictures of him like 16 years old he's you know a mutant in a lot of

ways so there's some genetic uh component to it but he's worked on it for a long time yeah i mean didn't he also do judo that's yeah i think yeah that's that's going to give you a lot of range of motion you know just you're using it so you don't losing it so you're losing it anyway yeah i mean that's so i will i will that, you know, that it's good training. You know, maybe there are some other controversial aspects, but the training is good. Like what? Well, I mean, you know, he's become like the face of what it is to be a fake natty. You know, that's like, he's, he's become a punchline as far as that goes. Just like, you know, he's the memes with like, baby, don't hurt me.

And then he's, you know, don't hurt me, baby. But I mean, you know, so that's um you know and you know obviously i i am about as skeptical as pretty much everybody else in the fitness community but i will say that his training is good and it would be there are a lot of people that i would have a much easier time calling out and saying this guy is a fake just based on training um yeah because some people you look at it it's like, okay, there's like, okay, your workouts do not do that. Your workouts are trash

and yet you're claiming you're natural when you look like this. No way. I will say with him, okay, he does the strength. Now, I mean, do I look at that and say, oh yeah, yeah, that's something that a natural person can achieve?

Not so much, but you know, I, you are outspoken when it comes to this, uh, the, the natty stuff, right? Oh yeah. I think we need to talk about it. I have a question for you then. What, um, because you said like, you know, that's not possible for people to achieve and it's not possible for most people but what is the what is it that you look for when you're like ah this person's probably on the sauce or this person might not be what what are what are what are the things you look for everybody's like oh pumpkin delts obviously on the sauce or tribes obviously on the sauce right well what do you look so i mean so he i mean i have to give him credit where credit's due he's a hard one to talk about he's a hard one to use as an example i wish you'd pick i wish you'd pick

somebody else because like a lot of the stuff that i would normally bring up um he's not red he's not bloated right he doesn't look like he has acne right right so i mean a lot of the stuff i would normally bring up um i don't get to because uh you know he he doesn't look like he's you know a maroon uh carrot mixed with a uh with a tomato with you know you can't see his blood pressure right i mean his veins are not like that extinct titanoboa that they found in the amazon it was like a you know 60 foot snake it's you know it's with him it really is just like that is a lot to believe. And I, I hate to do that because I don't like to be in the position of saying, okay, there's

something that it just pure size alone and pure conditioning alone, because, you know, we know naturals can get very big. We know naturals can get very lean in his case. It's just a, I, at a certain point I do draw the line and okay that big that rip for that long that's that's hard to believe and you know i think with the era um like that was kind of that was kind of the start of what i would call the fake natty era and i'm not even that doesn't even bother me i actually see why they were doing it and i mean you know who knows i don't i don't i've never talked i don't know at the end of the day what the case is. I obviously I'm just as skeptical as everyone else.

You guys know, I don't believe his claims. That being said, he's, he's harder to call out than some people are just because I could look at their training and say, you don't train in a way that produces that results. I know what training produces results in naturals.

You're not doing it. Oh, he, he lifts heavy. He does, you know, he has a good movement background as you know so so it's not it's not as easy in that case that's the rare

case where it's just so in this case it's not as easy but you're leaning towards yeah it's not uh well i mean i mean i'm not gonna say i'm leaning you know but i mean here's the thing i think um so here's the thing i think with the original fake nies – because there was a while where nobody was talking about it. Fake natty wasn't a thing. Nobody cared about natural bodybuilding. Nobody cared. That's true. I mean, nobody really cared about natural bodybuilding through what?

Like the – I mean, I wasn't – Do people care about it now? More so than – more so than then. Oddly enough – I think people care about – if you're lying, I think is what people care about. If they think you're lying. Right. If they think you're lying.

I don't think people care about regular bodybuilding or natural bodybuilding all that much. Okay, that's true. But I mean, it was really not, I mean, no one cared in the golden era. I mean, no one cared if someone said, oh, well, I'm Natty. It's like, okay, well, those guys look good, right? I mean, this is my personal theory. I don't have any facts to back this up. But it seemed like the fake Natty thing popped up

when Masked Monster started to pop up. Like, it was kind of around the same time you get people on stage just looking so huge. And I'm not bashing them, but I'm saying, like, people got to a point where people are like, okay, I don't want to look like that. That's gone too far.

You know, because a lot of people will say, okay, the Goldenear guys look great and i mean they were on steroids but they you know people still say they look great and then you get to a point where people are like okay that's too much we have like you know we have kind of the roid get thing going on it's just it's just too much like you know people don't want to look like that so now you want to be a bodybuilder what are you going to do i mean do you do you want to you can't push the envelope anymore because pushing the envelope gets you to a place where you don't actually even want to be you don't want to look like that but you still want to be a bodybuilder but what are you just going to be a small bodybuilder so you i feel like the fake natty thing was kind of like an early

iteration of like classic physique to be honest you know like that's a way of like trying to be a professional bodybuilder and have people take you seriously but without having to do honest you know like that's a way of like trying to be a professional bodybuilder and have people take you seriously but without having to do something you don't really want to do because i'm probably a lot of people a lot of people even even steroid using bodybuilders don't want don't want to have that you know open division look right so that that's my i could make some more yeah it makes it more palatable and then but people don't even realize or understand like how big someone like chrisumstead is. They see the pictures, that looks aesthetic, but they don't really understand.

He's a 235-pound guy that's probably 5% body fat or something like that. Yeah, that alone is crazy. I think a lot of people find that aesthetic, which is obviously why that's a thing now. But when did Classic Physique come out? I don't think it's fairly recent. It's like the last 10 years or maybe something around that that so i feel like before that what were you gonna do just classic physique's a great category because it's like these are guys that we want to look like they're kind of natural right i'm the only the only problem with it the only problem is it

like it's kind of capturing the the physical look of the golden era but the problem is the golden era guys weren't just like trying to keep themselves small they were they were pushing the envelope they were doing stuff nobody had ever seen before you know tom flats came out like people like what is that no one's ever seen anything like that it's crazy you know all these guys were doing like they they had they had both like they looked good but they were also pushing the envelope and i think that's what's um i think that's a little bit it's a little bit missing from classic physique and i think that's a little bit missing from classic physique. And I think that's what the appeal of natural bodybuilding is because it seems like bodybuilding kind of passed by the question of, well, what can naturals achieve?

How far can we push the envelope? I mean, look, I'm going to be honest. If I'd been around, if I'd been lifting in the 70s, I would have gone on stairs. It would have been so cool. You're seeing guys do stuff no one's ever done before it's a whole new like it's a whole new frontier to explore like you could no one you're just doing stuff no one's ever done before that's great that's really appealing you know now now i mean you don't even want to push the frontier because if you're pushing the frontier of bodybuilding you don't even want to and again

i'm not bashing these guys not straight up you don't want to look like a fridge yeah i mean i'm saying i'm not trying to say they're not impressive or they're not working hard i'm just saying i don't want to look like i don't want to be like arnold still look like he could wipe his ass exactly right you still look like you can move you still walk with some grace you you have a nice gate like right there's fluidity right and you're saying they were pushing it but they weren't pushing it to the extent that, and with all respect to them, like a Ronnie Coleman or a Dorian Yates. I don't think they could. I mean, they couldn't have. They didn't have all the, I don't even know what all this stuff is they're taking now.

I'm not even going to try to say what it is, but they're doing a bunch of different stuff now. They didn't have that option. But, yes, I think part of the appeal of natural, I mean, obviously, there's the health stuff. Everyone wants to be in good shape. I think part of the appeal of natural, I mean, obviously there's the health stuff. Everyone likes,

wants to be in good shape. And the IFBB is actually coming out with their, they're planning on doing, I think 30 natural amateur shows is coming. And what natural means is like, you know, you haven't been on any type of PDs in the past three years and a bunch of things are going to, it is interesting because like the actual natural organizations are kind of

getting annoyed at that but they're trying to come out with categories and shows that will showcase that look yeah lifetime natural it's like not everyone like some people maybe you know maybe that ship has sailed you know maybe some guys made a decision that they kind of regret maybe they did at a younger age and they want to compete so it sounds like they're just kind of regret. Maybe they did it at a younger age and they want to compete. So it sounds like they're just kind of like opening the door. But then maybe it's like opening the door for this whole other category that's like tested-ish. It's going to be hard. I mean, that's a hard thing to figure out.

I mean, I'm not mad about it, but it's a hard thing to figure out. But yeah, I mean, I think the – honestly, I think the fake natty thing was the first thing that opened the door to that because now it got people – you had people that looked good enough to still be marketable. Cause if you had somebody, I mean, especially,

you know, now a lot of, you know, a lot of people are natural, just would not be able to get on magazines. So if you pull up some of these mutants, you had some, I mean,

you had someone like, yeah, Marcus rule. I mean, let's just say for hypothetically speaking myself and most of the fitness industry are right. And you know, Mike's not natural. Well, he was a good, in a way he was kind of a good ambassador for it because he looks

good. He looked great. He looked good enough to be on a magazine cover and he's claiming natural. That's interesting. You know, now, you know, that's, that's sparking interest in natural bodybuilding being a thing. Next step, you get the transparency here. And now people are talking about calling out fake natties and that's not, and now we get more interested in, okay, well, what does a real natty look like? And now I think you have,

Oh God, that whole phrase is just dumb. And I'm not even, I'm not saying you're a dumb, but the phrase of what does a real natty look like? We're all human beings who have the ability to build muscle. And some human beings have a higher propensity to do that than others. Like understand there's a fucking difference.

When Greg Doucette makes natty or not videos, it like greg have you seen fucking nfl athletes and you'll say all of them are probably on drugs too but at the same time like when you look at elite athletes i'm not just talking about elite lifters i'm not talking lifters who are different from elite level athletes elite level athletes are fucking freaks and if you've ever been in a college gym room or any type of those high elite level rooms where a lot of these athletes aren't lifting a crazy amount, but look like they could be on a bodybuilding stage, like, nah, there's a different level of ability and years when it comes to these people. Some of these people have been lifelong athletes. They've been sprinting

since they were five years old. And you start lifting when you're 18, 19 or 20, and you want to look, you think that you have that capacity. I think it's very odd where we all think that just because we start lifting, we should be able to have the capacity of somebody who else who's been at it for a long time and has a better potential than you. Because we look at it with intelligence. We think that there's a stark difference with IQ when you get to a certain age, right? That that's unchanging. People have different abilities. It's like not every natty has the same fucking ability it's unfortunate but it doesn't mean you can't build muscle doesn't mean you can't be the best version of yourself it just

means that you might not look like a kendall richmond or a mike o'hearn or some of those individuals but there are some people who can. You look at tested powerlifting and there's some phenomenal athletes in there. We got Jesus Olivares on the podcast before. Holy shit, yeah. I mean, I've never really seen anybody with like that amount of muscle mass. It's like just insane.

I mean, maybe some of these high level bodybuilders, maybe they have reached a similar amount of muscle mass, but I would imagine he'd be right there with them. Ray Williams is also somebody we've had in the podcast before, squatted over a thousand pounds, still one of the best squatters in the world and maybe one of the best squatters of all time. There's Ray and I think, or that's Jesus.

And I think Ray tested with the highest muscle, the highest muscle in weight in a, like a body fat test that he did. I want to say it's like – I can't remember the number, but it was something absurd, like 280 pounds of muscle or something ridiculous, maybe more even. I don't know, but it was just off the charts. And what I think is, okay, perhaps those two athletes are figuring out a way to pass the test, right? But then what about the whole division?

What about the whole entire, what about the whole organization? Like, is everyone doing it? Because even if you look at like the fifth place guy, he's still squatting like 780 or 800 pounds. Like that dude's still really strong. It's like that dude is still really strong. So I like to kind of be a little optimistic about this stuff and think like the guy is competing in a natural federation and he's saying that he's natural. I'm just going to allow him to kind of say that. And then with my own experience with a lot of people over the years, this guy included right here, not Jesus, but john cena um you know he's told me a time and time again he's natural i have my own opinions but um he's

an athlete that has been tested and then people are like oh he's in a wwe so he's been uh you know he was probably tested by vince you know like in a hotel room or something like that. It's like, no, he actually has gotten tested. He actually has the results on his, he's got, I think like hundreds of them in his gym. They're on the wall because back a couple of years ago, I don't think WWE does this anymore, but they had a wellness program. There actually were drug testing people regularly. And so he would post his blood work up all the time. By the way,amans has 305

pounds no fat-free mass wow so pure muscle at 404 pounds total he was 24.3 body fat 305 pounds of fat-free mass oh my god yeah and he breaks the ffmi that that fucking ffmi scale yeah same here like i mean but that's a scale that people use to be like oh see you know that that's something i i don't even i don't use at all i i don't think it has a whole lot of value because i mean the way they came up with it they tried to look at a lot of the um pre-serial era champions to figure it out and just looking at the guys they selected they they left out the biggest outliers you You know, they left out Herman Garner. I believe they left out John Krimak.

So you're not, I mean, you've, and those, you know, those guys basically were, they had an FFMI that would be equivalent to Arnold Schwarzenegger, basically.

I mean, depending on how you average up, like you're eyeballing body fat, obviously. So it's not, it's not, it's not, you know,

it's not, you know, completely, um, well, I mean, this is all, you you know a rough estimate but they left out some of the biggest outliers so i don't like ffmi i'm i'm never going to call

somebody out just purely your numbers are too big well i did with michael hearn but then there's all there's also there's also the leanness factor and just the time period where i think it kind of makes sense um that's why i said i you know i hate that you picked him because there's so many people that are so much easier to pick on there are things that raise an eyebrow like when when you're good at kind of everything kind of raise the eyebrow a little bit but there are people that are just they're exceptional athletes they have particular genetics they have particular environments they grew up in that might lend itself to a lot of these things and so it's it is really difficult to tell but you know somebody's uh you know when i was power lifting it was kind of easy to tell like if somebody was really amazing

at a squat if someone's really amazing at a bench press and someone's really amazing at a deadlift you can kind of go uh you know they start to be like world class and all three and you're like but it does happen right it happens but it's just like, it's really, really rare. Because I mean, you can have, you can just be born with the right leverages and you are just a phenomenon. I had actually had a experience like that too. My training partner in college, a guy by the name of Nate Davis, he ended up squatting. That's Kendall, by the way.

She's, he's been on our show before. He was the WNBF pro. He think he won the pro, he won the WNBF world twice. And then he went to the NPC and became a classic physique pro as a natural. Now, he did place last at the Arnold pro, but this is a natural guy. He competed with guys that weren't tested. Yeah. And they're all not tested.

But Kendall, his his thing is like he wants. And the thing is, is even though he answered the IFBB, he hasn't gained any extra crazy mastery. He's just trying to get into better conditioning. But this is where it's like, you know, where people say, I want to see what I can achieve. Most of y'all ain't going to achieve Kendall, but that doesn't mean Kendall's not natural. Right. Most people are not going to achieve that, but that doesn't mean he's not natural. That doesn't mean that the information he has for people in terms of training isn't good.

His legs are crazy. Yeah, I'd have to, I mean, I'd have to, I wouldn't be, like, just looking at this, I wouldn't be comfortable rendering judgment. I think it could potentially be possible. It could potentially not, but I, you know, I don't know what the guy trains like or anything like that. So there's, this, this would be something where I wouldn't say this is beyond the pale. Certainly. Yeah. A constant thing that's been beneficial for all of our health has been intaking enough protein, but also intaking quality protein. And that's why we've been partnering with good life proteins for years now. Good life, not only sells P Monty's beef, which is our favorite beef. And the main reason why it's our favorite is

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The maple bacon is so good. The maple bacon is really good. Yo, my girl put those in these bell peppers with steak and chicken. Oh, my God. It was so good. But either way, guys, protein is essential. And Good Life is the place where you can get all of your high-quality proteins. So, Andrew, how can they get it? Yes. You can head over to good life,

proteins.com and enter promo code power project to save 20% off your entire order links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Um, but, but yeah, I mean like my, my,

my power lifting, um, uh, training partner, I mean, this guy, Nate Davis, I think,

yeah, he's quite like 800, I believe at some point people, people, uh, well people, it was in the Southern power lifting Federation. so some people talked smack about the depth. It looks really good because he has these massive quads, so it looks good, but maybe it wasn't.

Whatever. The guy put 800 pounds on his back and went down and went back up. He was squatting 600 when I was training with him, but all his other lifts were about the same as mine. We would go neck and neck, bench press. He'd get five pounds and I'd get five more and i actually deadlifted 600 before he did except the squat was just like leaving mine in the absolute dust and you know he had he had the perfect build for it i mean he was jacked you know the guy looked look at you know you know that that that uh picture of the the shaved chimpanzee like crouch down. It just looks really jacked. I think I know. Have you seen that one?

Yeah. Very handsome guy, actually. Very handsome face. But it looks like a shaved chimp. He had kind of short legs, so he had the shaved chimp look. I mean, that is a compliment. The guy, very handsome face, but he just had that muscularity. He was natural.

I don't expect anyone to believe me taking my word for it, because obviously I was friends him but yeah he had yeah that could just kind of yeah that looks but you know his his um you know he had one lift that he was just phenomenal at and he was absolutely jacked but the other um the other lifts and they ended up being you know respectable but it wasn't it was nothing to write home about so i think definitely with strength you have people that just gifted certain things and then you have people that just built to be tanks i mean some some folks just have a different bone structure than everybody else. I think when you're built a particular way too,

it shifts you a particular way. I think the same thing happens with intelligence. You know, if you're intelligent in a certain way, just maybe slightly more, you know, we'll just call it gifted, slightly more gifted. And maybe it's not even gifted. Maybe it's, you know, mom was reading certain things to you when you were a kid or like, there could be so many other factors, but you have just like this little niche thing above everybody else. And then when you go to do that thing, you go to, uh, you go to school and you take a test and you know, you see that everyone else in the class struggled with it and you ace the test or you go out on the football field and you're faster than everybody and you're kind of stronger than everybody and you start you feel so good about those things that it makes sense that

you would really lean into a lot of it and then five six seven years later everyone's like oh it's all genetics with you and you're like i've been yeah i've been running my ass off on this fucking field over here you know i mean genetics is so hard to talk about because at the end of the day no one's doing dna tests we're not we're not actually taking our blood sample to a geneticist. I mean, we're kind of making up stories. I mean, with some of it, you know, like somebody's height is very heritable, like bone structure is heritable. But then you get into like how much muscle a person can put on their bicep. Like how do you even test?

Can a geneticist even test for that? So I hesitate to use genetics on too much of that stuff because it could be training. Like you said, it could be this guy's just been working harder. Or just longer. Or longer or whatever the case – or better. But yeah, I mean I think with strength, I think – we know that there are people that are outliers that are just capable of things that no one else is capable of whether they took drugs or not. Just like there, there's just so much structure, you know, bone structure,

just durability that makes, um, yeah, that makes, like I would, I would not, I would probably never say, okay, this guy is just,

there's this threshold for strength that is not possible naturally. Cause you know, somebody could just come along. It's built a little bit differently, but then when you get into some of the just appearance, more appearance based stuff, you can look at something and say, okay, this doesn't look right. This doesn't look like something that came from nature. You know what I mean?

Especially when you get that profile of you have someone who you look at all their exercise. It looks a lot like just what all the other enhanced guys are doing. Everything they're saying all their training advice it's all looking the same and they look the same it's like we have a whole profile but i mean i i agree a lot of what greg de set um does it's just it's it's really just if you look a certain level of good like good equals steroids bad equals natty i don't really like that you know it's so funny that it's coming from a dude who's on trt and no no shade to trt but it's like why are you even commenting on what you think is natural like i don't know it's very odd like that's very odd well then he goes back and tries

to say like when he was natural versus not natural and that's just not a great thing to like people are just gonna assume that you you know that anytime you did anything good, it doesn't matter what timeline it's in, that you did it. He's found himself in a very oddly – in kind of the perfect position because since he's on TRT and he's open about TRT, he's now honest about everything since most people are lying about him being on TRT. And now him being open on TRT, he's now going to call out people he feels are on drugs you know even though he actually is but he's the honest one and they're now lying about it it's like how so the frame is pretty yeah it's a nasty it's a convenient frame how brave of him to make all that money but you know i mean my thing is okay so he he knows what steroids are like because he's taking them i mean what is his experience with i mean is he really was was his experience with what it's like

to be natural he actually has some pictures when he did natural bodybuilding didn't he get called didn't get called out what didn't he try to pull the natural bodybuilding thing until he got caught and then he did the open enhanced thing i think that was the story he he tried to do the natural thing got caught then switched to an hand yeah i think I think he's, you know, to his credit, I think he's always been strong. I think he's always been good. Oh, yeah. He's strong. Oh, yeah.

100%. For like 50 or some shit. Yeah, I think even before he ever took anything, I think he, you know, trained his ass off and got there. Yeah, that's wild. But, I mean, like looking at his stuff, and I'm not someone who, it's a controversial stance, but I'm not someone who's completely against Natty and not call-outs. But I think with him, it's pretty clear. It's just good equals enhanced, bad equals Natty, and it's not that simple. Like some people that look better than some enhanced people.

Like I saw a guy the other day. I don't even remember what his name was, but this is a guy posing. And I mean i made the comment the guy the guy has um enhanced skin and natty muscles because he he looked pretty he looked pretty small but he just had like you know he had acne all over the place and clearly you know that you know that dry texture that you that you know sometimes you see the real dryness that you know natty's tend to have a hard time getting he had all that but his muscles are small it's like so you know there are some people that are not that impressive that I'm still going to easily say, oh, look at that guy's workouts.

I didn't build that. But then other times, you'll get people who are really impressive who I'll say, no, I believe him because everything that he says is – like what he's doing justifies it. Like, for example, with you, I believe you. I know a lot of people have called you a fake Nadis. Oh, we have to believe him. He could us out that's that's true too but even if i weren't being like physically threatened by a jiu-jitsu master like here here's what here's why here's you know here's why i believe you it's not it's not because it's not because you don't look good like you look bad so therefore you're natty like that's not the greatest set thing here's why okay

now i mean i don't know you i i met you today i I like what I see so far, but I don't, I don't know you, you know, I don't, I can't, I can't tell anyone what you've ever done. I don't. But what the reason that I'm, that I do tend to believe you is because I know what it would generally take for impressive naturals to get built up. Like what did people do before? Like the, we know a know 100 didn't take steroids because they couldn't have any well they they were uh expressing a very high top-end strength i mean you did power lifting crazy numbers they were spending a lot of time on bodybuilding hypertrophy training and they were very good at their movement i mean their their mobility

was was high they were training everything through full range of motion. Those numbers in powerlifting, by the way, too, they weren't disgusting. They weren't disgusting. They were very, very good, but it wasn't like he squatted 800. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, 800. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty good. I think he squatted

6-something, really easy. 640-something. Oh, yeah, yeah. 640 something. Oh, 640 something. And then 755 really easy. Oh, yeah, yeah. 6640. I mean, what are you? Jesus. Yeah, that's not an impressive number.

I'm just saying there's no alarms there is my point. You know, it's not. For the weight I was even doing it at, I was like 270, right, when I was lifting those weights. Well, yeah, I mean, to me, honestly, strength generally is actually, it's actually a green flag, not a red flag. A lot of people – this is one of the things that Greg does that I don't like is that treating strength as an indicator of enhanced. It's the reverse.

Like when you look down at Russ Swall. No, people are going to take this the wrong way. So don't take – there's some nuance to this because I've seen people take this the wrong way, but generally speaking, if someone is really impressed and claiming to be natty, I'm going to look at strength as something that backs up their case, not something that makes it weaker because you cannot find an example

of anyone who's verified 100%. You know they're natty because steroids hadn't been invented. Who wasn't strong? You find me one. You can't. No one did that. And now it's very commonplace. You see guys who are really big and just kind of disappointing in terms of their strength. And I'm not saying like everyone has to be good at squat bench deadlift because that's not strength.

Maybe you have really big biceps and you can do a really impressive amount of weight in a, you know, incline curl. Yeah. You know, that's, that's strength. It's not, not strength because it's not a strength sport it's still like whatever you're good at you're doing you're demonstrating strength in but you're not going to show me one verifiable natty who has a well-developed muscle group that doesn't have prodigious strength in that muscle group right and then when you get into the like you know the range of motion okay now we're that's interesting they're always very strong right yeah i, even the ones who didn't care, like you won't find, you know, any examples. I mean, Steve Reeves was not trying to be strong.

He, in some ways, he was actually trying to hold himself back because there were certain areas he didn't want to. There were certain areas he didn't want to develop. I think he was wrong for that, by the way. I think he should have, if he'd built up his traps, he would have looked that much more impressive.

There's nothing on earth that could have made him not have wide shoulders, but he thought if I build my traps, I'm going to that much more impressive. There's nothing on earth that could have made him not have wide shoulders. But he thought, if I build my traps, I'm going to have, I'm going to look like a narrow shoulder. My guy, you would have looked, you would have looked even better. But, but, um, and you know, he had the, he had the narrowest waist. He had such a narrow waist. He could, he could build obliques all day. He wouldn't look.

Okay. You're building a case for Encima being naughty. Oh, sorry. Yeah. But even, you know, even he could, could lift a, you Yeah. But even he could lift 400 pounds by the rims of plates. That's crazy. It's brutal. It's in the book.

It's not one that I recommend highly because I think his theory on why he was doing it is not one that's going to hold up. He's the guy that has all those measurements and stuff too, right? Right. He's got like the ideal. And the measurements are wild, but cool. I think it's a cool goal for a lot of people. And people will point to him and say he must have been taking steroids because nobody could ever look like that naturally. He was intentionally trying to keep himself less developed than he could have been.

There were whole muscle. He was underdeveloping whole muscle groups trying to avoid getting too big in certain areas because he had this aesthetic ideal. He could have gotten much bigger. But they'll come up with conspiracy theories that despite being a movie star with perfect skin, he was taking this early steroid that gave mostly acne and no results. Yeah, he was totally – What year was he around? I think 49 was one of his bigger competitions so you know there was a steroid product that had been invented but it was by all accounts it was

just something that would make you hairy and acne ridden and do very little in terms of your actual water retention hair acne probably not any muscles so this is not what i see but you know when i look at the guy um but anyway i was building the case and the what I see, but you know, when I look at the guy, um, but anyway, I was building the case and the case is just, you know, you know,

we're, we're just, we're hitting all the bases where, um, we have the strength covered. That's what impressive naturals do. We have the, um,

you know, obviously we have bodybuilding. Obviously you have to spend a lot of time bodybuilding in order to build muscle, but then just getting all those extra ranges in, I mean, there's a lot that doesn't, that's harder to develop when you're saying in a more limited, um, um, range of motion, range of motion. I think, I do think a lot of people kind of

just rely on the drugs these days to train things that they don't want to bother reaching and getting to and just, you know, Oh, whatever. I'll just like, you know, like I'll just do the basics and, you know know rely on that i think it works but anyway so that's something that's something that you know is a big um green flag in my opinion and you know the other thing just looks like you look huge you look huger in person than you do online um but i don't get i don't look at you and just say you know that doesn't look right it doesn't look like it doesn't look like a comic book you know what i mean um that's and it's not it's not um quite there well no it's just like you know something i mean he's in proportion and stuff right right i mean it's clear he just has a

big frame like i have i have a buddy who has a similar build um maybe a little taller but similar just huge build and the guy um he he just looks like he's supposed to be that weight he's not i want to actually if he if he gets his upper body up because he's got really really jacked legs really jack calves incredible if he got his upper body up he would just he would look like a freaking sasquatch but right now he he doesn't look jacked he doesn't look like he doesn't look fat he looks like he's just he's a 300 pound human being it looks like he's supposed to be 300 pounds um some people are just supposed to be bigger than others i think i think some you know and that's that's going to be structural then when you see someone who looks

like they're built to be small and slender kind of built like a greyhound but with just balloons coming off that's a little bit like how much is your how much muscle how much ability is your body going to give you to just you know tear bones off the tendon i don't know i mean that's kind of what i look at a little bit more but all that to say you know people look at like ffmi but like that's that's not telling the whole story so a lot of times the biggest guys on in terms of ffmi like you look at them in pictures and you know they don't even seem like the most impressive guys like people i post pictures of um herman garner one in my opinion the the best at the bronze air strongman just incredible guy um people look at pictures pictures of them and i tell them this guy was like 60 242 with abs they're like no it wasn't they they inflated their stats like bro he he he

lifted 660 pounds with one hand like you think he's gonna do that at 200 pounds i mean he you know he juggled like four kettlebells weighing 430 pounds overhead with you know like you you gotta be kind of big but you see him standing next to a regular person he looks now we do have to mention that some of these guys came from the carnival type era and uh that's where professional wrestling came from right and we know how real that is so that's so that's true but but um deflate your hopes and dreams no i mean there are varying qualities of information some people are absolutely known to exaggerate make stuff up and then some people have a better mislabel

of weight or something like that because i mean because at the end of the day like they they actually did have competitions they had like judges referees so so some of the stuff some some of the feats that you hear about have asterisks now some people have attributed garner to a um a 727 pound one-hand deadlift which is which there's a possibility that that's a misunderstanding of what the implement was. It may have been like a block with a handle. We're not talking about a revolving barbell. But the six, I think, what, 664 figure that I cited, that was done in front of a judge, Wade Waits and everything. So there are different standards, you know.

Some things, like, are apocryphal. Like, everyone's got a story about so-and-so did so-and-so at so-and-so time. But then, I mean, they had competitions, they had accredited judges, they had organizations just like we do. Maybe they didn't have quite the same level of electronic scales, but some of this stuff was done under, you know, conditions where we can say, you know, maybe they didn't weigh it with the same accuracy we would today, but it's pretty close. So I can believe it. Cause like Jesus Olivares exists. And yeah, like I've got, i've seen two people so so in my book there are two people pulling six plates are over one handed in the modern era uh their pictures are in the book so you're telling me the best in the

world ever couldn't have done 60 pounds more than that one of them um um one of them is – what's his name? Joey Keeley. I think he's got a private profile. He's like Scientology official. I don't even know if you want me to mention his name. But he gave me authorization to put his picture in the book. So if I can put it in my book, I guess I can say his name. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, anyway, yeah. So he got 550,-on locked out. He got six plates, 585, basically to the knee level. In the one-hand deadlift, you don't have to get the same kind of decisive lockout as in powerlifting because that's just not possible. The standard is basically at or above the knees and then your, your, your legs have to be locked. See, that's when he was a lot younger. He's, he's a young guy and that's when he was, I actually, I actually told him, Hey, don't do that. Um, you're going to hurt yourself. Um, but yeah, he's come back and, um, he's come back and just cleanly lifted, you know, insane weights one handed. So anyway, um,

it's like the ultimate exercise to choke someone out. Yeah. So, so anyway, no, he, he, um,

yeah, he's, he's lifted insane weights. And as far as I know, the guy's natural, I haven't asked him, but I mean, I don't think he's not,

he's not a serious competitor. Are there, uh, are there places you guys can go and compete like this? And if not, is that something that you would ever want to try to set up somehow? So yes and no. So there's USA All-Around Weightlifting Association and the international version, International All-Around Weightlifting Association. They've been established for a long time.

They have a longer list of lifts than i could ever even like write down so they i feel like they have lifts that they haven't even actually competed in their rule book it's it's a crazy variety of lifts um and they've actually started the issue for a while was that they were located in like two gyms on the east coast but then um i think they started doing uh postal meets where you can like submit videos. I think you still have to have somebody kind of ref your lifts and plate and weigh your plates. But you can do that online. Do you care about that at all or not really? I mean, I don't really care that much about competing, to be honest. Just having fun with it.

Yeah. It's going to – I'm trying not to, well, no, this doesn't sound that bad, I guess. Um, I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of selfish with my time. Like I want to be training for what I want to be training for and preparing for a competition where somebody else picks the lifts is going to interfere with my training. So I don't want to take time out of my training schedule to just, okay, this is the lift that we're doing. Now I have to train for this. I don't really want to do that.

Do you get an opportunity to train with other guys like this, like the guy that you were just showing us there? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would like to do that. It's something that, again, I don't necessarily get the opportunity to, but I totally would. That would be cool for your YouTube channel that you're working on invite some people yeah absolutely yeah i mean the problem is geography obviously this is you know kind of a small nation everyone tends to be you know spread out fairly but if you know i'm definitely open to it um yeah yeah i was just going to point out that the uh i mean there probably have been fake natties since the beginning of time, right? We know of like snake oil salesmen.

But I believe like it really took off with the home run race, right? Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and eventually Barry Bonds. And not to ego stroke, but I think we all became aware that like there was such thing as a fake natty because there were people making a lot of money for their physique. like there was such thing as a fake Natty because there were people making a lot of money for their physique. And then, you know, I didn't know that everybody, you know,

in the magazines were on stuff until bigger, stronger, faster. And I think that's what really exploded everything on the like social media scene and that sort of thing. So we have, you know, Mark and Chris Bell to thank for that.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely that. I mean, there's that conversation transparency yeah i mean before that i wouldn't call them fake natties though because they just no one talked about it there's light i mean i would call it i mean to me i would say a fake natty is someone who

or even if you have like you have a baseball player they're gonna get if they say yeah i'm on steroids they're getting fired right i mean i think that's the rule right so that's not a fake natty you're not coming out even worse at the time they they weren't even tested for it right so oh so it was they weren't even they were allowed to yeah they weren't well they were kind of turning a blind eye yeah like damn ratings are up but mark mcguire just gained like 30 pounds in one season oh well i mean yeah i have no problem with a professional athlete doing what they need to do to keep their career that that no that that is fine that's not something i need to do to keep their career. No, that is fine. That's not something I want to do a crusade against at all.

That's just the way sport is these days. When I'm talking about a fake natty, I'm talking about someone who's saying it when they don't have to. Some reporters should know better than to say, hey, are you on steroids? And they give you a gotcha question. Of course they're not going to be able to say their career is on the line. But I'm talking about someone who's coming out saying it when no one's asking you know yeah so you know the social media people claiming one thing and then and lying about her trying to cover it up or whatever yeah yeah that that's what i'm talking about not not people trying to protect

like pro athletic careers i mean that's that's how how business is you guys want to talk about that post oh no that was controversial the uh the overweight trainer oh yeah back and forth you had a comment here okay well what what was your okay so you know let's play i think we can play this video there's no sound right is there any like uh i think this is something i posted right yeah fitness coach yes am i still working on losing fat yes can i kick most people's butt in the gym most definitely do i have years of experience and knowledge and how to lose weight and gain muscle abs are freaking lutely i do and when i get to my goal weight y'all better watch out because i'm going to be the fastest and strongest chick you've ever seen am i a fat

fitness coach so okay so you had a comment here i don't know if you can zoom in on it andrew the boobs no oh my god let me just text it's next to me i zoom in on something else i mean do you want me to kind of summarize yeah if you remember your comment go ahead i don't know exactly what i said but but my main thing is just like so I've seen this trend of people who are, I think we're supposed to call them in larger bodies, right? Is that correct? Yeah, they're bigger. They're fitness coaches in larger bodies or, you know, and they're saying, okay, you can be, you know, fit at any size. And it's not a reflection of my abilities as a fitness coach that I'm in a larger body is what we're saying now.

And so I'm, I'm never going to come out and like fat shame anyone. Like someone's in the gym lifting weights and they're, you know, they're obese. Okay, good. That's where you're supposed to be. I'm glad to see you doing it. Keep it up. You know, if someone's saying, Hey, this is my personal journey. I'm trying to lose weight.

Good job. Like, I'm glad. Like, I want to see that. But now when you're trying to provide information to other people, so I don't fat shame, I arrogance shame. I think like when I see, like when I see someone and you see a lot of this, like when I, or I mean, we see the salt, we, this is kind of a common thing that started to be seen, you know, like people who have a lot of body fat claiming that their fitness coaches and trying to put out information. It's i think when in most cases these people are have have failed to you know stay

lean have gained weight and everything because they were basically trying to use advice that isn't really helpful and i'm i'm getting i'm going to get controversial here but they're basically following mainstream guidelines right they're following what a registered dietitian is supposed to tell them. They're trying to do it the approved way, right? And they're just so confident that they're right because I'm following the rules. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I talked to a registered dietitian. I hear that a lot.

I talked to her. No, I did try to lose weight because I talked to a registered dietitian. I hear that a lot. I talked to her. No, I did try to lose weight because I talked to a registered dietitian. Okay. So there, so the issue is that they're, they're confident even though they're wrong, because the reality is, you know, they are eating things that are making it harder for them to lose weight. They're not, they're not considering alternative strategies because those are wrong. Bad people do that. You're not supposed to eat a lot of meat. That's what bad people do. That's unhealthy. You can't eat red meat. I mean, and I actually, I said, I, I, whatever I commented, I commented before I did my research, but I did actually figure out who this lady was and looked up what she posted. And sure enough, like she's,

I'm not bashing everyone by saying this, but she's posting like weight loss meals. And it's like, there's like a bunch of pasta. It's like exactly what I was thinking. Like, you know, like, and I'm not bashing pasta, but I'm saying like, gotta be careful. You should be eating like, okay, if you're having a heavier person, you're trying to lose weight with less of the foods that typically put most people in a position to gain weight is probably not a good idea because it's too hard. Probably not a good idea because it's too hard. Right. And there's no red meat to be seen anywhere on the page. And it's like, if you're in, if you're in the position where you're having difficulty controlling calories, uh, well, like we have kind of a, imagine we have like a Venn diet. I mean, you guys are on the, I'm not preaching to the choir, but I'm just, this is the way I would put it.

Like you have things that you want to eat, things that are satiating and things that are low calorie. Like, and there's like one thing that's in the middle that you want to eat that is satiating per calorie and that's going to get you to stop eating and guess what that is it's animal products it's red meat it's eggs it's all that good stuff that we we're all kind of you know preaching the same choir and then you have but then you have these registered dietitians people who are doing the system approved messaging they're going to try to take out that center of the venn diagram which is the most you, the most beneficial to people that are struggling

with their weight. And now you have to try to do it with other things. Okay. Now you've got grilled chicken breasts. You don't really want to eat it, but I guess it's satiating or you have pasta. You want to eat it, but it's not satiating. You guys get the idea. So, yeah.

So I think, so these people, so I think a lot of these people are just, they're so convinced they're right that they're going to just keep doing what they're doing even if it's obviously demonstrably not working. Because if you're a fitness professional, you're – this lady is very strong. I mean she's dead lifting 315 for reps. You're working at – you're that good at exercise and you obviously care about fitness and you're having that much trouble maintaining your weight. It should be – like you should get to a point where it's easy. Would you guys agree? I would say, yes, you should get to a point. You know, we don't know where she is on her journey, how much she's lost. And I think that's kind of one thing that I think maybe some people who are bigger, who might be trainers have maybe a slight advantage. The advantage being

they can relate to a person in that situation. And I'm saying contextually, let's say someone's lost 50, 100 pounds, they're still heading down. They're being consistent. They're actually making progress. The things that people who are 400 pounds go through when it comes to the psychology with the way they look at food, the way they look at eating, trying to get up and go take a walk, all these little things that I take for granted, I can easily go walk without a problem. And our homie Russell- You can say, I get it. It's hard for you. It's hard for me still, because I'm still heavy. I'm still working on it. Right. So I think that there's some people who like, yeah, they're heavier, but they can actually

be very good trainers because there's things that they understand about the way that a lot bigger people live their lives. And then there's the situations that you're talking about, right? Where it's just like, you know, it's not really great nutrition advice. And the only reason why they're getting hired is because they're big and they can, you know, they can relate. Right. But I think that relatability factor is a plus for some heavy trainers that are actually very good at it. Right. So I think that relatability factor is a plus for some heavy trainers that are actually very good at it. Right. So, so my understanding of the post, my understanding wasn't that she was like, she started out like 400 and she got down to here. My understanding was she was fitter and then gained weight as a trainer. That was my, if I'm

wrong, then that would, that would definitely change. That would change my outcome or that would change my opinion. Like if she's, if she's midway through her process that would, that would definitely change. That would change my outcome or that would change my opinion. If she's, if she's midway through her process, that, that would be a different thing. My understanding of that was that she was a fitness trainer and, you know, built up a good level of fitness and gain weight. That's what I'm saying shouldn't happen now. I mean, now if you're, yeah, yeah. Sorry for all who are struggling like that, but like, I mean, ideally, yeah, you're right. No, I mean, as far – so if I'm wrong, then I just mouth off on misunderstanding the situation.

And that's on me if that's true. But if – my understanding was that she had gained weight. I have seen some other people that were – oops, sorry. That were fitter and gained weight. And that I would say if you know what to eat and you're not like hell-bent on I will eat the system-approved diet, that should not – at least not to that extent. That should not happen. I think it's really easy to get distracted by someone's particular message. That whole thing was like shot and sort of set up in a way that she's lifting this weight and she's doing it quite easily.

She's obviously very proficient at lifting. And she is kind of overly confident saying like, fuck it, man, I'm a little chubby, but here's what I think. And I can still help a lot of people. So when I look at that message, I'm just thinking, you know what? She's right. I bet you she can help a lot of people. And I don't have a problem with her helping people.

What do you think your hangup is with someone like that trying to help people? other people, you know, a lot of people are struggling. I mean, so many people are struggling with this stuff. I mean, obesity is obviously an epidemic. It's, it's the most, it's arguably the most serious, you know, thing that's happened in, you know, in centuries, really. I mean, it's, it's, it's an unprecedented health crisis. So, so many people are struggling with that. So, it's not about her. I don't, I don't have any antipathy towards her as a person, but if she is spreading a message, which I think she is just about, um, you know, what to eat for weight loss, that's not making it easy on people. Cause I'm not about like hardcore, just, oh yeah, just discipline, just be more disciplined, just be more hardcore, wake up at 4am and be more disciplined. Like I want to make it as easy as possible on people. Like these people need easy, they don't need hard. And what

makes it easy is just, you know, eating things that they tell you you're not allowed to eat you're not allowed to eat red meat well that's what makes that's what that's what makes it as easy as possible is that going to work for everyone no i mean probably not everyone but it's gonna like i can tell you from personal experience and a ton like i mean you couldn't count all the people that can like i think i'm kind of a middle-throat guy like i think i would never i would never become like 400 pounds if i'd never lifted and just ate whatever i wanted but i also wouldn't be skinny i'd be i'd be like i'd be chubby you know i was a chubby teenager until i started getting into fitness i just you know i'd be middle i think my metabolism we'd all be pretty husky if we just kind of did what we wanted yeah i mean i think i think my metabolism

is like middle of the road i don't think i i don't, it's not something that's ever been like, oh, I have like the worst genes in the world for obesity, but I'm also not the naturally skinny person that can eat whatever they want and stay ripped. So yeah, I've tried it. I've tried multiple things. I've tried, obviously the old school bodybuilding diet, like not old school, old school was high fat, low carb, but what I thought was old school was just, you know, like rice and chicken and, you know, the mainstream diet, all that stuff. And man, weight loss is hard. It's miserable.

It sucks. It's draining. You're just looking forward to the next thing you get to eat, even though it's like chicken and rice. And it's just sad. And that's when I was young and my metabolism was supposed to be good. In my early 20s, I'm supposed to be at the pinnacle of life. And now I'm sitting here. I'm supposed to be at the point where people are starting to direct TRT ads at me.

I'm middle-aged. I've got two kids. Everything's supposed to be working against me. And now it's easy. I can get leaner than I was then. And it's not even hard. I mean, I'm not saying there's no effort at all. But it's just, you know, it's night and day.

And I think that's something that should be shared with people. And if someone's saying something that confuses that message, like they're saying, okay, well, this is what you need to eat for fat loss because this is healthy. But it's also okay to be in a larger body because that's healthy at any size. Like, no, like, sorry, we got to be, we got to be savage with this. Like, we need to get people the best information possible, make it easy on them. Your conflict with the whole thing is, is her actual message. Right. And maybe her, your understanding of her knowledge based on kind of poking around on her

social media a little bit. And just the, that's fair. I think that's your implausibility. I think that's legit. I mean, I think we all kind of looked and again, if I was wrong about her saying that she gained weight as a fitness coach, that would be different. Like if she's starting from like, just, you know, let's say she was 400 pounds and then she got down here, that would be a little bit different. But if someone like, if someone was a fitness coach, gained weight and is still trying to preach to other people about what they need to eat and it's kind of like registered dietitian stuff, that's where I say it's arrogance. Like you are refusing to admit, even though demonstrably there are reasons to think you're wrong.

So it's, and if that's not the case with her, there are other people that I would say that I've seen that it is demonstrably the case with their, what they're preaching doesn't line up with, you know, what I, what I think, what we all think is just the best advice to make it easy on people to be healthy. And if they're too arrogant to admit that they're wrong

because they like certain credentials, they like being in accordance with the institutions, what have you, well, that's arrogance shaming, not fat shaming. I would never, ever criticize someone who's trying to get healthier. That's, you know, like, go for it, get in the gym. But just, you know, make sure that you're right if you want to lead other people, you know? I think the toughest thing we face is trying to dissect, uh, and trying to, uh, be critical and have a judgment, um, with the statements that people make and the information

that they have rather than the avatar that they're in. And that's why I said, I think that video is distracting. You know, sometimes these videos are, um. Sometimes these videos are – and a lot of things are on purpose. Like I reposted that on purpose because I knew it would get like a strong reaction just like clickbait and just like these other things. And it makes it very difficult to say, you know what? I don't care that that guy is fat. He had really good – what he said about diet, what that guy said about diet right there, that's actually really true. And I think that that's an important point. You know, unfortunately, we're in like a time where we have such a spectacular guest on the show.

There's people who have quotes and there's people that say amazing, really compelling things, but they're not Mike Tyson. They're not Dana White. They're not, you know, they're not famous. It's not LeBron James. It's not somebody that already is already so well known. Like it matters who the information comes from. And so therefore we end up in positions of whether it's like us, you know, if we say something wrong now, it's like people tend to jump down our throats or if we agree with somebody even, or even disagree with

somebody because we're, we're more known. And it's just an interesting place to be in to where we have a really tough time of kind of cutting through, like, forget about, forget about the fact you might think Greg Doucette's voice is annoying. Like, is the topic that he's talking about, is it, is it, is it, as I point to this dick that's in front of me, is, is what he's saying accurate? Is maybe Lane Norton someone that you don't agree with? But like some of the statements that they say are these – maybe you hate Jordan Peterson.

I don't know. You tend to like – as soon as you see somebody, you get a response in your mind whether it's positive or negative. If it's positive, you tend to be accepting of the ideas. mind, whether it's positive or negative, if it's positive, you tend to be accepting of the ideas. If it's negative, you tend to be like, you want to like fight and have conflict with that idea. And I think that that, I think all of us should challenge that, uh, feature or fault of ourselves. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's, it's, you kind of want to root for certain people, even when you know they're wrong. I agree. Cool. Where can people buy your book? Um, atlaspowershrug.com. And, uh, it's also available at links on my Instagram atlaspowershrug and YouTube atlaspowershrug. I gotta say,

that's a great book. You should get it. Cause there's a lot of lists in there I haven't seen before, dude. And it's like, it's really cool how you put all that together. I don't think anyone's done that yet. So it's a great book for any type of lifting enthusiast that wants to do some unconventional shit. Awesome. I really appreciate that. And I mean, seriously, I'm, I'm absolutely floored by the level of positive feedback from, you know, professionals of various, you know, various skillsets who were just giving me positive stuff. I've, like I said, I'm just, just a guy lifting in his parking lot. He started, who happened to explore a couple of things. So it's just, I mean, that really means a lot. Yeah. That stuff that you showed us in the gym today was wild too. I think

you ended up, uh, working up to like what, 335 pounds on one of them or three, uh, three 15. I know you were disappointed. You wanted to lift more, but yeah, I mean, you always want the PR, but it, you know, stars didn't align, to lift more. Yeah, I mean, you always want the PR, but it starts in the line. But yeah, some decent weights. I kind of wanted to show with those that the Zurcher position isn't limited by the arms and everything. And that's also a good way to just kind of unlock that, just

get acclimated to that position. So you can just use it for a variety of things. Does it feel normal, by the way? Does this acclimate to that pain? No, I mean, to me, the Zurcher position is just like the back squat. Any

more comfortable in the front squat. Front squats are hard. Not at all. Especially single arm though. Double? Okay, cool. But single arm fucking Zurcher? It's helpful because it hurts at first first but then you you kind of get acclimated and then and then um you know the the regular position feels fine you know you do a high rep set 20 reps searcher squats or whatever it's just like doing 20 rep back squats

well that sucks i mean obviously doing 20 rep any kind of squats is horrible right but it's not any more horrible than i mean because you know think about it you got a heavy bar on your back that's uncomfortable too i mean it's a you know remember the first time you put a bar on your back for a back squat, it's just like, ah, what, you know, what's going on, you know, in the front squat. I mean, that's still uncomfortable. I, I hate front squats. I'm, I'm be very uncomfortable if you put me in here, but you know, it's with anything you just acclimated. And then it's just such a, it's a good tool because it can just, it can unlock a bunch of other useful exercises. It's so much more practical with the Jefferson curl. It can help with things like the Cossack squat. I've seen people do pistols. I'm not that good yet, but it's just kind of a utility. It's just a good thing to have unlocked where you can just, oh, hey, this is the best way to set that up.

Thanks for coming out. Thanks for showing us all that stuff, and thanks for doing all that stuff in the parking lot in your stretchy jeans. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.