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May 21, 2014 - The Joe Rogan Experience
03:01:09
Joe Rogan Experience #504 - Steve Maxwell
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
01:26:18
s
steve maxwell
01:32:40
Appearances
Clips
a
andy stumpf
00:01
c
craig jones
00:01
j
jamie vernon
00:02
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
Anytime you use that word, anytime you say ladies and gentlemen, you're either joking around or you're being a big phony, right?
Ladies and gentlemen.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Trying to be nice.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Ting.
Ting is a mobile service company, a mobile cell phone company.
How would you say that?
It's not mobile anymore.
Remember they used to call them car phones?
Remember those days?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Steve Maxwell.
steve maxwell
I remember this.
joe rogan
I remember that.
Hey, he's got a car phone.
Look, he's got a car phone in his pocket.
This guy's crazy.
steve maxwell
They're as big as your arm, man.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
They used to be car phones.
They were car phones before they were mobile phones.
Ting has it set up so that you pay for what you use.
What they do is they take...
Ting buys time on the Sprint backbone, so you get the exact same service you'd get with a major carrier like Sprint, but they do it their own way with their own rates and their own deal.
And their deal is they don't have any like, oh, you get 100 minutes a month or 200 minutes a month.
You just pay for what you use.
In that method, you'd be surprised.
98% of people would save money with Ting.
They have no early termination fees and no contracts.
So they cut all that nonsense out.
And I honestly think that that's going to be the future.
I think that all that stuff about contracts, it's a scam.
They rope you in and they rope you in and they get you in debt.
Like when you buy a phone from a normal carrier, say if you buy an iPhone and you sign up for a two-year contract and you buy an iPhone, you're not really buying that phone.
You're buying a piece of that phone and then the rest of it you're paying off over a long period of time.
That's why when you want to leave, they hit you with this big cancellation fee.
Ting says, you know what?
Fuck all that.
Let's just cancel all that nonsense.
Let's stop doing that.
Sell people the phones for what the phone's worth.
Sell it to them at a reasonable rate and give them very reasonable rates for their service itself.
98% of people would save money with Ting.
That's pretty crazy.
$21 the average monthly bill per device for Ting customers.
I know almost everybody pays more than $21 a month for cell phone coverage.
And again, you're using the best Android phones available.
You can also bring over iPhones from Sprint.
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And if you use rogan.ting.com, that is the website, go there.
You will save $25 off your first device from Ting.
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go there and save money and be a part of an ethical company.
And that's one of the things that I really appreciate about Ting.
They've done all this on their own.
They also, at their two-year anniversary, they slashed their rates.
And they did it without, I mean, they didn't have any motivation to do it other than, you know what, we can do this.
We can offer people a great deal, give them a cheaper deal, and a great deal for people that are power users.
If you're one of those freaks that's constantly downloading things and downloading apps and MP3s and all the like, you can save a shitload of money on Ting.
And the phone that we use now for the podcast is a Ting phone.
So the actual office phone is a Ting phone.
So there, pawpaw, rogan.ting.com.
We're also brought to you by Onnit.
That's O-N-N-I-T, a human optimization website.
We have a new color battle rope in the commercial.
Look at that.
It's very exciting, Jamie.
Now it's red and black.
It looks like it's business, like you're serious.
That's the 50 foot, 2.5 inch battle rope.
We sell strength and conditioning equipment.
We also sell the...
Essentially, by calling yourself a human optimization website, we didn't even really have another name for it.
What does Onnit sell?
Well, we sell...
A bunch of cool shit.
What we sell is all stuff that I use.
As far as fitness equipment, we sell things like weight vests, ab wheels, kettlebells, steel maces, steel clubs.
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Ancient Lakota tradition of preserving buffalo meat with cranberries.
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It's really guilt-free.
And it's also got 14 grams of protein and 140 calories.
And only 4 grams of fat.
Really healthy for you.
No MSG, no soy, no nothing.
And it's one of the things that we started carrying exclusively at Onnit.
They're actually made for Onnit.
And we try to do that as often as possible.
Things like the hemp forest protein bars, we have them made.
We use the finest hemp that we can get from Canada, which big lawsuit right now in Kentucky.
In Kentucky, they're suing the federal government, suing the DEA, because the DEA confiscated hemp seeds, non-psychoactive hemp seeds.
Why do they confiscate them?
Because they're in cahoots, ladies and gentlemen, cahoots with other businesses.
It has nothing to do with protecting the children from hemp.
Hemp is good for you.
Hemp's healthy.
It's an excellent source of protein.
It's also completely free of THC. A lot of people worry, hey, if I take your hemp force, you know, I work at UPS and they test me.
You're not going to test positive.
You will not.
There's zero THC in hemp.
All it is It's a super healthy plant that gets demonized because a bunch of old people are scared of marijuana.
Or people are making money off the fact that marijuana is illegal.
That's more likely the case than not in 2014. But times, they are a-changing.
Anyway, go to Onnit.com, O-N-N-I-T, use the code word ROGAN, and save 10% off any of the supplements.
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This is all stuff that I use.
It's all stuff that Aubrey uses.
It's all stuff that we have found to be either beneficial, either in clinical trials.
We did a double-blind placebo test of AlphaBrain with positive results.
All the results are posted at Onnit.com, along with the references for all the individual ingredients that are in AlphaBrain, ShroomTech, and NewMood.
All of it's explained, but Again, 100% money back guarantee.
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Just say, this stuff sucks, and you get your money back.
Alright, we don't expect that because we're selling you the best shit we could possibly find.
That's it.
unidentified
Boom.
joe rogan
Cue the music, young Jamie.
Steve Maxwell is here.
Use the code word ROGAN on it.
Save yourself some money.
unidentified
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Yes.
Yes!
joe rogan
Steve Maxwell, my friend.
Good to see you, man.
steve maxwell
Hey, great seeing you too, Joe.
joe rogan
If you see, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sitting here in a chair with no back.
Note my perfect posture.
I just received this, what do they call these things?
Ergonomic?
Besides gay.
Don't say gay.
Because a lot of people call it gay.
steve maxwell
Like a SESA chair.
You know, the SESA position.
joe rogan
Yes.
steve maxwell
The samurai position.
joe rogan
Yeah, which is supposed to promote good posture.
Because I always find myself leaning in these chairs like cracking and trying to find a...
So this is...
It makes you actively keep your back in a straight line, right?
Is that the idea behind it?
steve maxwell
That's the idea.
You know, the chair is like the new cigarettes these days.
joe rogan
Yes, that's what they say.
Sitting is the new smoking.
The new smoking.
steve maxwell
It's devastating.
joe rogan
If you have bad posture and you sit in your chair, you really are putting tremendous stress on just a few of the parts of your spine, like a few of the discs.
And those discs oftentimes can rupture.
They say that people get herniated discs from wearing a wallet.
If you have a wallet in your pocket, like say if you're a cab driver or something, and you sit down all the time on a wallet, you can get a herniated disc from that.
steve maxwell
Well, think of the uneven pressure.
Imagine your hip like totally—imagine like wearing a shoe, right, with one heel higher than the other.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Right?
Well, sort of the same idea, where you're sitting with one part of your hip above the other for years.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And, of course, it's going to—you know, the stress of just being so imbalanced is going to take its toll on your body.
joe rogan
folks would never think that that could be possible.
You would just think, well, it's not hurting.
Your body's fine.
It's not going to get injured.
But your body's kind of like, it's all pliable and stuff.
Someone tried to explain to me that everyone has sort of a boundary on how flexible they can be.
And I was listening to this guy talk about this.
Well, Well, you know, it was kind of like dismissing.
Some folks, you know, because I'm flexible, it's like, some folks just aren't that flexible.
You know, you just happen to be naturally flexible.
I'm like, man, I don't know about all that.
I really don't think I'm naturally flexible.
I just went through a lot of pain.
Like, I forced myself to stretch in really painful positions for...
You know, 30 seconds at a time, rest for a minute, 30 seconds at a time.
And when I'm down there for those 30 seconds, that's hard to breathe.
You're experiencing pain.
unidentified
It's like...
joe rogan
That fucking...
A lot of people just aren't willing to do that, you know?
But that's just another example of how the body's kind of pliable.
steve maxwell
It's pretty pliable.
I mean, you couldn't have, like, a lot of these body realignment techniques that work so well, like, after release technique.
I'm most familiar with rolfing.
Have you ever heard of this?
joe rogan
Yeah, we talked about it last time we were here.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I mean, it saved me.
I can't tell you the horrific injuries that rolfing helped me get over from both wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and so forth.
So the body is very malleable, very pliable, and can be moved if the practitioner knows how to do it.
joe rogan
Yeah, I went to Rolfing at the suggestion, one of the guys from my jiu-jitsu class who had a bulging disc and dealt with it with Rolfing, and he went to this guy, but the guy was really wacky.
steve maxwell
Well, they can be a little strange, some of these bodywork types, you know?
joe rogan
This guy was very wacky.
He also believed that Bruce Lee could kill people with one punch, and he kept telling me this, that, you know, Bruce Lee could kill people with just one punch.
I go...
steve maxwell
Especially if it was a three-year-old kid or something.
joe rogan
Yeah, if it's like a fucking baby or something, you could probably kill him with one punch.
People have died with one punch, but it's not normal.
When a guy kills a guy with one punch, like this idea that he's got a gun in his hand, and he just...
Just shoot people.
So this guy was a little wacky, and he had some very interesting ideas about what he was doing.
He would push down your ribs and think it would release your neck, and I wasn't exactly sure if there was a lot of logic about how he was doing it.
steve maxwell
Well, there may be something to that, Joe, you know, because of the way the connected tissue spirals through the body.
joe rogan
How does that work?
steve maxwell
Well, have you ever seen, what do they call that, the plasticized man, that exhibit where they...
joe rogan
Yes, the body works.
steve maxwell
The body works.
joe rogan
Amazing.
steve maxwell
You ever see the fascial part of that?
joe rogan
Yes.
steve maxwell
How the guy ever figured out the chemicals to use to dissolve away all other tissues and leave the one intact that he wanted is just mind-blowing.
But anyway, it looks like DNA strands all spiraled up.
So really, truly, your ankle bone is connected to your neck bone.
And if one part of your body is out of alignment, right, or, you know, stress or immobilized, it can cause some problems in other areas of the body.
joe rogan
Well, this guy would, like, push down on your ribs with his elbows, like, to loosen up things in your back.
It'd be unbelievably painful to just dig in your, you know, his elbow into your ribs and moving things around.
And then he'd have you stand up and he'd look at you.
See if you're leaning to the left or leaning to the right and where your posture is.
I don't know about all that, but when he got down to business on your back and would, you know, break, it would, you want to tap out.
I mean, it's really bad.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's pretty bad.
joe rogan
It's pretty bad.
But, boy, when you leave, it's like everything is just kind of moving better.
steve maxwell
You feel taller?
joe rogan
Yeah, well, you feel, I don't ever feel tall, I'm short.
So are you, pal.
steve maxwell
I'm pretty sure.
joe rogan
But I definitely felt looser.
I felt more relieved.
And I think that there's a lot of folks that go out there And they, you know, they hit the gym, they lift weights, they'll do jujitsu, do all these different things, but they never get massaged.
And I think they're doing themselves a huge disservice.
You know, I've said that to many, many jujitsu guys.
Like, if you can, just at least once a week, just go to one of those Thai massages and have one of those people work on you.
Or if you can, go to a real good sports medicine place and have someone do some deep tissue on you.
Makes a world of difference.
steve maxwell
Well, I mean, think about the nature of the sport, right?
You're basically trying to hurt each other as much as possible.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
You're trying to inflict as much pain or choke the guy to sleep.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
So, I mean, for sure, it takes a toll on the body.
And you have to do these things in order to keep yourself in alignment because there's just no way you can do heavy combat sports like that without suffering.
So you're going to definitely get knocked out of alignment, have things move that...
Shouldn't be moved.
And you need someone to kind of put them back in place.
And a lot of times you can't do it on your own.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, the foam rolling and a lot of times mobility exercises work pretty good for that, self-treatment.
But usually after a couple days and that stuff isn't working, that's when you know it's time to get to...
a therapist to actually put stuff back in place for you.
joe rogan
Do you ever work with lacrosse balls?
Do you ever do any of that?
steve maxwell
I have, yeah.
joe rogan
It's great.
Lie on your back and then put the lacrosse ball under your back and roll, like bridge on the lacrosse ball.
steve maxwell
Oh, sure.
And also there's ways you can put the ball against the wall and like roll into your shoulders and your pecs and so forth and really release a lot of stuff.
But, you know, sometimes that just doesn't work and that's when you know it's time to get to the to the therapist.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's one of the things that I'm finding out through this last year, because this last year has been the year of this back injury that I had, which is way better now.
I mean, now I'm lifting heavy kettlebells and doing all these different things.
No problem, no pain during the day.
And, you know, I've only been doing this for like 10 minutes, this new chair, but I think this might help me too.
But what I'm learning is how many people get injured and then don't take care of it.
They just keep working, they keep training, they try to work around it, and it winds up getting really bad.
steve maxwell
Or ignore it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
It's crazy, isn't it?
joe rogan
It is very crazy, because I'm running into a series of these guys, once I started opening up about this, whether it's from the underground, guys that I know on Twitter, or guys that I know from Jiu Jitsu class, who now have atrophy.
And according to the doctor that administers that Regenikine, that blood spinning procedure that I had done to reduce inflammation, he says once you have atrophy, like, that's really bad.
He's like, a lot of people think they're going to have atrophy and they're going to put it off and put it off.
It's like, if you have that for more than, like, you know, X amount of months, a lot of times those nerves never get fully, they never return 100%.
He said that there's surgery that they have to do to open up the pathways to alleviate the pressure on those nerves.
And if that doesn't happen, if you don't do that, like, you run the chance of...
Having permanent atrophy of your muscles and having permanent loss of function of your limbs.
steve maxwell
Well, it blows my mind how people just don't pay attention to their body.
Like, pain is a signal that something's wrong.
I mean, something's definitely wrong.
And to ignore it and just keep pushing and driving through.
And of course, you know, MMA guys, jiu-jitsu guys, wrestlers, you know, gridiron football, rugby guys, they're pretty tough guys.
And a lot of times they just, you know, are very stoic.
And love doing what they do and just don't want to stop and will just continue to drive themselves, you know, long after they should instead of just taking care of it.
joe rogan
Yeah, and you got to know when to tap out.
You also got to know that if you don't, there's guys that like let themselves get injured, you know, they're like, oh, I'm not tapping.
If you tap, you learn the same mistake than not tapping.
The mistake is you got yourself into a bad position.
Something went wrong.
You got your arm caught.
You either didn't respect the person or the person was better than you and they set you up and they got you.
steve maxwell
And they got you.
joe rogan
And they got you and that's it.
You got got.
And there's a certain point where you have to realize you got got and you got to tap.
Because if you don't tap and you get your elbow snapped, A, it might not ever be the same again and B, you're going to be out for a long time.
steve maxwell
A long time.
Well, it's one thing if you're in the world championships.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah, right.
steve maxwell
And you're a black belt and you're a fighter.
That's what you do.
Or you're in an MMA event.
Right.
Like John Jones versus Vitor Belfort.
unidentified
Yeah, exactly.
steve maxwell
Okay, so you might risk getting your elbow snapped.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
But for the average guy in the gym or even just like a local tournament, come on, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Once you're actually caught...
The technique's already there.
You already made the mistake.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
So acknowledge the mistake, tap out, and forget about it.
Just like, you know, it'd be like being thrown out in a softball game or whatever, right?
But guys, they put too much emphasis on never getting caught or I can't get caught or whatever.
But to get out of whatever hole you've been caught in, it's just zoo strength.
It has nothing to do with technique.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, a good guy, if he gets you, you're got.
joe rogan
It's an interesting thing, isn't it?
People don't like getting thrown out in softball.
Nobody likes when you hit a fly ball and someone catches it.
But if it's a softball game and everybody's drinking beers and you're having burgers, it's no big deal.
But if you're on the mat and you're doing jujitsu and someone catches you with something, there's so much pride and machismo involved in that position, in that situation.
And if you can get out of it, you know, yeah, you didn't get me.
You know, even though your arm's all fucked up.
Like, I've not tapped the things before and got out of it and been okay.
But then my arm is fucked up for months.
You know, like, I had a bad elbow for probably three months.
Because one guard pass, I'm passing, and you know, sometimes you pass, you leave your arm out a little bit.
Try to bait the guy to go for a Kimura so you can try to get over the knees.
And as I'm passing and he locked in the Kimura, I'm like, oh shit, like this is tight.
God damn it.
And I'm trying to figure out, do I tap here or do I keep going, pop, pop, you know, powered out of it.
But then I couldn't do chin-ups.
steve maxwell
Then you suffer.
joe rogan
For like months.
steve maxwell
For months.
joe rogan
For months.
steve maxwell
It's like, you know, it's like one of those deals where you feel the pain, maybe like just a little bit.
But the problem with something like jiu-jitsu or even wrestling sometimes, it goes from zero to 100 in just a brief blink.
joe rogan
Like heel hooks.
steve maxwell
And then by that point, it's already too late.
So the risk-to-benefit ratio, the idea, oh, I got out of it versus not being able to train for weeks or even months, just never makes it worth it.
And that's one of the big differences as you get older.
A guy my age in his 60s, no way, man.
Tap early, tap often.
You get really smart.
That's the key to doing jujitsu for a lifetime.
You just learn, hey man, you got me.
Great job.
I don't care if it's a white belt, whatever.
You got it.
Okay, I made a mistake.
Let's just keep playing, man.
joe rogan
If you teach them the technique correctly and they get in the right position and your arm is deep in their crotch and they got your thumb up and they're pulling on it, they got it.
They got it.
I mean, they might not be able to hang on to it because they're not familiar with the position.
If you watch Ronda Rousey, she's the best example, I think, of someone who knows how to hold an armbar.
Not just keep an armbar, not just catch an armbar, but hold it through all of the transitions.
People can flip over, they can kick their legs over, they can try to roll, and she just keeps it.
She keeps adjusting and she keeps rolling with it.
She's the best at that.
And that's kind of the difference between a real legit black belt like Rhonda and someone who's never done it before, maybe just learning the technique.
And maybe you can kind of get out because if you just turn your arm a little bit and now your elbow's up instead of down and there's no pressure on it, you can kind of If you're good, you can kind of get out of the position.
That sort of is the difference between, you know, maybe someone like...
Maybe the difference between a purple belt and a black belt.
The difference between a white belt and a purple belt.
You know, there's like the ability to hang on longer.
The ability to adjust.
Because one of the beautiful things about Jiu-Jitsu is...
Jiu-Jitsu is like...
The exact opposite of something that is easy and predictable and like a Nautilus machine.
You push that thing forward, it's going to go on the same track every time.
But when you're grappling with a person, even if you know how to execute the technique with the perfect leverage and all that...
People are moving and resisting, and it's a little bit different every time, and their foot's in a little different position every time, and their arms are a little bit different, and it's so interesting in that sense where you're constantly adjusting.
steve maxwell
It's like a fingerprint or a snowflake.
Every time you do it, it's just a little bit different.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I'll tell you a funny story.
As some of your listeners know, I had the first jiu-jitsu academy in the Eastern Seaboard, in the East Coast.
joe rogan
Maxercise.
steve maxwell
Maxercise.
And at one point, we had a guy by the name of Jeff Tomlinson who was a Philadelphia Eagle football player.
This guy was probably about 6'5", 275 at the time, if I remember correctly.
Unbelievably strong and lean and slim.
He was the darling of the Super Bowl, the year that the Eagles went to the Super Bowl in Jacksonville.
He was called up.
He had actually been released from the team, but they had a couple injuries, and they called him in and went in there and caught a couple of touchdown passes.
So he comes to my jiu-jitsu class, and it's like, whoa, wait, man.
Jiu-jitsu was designed to protect us from guys like you, man.
What do you do with a guy?
I mean, just ungodly strong.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
He came to my kettlebell class.
It's the first time I ever had to break out like a 48-kilogram kettlebell just to teach those guys swings.
What is a 48-kilogram?
joe rogan
What is that?
steve maxwell
About 100 pounds.
joe rogan
That's 100?
steve maxwell
I mean, he was just like doing front uprises with, you know, front raises with his shoulders.
He was just so ridiculously strong.
So he gets going with one of my brown butts at the time, a fellow by the name of Ron Huxin, who lives in Hawaii.
He teaches in Hawaii now, but at that time, Ronnie was a brown belt.
And Ron gets him, of course, you know, in an arm block, right?
From the mount.
And the guy literally does a Turkish getup with Ronnie.
Literally lifts him up.
joe rogan
How much does Ronnie weigh?
steve maxwell
Probably about 148 pounds at the time, 150. And, you know, this guy's like 275. He literally does a Turkish getup and is putting Ron's head through the ceiling.
And I remember screaming because, you know, this guy was like really an important part of our team.
Don't hurt.
Don't break Ronnie.
Don't break Ronnie.
Put him down.
Put him down.
It was insane, man.
Just insane just how strong some people can be.
joe rogan
Especially people that are like real super athletes like football players, guys that have been slamming into other 300 pound men for years and hitting sleds and doing power cleans and just...
steve maxwell
Just all sorts of stuff, man.
joe rogan
Their bodies just so designed to just pick up and move heavy things.
The average person, like...
I remember I was in Phoenix one night, and I don't know who this guy was.
He was some pro athlete.
I have no idea who he was.
But he was...
At this gym that I was working out at.
And it was like we were all like little children.
Like little children wandering around the gym.
And this giant showed up.
He wasn't even like a giant amongst men.
I mean, he was so big.
I mean, I don't know.
He was some pro football player.
But he was so big.
I felt like a tiny child.
Like, not like, well, that's a big man and I'm a small man.
Like, I wasn't even the same species of this guy.
He was probably like 6'7", 6'8", somewhere around then.
370 pounds-ish.
Just enormous man.
And you see a person like that and you go, all the self-defense stuff is all...
steve maxwell
Forget about it.
joe rogan
It's all out the window.
steve maxwell
Strength and size does matter.
joe rogan
Of course it matters.
When it's that big.
steve maxwell
The first time I realized this, there was a guy that...
I worked at the first Nautilus gym in...
The Philadelphia area.
It's actually the first one in Pennsylvania.
And there was a guy, I think his name was Ron Chandler or Rick Chandler.
He played center for the New York Jets.
It's the first time I was exposed to an NFL football player.
And I had just no idea how unbelievably fast and strong and powerful these guys are.
And, of course, I was wrestling for the college wrestling team.
I thought I was pretty badass.
And I probably weighed—I was a lot heavier back then, maybe about 177. And we get to messing around, and this guy literally just grabbed me by the ankle and picked me upside down.
I'm not kidding.
Just holding me at arm's length like I was a child.
And it was just, whoa!
I just never felt such power and such strength in all my life.
And, I mean, that's, you know, let's face it, that's pretty much the elite of the elite, right?
As far as power athletes go?
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
They all go to the NFL, man, where they can make some money.
joe rogan
The only other thing I would think of would be, like, those guys that do those strongman competitions.
Those guys are pretty ridiculous, but...
steve maxwell
Pretty crazy strong.
joe rogan
Have you noticed that there's that one guy...
It's not Magnus.
What is the guy's name that's been fighting in MMA? God, what is his name?
steve maxwell
Oh, the German guy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
No, he's Polish.
steve maxwell
Manford.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
joe rogan
God damn it.
steve maxwell
Oh, Pucinowski.
Pucinowski.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Huge guy, but not doing so well in MMA. You know, he got manhandled by Tim Sylvia, which was a fascinating fight, because Tim Sylvia, obviously a very skilled guy.
I don't know why Pucinowski took that fight.
A lot of people...
Tim Sylvia has sort of an awkward build.
He's kind of pigeon-toed.
He's an enormous guy.
Tim is, I think he's like 6'7 or something like that.
Tim's a very big guy.
But he's also got a lot of extra body fat on him.
And you can pull the video up.
There's a video of them fighting.
And, you know, Pujanowski just...
It was just so outclassed.
It was like, who let you fight a former MMA champion?
A former UFC champion?
steve maxwell
Well, you know, a lot of the times these guys, they have a lot of confidence.
And he is a real master at his particular sport.
But that's where they make their mistake, thinking that somehow that mastery in one thing is going to make them better in something else.
And okay, if I were to fight that guy, it would be a nightmare for me.
But when you get against somebody your own size and your own weight, everything changes for these guys.
joe rogan
Look at him.
And that's, by the way, he's lost a lot of weight.
He used to be way bigger when he was just doing strongman stuff, because when he was just doing strongman stuff, he was just all muscle.
But Tim's a big fucking guy, too, and Tim is really long.
Tim just beat his ass, man.
steve maxwell
Plus, he has the requisite skills, you know?
I mean, the skill set is everything in a martial art or a combat sport like that.
Skill will so often overcome just raw strength and raw power.
joe rogan
No, 100%.
Keep playing it.
It's interesting to watch because Pujanowski is so physically strong, but all that gets countered by the technique of Sylvia.
I mean, if these guys were in a weightlifting contest...
You know, he probably might be able to lift twice as much as Sylvia, but he rag-dogs Tim to the ground.
What does Tim do?
He just gets back up.
Now Pujanowski's going to start getting tired.
steve maxwell
Very exhausting taking a big guy down like that over and over and over and over again like that.
joe rogan
And so disheartening if you blow your entire wad taking a guy down and then he just springs right back up to his feet.
steve maxwell
And a lot of these guys, they just have no clue on just the endurance aspect of this game.
joe rogan
No.
There's nothing like it.
steve maxwell
Plus the adrenaline dump.
I mean, imagine.
It's like one of his first fights.
He's in front of thousands and thousands of people.
I mean, you get that adrenaline dump and it just is so exhausting.
joe rogan
He turned purple like a grape as the fight went on.
You start to see it now.
What is that from?
All the blood is rushing to your skin?
Is that what it is?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
A lot of times these guys aren't breathing properly.
The breath holding.
We talked about this last time, the vasava sink, where there's a partial glottal closure, and they're making these grunts, and their blood pressure's building up.
That in itself, not knowing how to breathe, very exhausting.
joe rogan
Yeah, that was one of the things that separated Hickson from a lot of the other jiu-jitsu guys was his work with yoga.
That video, Choke.
The DVD Choke, the documentary, it's fascinating.
Fascinating in a lot of ways, but really fascinating watching him do that diaphragm thing.
steve maxwell
The diaphragm, yeah.
joe rogan
His son Krohn was on here and he was explaining the diaphragm thing and talking about how much emphasis he puts on breathing in his training.
steve maxwell
That stomach churning is supposedly really good for digestion.
It's like an internal massage for your organs and so forth.
joe rogan
Yeah, it seems like it would be.
steve maxwell
The breath he was using is called breath of fire or bellows breath.
But it's interesting, you know, there's different in Ayurvedic medicine, which was the original medical system in the world.
It's like a 5,000-year-old system of medicine.
There's different constitutional types, and there's different types of breathing for each constitutional type.
So for your listeners out there, not everyone should be doing that particular type of breath set.
It can build up too much heat in certain constitutional types.
joe rogan
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
There's 13 different pranayamic breath types, and they're all therapeutic.
The breath is like medicine if it's applied properly for regaining balance in your body and your system.
There's the vata, the pitta, and the kapha.
And Hickson's a Kapha, and that type of breathing system is fantastic for him.
But it wouldn't be so good for me.
There's other types of breathing for me.
joe rogan
Well, how would you know?
steve maxwell
Well, you've got to study this stuff.
joe rogan
But what would make you different from him?
steve maxwell
Your constitutional type is set at birth.
Just like, you know, you've heard of ectomorph, endomorph, mesomorph.
Sort of a similar classification.
And there's different ways that you...
I mean, if you want to actually find out online, you can Google this and find out what type of constitutional type you are.
And then certain dietary, for example, for me, being a pitta, very heat, I produce too much heat, excess heat.
Eating spicy food, for example, is a horrible thing for a guy like me.
unidentified
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
What is this based on?
steve maxwell
Ayurvedics.
It was empirical evidence that, I mean, the ancients weren't stupid.
They didn't have our technology, but they did have the power of observation.
And these people, you know, just imagine how they figured out herbal medicine.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
Which is around a long time before the pharmaceutical companies.
joe rogan
So what would I Google if I was trying to look this up?
steve maxwell
Just Ayurvedic medicine, A-U-R-Y-V-E-D-I-C.
And then look at the dosha types or D-O-S-H-A, dosha.
And there's online tests that you can take.
One of the first books I ever read was called Body, Mind, and Sport by a guy by the name of John DeYard who was an American chiropractor and Ayurvedic physician and does consultation.
And he had a little test in the book that...
This is back, oh, I don't know, probably like 25 years ago I took this test and discovered that I indeed was a pitta.
joe rogan
And how did you discover it?
steve maxwell
Well, there's this whole line of questions.
And you're able to find out your type.
But I've also been to Dr. Ladd's clinic in New Mexico, in Albuquerque.
And he's an aerobatic physician.
Vesat Lad.
He's a well-respected Ayurvedic physician.
And he also has a medical degree.
And he has a clinic also in Mumbai, India.
And there I also was typed by professionals.
And I did what they call a panchakarma, which is a cleanse.
I pretty much didn't eat anything but this real thin type of soup.
It's just like a broth for a week.
And then had all sorts of treatments.
It's a real good cleansing.
Helped the body detoxify.
You know, this environment that we live in, especially in the United States, we're just beset with all sorts of pollutants, air, water.
Toxins in the food.
Your body is capable of ridding itself of all that stuff once it's not burdened by digestion.
joe rogan
Huh.
These questions are very strange.
unidentified
Yeah, well...
joe rogan
What best describes how you act under stress?
steve maxwell
But see, your emotions are also geared towards...
In other words, your constitutional type will affect your emotional outlook and even your mental outlook.
So it's, you know, body, mind, and spirit.
They're not looking just at physical symptoms like Western medicine.
They're looking at the whole package.
You know, what makes Steve Maxwell Steve Maxwell?
What makes Joe Rogan Joe Rogan?
So it's looking at the total package, the way you think, you know, your belief systems, your emotional system, your physical.
And no one's just one type, just one constitutional type.
Of course, we're mixtures of all these things.
And sometimes you can have an imbalance and actually manifest different aspects of other constitutional types.
joe rogan
This is fascinating.
steve maxwell
It is very fascinating.
And it is the oldest medical system.
It's been around for a long time.
joe rogan
Yeah, I'm filling out this form.
I'm trying to find out what I am.
steve maxwell
I'm just guessing, just from looking at you, that you're probably a Kapha, but perhaps not Kapha.
It'd be interesting.
joe rogan
A kapha.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
I like to be active.
It's hard to sit still.
Boom.
Enjoy activity that has a purpose, especially competitive.
Well, that's true, too.
I like leisurely activities.
I like all three of those.
How do you describe that?
I'll go with B, competitive.
Which best describes your walking style?
Got a walking style?
steve maxwell
Yeah, there's a walking style.
What's the choices?
joe rogan
I walk quickly.
I have a determined walk.
I walk slow and steady at a leisurely pace.
steve maxwell
Slow and steady at a leisurely pace.
I was watching your gait when you were walking out to the car.
joe rogan
Okay.
steve maxwell
You walk like a very strong, confident kind of guy.
That would be a coffee.
joe rogan
Okay.
Which best describes your mood?
My mood changes quickly.
My moods change slowly.
My moods are mostly steady.
steve maxwell
Probably steady.
Seeming like a pretty steady guy.
Yeah, pretty steady guy.
joe rogan
Which best describes your memory?
I learn quick and forget quickly.
That's me.
I have a good memory, but I have a good memory too.
I learn slowly, but I have a good long-term memory.
steve maxwell
Well, you have a hell of a mind for facts and figures.
joe rogan
But only if I care.
steve maxwell
That's the problem.
Yeah, well, I mean, isn't it the way it is with everything?
Because, I mean, some of the statistics you come up with on the fighters during the show, you know their coaches, where they trained their records.
Joe, your memory is like a freaking elephant, man.
joe rogan
But that's only if I care.
unidentified
Well, of course.
joe rogan
If you ask me about something that I don't care about.
Like, people always ask me, like, when you're talking about fights, like, are you basing this off notes?
No.
Almost all the stuff that I talk about during the fights is just stuff that I remember, if I remember fights.
steve maxwell
And it's just mind-blowing.
joe rogan
But I do have a sheet that's in front of me that gives me a fighter's record, but it's very rare that I reference it.
Almost all of it is just...
But that's just because I'm a fan of the sport.
But if you ask me things about...
I don't know, the Oliver North trial or something like that.
steve maxwell
But, I mean, your mind only has but so much capacity.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
So, I mean...
joe rogan
What best describes your organization style?
I'm good at getting things started, but not at getting things done.
I'm very organized and I can focus on a project from start to finish.
I need help getting things started, but I am good at seeing things through to the finish.
I'm none of those things.
steve maxwell
Well, sometimes you can be all those things in different situations.
joe rogan
Yeah, we'll just go with A. Alright, congratulations.
You finished the quiz.
Wait a moment while we get your results.
unidentified
Okay.
steve maxwell
Be curious.
I mean, there's so many different tests for this out of anything.
joe rogan
Where the fuck am I? Come on.
steve maxwell
Come on.
joe rogan
I'm trying to come up with the answer.
Okay, this is indicative of a Veda type.
This is indicative of a Peta type.
This is indicative of a Kapha type.
This is indicative of a Kapha type.
This is indicative of a Peta.
I got all of them, man.
steve maxwell
You're a Peta Kapha.
joe rogan
I'm all of them.
steve maxwell
Well, everyone is part of each one, but you're going to be predominantly one or the other.
joe rogan
It doesn't say, though.
steve maxwell
But there's much more in-depth tests.
joe rogan
This sucks.
Went through all this?
steve maxwell
Might have been a bogus test.
joe rogan
Well, yeah, it's probably some westernized test, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, some American version of the ancient tests.
Obviously, it's in English.
The translations are probably a bit funky.
steve maxwell
I was actually typed by a professional in the profession.
I found it to be quite true for me personally.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
So you went to an actual specialist to do this.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I did.
joe rogan
And when you find out your body type or you find out...
steve maxwell
There's a dietary regimen that goes along with this, and there's even exercise that's more beneficial or less beneficial for different types.
joe rogan
And is the idea of balancing yourself?
steve maxwell
Yeah, you want to keep as balanced as possible, and you have to be very careful with imbalances.
This is what manifests all sorts of illnesses, diseases, and so forth.
joe rogan
So food choices and exercise choices?
steve maxwell
Like, for example, I mentioned spice for me is just a terrible thing because I don't need to produce any more heat in my body.
Excess heat would cause my joints to deteriorate and cause osteoarthritis and all sorts of stuff like that.
unidentified
Really?
joe rogan
And that can be caused by spicy food?
steve maxwell
Yeah, by excess heat in the system.
joe rogan
That's correct, but I didn't know that spicy food actually does generate heat.
steve maxwell
It creates inflammation.
unidentified
Oh.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Hmm.
steve maxwell
But see, for certain dosha types, like the vada or the kapha, it can be quite stimulating.
They need that.
joe rogan
Well, what type would be the type that eats a lot of hot food?
steve maxwell
Well, vadas, for example, are kind of skinny and they have an asymmetry to their body.
So that can be really good for them to help energize them.
For a kapha, they tend to put on weight, unwanted body fat and weight.
And sometimes the more spicy type foods would be good for helping rev up their metabolism.
Like the chili and that type of stuff.
That's been shown to...
And they even put that in some of the fat loss formulas.
Maybe you guys actually sell one of those fat loss formulas with your...
No, you don't have any fat burners on your...
joe rogan
I don't believe in any of that shit.
unidentified
Well, I mean...
joe rogan
I really have a problem.
steve maxwell
Coffee's your best, I mean.
joe rogan
Coffee?
steve maxwell
Yeah, I mean, just your caffeine.
joe rogan
Well, I just think that that way out, that everyone's looking for fat burners, it's this one pill fix thing to a very complex issue.
The excess body fat issue is a very complex issue.
steve maxwell
It's very complex.
I mean, it's very emotional with a lot of people.
joe rogan
Sure.
There's so much going on.
steve maxwell
So much going on.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the idea that you're going to fix that with a pill.
steve maxwell
With a pill.
But see, that's one of the problems I have with a lot of supplements.
I know you sell supplements.
I'm not...
joe rogan
I want you to speak as freely as possible.
steve maxwell
There was a time when I had almost a $300 a month habit.
Seriously.
A couple things that I've come to the conclusion.
Once I stopped, I didn't notice a damn bit of difference.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
But there is a difference between just trying to go for general health and trying to maximize your potential as a competitive athlete.
When you're trying to maximize your competitive potential, okay, maybe this might give you like a 1% or 2% edge or something, or 3%.
But if you're elite, that's maybe all you need to be a champion or champion.
Win the worlds or something like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's one extra punch landed.
steve maxwell
Exactly.
joe rogan
One extra takedown defended.
steve maxwell
But for general health, there's not an animal on God's earth that needs supplements.
If you think about it, nature provided everything that every animal on the planet needs.
Think of how strong a bull gorilla is.
Or a water buffalo or a lion.
I mean, everything they need is provided by nature.
And us as the highest form of animal on the planet, I mean, what makes us think that God didn't provide this stuff or nature didn't provide?
joe rogan
For us.
steve maxwell
People have to be willing to eat it, and they're not.
They want to, you know, TV dinners and, you know, nuke their food in the microwave and so forth.
And, you know, we were talking about how, you know, the damaging sugar is last time and how delicious it is.
And, you know, these fast food manufacturers, they're pretty insidious.
I mean, they know how to draw up a taste that is almost literally irresistible.
Some people even say addictive.
joe rogan
Well, it's certainly addictive.
There's sugars in certain foods and certain fast foods that...
Sugar's been shown to be one of the most addictive foods you could ever eat.
steve maxwell
Oh, my God.
It's like freaking crap.
joe rogan
Incredibly addictive.
steve maxwell
But the problem is when people are taking a lot of supplements somehow, they have a tendency to think that it's okay to eat that stuff.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
steve maxwell
And there's a lot...
See, they feel that somehow they're getting it in their pills and their potions.
joe rogan
Like they're covering their bases.
steve maxwell
And their powders and all that.
And there's a lot less desire to go out and eat a proper – they don't have the incentive to go out and eat a really good diet.
I mean I do online personal training and diet fat loss programs.
I'm shocked when I see the food logs of some of the guys that send it in.
I mean there's no raw fruits or raw vegetables.
On their menus.
It's like, wow.
How could you not at least have some?
Yeah, there's a lot of folks out there.
And it's all, you know, cooked, prepared foods.
Canned, bottled, stuffed and plastic wrappers.
It's like, wow.
But, you know, that's what's happened to us in modern society.
So, yes...
Probably there's no real harm in taking supplements for regular people.
joe rogan
Well, there's certain supplements that you're just not going to get the right amount with foods, like fish oil, like omega-3 fatty acids and things along those lines.
You would have to eat a shitload of fish every day to get the proper amount, to reduce inflammation, to increase cognitive abilities, to help muscle growth.
There's a lot of benefits of fish oil that's been shown, and it's incredibly difficult to get that amount of fish oil just from eating fish unless you're eating salmon, fatty salmon all day.
steve maxwell
Or getting fish that isn't polluted with mercury and all that crap.
joe rogan
I had a problem once.
I went to a doctor.
I get blood work done just to see where I'm at and check to see if I'm healthy.
Make sure there's no issues in advance.
And the doctor told me that I had arsenic.
In my body.
And I was like, what?
Like, I'm being poisoned?
Like, what are you talking about?
He's like, it's very low level.
Do you eat a lot of fish?
And I said, I eat sardines.
I was eating like a can of sardines a day.
Sometimes two cans a day.
I love sardines.
And he was like, well, stop doing that.
Because sardines live at the bottom of the ocean and they collect a lot of heavy metals and a lot of pollution.
And I stopped and it was gone.
But I was getting arsenic poisoning from sardines, which is crazy.
steve maxwell
Well, it's a shame because sardines are delicious.
They're a great source of sulfur amino acids, which has been tied into anti-aging.
So it's a shame.
But yeah, our food sources are being ruined on the planet.
joe rogan
Slowly but surely.
steve maxwell
Slowly but surely.
So there's no escape from it.
But that's one reason why I like to do the fasting.
Remember I mentioned the panchakarma, this detox thing?
Your body is able to throw a lot of these toxins off under the right conditions.
joe rogan
How much water are you drinking a day?
steve maxwell
You know, I don't even measure, Joe.
I just drink when thirsty, pretty much.
joe rogan
So you don't have a big jug that you can drink?
unidentified
No, no.
steve maxwell
I think a lot of that was overplayed.
joe rogan
Do you?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
I just don't think it's all that necessary to drink all that much.
joe rogan
Yeah, when people say – it's a weird thing.
Like they say you should have X amount of glasses of water a day or a gallon of water a day.
Like what is that based on?
steve maxwell
I have no idea.
But I do know that one of your best sources for hydration is with raw fruits and raw vegetables.
And when you're getting a lot of this type of plant stuff, you're getting plenty of hydration.
joe rogan
Right, from fruits and vegetables.
steve maxwell
Now, people that don't have any of that stuff, yeah, they probably do need to drink a little bit more.
But, yeah, I mean, for the most part, there's a lot of myths that are perpetrated out there for no rhyme or reason, you know?
And you just wonder, where does all this stuff come from?
joe rogan
Yeah, the water one was a big one.
Like, guys would walk around with these giant jugs of water, and they would say that the average person walks around dehydrated all the time.
But I would watch them, and they'd be peeing every 20 minutes, and I was like, you know, well, you're flushing your body out of toxins.
Like, Are you sure?
steve maxwell
Are you sure?
It sounds to me like you're just overloading your kidneys with a lot of water for no good reason.
joe rogan
But it's that thing where everybody's always worried about the toxins, flushing toxins out.
I'm going to go to the sauna.
It's going to flush out the toxins, and I'm going to drink water.
It's going to flush out the toxins.
I'm doing a cleanse.
It's going to take care of my toxins.
steve maxwell
Like there's all these – Well, there's no sense worrying about it for sure because the worry won't change at the end bit.
I am in favor of overheating baths.
I think it can be a really good thing for longevity.
I mean it's been since the time of – American Indians had their sweat lodge.
The Russians and the Finns had their saunas.
The Romans were very big on steam.
The Turks and so forth.
The Japanese, you know.
Everyone's used heating therapies for producing a good sweat.
And if you think about it, the skin's the largest organ in the body.
And you can eliminate a lot of waste out through the skin through perspiration.
And when you stimulate the skin to sweat, you can sweat out a lot of stuff.
Have you ever heard of infrared sauna?
joe rogan
Yes.
steve maxwell
Well, you know, infrared sauna is so good at helping the body detoxify that drug and alcohol clinics actually install infrared saunas to help people kick drugs and alcohol and cigarettes and so forth.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
I mean, it's tried and true.
I mean, it does work.
And infrared sauna is way different than the old saunas we used to sit in as wrestlers, you know, just the hot box.
These infrared saunas, the temperature doesn't have to be nearly as high.
Man, my God, they feel so good.
The heat's very penetrating, and it's really good for recovery after hard training and so forth.
You'll have to try one sometime.
You might even want to look into putting a little mini one in your house or something.
joe rogan
I am, actually.
My wife has one that she climbs into like a sleeping bag.
It's in some weird sort of infrared sauna and she heats up and she loves this thing.
steve maxwell
That's cool, man.
joe rogan
Dr. Rhonda Patrick, one of the people that I've had on the podcast as a regular, she's fascinating and she's got so much knowledge.
And one of the things that she wrote a paper that was recently published, it's on the benefits of sauna and really incredible on hypothermic conditioning on muscle growth.
steve maxwell
Oh, that's fascinating.
joe rogan
Yeah, and she was saying, you know, I would really not do it justice.
It's something that should be read and gone over because it's a very deep and in-depth paper that she published.
But it's all about the benefits of the sauna and the effect on hormone production and...
The effect of heat stress on the brain.
Really, really interesting stuff.
Heat stress has been shown to increase the expression of brain-derived neurotropic factor.
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
More than exercise alone, when used in conjunction with exercise, this is important because this brain-derived neurotropic factor increases the growth of new brain cells as well as the survival of existing neurons.
An increase in neurogenesis is thought to be responsible for enhancing learning.
It's incredible.
So exercise and sauna enhances learning.
steve maxwell
Well, like I said, the ancients were not stupid people.
You know, we're so smug with our technology.
joe rogan
Yeah, we are, right?
steve maxwell
But, you know, you take the average person and take him 50 miles out in the wilderness and let him go, he would probably die of fright.
He wouldn't even be, you know?
And you take a child, even as little as 200 years ago, and they would be perfectly comfortable living in their environment.
You know, that's what technology has done for us.
We can't even go from point A to point B without our iPhone or our GPS. Right.
joe rogan
I wonder what's going on with that.
You know, when you look at people that used to live a long time ago and used to be able to survive out in the woods and survive without technology, and then you look at...
You ever watch that show Naked and Afraid?
steve maxwell
I have not.
joe rogan
It's a fascinating show because they take people and they take their clothes off and then they leave them in the jungle.
steve maxwell
Oh, I did hear about this.
unidentified
It's funny.
joe rogan
The most fucking ridiculous show ever.
unidentified
Well, wait.
steve maxwell
How the hell do they show that kind of nudity on TV? They just blur out their crotch.
Okay.
joe rogan
They blur out their breasts and blur out their crotch.
And, you know, it's a couple.
A man and a woman.
And I don't know if they have any sex.
I would imagine...
steve maxwell
Did they know each other before the show?
joe rogan
Nope.
unidentified
Oh.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And also, they're naked together.
steve maxwell
Now we're going to have to tune in.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's a fascinating show.
Well...
Fascinating depending upon who the contestants are.
They have, I believe it's 21 days, which is the most amount of time you can go without any food.
So I think they put them in a place that has an abundant amount of water so they can find water.
If they don't put them in the desert for 21 days, they'd be fucking dead in two.
They're probably dead in one.
You know, you put someone in Death Valley with no clothes for a day, no water, no clothes, you got 24 hours if you're lucky.
You might not even make it 24 hours, right?
When it gets to 128 degrees out there?
steve maxwell
Nah, I mean, you could just die a heat stroke even with water.
Yeah.
joe rogan
So these people are out there, and they have to build shelter because they're in the rainforest, so there's all these fucking bugs, and they see bullet ants.
Bullet ants are some of the most painful stings known to man.
They say it's like getting your hand slammed in a car door for 24 hours.
That's what it feels like if one bites you.
steve maxwell
Well, I would definitely be naked and afraid if I was around the freaking bullet ants, man.
joe rogan
Well, they have these rites of passages they do with certain indigenous tribes in the Amazon where they take what looks like oven mitts and they embed bullet ants in these oven mitts all throughout the – like they stick their stingers through.
So they're trapped, and so they just keep stinging.
And then they make these guys wear these gloves and get the shit stung out of them by these bullet ants.
And there was one show, I forget what the show was, but the host actually took part in the ritual himself and put these gloves on.
steve maxwell
On his hands, he got his hands all stung.
Sounds crazy, man.
joe rogan
And you just watch him just drop to his knees in the most intense agony, unimaginable agony, and it just lasts forever.
It lasts like hours and hours and hours of intense, intense agony.
But in getting through it, not only is it like a rite of passage, but it also is what they call...
There's certain tribal...
Tribal cultures where they do not have access to psychedelics.
steve maxwell
So this is like a psychedelic kind of thing because the neurotoxins and the venom kind of puts you in some kind of altered state?
joe rogan
There's a little bit of that.
And there's also your body develops so much resistance to all the venom that there's probably some sort of a serotonin boost.
And there's also things called...
They're called, there's certain rituals where it's not called a psychedelic, it's called like an ordeal poison.
An ordeal poison is like what tribes, where they don't have access to psychedelics, oftentimes they come up with these rituals based on poisoning.
So they'll give someone a poison that gets you to the brink of death.
It gets you like, you're sweating, you're dying, and then it releases you when your body processes it.
steve maxwell
Like the ayahuasca, almost.
joe rogan
But not, because ayahuasca is not poison.
Ayahuasca doesn't harm you, and in fact, ayahuasca...
steve maxwell
Well, it does produce that vomiting, that severe vomiting.
joe rogan
Yeah, but that's just because it's disgusting.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's vile.
joe rogan
It's just a gross...
And you're taking all this plant matter, and it's just a horrible foul taste, and purging anything that might be in your stomach.
But the active ingredients in ayahuasca, not only is it not toxic...
But it's also one of the most transient drugs ever exhibited or ever observed in the body because of the fact that it's a normal human neurotransmitter.
Your body knows how to process it, so your body just can bring you back to baseline very quickly.
steve maxwell
You know, I bought some of that stuff one time.
joe rogan
Ayahuasca?
steve maxwell
Yeah, I was going to do it, then I got scared.
Well, I read where you really should have a shaman that really knows his stuff.
And I thought, you know what?
What if I had a bad trip in this stuff, man?
joe rogan
Where were you?
steve maxwell
But I was living in my camper van at the time out in Arizona, out in the middle of the desert.
joe rogan
How long ago was this?
steve maxwell
It was like, what, about three and a half, four years ago?
And I had read about Ayahuasca from Stuart Wilde.
Who said that this is where the spiritual teachers got to go at some point, you know, once you've reached a certain level.
And he was talking about ayahuasca.
And I thought, that sounds really fascinating.
And it was ridiculously easy to buy over the internet and have mail ordered right to my PO box.
joe rogan
So was it a fully brewed mail?
steve maxwell
No, no, no, no.
It was just the plant matter, like the dried herbal stuff in a sealed plastic bag.
And then I looked at it, and then I read about the processing, and I thought, you know what?
I probably should just wait on this and just...
Wait until someone that really knows what he's doing.
But they have those ayahuasca trips that you can take down in Brazil and even in Mexico.
joe rogan
We're thinking about starting a treatment center in Peru.
You?
unidentified
Personally?
joe rogan
Yeah, my partner from Onnit, Aubrey, has been down there so many times.
He's worked with these guys so many times.
We're thinking about setting up a program because it's legal there.
steve maxwell
Yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
Setting up a program through Onnit where people can travel down there.
And they know that they'll have good accommodations, a legit shaman, safe environment.
And, you know, we've had so many requests from so many people that we would love to send you down there.
steve maxwell
I might have to take you up on that, Joe.
Give me a full report, man.
joe rogan
I would love to go with you.
steve maxwell
Come on, man.
Let's do it, man.
joe rogan
Let's do it.
I'm down.
I'm down with it.
steve maxwell
I'm totally into it.
joe rogan
That would be fascinating.
steve maxwell
I've been thinking about this for years, you know?
unidentified
Yeah?
Yeah.
steve maxwell
It's just really something that just sounds fascinating to me because apparently people have some really amazing psychedelic experiments and just kind of expands the consciousness and they have some pretty intense experiences.
But you would definitely want to be with someone that has taken people through it before.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Definitely not something to mess around with on your own, man.
joe rogan
Well, it's also the environment that you do it in is really important, too.
You don't want to be in an unsafe environment.
You don't want to be tripping your paws off and then something goes wrong.
There's no one there that can handle everything.
You don't want to be caught in a forest fire while you're tripping on DMT. I've only had the synthesized version of it, the hard version of DMT. I haven't had the orally active version of it, which is what ayahuasca is.
And again, you're talking about the ancients knowing their shit.
They weren't fools.
They figured out how to combine two different plants to create this mixture.
See, DMT is not orally active.
If you took DMT in an oral form, monoamine oxidase, which is produced in your gut, would kill the DMT. So they figured out how to take the leaves of certain plants, which have DMT, or the vines of certain plants, which have DMT, and then the leaves of other plants, which have harmine, which is a natural MAO inhibitor, and then they brew it together in this really sort of complicated process and develop this ayahuasca, which is essentially, it becomes an orally active version of the drug that I took.
I just smoked it.
When you smoke it, it's intense.
It's very fast.
It hits you within 15, 20 seconds, and it only lasts about 15 minutes.
It's like just a quick shot to the center of the universe.
The most amazing, unbelievable psychedelic experience you could ever imagine.
I describe it as mushrooms times a million plus aliens.
steve maxwell
Wow.
joe rogan
It's unbelievably intense.
Ayahuasca usually is a little less intense, but it's a prolonged experience.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's many hours.
joe rogan
It takes several hours, yeah.
steve maxwell
I read in Outside Magazine actually about an ayahuasca trip that was organized.
joe rogan
There's a lot of them.
steve maxwell
And out of ten people, two people didn't get anything.
They just got sick and that was it.
And then eight of the ten, one had a bad trip, like freaked.
And then the other seven had fantastic consciousness-raising experience.
joe rogan
Yeah, I wonder what makes people trip because the shamans say that the people that have these bad trips of what's going on is that they're trying to fight it.
They're trying to control the situation and your ego doesn't want to let go and you try to resist and then it just sort of chips away at your inner soul and finds out what's causing this resistance and then penetrates it and freaks you the fuck out.
You can't wrestle with God.
And that's essentially what you're doing when you're having these psychedelic experiences.
You're trying to wrestle with the creative force of the very universe itself.
And this ego thing that people have, oh, don't worry, I can handle it.
There's so many people that have that I can handle it thing.
Ridiculous.
Overqualified confidence for no fucking reason.
steve maxwell
For no reason.
joe rogan
For no reason.
steve maxwell
There's no reason why you think you should be able to handle it.
joe rogan
But you run into it everywhere.
steve maxwell
By going in there a little afraid, you probably have a great experience.
joe rogan
And humble.
Afraid, humble, and say, please be nice to me.
I give up.
I submit myself to you.
And then you're going to get through it.
It's not a toxic thing.
It's not a poisonous thing.
Terrence McKenna had a line, the only fear is that you may die from astonishment.
It's so fucking crazy.
steve maxwell
We're all going to die, not a bad way to go.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, that's what's really crazy is they believe that the experience that you have while you're taking DMT is the exact experience that people have when they're dying because when you're dying, your brain produces dimethyltryptamine.
It's produced during REM sleep.
Well, it's in so many different plants.
The reason why your gut produces this monoamine oxidase, or one of the reasons, it probably serves many purposes, but is that dimethyltryptamine is in a lot of different plants.
So these plants that we eat, Would give us DMT. Like, you would get high off of certain plants.
Like, it's in thousands of different plants.
It's a lot.
You could extract it from just regular grass.
Like, Phalaris grass has DMT in it.
Like, a lot of it.
And that's why certain sheep will eat grasses that have DMT in it, and they die, like, immediately.
Like, you'll find them, like, in the field.
They'll run across a patch of grass that has DMT in there.
Bink!
Legs up, little feet twitching.
steve maxwell
So, like, what might be toxic to a sheep, not so much to a human?
joe rogan
Not at all.
Not at all.
Yeah, DMT's not toxic at all to humans, but to sheep, it just...
steve maxwell
Wow, that's pretty fascinating.
joe rogan
Yeah, kills them.
Don't be a sheep.
steve maxwell
But, you know, going back to what we had mentioned earlier about the ancients not being stupid.
You know, that's basically what Ayurvedic medicine was based on in India.
I mean, these people had amazing powers of observation.
And this is, you know, pre-science.
We put so much faith in science.
But, you know, sometimes you have to think about these so-called studies, you know, with the agendas and so forth.
joe rogan
Well, there's definitely a lot of that, right?
steve maxwell
And, you know, of course, you know, some monetary incentive.
How many times have we seen drugs being totally promoted only to find out later when they're recalled, like all these horrors, you know, like thalidomide in babies back in the 70s or whatever.
I mean, but that happens a lot, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Less so now than it used to.
steve maxwell
Less so now than it used to, but it still happens.
joe rogan
Well, there's more transparency now than ever before, so that makes it much more difficult.
But do you remember Guy Metzger?
Yeah, sure, sure.
You know, he got a stroke from Vioxx.
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
Yeah, Vioxx, he was having arthritis issues with his knees, you know, years of martial arts training.
unidentified
Sure, sure, sure.
joe rogan
A lot of guys have problems with their knees.
They're very common.
Chris Weidman recently had both his knees scoped, and before that he had gone through Regenikine on his knees too, but he's had arthritis in his knees so bad, Weidman can't even pull his heel up to his butt.
He's a UFC middleweight champion, and his knees are so stiff from all the years of wrestling and all the years of what we were talking about before, plowing through injury, which is something that wrestlers are so accustomed to doing.
In my opinion, no one's tougher mentally than amateur wrestlers.
I think the ability to become a successful amateur wrestler...
There's no hidden secrets.
The techniques have existed from literally the beginning of human time.
People have learned how to wrestle.
I mean, obviously they've refined those techniques, they've passed them down, but there's no secrets.
It's hard work.
Force, determination, focus.
That's all it is.
And so who works harder?
Who can endure more?
Who can punish their body more?
Who can show up and put in the extra hour of training every day that the other guy can't do?
That guy's probably going to wind up winning.
And so these wrestlers have this ability to plow through injuries.
steve maxwell
Plow through injuries.
And you see it a lot, man.
joe rogan
They hurt themselves, though.
steve maxwell
Yeah, well, it's very, very hard on the body.
I think of the guys that I wrestled with back in the 60s and the 70s.
A lot of these guys are just, their bodies are a mess.
I went to a reunion not too long ago with my old college guys, and it was pitiful.
What's happened is, I mean, some of these guys were such studs.
Wow.
Just the harshness of the regimen, you know?
They just kind of let themselves go.
They didn't want to be bothered with that stuff anymore.
joe rogan
Well, even guys that, you know, are still studs, but just their bodies are slowly giving out.
Things are breaking off.
Things, the hips, the back.
Mark Coleman just got a hip replacement.
steve maxwell
Dan Gable, the greatest wrestler ever.
You know, he went through the Munich Olympics unscored on?
joe rogan
That's insane.
steve maxwell
Imagine.
Olympic-level tournament.
And the Russians had swore they were going to find a guy to beat him.
The guy went through the tournament without being scored on.
Unbelievable performance.
unidentified
He was an animal.
steve maxwell
Poor guy, double hip replacement.
joe rogan
Knees as well, I think.
I think he needs to get his knees replaced as well.
steve maxwell
So, I mean...
But, you know, sometimes you think, like, was it worth it?
I think when you ask a lot of these guys, you know, the glory that they had, they might say, yeah, it was worth it.
Because a long life of never having done anything, I mean, that's not a life worth living either, in my opinion.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's a tough call because we're all going to die.
And eventually all of our bodies will give out.
And that's one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about because...
You, early on in one of your early DVDs, one of the first ones that I got, which, boy, I don't know, when did you put out your first DVD? My God, I don't even know.
steve maxwell
It's been a long time.
At least 15 years ago.
joe rogan
I got one of the earliest ones.
So you're probably about my age, actually.
You're probably about 46, somewhere around that.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you were talking about the aging process, fighting off the aging process, and exercising to fight off that aging process, and being conscious about doing that.
And that's something that I think very few people do.
They just work out to be in shape.
They work out the same shape.
But you were one of the first guys that ever saw that was talking about it pretty actively on a DVD and teaching people strategies and techniques to fight off the aging process.
Not just through exercise, through manipulating your hormones, through certain types of exercise, and joint mobility.
steve maxwell
Joint mobility is so important.
Because all the deadlifts and kettlebell snatches and swings in the world are not going to save you as you begin to get older.
You've got to keep that mobility work up.
A lot of people don't understand what you mean by mobility.
They get very confused with flexibility.
They are related.
But it's basically being able to move through full range and keeping complete joint function and the specific exercises that a person can do to enable them to do this.
And it feels damn good, actually.
And I've studied the Russian systems.
You know, there's like a Slavic health system and Russian system.
They really developed the mobility to a very, very, very high level.
And I was lucky enough to learn this stuff.
And then, of course, I added a lot of the stuff I learned from yoga and so forth in there.
And I came up with this system for myself that I teach to people in my seminars and so forth.
And it's really kept me going.
I mean, I could have ended up like all my comrades, you know, the guys I wrestled with back in the 60s and 70s.
And, of course, I've been doing jiu-jitsu now for almost 23 years and competed at a pretty high level in the age group divisions.
And that takes its toll.
But thank God for the mobility.
It kept me fairly, I mean, I can't say I got through it completely unscathed.
But it definitely kept my joints intact, and I'm able to move pretty damn good.
And when I look at people in my family tree, you know, my relatives, my grandparents, and so forth, I mean, they were moving bad.
I mean, just really bad.
And I vowed that that wasn't going to be me.
So with this system that I use of this mobility, it keeps me pretty spry.
joe rogan
Now, how often do you do it?
steve maxwell
Every single day.
Every single day.
joe rogan
So give me a schedule.
Do you start out your day with it?
steve maxwell
Well, generally speaking, I'll get up.
I have a whole Ayurvedic therapy that I go through.
joe rogan
When you get up.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I'll scrape my tongue with a tongue scraper.
There's a lot of stuff from the night, sleeping all night.
You build up substances on the tongue.
You'll be shocked at what you see.
It comes off the tongue when you wake up in the morning.
Obviously, tooth brushing, head massage.
Head massage?
Head massage.
joe rogan
Do you do it yourself?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
I also have a special little scraper thing, like little fingers that you really massage the head.
Then I use a neti pot, N-E-T-I. It's an Ayurvedic technique where you rinse your sinuses so that you can breathe through the nose really, really well.
Nasal breathing is really important.
Then I do a dry brush massage.
It's basically a German-Swedish-Russian thing where every inch of the skin you brush with a natural bristle brush.
Because your skin is the biggest organ in the body, so you really want to keep it...
And this dry brush massage really is quite excellent for the skin.
Stimulates the skin to, you know, to renew growth.
Gets rid of dead skin cells.
Keeps it really nice and your complexion good.
And I'll scrape, you know, I'll brush the body.
And then I take cold water therapy.
Very big into cold water.
I used to do dowsing with the ice cold water in a bucket.
But since I travel, I pretty much have to use the shower.
joe rogan
So you just take a cold shower?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
Sometimes I'll do alternating hot and cold shower.
LA's not too bad, you know.
LA, you know, the water doesn't get too cold.
But sometimes, like I was in Portland, Oregon, and before that, Toronto, the water's still pretty frosty.
And then there's a whole towel treatment that I learned also.
joe rogan
Towel treatment?
steve maxwell
Yeah, there's a way that you can briskly use a coarse towel.
Rather than having these soft towels, you make them sort of like they're almost sandpaper.
And I learned it from this Russian guy, this old Russian sauna master, who showed me how to do this very vigorous towel rubdown.
Of course, all the old-timers knew about this stuff, you know.
A lot of the, you know, mighty men of old, you know, Georges Hackenschmidt, the Russian Lion, and, you know, Air Wereland, and Pavel Arola, a lot of these old health pioneers, Bragg, McFadden, Harvey Kellogg, all these You know, turn of the century guys.
joe rogan
Harvey Kellogg, the guy from Kellogg's?
steve maxwell
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Do you know how crazy that guy was?
steve maxwell
Well, he was pretty crazy.
joe rogan
Well, we were talking about him on the podcast yesterday.
That guy, he used to take, he created Kellogg's and created the bland cornflakes to keep people from masturbating.
He bragged about never having sex with his wife, although they were together for 40 years, but he would have a daily enema by his handsome male assistant to give him a daily enema.
steve maxwell
That is pretty crazy.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
He was about as crazy as you can get.
steve maxwell
About as crazy.
Well, they got really, really overly concerned about bowel function, some of these guys.
joe rogan
And sex.
steve maxwell
And sex.
You know, there's all that weird Victorian stuff going on there.
But the towel treatment, and then I'll do the five rites of Tibetan yoga.
That's something.
joe rogan
And how much time does all this take?
steve maxwell
About 30 minutes.
joe rogan
For the whole thing?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Scraping the tongue, cold shower, the whole deal.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
The five rights can be done very quickly.
joe rogan
And what is the five rights?
steve maxwell
It's spinning.
There's like a leg raise type thing, a thing where you lean back.
It's called the pump, like up-down dogs.
It hits every part of the body.
It stimulates the hormonal system.
The practitioners claim it realigns the chakras, where they call it the vortex.
People can, if they want to Google it, they can download a free PDF. It's a book called The Eye of the Revelation.
And they can read all about it.
It was written by a British army major that happened to be stationed in the northern territories of India and Nepal.
And he observed these monks, these Tibetan monks, and how spry and how young they were and how even these guys in their late 80s were able to bound up and down the side of the Himalayan mountains somewhat effortlessly.
And he noticed and took great note of their exercise system, which was basically these five exercises every morning.
Are you familiar with the prostration exercise?
joe rogan
No.
steve maxwell
Where you sort of lay down your stomach and prostrate yourself to Buddha as a sign of devotion.
It's a pretty tough little exercise.
joe rogan
So what do you do?
You lie on your stomach and you lift your legs up?
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's almost like doing an ab wheel.
It's pretty tough, man.
And, you know, like one of the things that differentiates old from young is your ability to get up and down off the floor.
You know, think about it.
Like my mom, for example, I visited.
She's not listening to the podcast.
But I mean, poor soul.
You know, she's like almost 80. But she was bent over with her back to the side, front.
I don't think she could get up and down off the floor.
I don't believe she could.
I think it'd be really hard.
I don't think my dad could either.
And he actually ran and lifted weights most of his life, but he didn't pay any attention to mobility or flexibility training.
joe rogan
And he's still alive?
steve maxwell
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Do you talk to him about it?
I mean, it's got to be weird when you've got a son that's this health and fitness expert, and you don't pay attention to it at all.
steve maxwell
You know, it's just the way parents are sometimes.
I mean, they just don't want to listen to their kids.
But I mean, that's what's in my genetic code.
That's what's in my genetic tree.
So getting up and down off the floor is really, really important.
And a lot of people can't do it.
When I used to run my gym exercise, I had a personal training studio in there, besides my jiu-jitsu school.
I would have people come to me that were only in their 40s that had a hell of a time getting up and down off the floor.
People don't...
I mean, we're grapplers, you and I. I mean, we're used to it.
So most of the people we know know a problem.
It's shocking, Joe, when you see what's going on out there.
I mean, just utterly shocking.
Every time I come from being overseas and I come back to the States, I'm just blown away with the obesity and just the poor general health and just how bad people look.
joe rogan
Do you think that's just the peripheration of sugar in the diet, corn, corn syrup?
steve maxwell
All those things.
joe rogan
Fast foods.
steve maxwell
Just the whole sedentary lifestyle.
Majority of people spend most of the time sitting down.
Think of it this way.
Imagine you work out an hour a day.
Which is a lot.
Most people do not work out an hour a day.
I think it's estimated that maybe 14% of the population actually works out at all.
And they're claiming mowing the lawn and walking the dog is exercise, right?
So really serious, hardcore exercises are few and far between.
It seems like millions of people are doing it to you and I because they're the people we hang out with.
But most of those other people are not doing it.
So let's say you do work out an hour a day.
But then you're sitting most of the day, right?
It's the new smoking, sitting.
So you're going, you're sitting in the car to go to, or you sit at the breakfast table, then you sit in the car to go to work or the train or the bus.
You sit at the desk all day, then you go to lunch, you sit some more, go back to the office, sit some more, sit in the car going home.
Then you sit down on Facebook or you, you know, you answer your emails or whatever.
Then you sit down, watch some television, then you're lying in bed.
What's your body going to adapt to?
23 hours of pretty much sitting on your ass or sleeping in bed or moving.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
For sure, you're going to adapt to that sitting.
Despite the fact that you're working out, it's not enough.
People aren't moving enough.
And any movement pattern that you don't use on a regular basis, you quickly lose.
And a lot of people, they just never, you know, they use exercise machines and so forth.
Or even if they use barbells or whatever, or kettlebells, you know?
They're not getting up and down off the floor unless they're doing a turkey's get-up or something.
That's one reason why I think it's such a fantastic exercise, by the way.
joe rogan
Well, I like turkey's get-ups as well for jiu-jitsu.
I think it's one of the best exercises.
steve maxwell
One of the best all around.
joe rogan
- Correct. - Core strength and for that every important ability to manipulate a body that's on top of you.
You know, if you can get a kettlebell and you can press that thing and then you can stand, stand up while holding that kettlebell, That goes a long way to being able to get up from the bottom when someone's on top of you.
steve maxwell
But even just for the general population.
I mean, just the ability to get up and down off the floor.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
All those movement patterns that you need to sit up in the elbow, on the hand.
And it's kind of like standing up in base, like in jiu-jitsu.
And then transferring the weight.
I mean, all those things, proprioceptive movements and so forth.
And I think it's really one of the finest things you can do.
But just getting up and down, even with your body weight, using this prostration exercise, it's fantastic.
It's really good stuff.
joe rogan
What do you think about...
Have you ever seen...
Steve Cotter has this exercise that I got from him where you take two kettlebells, you lie on your back like you do in a sit-up, you press them, and then you sit up with the kettlebells, you sit up with them pressed, and you do a sit-up essentially, and then you drop back down.
And then you do it all with your arms fully extended.
You know, I think he calls it a power sit-up or something like that.
steve maxwell
That's a hell of a...
Yeah, some people call them Russian sit-ups.
I don't know.
Everything's Russian, right?
joe rogan
Right.
Especially with kettlebells, right?
steve maxwell
Especially with kettlebells.
But yeah, I mean, it's a hell of a movement.
I mean, for sure.
joe rogan
Nothing wrong with that.
Nah.
steve maxwell
I mean, obviously, you wouldn't take a deconditioned businessman and start out with a movement like that.
joe rogan
That's a good term, deconditioned businessman.
I have a friend who's a great guy, but I went to hug him the other day, and, you know, I hugged him, I put my hand on his back, and I was like, I was thinking to him, I didn't say anything, but I was thinking to myself, like, how does it even support your spine?
steve maxwell
I know.
joe rogan
Like, there's nothing on your back.
Like, you grab a grappler, you hug them, and you feel their back.
You feel muscles.
You feel, like...
steve maxwell
You can feel the lats and the rectospinal muscles sticking out there.
There's nothing.
joe rogan
It was just this gooey thing that keeps his spine just barely hanging on.
steve maxwell
And is it any wonder that people are in pain?
Or that these pharmaceutical companies are just pumping out painkillers right over left?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Unfortunately, you know, it's just masking the symptoms.
So people don't have an incentive then to get in there and do something about it.
They just cover it up with the painkillers.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I've been pretty shocked at how much decompression relieves a lot of pain in the back and about how much...
I take one of these harnesses, and I attach it to the top of a door, and I strap my neck in it.
After I train, especially, I like to do that.
It sort of just pulls on your head, and you can pull the string, tick, tick, tick, and it pulls you up, and then it puts even more tension.
I like to give it a lot of weight.
I like to put a lot of weight on it.
And when it's done, it's like...
I feel this rush of blood through my neck, and it's amazing how good it feels.
As long as you make sure that sucker's tied down good to the door, because one time it wasn't, and it bounced off and clocked me on the fucking head, and I had a cut on my head for a couple weeks.
It was right when I was doing my sci-fi thing, too, so I was doing all these press junkets with a big fucking scar on my head.
But...
When it's done correctly, it's locked into place.
It's a real good feeling to stretch everything out.
steve maxwell
For years, I used inversion boots.
I loved the inversion boots.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And there was a time when I had actually injured myself.
I was actually trying to do the ab wheel like Jackie Chan style from the feet, and I was pretty good at it.
joe rogan
What's Jackie Chan style?
steve maxwell
Oh, there was a movie one time with Jackie Chan using an abdominal wheel, and he looked like an inchworm.
He was just going like, boop, boop, boop.
It was just amazing.
And I had developed the ability to go from the toes completely out and come back, but I went too deep in fatigue and kinked my back and gave myself a horrible case of sciatica.
I actually rotated a vertebrae, subluxation, rotation, and spondiothesis.
I went to my role for her.
It was the first time I ever heard the word surgery coming out of her mouth because she was pretty anti-surgery.
And she said, I don't know, Steve.
You really did it to yourself this time.
I don't know whether I can help you.
And in the meantime, I had this burning sensation down my leg, into my knee, and my big toe just wouldn't stop burning.
Like this chronic, aching, burning sensation that was just agonizing.
joe rogan
And what is that?
Is that nerves or nerves?
steve maxwell
Yeah, the nerve was pinched off.
So over time, I went to an acupuncture guy to relieve some of the pain.
It had instant relief, but then it would come back.
And over time, she kept working this vertebrae back into place with her fingers.
And after about eight weeks, boom, it went away like nothing ever happened.
It just disappeared.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
But after that, I was also sitting on this chair called a back chair.
Maybe you could bring it up.
It holds you around the ribs like a clamp, and you're sitting on a sling, and then you release the sling, and your back goes into traction, and you're being held up underneath your armpits.
Oh, so relieving, man.
joe rogan
So you're being held under your armpits.
steve maxwell
Yeah, but like a big clamp.
It kind of clamps on you.
So it sort of like lets your lower body just kind of hang in there in traction and decompressing.
joe rogan
Like a dip, almost.
steve maxwell
Kind of like a dip, except there's no stress in your upper body.
You're just sitting like I am in this chair right now.
And this back chair was fantastic.
So between acupuncture, the back chair, and the rolfing, she got me out of trouble.
And needless to say, I wasn't too keen about the ab wheel anymore.
Not least from the feet.
I was a lot more conservative.
Hanging leg raises.
It's the same damn movement except you're in suspension and your back is in traction.
Much safer exercise.
joe rogan
So you were talking about the kind that you put your feet in the wheel?
steve maxwell
No, no, no.
I was holding on one of those little cheapy $10 things.
joe rogan
Like what he's doing right here?
Exactly.
steve maxwell
I was actually doing it just like that.
But I just went too deep into fatigue and kinked my lower back.
joe rogan
So you were just too tired while you were doing it?
steve maxwell
I was too tired.
I lost my form a little bit.
I was going too hard.
joe rogan
You know, that is the main issue that we talked about before the last time you were here about CrossFit.
I finally brought myself to watch the video of that guy getting paralyzed.
steve maxwell
Oh my God.
It's horrible, man.
joe rogan
You know what's really telling about that video?
It's not just...
What we're talking about is there was a CrossFit competition and there was a guy who was a CrossFit instructor that was doing a clean, was it a clean press?
What was it?
What was the exercise?
I don't know.
Anyway, he had the bar over his head, lost control of it, and it fell on the back of his neck.
steve maxwell
Yeah, no, I hadn't actually seen it.
Was it a thruster?
joe rogan
I don't remember what it was, but my point is he was in competition with another guy who his body failed on him right before this guy.
Like, the guy next to him...
In the middle of it, his legs just gave out and he dropped the bar.
And so he drops his bar and it hits him on the neck.
So it's like one guy drops his bar and then the next guy drops his bar right next to him.
It's just the next guy was a catastrophic injury.
steve maxwell
Catastrophic.
joe rogan
But both guys were so fatigued, they shouldn't have been doing it in the first place.
They shouldn't have been lifting that weight.
steve maxwell
No way, man.
joe rogan
Their whole body was just like rubber.
steve maxwell
You know, like we said last time, the risk to benefit ratio, you know, are the risks...
Worth it.
joe rogan
You've seen the video?
steve maxwell
I haven't actually seen it.
joe rogan
Let's watch it.
steve maxwell
While you're bringing that up, I'm going to take a quick...
joe rogan
Okay, please do.
unidentified
Please do.
joe rogan
Yeah, go ahead.
He's doing a snatch.
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
It's so horrible to see.
And by the way, I'm not down against exercise and anybody else's methods.
And I know that some people like CrossFit and they get a great deal of pleasure out of that kind of exercise and pushing themselves and all that stuff.
And I understand it.
I get it.
But this is hard to watch, man.
Watch this guy.
See?
Oh, Jesus.
Well, this is the guy that got injured.
The guy to the right of him, on the right of the screen, he hurt himself right before this.
See, he's got this, and then it just drops and hits his...
Oh, his body gave out first, and then it hit his back on the way down.
That's so awful, man.
The guy next to him, to his left, there's another video where you could see a few moments before his body gives out.
The guy to his left, his body gives out too, just in a different way.
Yeah, that guy there.
See, his body had already given out and his legs went rubber on him.
Exercise is awesome.
It's really awesome.
It's great.
It's great for your body.
But goddamn, man, you got to be real careful when you're throwing real heavy weights over your head and you're completely, totally exhausted.
I just don't think it's the right way to do it.
And listening to Steve talk about the importance of when you're doing these Olympic movements, like Olympic powerlifting movements...
They're supposed to be done like very small reps, like one and two and three reps.
These are like explosive exercises that are supposed to be done just for developing strength.
I don't think you're supposed to do them at high repetition.
I know some people get away with it.
I know some people do it, but god damn, it just doesn't seem to be the right way to go.
Take care of your meat wagon, ladies and gentlemen.
The problem that I have with CrossFit, most of it, is the same problem that I have with people who are vegans.
They cannot shut the fuck up about being involved in CrossFit.
They would just ear-beat you to death about CrossFit.
But, in all fairness, with all objective thinking and introspective thought, when I first started doing Jiu-Jitsu, I couldn't shut the fuck up about Jiu-Jitsu.
So, maybe it might just be something that, you know, when people are excited about something.
By the way, Jamie, you were wrong.
The over-under, you said 35 minutes.
I know you made an hour and a half.
Dude, I'm feeling great.
This is fine.
You know what's fucking a little bit painful?
It's my shins.
It's weird to have your shins pressed down.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
But my back feels great.
It definitely feels better than I usually feel when I'm leaning up against the back of the chair.
I'm usually trying to keep my posture straight, but I always fail.
But with this thing...
Look at me, dude.
Fucking locked down, son.
Complete.
Look at that.
Straight line, kid.
That's what you're supposed to be.
Just like that.
That's how you're supposed to sit.
How many people actually have one of these fucking things in their office, though?
You know the other thing they tell you?
You should stand.
You should stand at your desk.
That's like, you ever go to a concert and you have to fucking stand?
Standing sucks.
It's not fun to stand.
Standing at your desk, like, it would be so distracting.
unidentified
How about this one?
joe rogan
That's the same thing.
Oh, it's a different one?
unidentified
It's the opposite.
joe rogan
What is that?
No, it's leaning.
A kneeling chair review.
Huh.
Yeah, it's a different kind of...
unidentified
Where she's sitting on it wrong.
joe rogan
Yeah, that bitch doesn't know what she's doing.
Maybe she turned it around or something like that.
steve maxwell
Although, notice her spine is straight, though, somehow.
It's not, like, humped, you know, like the forehead or the kyphosis or anything.
So, I mean, it's not as bad as maybe, like, slouching down, you know?
joe rogan
Right.
So if her chair was flat instead of, like, leaning forward.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
Because, I mean, it is possible to, like, lean...
In this manner, and still keep your spine straight if you have to.
joe rogan
You got to talk into the microphone, otherwise folks aren't going to hear what the hell you're saying.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
Lean forward.
steve maxwell
Yeah, but the worst thing is to let your back do this and your head come forward.
And that's what causes that permanent hump in the upper back.
They call it kyphosis or dowager's hump or whatever.
And so that leaning forward that she was doing in that chair probably isn't nearly as bad as...
unidentified
What is that?
joe rogan
What the hell's going on there?
steve maxwell
I don't know, but look at that head.
joe rogan
What is that?
steve maxwell
Can't be good.
joe rogan
That's not good?
steve maxwell
That's called forward head.
joe rogan
Okay, so...
steve maxwell
Look at that.
joe rogan
That's not good.
She's kind of like this.
steve maxwell
You know, it's really interesting because I worked with a high-powered lawyer one time.
Remember, I don't know whether you remember this, but remember the South Philly gang, Nicky Scarfo?
joe rogan
Yes.
steve maxwell
The mobster?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I worked out the guy that put him in jail.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Yeah, he was one of my clients.
joe rogan
That guy had been under some fucking stress.
steve maxwell
The guy was under stress.
He was working like these ridiculously long hours.
I mean, like 14, 15 hours.
He barely had time to train.
So we came up with a plan.
You know, we had talked about a stability ball.
So, Mike swapped out his desk chair for stability ball.
And we got him a pedometer.
So he was trying to average like 10,000 steps a day.
And he was like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or the escalator.
He would park his car as far away as he could just to force himself to walk extra paces just to go places.
He would walk during lunch and then eat at his desk.
But he also put in like one of those stand-up desks and would pace during phone calls.
And or paste back and forth while he was sorting and swapping out his papers and this and that, doing dictation to his secretary.
He ended up losing like 14 pounds during that time.
And, you know, he had the extra padding on his body.
And then he would come to me and we would do two 20-minute workouts a week just to keep his basic strength levels up.
And he was very successful.
And, yeah, he prosecuted little Nicky Scarfo and put his ass in jail.
joe rogan
I would just think that the stress of...
Putting away murderers.
Just the idea that you're the guy who's processing...
steve maxwell
Especially the mob.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, that's a real murderer.
steve maxwell
That's a real murderer.
joe rogan
And a murderer that's connected to a bunch of other murderers that have a vested interest in keeping him out of jail.
Did he get...
I mean, he had to be threatened all the time, right?
steve maxwell
You know, it never came up.
I mean, he never talked about that aspect of it, but you would think that there would definitely be some type of threat there, yeah?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, if you're the guy that's putting a major mob figure behind bars, you would have to be a little...
A little leery.
joe rogan
You know what's shocking to me?
I don't know if different police departments have different standards that they have for physical fitness or for self-defense, but when training, when a guy would come in and they tell me that he's a police officer, and he literally can't defend himself at all.
steve maxwell
It is shocking.
joe rogan
It's so common, though.
steve maxwell
Because of this whole equal rights and all this stuff, and I'm not against equal rights, But they really dumbed some of the standards down in some of the police forces to make room for women.
And there was these little tiny women on the Philadelphia Police Force.
I swear to God, any 12- or 13-year-old kid could just take their gun and beat them up.
It just scared them.
The only thing they could do in a situation where someone would resist arrest...
Would be lethal force.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
What other avenue would they have?
I mean, maybe pepper spray or mace or, you know, a taser.
But, I mean, this is back in the day.
I did a lot of work with police and law enforcement with jiu-jitsu.
And I was utterly shocked sometimes when some of these people would come in.
The National Park Service guards, you know, the guys that wear the little mounting hats that are hired at all the national monuments and so forth, How those guys were licensed to carry guns sometimes was just mind-blowing.
It was like, wow, dude, you were so overweight and so obese and so immobile.
How are you going to put somebody under arrest when you can just barely even mobilize yourself?
It's shocking what happens sometimes.
And a lot of the cops that come to my seminars and so forth, they'll agree.
Most of the guys that go to my seminars are pretty motivated to stay in shape, but not so with their comrades.
joe rogan
I've met a lot of cops through martial arts, and it's one of the reasons why I have a good opinion of cops is because I know so many of them that are good people.
steve maxwell
Oh, great people, man.
joe rogan
There's a lot of folks out there that, you know, really shouldn't be doing that job.
They can't handle that stress.
Or even if they could handle that, look, stress levels vary day to day.
Who knows what's going on in people's personal lives and how that manifests itself in a job like being a police officer.
But if you're a fat fuck on top of that, Jesus Christ.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen guys come to the gym and they've never had any training before and they're already a police officer.
And you're like, what would you do if somebody just tackled you?
Like, what would you do if you didn't have your hand on your gun at the time?
And even then, if a guy smacks it and it goes flying and he's on top of you, you're a dead man.
Like, you don't have any...
I would think that that would be like a writer who doesn't know how to spell or doesn't know how to type or literally doesn't know how to write English language.
To be a police officer and not be physically fit or not have any knowledge whatsoever of self-defense, it seems insane.
steve maxwell
It is insane.
There's a very famous training video that they show, I think it was in Texas, where there was a pretty big guy, he's probably about 250, huge cop, but obviously very fat and out of shape.
And these two little guys that tackle him down and take his gun and shoot him.
It's used as a training video for new recruits and so forth.
And boy, if that wouldn't give you the incentive to at least learn some basic self-defense on top of whatever they show in the police academies and so forth.
You know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, it's pretty crazy.
But, you know, those guys, they do have a hell of a hard job.
But you don't meet nice people when you're a cop.
joe rogan
No.
steve maxwell
You're meeting the worst elements of society every single day.
People just lying to your face once.
No wonder they, you know, develop high stress levels.
Having people lying to you and then having to determine are they telling the truth or are they lying?
And, you know, criminals are pretty devious and they're pretty good at lying.
joe rogan
Well, no, even most folks that aren't criminals, if they get caught doing something that's a crime, they're going to lie.
And so the cops are just constantly dealing with people at their worst.
steve maxwell
At their worst element, you know.
So, yeah, I mean, that would definitely have an impact on the way you think and your stress levels.
And, of course, we all know that food is a great balm.
You know, it's soothing.
It starts when you're a little kid, you know, with your dessert or your little treat or rewarding kids.
I hope you don't do that to your kids, by the way.
Don't use food as a reward.
joe rogan
No, but I don't demonize food either.
steve maxwell
No, of course not.
joe rogan
I don't...
I give my kids healthy food most of the time, but I also say, who wants to get ice cream?
Let's do it!
Yeah, of course.
There's nothing wrong with that, too.
I mean, sugar's not good ever, and I tell them that.
Like, this is not good for you, but it tastes delicious, so we limit it.
I try to talk to them like...
I mean, I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old, so I try to talk to them like they're adults, and then when they...
What does that mean?
Then I explain it.
You know, I treat them like they're children, obviously, with a lot of love and affection and a lot of, you know, patience, but...
I try to talk to them in an advanced way.
I don't treat them like they're dummies.
Like I explain to them.
I say, you know, food is exactly what your body is built of.
Your body, whatever you take in, that's all that your body has to build new cells.
That's all it has.
andy stumpf
It doesn't have any extra stuff.
joe rogan
It only has what you give it as far as food.
So it's important to give your body vitamins.
It's important to give your body all sorts of things like protein and water.
But I also say, but it's important to fuck off every now and then.
I don't say fuck off.
I would if my wife wasn't around.
She gets upset at the bad words.
She doesn't want to learn the bad words early.
steve maxwell
They'll learn sooner or later, for sure.
joe rogan
Have a little mouth party with some sugar every now and then.
I don't want it to be a forbidden thing.
steve maxwell
Once you forbid something, it makes it even more desirable.
I had friends that had kids and they weren't allowed to have any kind of treats or any of that kind of stuff.
Guess what they do as soon as they go to a friend's house?
unidentified
Freak out.
steve maxwell
And then they just freak out of that stuff, man.
And it's so funny, I had this one lady that was like this really, really snippy eater, and everything was fresh and organic, and she was so proud of her son and his diet that she had him on.
Man, every time I saw that kid, he was with a friend, and they would sneak bags of candy and stuff.
joe rogan
God, it's so crazy.
It's really true.
It's so crazy how many people do that, too.
It's so crazy how many people just do that to their kids and they suppress them.
I have a friend whose kid is overweight, and he's always on her, telling her, don't eat this and don't eat that.
He'll do it publicly in front of people and shame the kid.
And it's a terrible way to do it.
And then when no one's around, like she was at a party the other day and I watched her just eating, like eating cupcakes and just looking around and eating, like just frantically stuffing them in her face.
steve maxwell
He's going to create a bulimia.
joe rogan
Yeah, or a real problem.
steve maxwell
Or someone that has a serious eating disorder.
So yeah, shame never works, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's terrible.
It's just a bad thing to do to a kid.
Children, they're developing, and that's the thing that people don't understand.
To raise a kid, you can't just go on your instincts.
You can't say, oh, you need to toughen them up and tell them what to do.
No, you're going to develop all sorts of weird, crazy things in their head.
You're going to develop blocks, and they're going to have these mental blocks they're going to have to work out in therapy for the rest of their life if you fuck with their head too much when they're little.
steve maxwell
Well, I mean, think about it.
Most of us didn't have that greater role model.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And there's no directions that come with raising a kid, man.
joe rogan
Exactly.
steve maxwell
And it makes me wonder why so many people think that they are good or even qualified to be parents.
I mean, nowadays, with the world being the way it is, I would be really reluctant to want to bring another soul into this world.
And I don't know.
I just don't feel like most people are really that qualified to be parents.
They should really think about why are they doing this.
It seems like kids are almost an accessory, you know?
Something that you show off or it's an accessory.
Or they just bring them in because it's the thing to do or whatever, you know?
joe rogan
It gives them meaning.
It gives a lot of meaning.
I think for a lot of folks, they feel like if they don't have children that they're somehow or another not contributing.
I faced that before I had children.
People would say to me, like, oh, you know, one day you're gonna have to grow up and you're gonna have to have kids.
Right now you're living like Peter Pan.
Let me tell you something, you know, that ain't the way to live.
And they make it like there's some nobility into having children.
I couldn't disagree with that more.
I think if you want to have a life where you contribute, a life where you're a person who is a beneficial person to society, it's real simple.
Have good friends.
Do something you love doing.
Inspire others.
Be nice to folks.
That's it.
That's all you really have to do.
You don't have to have kids.
And if you have kids and you fuck up and you have shitty kids, you've done the opposite.
Now you've created problems.
I had a friend who used to always rag on people that hadn't reproduced.
But he was a degenerate.
And one of his kids smoked crack.
The other kid was in jail.
I mean, and he was like bragging about having kids.
Like, you fucking idiot.
You've created disasters.
When your kids come into the room, I leave.
steve maxwell
Created more of a problem for society than not.
joe rogan
Not in his eyes.
steve maxwell
But, you know, yeah, it is funny.
There is a pressure on people.
joe rogan
It's too bad.
It's unnecessary pressure.
You know, and by the way, you could always just work out, you know, all that...
You could go and volunteer your time at a youth center.
steve maxwell
There's plenty of kids out there that don't have...
Yeah, exactly.
They don't have good mentors or parents or whatever, fathers, kids, and so forth.
The thing that really bugs me, and you see this in jiu-jitsu or martial arts a lot, where guys give up their dreams for the kid.
Like, they sacrifice everything for the kid.
What a horrible role model.
What message is that?
I am so important.
I'm the center of the universe.
unidentified
Right.
steve maxwell
And kids grew up with this...
joe rogan
Entitled.
steve maxwell
You know, they talk about lack of esteem.
I think most modern kids have too much esteem.
They've been, you know, they grew up like a little prince or a little princess.
And it's like, man, the best thing a guy could do is continue to work out, keep yourself in great shape, take that time for yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Because, I mean, what use is a man to his family if he's broken down and sick and he just works his ass off all the time and doesn't keep himself healthy?
And, my God, go to the mat and get your time in, man.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
You know, to keep yourself mentally healthy and happy.
But I can't tell you how it used to bug me when I had my jiu-jitsu school, how many guys, you know, they let family just completely undermine everything they were doing for their health and their well-being.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, their kid becomes like a project.
steve maxwell
Exactly.
joe rogan
And they put tremendous amount of pressure on their kid because of that.
I think it's very important to set an example.
And one of the best examples that you could have as a parent is just to live a balanced life.
To live a fulfilled life.
Enjoy yourself.
Enjoy your time.
So that your kid has like that in their head.
Like, oh, you know, I should...
I see how my mom lives her life.
I see that she's fulfilled.
I see that she has hobbies she enjoys.
She likes to educate herself.
She likes to read.
She likes to do things.
I like to do things, too.
You get stimulated.
If you have a mom that's a fat fuck that sits around watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and eating Cheetos and complaining about people and talking shit, those kids will develop that sort of a habit.
They'll start talking shit, too, and they'll start floundering around, too.
Children imitate their atmosphere, very much so.
steve maxwell
And, you know, like the old man that's been working all day and he comes home, he's grouchy, he's tired, you know.
joe rogan
Terrible, yeah.
steve maxwell
You know, and then all of a sudden he's dumped on with all the problems.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
steve maxwell
When my kids were little, man, I would put them in the damn playpen and they could scream their fucking heads off.
And I did my training.
unidentified
Right.
steve maxwell
And they were going to learn that, hey, for that time...
Hey, I'm doing my thing.
I was making sure they weren't hurt.
Right.
But it wasn't going to kill them.
Right.
And then I would get finished.
joe rogan
How old were your kids when, or your kid, when you got divorced?
steve maxwell
I'd say the daughter was 12, going on 13, and Zach was like, I guess, 14. That's tough on kids, right?
That's tough on kids.
craig jones
And especially at that age, right?
joe rogan
The high school age, close to high school.
steve maxwell
Well, the girl more so than the boy.
That was tough.
For her.
Zach, he was a little bit more philosophical.
He was a pretty mature kid for his age, and he was able to take it in stride a little bit more.
joe rogan
Yeah, when kids see parents that are together, too, they look at these happy households.
Some of my daughter's friends, they're single moms.
Or they're broken up with their husband or going through divorce, and you can see they hate it.
The kids, you know, especially at that age, like six, they really suffer.
It's a crazy thing how human beings just a lot of times really desire that nuclear household, that father-mother household.
So much so that people will go through it.
And that's the other side of it is the folks that go through it where they're just getting tortured.
They hate each other, but they're sticking together for the kids.
Like, man, you'd probably be better off.
The kids would probably be better off if you broke up.
steve maxwell
There's been plenty of families that shouldn't be together.
Man, it's so toxic.
And the kids grow up in that toxic environment.
But what you were saying before, kids do emulate what you do.
And by being a good example, by taking care of your health and taking time to work out and pursuing your own interests and not just making everything about the kid, about the kid, about the kid, about the family, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
You also give them a sense of independence, too.
steve maxwell
Well, yeah.
Then they can see, wow, okay, my dad's his own man or my mom's her own woman.
And, you know, they're not just all wrapped up in me, you know?
So what a great role model that is for them to grow up and realize that, yeah, that's the way it is.
joe rogan
Is there an age where kids shouldn't lift weights?
Because we always heard that when we were younger.
Like if you lift weights when you're a certain age, it's bad for your body.
It's bad.
It'll stunt your growth.
You'd always hear like things like that.
Are those myths?
steve maxwell
A lot of it is a myth.
I mean, obviously, kids, when they're small, they don't have good motor control or good motor skills, so you don't want them hurting themselves.
But certainly doing bodyweight exercises.
I mean, your daughter probably tries to emulate you already anyway when she sees Daddy in his home gym or whatever.
She wants to do some push-ups and stuff, and that's fine.
Usually by the time a kid's old enough to start doing household chores and helping around the house a little bit is a good time to get them in some type of formal training.
But it's got to be somewhat fun.
It's the sky as everything is planned.
We talked about Hickson's hidden jiu-jitsu.
You can kind of do hidden workouts and stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, Krohn would joke around about it.
There was no hidden pressure.
That pressure was real, man.
steve maxwell
That pressure was real.
joe rogan
Can you imagine growing up the son of the greatest jiu-jitsu fighter ever?
steve maxwell
It has to be.
joe rogan
Not just on the block.
Not in the neighborhood.
Not in the state.
Not a state champion.
steve maxwell
The highest expression of the art that there ever was.
joe rogan
And a crazy yoga guy, too.
The dude is doing this crazy breath work and shit.
But also, look.
Look where it turned out.
I mean, he's a world champion himself, so obviously...
steve maxwell
So something worked out there.
joe rogan
Yeah, it clearly worked out.
steve maxwell
It's like with my kid.
I used to play all sorts of fun little games.
I would take...
He used to love to go to this dollar store.
You know, everything was a buck.
It was a heaven for little kids, you know.
All that cheap plastic toys and all that stuff.
So I would tape dollar bills up on a pole or on the wall.
And he would have to figure out how to pile furniture up and climb up and get it.
joe rogan
Oh, Jesus.
That sounds like a fucking recipe for disaster.
steve maxwell
Well, you know, I was spotting him, you know.
But I mean, he got good at climbing stuff, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I used to bet him that he couldn't go from the basement of our four-story brownstone in Philly from the basement to the top floor where my bedroom was without touching the stairs.
So he was doing like Ninja Warrior stuff, like bracing himself in the wall or walking with his feet in one wall and his hands in the other.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Cat crawling up the railing.
I mean, he was doing this stuff when he was really, really little.
But when he was like in kindergarten, we'd play Indiana Jones at the Temple of Doom.
I'd have a big stability ball, like the big concrete ball or the granite ball that was going to crush Indiana Jones.
Well, Zach could jump down a flight of stairs and land and roll before I could roll that ball down the stairs.
joe rogan
Jump down a flight of stairs?
steve maxwell
He learned to do this stuff from a very young age because he started when he was like three or four years old.
joe rogan
How many stairs?
steve maxwell
It'd be like 14 steps.
joe rogan
He jumped down 14 stairs?
steve maxwell
He could hold onto the rail and swing his legs out and jump to the bottom.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
So he would hold onto the rail and jump over the side?
steve maxwell
No, no, no.
He would, like, swing his body in the stairwell and jump down the flight of stairs.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
It's kind of cool.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
That seems like a lot of stress on your legs, though.
steve maxwell
Yeah, you know, kids of that age, they're so resilient.
And, I mean, he had been building into this stuff, you know, from the time he was, like, born, man.
joe rogan
I was thinking that the other day when I was watching our kids play.
I was like, you very rarely hear about kids getting a knee injury.
steve maxwell
Nah, kids don't get hurt.
Isn't that weird?
You know when they start getting hurt, when the parents start to put that fear of ground engagement?
Anywhere in the world, you go by a playground.
And I don't even have to understand the language to know what these people are saying, mothers and so forth.
Get down.
joe rogan
Look out.
steve maxwell
You're going to get hurt.
Oh, that's so dangerous.
You put this fear into kids' minds.
But up to that point, their bodies are so resilient.
Okay, maybe they'll fall.
They start to learn their own limitations.
But instead, well-meaning but misguided adults put these limitations in their mind already.
Premature.
So they never really discover.
So they get this inborn fear, especially of falling and so forth, one of the five big human fears.
And when I used to teach wrestling and jiu-jitsu and so forth, teaching people throws was really hard as an adult because they had this terrible fear of falling.
But it was misguided because, I mean, when you're a little kid and you learn how to fall and roll like Zach did...
Man, you can take falls and throws and you're absolutely fine.
Bodies are so mobile, so resilient, they haven't built up all that stiffness.
But when you put that fear in a person's mind, you get that fear reactivity, for sure you're going to get hurt because you stiffen at the wrong time.
You know, the difference between like dropping a ball on the ground and a brick, you know?
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
The brick shatters and the ball will bounce.
Well, you make people like bricks with all this fearfulness and you hear it all the time.
I hear parents Constantly putting this fear into kids.
joe rogan
Well, I fell off of monkey bars when I was six to snap my arm in half, so it's probably good to have a little bit of fear.
steve maxwell
A little fear.
joe rogan
I was like, I broke my arm!
My mom would always hear me say I broke my arm when I didn't break my arm, but she looked at me and she goes, wow, you really broke your arm.
steve maxwell
You really did broke your arm.
joe rogan
Snapped in half.
steve maxwell
But, you know, you learn a horse lesson, but, you know, it still didn't make you completely afraid of climbing and doing stuff.
I mean, I bet you within a couple months you were right back in there doing the stuff again.
joe rogan
Yeah, I'm sure I was.
steve maxwell
I can remember falling out of trees.
It felt like every bone in my body had broken, you know?
joe rogan
You know, what's amazing is how well kids can manipulate their body, too.
My daughter can do, what is that called, when you put your feet on the ground, your back bends, and you put your hand backwards.
steve maxwell
Yeah, right.
Their little spines are so incredibly flexible.
joe rogan
And, you know, she can go up on her tippy toes.
She's only six.
She can also climb a rope.
I have a rope in my garage.
You've seen my garage.
It's a pretty high ceiling.
steve maxwell
Yeah, great.
joe rogan
She grabs that rope and climbs all the way to the top.
And I was watching her do that.
I was like, how many women can do that?
Not many.
She's a tiny little girl.
She's six.
How many grown women can support their own weight like that and climb up a big rope?
steve maxwell
Most grown men can't do it.
joe rogan
No, most grown men can't.
steve maxwell
They couldn't climb a rope if their life actually depended on it.
joe rogan
Yeah, isn't that sad?
steve maxwell
It is sad.
And that's one of the best things I ever did for my kid.
I just hung a rope in our foyer of our house.
We had like one of those architecturally designed houses that the kitchen went up three floors, you know, with like a bi-level type thing, split level.
And took my life in my own hands with my drill, trying to hang that damn rope, man.
I tied myself in with my jiu-jitsu belt and was leaning over the balcony trying to Find a beam with a beam finder and got the drill.
This is all while the ex-wife is out of the house.
She comes home and she has this rope hanging down in the middle of her foyer by her kitchen.
I got both kids climbing that rope.
joe rogan
Was that the beginning of the divorce proceedings?
steve maxwell
Probably.
From the moment I said I do was the beginning of the divorce proceedings.
joe rogan
That's how it works sometimes.
Sometimes it's just the idea of getting married.
We're going to be normal.
We're going to be like everybody else.
We're going to get married.
Once we're married, it'll work out.
steve maxwell
It never does, man.
I prefer an unmarriage, right?
An unmarriage is where I have my money, she has hers.
I got my credit cards, she has hers.
I have my...
Possession, she has hers.
I don't tell her what to do.
She doesn't tell me what to do.
It's like an agreement.
We're together because we want to be together.
We don't need a government agency to tell us that we can live together, and we definitely don't need a government agency telling us that we're allowed to be a partner.
joe rogan
Well, that doesn't sound very romantic, Steve.
I don't know what kind of woman's going to accept that, but I'll tell you right now, I am not going to.
I'll tell you right now, Steve.
I want a traditional marriage.
I don't want to be able to tell my friends that I'm married.
That's the other thing.
Chicks love to tell their friends they're married.
Very few guys are excited to tell their friends they're getting married.
Like, see?
I got her.
She's marrying me.
I did it, you know?
They go, yay, we're getting married.
Like, well, congratulations.
But it's never like this milestone accomplishment.
Like, wow, you pulled it off.
But a girl will be like, look, I'm getting married.
Like, oh my god, I can't believe it.
Girls will get so excited.
I'm so happy for you.
They'll hug.
It's a completely different experience for the male.
Women have got it in their head, or some, I should say, because of movies and of the stories, you know, this romantic happily ever after idea that they have to get legally bound.
They don't think of it as, you know, the way you look at it is so harsh and so jaded.
It's not a legal contract.
It's a beautiful agreement, and you take your relationship to a next level.
Yeah, until you hit those divorce proceedings, and then you realize, oh, this is a contract.
Like, this is a legal contract with the state, and now I've got to bring in lawyers, and we've got to figure out how to fucking divvy up my money, and the lawyers get a giant chunk of that action.
That's the big scam.
That's what's...
When Phil Hartman, before his wife killed him, when he was trying to get divorced, shot him in his sleep, he...
Was ranting to me.
I go, just fucking give her half.
And he was like, it's not half.
That's the thing.
It's a third.
Because the lawyers get a third, too.
You lose two thirds.
It's not half.
steve maxwell
Pretty much, man.
joe rogan
And he was just steaming about it.
steve maxwell
That's why I like the non-marriage, you know?
joe rogan
That's nice, the non-marriage.
steve maxwell
Everyone keeps their own personality and you don't just get all wrapped up.
joe rogan
See this guy?
Jamie was showing me these yesterday.
This Russian oligarch.
Lost $4.5 billion BI in a divorce.
steve maxwell
Of course, I guess when you have billions and billions, it's probably not that big of a deal.
joe rogan
It's a big deal, no matter how much money you got.
The idea that some chick is going to be going off banging other dudes with your money and riding Ferraris and flying private jets everywhere and buying castles, all with your cash.
Why?
Because you had sex with her.
steve maxwell
I guess they don't have prenups in Russia, huh?
joe rogan
Or if they do, he didn't get one.
I mean, he just maybe thought this was going to be different, man.
Fuck all the other 50% of the people that couldn't make it.
I'm not even hedging my bets.
I'm all in.
He pushed all his chips on the table and...
steve maxwell
You know the thing that I think sours a lot of marriages, and I can speak from experience because I've been married and divorced three times.
joe rogan
Three times?
steve maxwell
Three times, yeah.
joe rogan
You fucking crazy man.
steve maxwell
Yeah, man.
I kept going back for more and I finally got smart, you know?
unidentified
Three times.
steve maxwell
Pretty crazy.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
But so many of us guys, we get a woman who is...
What I call the girl.
Really fun to be around.
Very feminine.
You relate together as friends.
And then what do we do?
We turn around and change her into a mother.
And mother...
whole different being than that girl, that young girl that was carefree and fun to be around.
And you'd go to the movies and you'd go out and you'd play and you'd just have a great time.
And all that just goes right out the window once you turn her into a mother.
I'm not even talking about kids.
I've seen plenty of people without kids that the woman still becomes the mother.
joe rogan
Oh yeah.
steve maxwell
Like a mother substitute.
joe rogan
Well they become a dominant role in the man's decision making and they sort of control him in a very motherly way.
I think that becomes very unattractive to women too.
I don't think a lot of women respect the man.
steve maxwell
They don't like that role.
I mean, they don't want to be put into that role.
You know, a lot of women, you know, they're like a strong guy that kind of takes care of them, right?
joe rogan
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I wouldn't want to generalize, but what I've seen from the women that dominate the men, like the guys that I know where the woman tells them what to do, and those guys also have a hard time getting sex.
Like, almost universally.
It's almost like a rule.
Like, if the woman dominates and the woman tells you what to do and the woman just controls your spending and controls, you know, what your hobbies are and tells you what's going to happen and where you're going to go, those guys don't get much sex.
And I don't know if that's related to, like, a woman being attracted to a man that she can't control or not attracted to a man she can control, rather.
steve maxwell
Well, the mother doesn't like sex.
The mother is against sex.
And that's what happens so often in these marriages.
And, you know, I've had a lot of women that are masseuses and, you know, body workers.
And man, when, you know, they tell me it's uncanny how many other male clients will always proposition and We try to rankle sex out of them.
unidentified
Really?
steve maxwell
These are legitimate body wear.
I'm not talking about prostitutes.
joe rogan
Right, right, right.
steve maxwell
And I mean, it's pretty common.
You know, guys are just sex-starved in their relationships and their marriages.
But the thing that really used to rankle me most...
More than anything, was the way women would not want to be...
They would want to separate their guys from their friends.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And they really resented the fact that a guy was coming to jiu-jitsu training.
As a guy that owned a jiu-jitsu school, man, the wives and girlfriends would give the guy such a hard time about going and training.
If anything, they should be encouraging the guy to go as much as possible.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And, you know, they pulled these guys out of there.
Yeah.
That's a damn shame to do that to a guy.
joe rogan
It's also a damn shame for a guy to pull his woman out of something that she loves to do.
steve maxwell
Oh, well, yeah, of course.
I mean, to be fair, of course.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's a terrible thing when people try to change the person who they love and control them.
I mean, could you imagine your friend doing that to you?
Like a friend going, come on, man, you're not going to work out.
What are you working out for?
I don't want you working out.
Hey, I don't want you working out.
You're my friend.
You're coming with me.
You're like, what?
Like, I don't like you camping.
Why are you camping?
You know, I don't like you going to ball games.
He'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
You're crazy!
But when that friend happens to be someone that you have sex with or you're romantically connected to, girlfriend, fiance, wife, whatever you want to call it, that person all of a sudden has some sort of a role they can dictate.
Like, your actual day.
Like, dictate what you do.
Whether it's a guy doing it to a wife or a girlfriend or a woman doing it to her husband or a boyfriend, it's a weird thing that people just sort of accept.
steve maxwell
And it happens so often.
joe rogan
And it's always gross.
steve maxwell
It's no wonder that divorce is at its all-time highest rate.
joe rogan
Fucking idiots.
All of us.
unidentified
You too, right?
steve maxwell
And I was an idiot.
I did it three times.
joe rogan
What did you think about on number three?
When that one failed, were you like, motherfucker, what's wrong with me?
Why did I do this three times?
steve maxwell
Pretty much.
It was like...
Damn!
What was I ever thinking, man?
I had a lot of shame, actually, and a lot of feelings of unworthiness or whatever, you know?
Like the feeling of being a failure and all that.
And then I just realized, well, you know, some people just aren't cut out.
I should have never been in that situation in the first place.
joe rogan
Which wife did you have the kids with?
steve maxwell
The first one and the third one.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
So you had kids with both of them.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
So how old is your oldest kid right now?
45. Jesus Christ, you got a 45?
You got a kid my age.
steve maxwell
I was 17 years old.
unidentified
Wow.
steve maxwell
Pretty much a knucklehead, an idiot.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
You know, so what would that make her?
That would be, well, she got to be like 45. Wow.
joe rogan
That's crazy.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
And then Zach, who's a black belt teacher down at Hoyler Gracie School and Hedges Library.
joe rogan
Where's that at?
steve maxwell
John Fred.
That's Gracie San Diego.
joe rogan
Oh, San Diego.
steve maxwell
Yeah, they just moved in a new place.
I haven't even seen their new school yet.
Hedges just moved into a new place and it's supposed to be fantastic.
joe rogan
What a hotbed San Diego is for training.
steve maxwell
And his partner is this guy, Joel Freda, Johnny Freda.
He's won U.S. Nationals and World Nogi.
I think he won Dabi Dabi.
I don't know.
He's a hell of a Nogi grappler.
And Zach teaches for those guys down there.
And then Hoyler lends the name to the school and shows up, you know.
I mean, he's on the road most of the time.
joe rogan
Right, right, right.
steve maxwell
And so forth.
joe rogan
Hoist has kind of done that too, right?
Neither one of those guys, they just decided to not have an academy.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's hard being tied down to an academy.
It's better just to have maybe a place where you can let someone else run it, and then you can go out on the road and do the seminar circuit.
And there's still a lot of call for...
joe rogan
The seminar circuit is a big thing for jiu-jitsu guys.
Eddie Bravo makes a lot of money doing that.
That's a big part of his income.
He does a lot of travel and a lot of seminars.
steve maxwell
And even myself, I mean, I get a fair share of jiu-jitsu calls these days.
I mean, you know, I was one of the first American black belts and so forth.
I don't consider myself an expert in the type of competition game they have now.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
steve maxwell
But when it comes to the old school self-defense, the L.A. Gracie self-defense, I can consider myself one of the top authorities.
I learned it really well from both Horian and Helson and Elio himself, and it's a fantastic system.
It's shocking how many black belts don't even know the basic stand-up self-defense.
They don't realize what a great self-defense system Brazilian jiu-jitsu really is.
joe rogan
What do you mean by stand-up self-defense?
steve maxwell
Well, every fight starts standing up.
joe rogan
People grab you.
steve maxwell
Yeah, bear hugs and grabbing you by the hair, by the throat, or grabbing your jacket, or pushing you up against a parked car or a wall.
There are self-defense systems in place to either prevent those things or to get yourself out of a bad situation.
It doesn't always involve going to the ground per se.
And Elliot Gracie was a real master at adapting the old Japanese system and making it more applicable to smaller, weaker people through the use of leverage.
And it can even be taught to kids.
The Gracie have that anti-bullying system too, which was the finest thing you could teach a kid.
I mean, think about karate or taekwondo or whatever that a lot of parents take their kids to.
How does that work?
Well, you've got to basically bust somebody in the face, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, you kick them in the head.
steve maxwell
Or, you know, that's going to get you thrown out of school for sure.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
But at least with jiu-jitsu, you know, you can use other means that's not going to get you suspended from school for, you know, two or three or four weeks or whatever.
joe rogan
I was watching one of the UFC Ultimate Insiders yesterday.
You know, they have those shows where they detail training camps and stuff.
They were talking about T.J. Dillashaw was preparing for this fight, and they had a scroll at the bottom of the screen, and it was about a football player who was under arrest for kicking another football player in the head, and the other guy was in critical condition.
Did you hear about that?
I mean, I don't know what happened.
steve maxwell
Was this on the field?
Or in the locker room?
joe rogan
No idea.
It was just the scroll at the bottom and that the player was in critical condition.
And then one player kicked him in the head.
I don't know if it was pro or college.
I don't know what it was.
steve maxwell
Well, we have a very litigious society.
So you use a real violent way to end some type of altercation.
Well, you know, you mentioned the truck driver today that was blocking you when you picked up your packages.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Imagine that when it went south and you start getting really belligerent and getting up in your face, maybe pushing around, right?
Jiu-jitsu would have enabled you to control the situation without necessarily hurting the guy.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
But if you would have resorted to your Muay Thai, and I've seen the way you kick and punch, it's pretty formidable.
You could have knocked the guy in the next week.
joe rogan
Well, you could really kill somebody.
That's the real problem.
steve maxwell
Well, that's the problem.
joe rogan
They fall down.
Killing people in fights a lot of times happens when you hit them and they go unconscious and they hit their head on the ground.
steve maxwell
Now imagine if you would have punched him in the face and he would have lost one tooth.
I mean imagine a tooth replacement, a dental bill or whatever.
joe rogan
There's the thing.
Rutgers kicks Philip Nelson off football team after quarterback is charged in assault on Minnesota, man.
Is that it?
steve maxwell
Crazy, man.
jamie vernon
The Minnesota guy was a linebacker for Minnesota State.
joe rogan
Is this, they have a video of it?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, play the video.
steve maxwell
Damn.
joe rogan
Let's see this.
What happens here?
steve maxwell
Not so, man.
joe rogan
I wonder if they knew what the hell was going on.
Everything's videotaped now.
It's crazy.
steve maxwell
Pretty much.
Not much privacy.
This guy's ruined his life, man.
joe rogan
He certainly has.
steve maxwell
Oh, it was a nightclub or something.
unidentified
Oh, Jesus Christ.
steve maxwell
So his life is ruined as he knew it.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
steve maxwell
So he'll be out of school.
But see, the point, you know, using the violence of punching and kicking, okay, it worked.
There's no doubt.
joe rogan
Oh, it definitely worked.
steve maxwell
But the after effect, you know, the ramifications of using that type of violent behavior, and for children in particular to teach them that...
Wow, they're going to be thrown out of school for sure.
That's why I always like the wrestling and the jiu-jitsu.
You can control it without necessarily having to smash somebody.
joe rogan
Yeah, absolutely.
The only real problem with that is, of course, multiple people.
But multiple people, most of the time, you're fucked no matter what.
steve maxwell
Pretty much.
joe rogan
It's very rare that a guy...
steve maxwell
It's not like the movie.
joe rogan
Like a Jackie Chan movie.
steve maxwell
Jackie Chan or Jason Satham.
unidentified
Did you ever see that?
joe rogan
One video, it was from Turkey, where this guy was a boxer and he was being attacked by this whole group of people.
We were watching it during one of the podcasts that we do, and I was doing commentary on it because the guy's a really good boxer.
And all these people are chasing after him, and he's dropping them left and right.
There's like...
Fucking 10 or 15 guys chasing after him.
And he drops like 10 of them.
They're circling around him and a guy comes forward.
Crack!
He pops this guy.
unidentified
Crack!
joe rogan
He pops that guy.
They're trying to grab him.
He's backing up, dropping guys.
It was really like a scene in a movie.
Like if you saw it in a movie, you would say, well, this is fun to watch, but in real life this never happens.
But this actually did happen.
unidentified
Yeah, actually did.
steve maxwell
Like that movie Old Boy.
joe rogan
Here it is.
Here's a video.
They're chasing after this guy.
And so after they're chasing after this guy, they get out, people start arguing, and they're chasing after him, but the guy knows how to fight.
Bam!
He drops that guy.
Bam!
He drops that guy.
Bam!
He drops that guy.
They're all chasing after him, and now they're getting mad because he keeps dropping these guys.
Look, he's got his hands up.
He's got a good jab, too.
Check this jab out.
Look at that.
unidentified
Bam!
joe rogan
Look at that jab.
Drops that guy with a jab.
Look at this.
Bam!
That's just a stiff jab.
steve maxwell
Not bad.
joe rogan
And they're all running after him.
He's moving back, and he's got the state of mind.
Look at that.
Drops that guy, drops that guy.
He's got the state of mind to move back and then pause for a second and fire, too.
steve maxwell
Catching guys coming in.
joe rogan
He's obviously trained.
Look at that jab.
unidentified
Boom!
steve maxwell
He's very well trained.
joe rogan
Yeah, obviously.
Hands up high.
And turning left and right and dropping dudes.
I guess it seems like they're playing the same thing over and over again, so it's probably only five or six guys, but still.
steve maxwell
Well, they're coming at them one at a time, and obviously they weren't trained people.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I think if you're, you know, imagine trying to fight trained guys, but, you know, how often do you ever find trained guys out in the street?
joe rogan
And if you do, what a terrible situation.
steve maxwell
That'd be a horrible situation, but for the most part, you know, thugs aren't well-trained.
joe rogan
Well, I had a friend who got in an argument with a guy while they're in their cars, and they're yelling at each other, fuck you, fuck you, and pull over, fuck you, and they pulled over, and they both got out of the car, and both guys could fight.
One guy shot, and the other guy stuffed the takedown.
They start duking it out on their feet, and they're like, holy shit!
And they were both, like, really well-trained.
And he said, we were going at it for, like, ten minutes before both of us were exhausted, and they wound up high-fiving each other and get back in their car and drive it away!
So they fucking both realized that they thought they were going to tee off on some dude who didn't know how to fight.
The guy shoots in for a double.
The other guy gets underhooks and sprawls.
And they look at each other like, what the fuck's going on here?
And they're like feinting each other, leg kicking each other and shit.
They were actually duking it out.
And then somewhere along the line, they were having fun.
And they realized they were having respect for each other.
And then they high-fived each other and got back in their cars.
steve maxwell
What are the odds?
joe rogan
Very rare.
steve maxwell
Very rare.
joe rogan
Very rare also that they could go through that and laugh, you know, and go, ah, it's fucking stupid.
Let's get out of here.
And, you know, bruised up.
steve maxwell
It's always stupid, right?
unidentified
Always.
steve maxwell
It always ends up being stupid.
I mean, those type of things.
joe rogan
Well, the worst is the drunken moments, like probably these guys that are at this nightclub, this football player, kicking this guy while he's down.
And also, the crazy thing is movies that show head trauma and make it out like it's no big deal.
Guy gets pistol whipped and he wakes up later, what happened?
Meanwhile, he's fine, you know, and he's just still saving the day.
You know, you get pistol whipped, you're probably fucked up for about six months.
steve maxwell
You're going to be, yeah, a serious concussion, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, Matt Grice, I don't know if you know who he is, UFC fighter, great guy, was hit in a collision, was rear-ended, going 65 miles an hour.
Somebody just wasn't paying attention.
I don't know what the details were, but his car was plowed into.
Had brain surgery.
I mean, barely made it.
Big scar on his head.
They had to remove a plate from his head.
They moved a piece of his skull to give his brain a relief from the pressure, and then they had to put it back in place.
But, you know, he was talking about how much it affects him, how much mental fatigue he has.
steve maxwell
Oh, my God, yes.
It creates, like we were talking about earlier, you know, like the NFL. I mean, look at the whole concussion controversy right now.
It's going to change football as we know it.
joe rogan
What are they going to do about that?
Because the sport, it's almost like MMA. How would you take away the concussions in MMA? I don't even know how that would happen.
You can't.
steve maxwell
Unless it would be some kind of body shots only in wrestling or something.
But that, I don't know.
I don't think the fans would buy it.
joe rogan
The other thing that happens that you see in MMA is when a guy gets knocked out, how easy it is for him to get hurt after that.
Like, Anderson Silva is a perfect example.
Goes through his entire career, looks like he has a chin of iron.
You know, fights everybody, never gets hurt.
Even if he gets dropped, gets right back up, seems like he's fine.
You know, fights all these killers.
And then Chris Weidman shuts his lights out.
And then the next fight, Chris Weidman drops him with a punch that looks like he would absorb that punch under any other circumstance.
If you look at his entire career, he was hit with harder punches, hit with cleaner punches, seemed to be fine.
But he takes that one shot from Weidman and you see his eyes roll back and he goes down.
He recovers, he's hanging on for dear life and clenching, but you gotta sense that he's damaged.
steve maxwell
It's accumulative.
The nervous system gets insulted like that and it just builds and builds and builds.
I remember as a college wrestler my senior year, I was illegally slammed in my head and had a pretty bad concussion.
And I had another incident in training.
Same thing.
And they told me even back then, and this is back in the 70s, that one more, I was banned for the season.
That was it.
unidentified
Wow.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
But not in MMA. No.
So many guys get knocked out in training and then wind up fighting.
Eddie Alvarez just pulled out of his big fight with Michael Chandler, and one of the things that he was talking about was that he had gotten knocked out before their last fight.
He got knocked out in training a few weeks before the fight and got through it okay, but that this one, he had gotten hit in training wrestling.
Someone sprawled and he got hit in the head when a guy used his hips.
And just a collision, you know?
Yeah, sure.
Just a random collision.
And then another random collision while he was trying to get a single, the guy pulled his leg out, and as the guy's kicking his leg out, he hit him on the chin.
And, you know, thinks he's fine, just training hard like normal, but then can't get over the headaches.
It hurts him to move his head around and then he goes to a neurologist and he gets CAT scans done, the whole deal, and they realize you're not going to be fighting.
steve maxwell
It's going to be very interesting to see what happens in these next 10 years with the first crop of mixed martial arts fighters and how they age.
Some of these guys are getting a little bit older now and what the permanent ramifications are going to be from all those brain injuries and so forth.
And I think it's going to be similar to what we saw in boxing with a lot of these guys.
Having dementia and the classic punch drunk.
It would be interesting.
joe rogan
I agree with you, and I think that it kind of brings up the question that we were talking about with Dan Gable.
Like, is that glory worth having those hip replacements?
Is one thing to have your body aching, But it's another thing to have your mind compromised to the point where the quality of your thinking has greatly deteriorated.
Not just your ability to move your body, but your ability to communicate with people.
Like when you used to hear Joe Frazier before he died, it was painful to listen to.
steve maxwell
I actually saw him out on the street, you know, because I lived in Philly.
And I, you know, I actually saw him walking down past Yonk Avenue right where I lived.
People said, hey, Joe.
And the poor guy, you couldn't understand a word he said.
The way he would slur his speech.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
It was like really, really, really sad.
Do you ever foresee in the future, remember how McCain was trying to ban MMA for the longest time right after the initial thing got started?
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
Do you think, do you foresee any of that happening again?
unidentified
No.
steve maxwell
It could.
As this type of thing happens, I'm just curious.
joe rogan
It could, but it would be very...
steve maxwell
On the inside.
joe rogan
It would be...
The only way that would be possible is if someone figured out a way to make football safe.
Because if they don't make football safe, they're not going to ban football.
Football is the national pastime.
steve maxwell
It's too big a sport.
joe rogan
Too big, too huge, too many people love it, too many people look forward to it.
Football season is just a huge part of being American.
If they don't ban that and someone wants to ban MMA, it's going to be a real problem.
It's going to be hard to reconcile.
But, you know, they say that, well, the difference is that football, the goal is not to knock a man unconscious.
The goal is to get a ball across the line to score.
steve maxwell
Correct.
Sort of like organized team warfare.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's all well and good, but what's happening?
What is actually happening?
What's actually happening is giant people are slamming into each other.
And one of the things that this guy told me that I found incredibly fascinating...
About concussions.
He's like, the big misconception about concussions is that it has to be from head injury.
He's like, what you don't realize is you can get a concussion from getting hit in the chest.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
A hard shot to the chest, like football players colliding with each other.
Not even making contact with the head, but just the boom, the impact of these enormous, powerful bodies slamming into each other causes the brain to rattle around inside your skull.
steve maxwell
They wash up against the side of the brain pan.
joe rogan
And that causes concussions.
And there's a lot of guys who suffer concussions with no head trauma.
Their head doesn't actually get...
It's not a direct head contact.
It's just the body getting rocked by an impact.
How are you going to take that out of sports?
Any sport, even basketball, guys fall down.
steve maxwell
Combat sports.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that the guys can do...
unidentified
Boom!
joe rogan
There's a perfect example, Jamie.
That guy got a concussion.
Watch this.
Look at this.
Look at his head.
steve maxwell
The way it snapped forward.
joe rogan
Oh my goodness, and the size of that man who grabbed him.
Jesus, Louisa.
Like, if you think about a guy like Lawrence Taylor going full clip, or Ray Lewis.
steve maxwell
That's just like a nightmare.
joe rogan
These guys can go 100 yards in, like, sprinter time.
Elite sprinter time.
And they're 300 pounds of muscle.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's shocking.
The forces that go into the whole thing.
joe rogan
By the way, not possible without steroids.
I don't give a fuck what anybody says.
You don't get that big.
You don't get that strong.
You don't get that fast.
Test them all you want.
There's some shit going on.
There's a lot of those fucking dudes that are on the juice.
If you go back in time and you look at the football players from the 1960s and you look at the football players of today, sure, you had your guys.
You had your big guys.
Yeah, you had your...
Who was the...
The guy who did commentary in UFC 1, Jim Brown.
steve maxwell
Jim Brown.
joe rogan
Jim Brown, super athlete.
steve maxwell
Super athlete.
joe rogan
Natural.
steve maxwell
One of the greatest ever.
joe rogan
Fantastic athlete.
Those guys today are so much bigger than him.
steve maxwell
He's a little guy by their standards.
Go back even further.
Let's take Jim Thorpe.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
steve maxwell
I grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Jim Thorpe went to the Indian school there in Carlisle, PA. No kidding.
And I went to school with his nephews, his grandnephews.
Both boys were.
joe rogan
What was he like as he got older?
steve maxwell
He became an alcoholic, unfortunately.
He was penniless.
He was stripped of his Olympic medals for playing a one pro baseball game or something, getting paid for a game.
joe rogan
What?
steve maxwell
Yeah, they had stripped his medals from him for his amazing Olympic performance.
joe rogan
Wait a minute.
Because he did the baseball game before the Olympics or after the Olympics?
steve maxwell
No, no, before.
He had actually got paid – made a nominal amount of money, I don't know, $15 or something for playing a game and he was stripped of his medals.
But he died just basically a ditch digger and a penniless guy.
But to give you an idea of how versatile the football players were in those days, my – My friend, the nephew of Jim Thorpe, told me this story that he missed the bus from Carlisle to Harrisburg to play the game.
So he ran from Carlisle to Harrisburg, which is about 18 and a half miles, to the game and got there in time to play the second half and scored several touchdowns.
joe rogan
How far is that?
steve maxwell
18 miles!
joe rogan
18 miles?
unidentified
Yes!
joe rogan
He ran 18 miles?
steve maxwell
Dog tried at 18 miles, got there in time to play the second half, and actually did a couple scores.
joe rogan
That's insane.
steve maxwell
Talk about an insane athlete.
joe rogan
How big was he?
steve maxwell
You know, I don't know.
Bring it up.
Jim Thorpe, he wasn't a big guy, but they played both ways.
You played offense and you played defense.
joe rogan
Yeah, look at that.
He looks like a UFC welterweight.
steve maxwell
And he was a damn good boxer and wrestler, too.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
But, I mean, that was back in the day where they didn't suffer the terrible head traumas because it was more of an arm-grabbing wrestling kind of game.
joe rogan
And we're guys smaller, too.
steve maxwell
And smaller.
And I stayed in Sydney.
I love Australia.
I love the Aussies.
And I was teaching jiu-jitsu down there.
And they're really into Australian rules football.
And it's very similar to rugby.
The guys don't get nearly the traumatic injuries that they do in the NFL. It's more like organized team wrestling.
They're out there wrestling.
In fact, they train a lot of wrestling for these guys.
They bring wrestlers in to teach them basic wrestling holds.
I think it's the modern equipment that allows these guys to hit each other with such force.
joe rogan
Well, that is the big argument about football, that if you really wanted to make football safer, you would take away the helmets.
And people are like, that's so counterintuitive.
How can you protect people by taking away protection?
But the reality is that protection, it's a fake sense of security.
steve maxwell
It's a fake sense of security.
Take the gloves off the UFC fighters like they did in the first four.
Okay, you're going to see a lot of surface cuts.
Right.
You know, facial cuts, you know, from the knuckles.
But you're not going to see the traumatic head injuries like you do with the gloves.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
Those gloves allow guys to punch so freaking hard that make the hands like weapons.
But you take the gloves off, man, the hand's pretty fragile.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
You're not going to just be grounding and pounding like a, you know...
joe rogan
Do you think if they did that you'd start to see guys practicing on the Makiwara?
Remember those Japanese?
steve maxwell
You probably would.
You'd have to definitely tuck in your hands.
joe rogan
Machida still does a lot of that.
Machida still practices on the Makiwara.
steve maxwell
I think you'd see a lot of open hand strikes as well.
joe rogan
I think you're right.
Remember when Keith Hackney fought that gigantic sumo dude and essentially bitch slapped him?
steve maxwell
Bitch slapped him, yeah.
joe rogan
Just dropped him.
The guy was like 600 pounds, Emmanuel Yarbrough.
He hit him with this gigantic...
Like swinging bitch slap.
steve maxwell
Which is a great self-defense technique, by the way.
joe rogan
Your palm.
It's amazing how much impact your palm can take and not get hurt.
I mean, you could do that.
Look, I'm doing this on this hard oak table.
If I did that with my knuckles, it would fucking hurt.
steve maxwell
Oh, and plus, you know, you could so easily break your hand.
My jiu-jitsu master, Helson Gracie, was a renowned street fighter in his own right.
And he used to practice open hand techniques all the time.
He used to, we call it slap in the bag, so to speak.
And he always taught us not to use closed fists in any type of realistic confrontation.
Open hand strikes are quite effective for self-defense.
joe rogan
Yeah, you could certainly fuck somebody up.
The best example of that is Bas Rutten.
Bas Rutten in Pancrase, in Pancrase?
Why am I making up names?
Pancrase, Bas figured out, Bas has like really flexible wrists in some way, and he figured out how to pull his hands His hands go, like, you see how my hand, like, if I was striking, my hand goes out.
It's like, sort of, like, not even 90 degrees, not quite.
Bosses would go way back, like this.
I don't know how the hell he did it, where they stretched his wrists out.
steve maxwell
Probably did.
joe rogan
But when he was striking, he was doing boxing techniques, whereas in Pancreas, everybody else was kind of slapping and swinging.
Boss was throwing straight palm strikes and palm hooks.
So he was throwing them in a very traditional boxing way and knocking guys senseless.
steve maxwell
Iron palm technique.
joe rogan
Yeah, incredible power behind his straight right palm technique.
You know, he was a great puncher.
So he just pulled his hands back and threw punches.
But threw punches with his palm.
And was able to...
Really, that was the thing about pancreas.
It's like, you know, that they were not allowed to use closed fists on the ground.
They were using to the body, but they were not allowed to use them on the face.
Standing up or on the ground.
So everything had to be these kind of slaps.
But Bas just threw the whole fucking system out of whack because he would just crush guys.
steve maxwell
With that palm heel check, Dean.
joe rogan
He's another guy that's in some serious pain right now.
He's got one atrophied arm.
His arm is shriveled up and he's going through all these different treatments to try to regenerate the nerves and the tissue in his arm.
It's real sad.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I mean, there's a hell of a...
No one ever said that these sports are healthy.
You know, you do it because you love it.
There's something inside you that makes you want to do it.
But, you know, I mean, truth be known, grappling is something you can do pretty well in an advanced age.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, Elio was like 90 and he was still grappling, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah, he was in his mid-90s.
unidentified
Yeah, he was like 95, 96. What was he like rolling around?
joe rogan
You rolled around with him, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
When he was that old?
steve maxwell
He was amazing.
He liked to lie there and let you try to do stuff to him.
He loved to play that game.
And it was like he could read your mind.
He already knew what you wanted to do before you even did it.
joe rogan
But he moved well.
He moved very well.
Wow.
steve maxwell
He moved really, really well.
He had hurt his knee jumping off the back of a truck.
Yeah, so he was a little stiff in his knee, but he was a pretty mobile guy.
Even in his 90s, it was amazing how well he moved around.
joe rogan
What do you think about, like, there's techniques today that you're seeing in jiu-jitsu, in MMA, all these jiu-jitsu techniques that were not in the original systems.
There's all these newfound movements that some guys just don't want to adapt to.
They don't want to incorporate them into their strategy, into their game.
What do you think about that?
I find that to be incredibly weird because jujitsu itself was like this new thing, these new effective techniques that the folks that were originally learning them didn't know.
Elio Gracie, Carlos Gracie, they take these techniques, they modify them, they make them even better, so they essentially have this completely new system They brought it to America, especially in 1993 when the UFC came along.
That's what the whole thing was about.
It was about these new techniques that people couldn't defend against because they weren't aware of them.
But now they don't incorporate new techniques into this system.
And the idea that it's perfect as is and that it can't be improved upon, I think that's a little short-sighted and a little weird considering how the system started in the first place.
steve maxwell
Well, you have to think of it like this.
Combat versus sport.
Real fighting versus sport fighting.
The rules will dictate the techniques.
Just like taekwondo.
At one time it was a fairly formidable martial art.
But because once it became an Olympic sport, it just became so stylized that taekwondo almost became useless as a martial art.
Take Judo, for example.
The original Judo was basically identical to Jiu-Jitsu, but once it became an Olympic sport and people started practicing it within the rules, they became more and more stylized to the point where Judo lost any semblance of being a real martial art that you could use for self-defense.
So I think what the Gracie Jiu Jitsu practitioners are saying is we don't want to take some of these newfound techniques and incorporate it in our style because this is for sport only.
This is stuff that you would only do in the sport itself.
And that we want to stay with the more traditional combat-oriented techniques that have been tried, true, and proven for many, many centuries, really, if you think about it.
That being said, my son said something to me, because I was kind of ragging on 50-50 and Barambolo, and he says, yeah, but Pop, if you don't know this stuff, you're going to get your ass handed to you by some guy that does.
So it's best to be familiar with All of the stuff.
So I thought that made an interesting point.
But, you know, when it comes to UFC, I mean, obviously you're not going to bear and bowl of somebody.
You're going to get your lights punched out.
I'm not going to jump guard in the parking lot out here if some guy would give me a hard time.
joe rogan
Right, but if you do wind up scrambling, you fall on the ground, the guy's on top of you, the guard does work in a street fight.
steve maxwell
Oh, hell yeah, man.
I can't tell you how many students in Philadelphia have been.
I myself had a few scrapes, and boy, it worked beautifully.
But once again, we're not fighting trained fighters.
joe rogan
Yes, exactly.
steve maxwell
We're not entering into a contract to put on a show and to fight each other.
joe rogan
Right.
I mean, by that logic, you would never use the guard in the street.
Why would you use the guard in the street?
The guard seems like something that you would use in a sport only.
I mean, you're on your back.
Why would you ever put yourself in that position?
steve maxwell
Only because a guy puts you there.
joe rogan
Right, exactly.
steve maxwell
Because you have no choice.
joe rogan
In that respect, then the 50-50, which is, for folks who don't know, it's almost like two guys going for heel hooks at the same time.
steve maxwell
Yeah, pretty much.
joe rogan
Interlocked leg position.
If you're in a situation where somehow or another in a mad scramble you wind up with a guy like that, boy, a heel hook in the fucking street would be absolutely devastating.
steve maxwell
Well, if the guy wouldn't get up and chase you, you could just walk away and he'd be laying there.
joe rogan
Oh, the heel hook is one of the worst techniques ever as far as going from not feeling any pain to irreparable damage or damage that you're going to have to get surgery for.
It's like that.
You don't have play.
You have a little bit of play in an arm bar.
Like here, you're okay.
Here, you're like, fuck, I might have to tap.
Alright, I'm tapping.
With a heel hook, by the time it gets up, things are ripping apart.
steve maxwell
Yeah, thanks for the injury.
Because you don't have the sensory nerves on what it about.
A lot of the leg locks were originally Russian sambo.
joe rogan
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
They were very highly developed by the Russian Samboists.
They had their own grappling style.
And the Gracies actually learned a lot of these techniques and took the Sambo and embraced it and put it as part of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
The Machados did an awful lot of that too.
They studied sambo, they competed.
I actually saw a couple early Gracie videos of Hickson and Jean-Jacques and Higgins competing in sambo tournaments in California.
And yeah, it's real interesting.
This Russian guy beat both, he beat two Machados and then met Hickson in the finals and Hickson beat the guy in the finals.
joe rogan
Interesting.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it was really good.
This Russian guy is pretty good.
joe rogan
What's his name?
steve maxwell
Oh man, I don't know.
This was years ago I saw this video.
This is an old footage that I saw in Horian's office.
But at any rate, they were a military technique.
If you maimed a soldier, maimed him, then it would take at least two comrades to take him out.
So now you've put three people.
Out of the picture.
joe rogan
Oh, so they would rip apart the knees.
steve maxwell
Yeah, so now the guy's all maimed.
And so now it takes at least two buddies to help get the guy back.
So you put three people out of the fight with one maiming.
joe rogan
Oh, here it is.
Is this...
steve maxwell
This might be it.
joe rogan
Is that Hickson?
That's Jean-Jacques.
That's Jean-Jacques.
steve maxwell
There was a blonde Russian dude that was kicking everyone's ass in this one jiu-jitsu tournament.
joe rogan
Oh yeah, they're going after leg locks.
steve maxwell
The Sambos are devastating with those freaking legs, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
That's John Jacques.
steve maxwell
Remember Oleg Tiktarov?
joe rogan
That's John Jacques, though, that just did that.
John Jacques in the blue.
steve maxwell
I remember Hickson was wearing this...
Remember the colorful shorts he was wearing?
The one tournament that I saw, there was a blonde Russian guy that was pretty much kicking everyone's ass, and then...
Hickson was wearing those multicolored shorts that he was famous for in the beach fight in Rio when he fought Hugo Duarte.
joe rogan
Yeah.
This is Higgins.
Higgins in his day was a bad motherfucker.
steve maxwell
Oh my god, he still is probably.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I haven't seen him lately.
joe rogan
He's a big guy now, but...
Yeah, that's interesting.
That is very interesting.
How familiar are you with prolo therapy?
steve maxwell
I don't know much about it.
Or maybe I know it by another name.
joe rogan
Proliferation therapy.
Prolotherapy is they inject this glucose solution into joints, into ligaments, and it actually thickens the ligaments.
steve maxwell
That's interesting because I have read a lot about the hydrolonic acid that they inject into joints for osteoarthritis and so forth.
joe rogan
I think that, yeah.
steve maxwell
It works in a similar way, I think, to kind of hydrate the connective tissue in there.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
What I was bringing it up is because I knew a dude who used to get it done even though he didn't have injuries.
He would get it done on his elbows and his knees just to thicken up and strengthen the tendons and ligaments just for training.
Because apparently it can strengthen it as much as 40%.
steve maxwell
Well, that's pretty impressive.
joe rogan
It's very impressive, right?
steve maxwell
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, and they would...
When you inject it, it's really painful.
I had it done on my knee, and I had it done on my wrist.
It did wonders for my wrist.
I broke my wrist when I was kickboxing, like, in 19...
88 or 89. It had fucked with me for a long time until I got this prolotherapy on it and whatever it did, it really...
It just wasn't right.
Yeah.
I mean, it went away a little bit on its own.
It got better on its own, but it would click all the time and it would just...
It would ache after it would train for a long time.
But this prolotherapy, somehow or another, by injecting it directly into the ligaments, it forces the ligaments to swell and then strengthens them.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Sort of like the hydrolysis.
Now, there's enough...
joe rogan
It stays thick.
steve maxwell
There's another therapy that a lot of people don't know of, but back in the 70s was huge.
It's the DMSO, dimethylsulfur oxide.
I'm a big advocate of this stuff.
And you can still buy it in some health food stores.
joe rogan
Why did they stop selling that?
steve maxwell
Well, the FDA at one point, the big pharma companies can't make any money on it.
They can't own the patent.
And this is about the time when all the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, you know, like ibuprofen or Advil or whatever, you know, was coming into play.
So they put the kibosh in this stuff and got them to ban it.
And then at some point, I guess the ban lifted or whatever, and it became popular again.
But I remember like hearing like some of my aged aunts and uncles talking about DMSL when I was a kid.
And wow, this stuff works.
And it works well.
joe rogan
It's like for horses, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah, they used to use it as a liniment for racehorses.
And you put it topically on the skin.
It has this unique property of sinking right through into the connective tissues.
And it has an amazing anti-inflammatory effect.
It really helps the body with its own healing process.
joe rogan
Yeah, I remember guys used to use it back in the Taekwondo days when they would get injuries to their feet, like kicking things, kick elbows and stuff like that.
Guys would rub it on their feet, their shins, things along those lines.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I'm using it now.
I hadn't used it for years, but I decided to try it again.
I've been putting it on the shoulder that had been bothering me.
And wow, I can't believe in just one week how much better the shoulder feels.
More pain-free than it's been in a while.
Which makes me wonder why I wasn't doing it.
But see, when I was doing it before, I was still doing the kettlebell snatches.
And I've become a bit of a critic about the kettlebell snatch.
Why is that?
I think it puts an awful lot of trauma on the wrist, elbow, and shoulder.
For no good reason.
You know, people say, oh, the snatch is the penultimate lift and kettlebell lifting and all this and that.
Man, I can't tell you how many people I've seen injure themselves.
I'm not talking about people using crappy technique.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
Using the technique, you know, really good technique, and still suffering osteoarthritis and rheumatoid problems.
I mean, you think about it.
You take a heavy weight and you continuously throw it over your head, continuously, over time, and of course you're going to get repeated trauma.
joe rogan
What about presses?
steve maxwell
Presses are fantastic.
joe rogan
So you think that...
What is about the motion?
steve maxwell
Well, you're swinging this kettlebell overhead and it suddenly stops.
You get all this loading of the connective tissues at the top.
It's like a dead stop, you know, the momentum.
And, you know, I mean, there's always people that can seem to waltz through life doing these type of lifts and so forth.
joe rogan
And skate through it.
steve maxwell
Yeah, seem to skate through it.
But, man, there's thousands of people that suffer.
And I think all of the benefits of the snatch can be certainly had in the swing.
You don't need to traumatize your shoulders in order to get benefits from...
joe rogan
So the swing where it stays horizontal.
steve maxwell
Yeah, exactly.
The momentum just dies out.
But that's enough.
It's all hip and butt and hamstrings and lower back, and you've generated the force.
So for me, I was really into the snatch thing for the longest time, but it was definitely traumatizing my shoulder.
joe rogan
What other exercise do you think maybe should be avoided?
Kettlebell exercise.
steve maxwell
Well, I'm beginning to think that the windmill with really heavy weights should be avoided.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not talking about just doing it with lighter weights, but some of these guys, they're into 40-kilogram kettlebells.
joe rogan
That's 90 pounds?
steve maxwell
What is it, like 88 pounds, I think?
That's pretty heavy.
You don't need to subject your body.
If you think about it, it's like a rotation and a twist of the spine.
So you've got to be really careful when you're loading up these type of flexi-bendy postures like that.
A lot of the overhead squat stuff, I mean, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.
joe rogan
Yeah, I was going to a guy who was saying for shoulder stability that it's a really great one because of the fact that it's got all this twist to it.
steve maxwell
Well, I mean, the get-up is going to get all that.
Everything the windmill does, the get-up does even better.
Plus, you get the benefit of moving your body from the ground and standing up and back down and so forth.
joe rogan
The windmill has a weird sort of hamstring thing going on with it, though.
steve maxwell
Oh, yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
Because I get a lot of hamstring soreness when I do heavy windmills.
steve maxwell
Well, yeah, you're lengthening the hamstrings out really good, so it's quite a severe stretch, like a form of loaded stretching or weighted stretching and so forth.
But, I mean, if you really wanted to get down to brass tacks, if you're pretty much just doing get-ups and swings, you pretty much have the perfect workout right there.
You don't need a whole lot else.
joe rogan
Just get up swings.
What about presses?
steve maxwell
Well, presses are always a good thing.
But, I mean, you can do presses with anything, right?
You can do handstand push-ups.
You can do dumbbell, barbell.
But, yeah, kettlebell press is a fantastic exercise.
There's no doubt about it.
And I think the kettlebell double front squat It's a beautiful way to squat.
joe rogan
The double front squat?
steve maxwell
Yeah, where you clean two kettlebells and you hold it in what's referred to as a rack position and do squats.
It's a really user-friendly way of doing it.
joe rogan
That's how I do all my squats that I do with weights.
I do them all that way.
I was using a squat rack, but I felt like it's harder to do it this way.
And I feel like I'm engaging my core more because I'm Keeping them in front of me.
steve maxwell
Absolutely.
joe rogan
Your posture has to be correct to do it.
So I just went with all of them.
And I just do with 270s.
I just use 270s.
steve maxwell
I mean, in my age now, I see no reason to load my spine up with my friend Mike Muller.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's a strong dude.
steve maxwell
Oh my God, Mike is ridiculously strong.
And a vegan.
joe rogan
Yeah, ridiculous.
steve maxwell
Anyone that thinks you can't be strong and be a vegan, just check out Mike.
joe rogan
Yeah, ridiculously strong and vegan for, I mean, he's, you know...
steve maxwell
I mean, he's really dedicated to the whole lifestyle of being a vegan.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Very knowledgeable.
joe rogan
And not even annoying about it.
steve maxwell
No, no, not at all.
No, he doesn't push his agenda whatsoever.
joe rogan
No, it's great.
steve maxwell
If anything, people ask him, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, well, your website, what do you have on there as far as, I know that you develop, you have like people that you train online, you develop programs for them.
steve maxwell
I do.
joe rogan
How does that work and how can someone sign up for that?
steve maxwell
Well, I call it my freedom business because I can do it pretty much anywhere in the world.
That's one reason why I'm able to keep up my nomadic existence because, you know, as long as I have Wi-Fi, I'm good to go.
joe rogan
You still have the 62-liter drum or whatever the hell it is?
steve maxwell
The 65-liter bag.
65-liter bag.
Osprey bag, yeah.
My girlfriend's beating me now.
She just downsized to a 45-liter.
So, damn it.
Since when, you know, you have a woman traveling with less stuff than a guy.
joe rogan
That's ridiculous.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Of course, I have workout equipment in my bag, so.
joe rogan
Ah, well, there you go.
steve maxwell
Abdominal wheel, rubber band, a suspension device.
joe rogan
You keep an ab wheel with you.
Out of all the things you can keep with you, an ab wheel is that important that you decide to keep that.
steve maxwell
I like it.
I mean, it's so light.
And I use the Malta task with it.
The little bar that you use for it, I use it with my rubber band to do rubber band deadlifts and such.
joe rogan
Oh, I see.
steve maxwell
Yeah, some cool stuff you can do with that little handle.
joe rogan
You showed me a bunch of stuff that you could do in hotel rooms.
Like you throw a towel over a door.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
You do chin-ups off the door.
steve maxwell
All you really, truly need is just your body weight.
I just carry this stuff around because I can, but maybe I'll dump it and go even more minimalist like Teresa, you know?
joe rogan
So how do you, when you develop these programs for someone, say I'm Jamie over here who likes to exercise, if you wanted to build a program for someone, do you let them fill out a form?
How active are you?
How in shape are you?
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, first of all, I want to make sure that I can help the guy.
There's no sense of him wasting his time or money or me wasting my time with a guy that I can't help.
So he sends me a little bio.
What it is he's interested in.
It gives me a chance to see if the guy has realistic goals and ideas.
And if he's like way out there, you know, maybe he'd be better off going to somebody else.
But if he's pretty much in line with what I think I can do as far as helping the guy, the next step then is I send him a questionnaire, which is extensive lifestyle questionnaire.
Everything from, you know, your work to, you know, almost like that Ayurvedic test you took.
You know, I want to know.
And then he sends me a diet log.
I want to see what he's putting in his body.
And then I send a fitness assessment.
In the meantime, he takes three photos, non-posed, just like in a pair of shorts so I can look at his structure.
I particularly need to see the feet and the knees and see how the guy's standing, his posture, you know, back, front, side.
So I need to look at his spine, his shoulders, look at if there's any structural stuff going on.
And based on those photos, sometimes I'll have different fitness assessments because before I can take him where he thinks he wants to go, I've got to know where he's at.
joe rogan
Do you watch him do a video?
steve maxwell
Sometimes.
Yeah, sometimes.
But for the most part, it's unnecessary.
Once he does this fitness assessment, I have a really good handle on where he's at.
And then I'll send him a program, and then he sends a training login anywhere between once a week.
Some people like to send something every day.
Interesting.
And they have recovery days, after recovery days, as well as their workouts.
A lot of the guys are participating in jiu-jitsu.
Some guys are participating in MMA. But a lot of the guys are just regular guys, businessmen, businesswomen, housewives.
They just want to be healthy.
joe rogan
How many clients do you have that you do this with?
steve maxwell
Right now, I haven't counted, but it's close to 60. I know.
It's a lot of time on the iPad.
joe rogan
How do you keep up on that?
steve maxwell
A lot of hours a day, man.
joe rogan
How many hours a day do you do that for?
steve maxwell
That seems incredible.
I don't track it because it's different each day.
Some days it's like six, eight hours.
Other days it's like three or four.
It depends on how many logs that come in.
But I try to have a turnaround time of never more than 24 hours.
joe rogan
But it's all you.
steve maxwell
It's just me.
joe rogan
So you don't ever go on vacation.
You don't say, hey, I'm taking a week off of life.
steve maxwell
No.
joe rogan
Wow.
Wow.
steve maxwell
But I like it.
See, it's different.
joe rogan
Yeah, so your life is kind of a vacation anyway.
steve maxwell
Because I'll be, like, I'm leaving from here to Icaria, Greece.
joe rogan
Whoa.
steve maxwell
In the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Turkey.
Beautiful, pristine, little, quiet island that a lot of people never heard of.
And it's named after the mythological figure Icarus that flew too close to the sun with his wings and plunged into the ocean.
joe rogan
Yeah, wings melted or something?
steve maxwell
Wings melted.
Well, this island, I'm going to be there for three weeks doing like a lifestyle training camp.
And the Wi-Fi is a little sketchy, but I'll be okay.
So I'll be doing my iPad while looking out at the beautiful blue of GNC or, you know...
I was in a high-rise in Sydney looking out over the harbor.
So it's pretty easy to do your work when you pick really nice places like that.
And plus I love doing it, so it's not like a chore or anything.
I really enjoy communicating with these people.
You almost become friends.
Sometimes I'll meet them at seminars, which is always really cool to actually meet the person.
But you really develop a closeness and a camaraderie through the That's interesting.
joe rogan
When you go to a place where they speak a different language, do you have a translator?
steve maxwell
I just got back from Russia not too long ago.
I was in Novosibirsk.
That's the very heart of Russia.
Remember that guy Alexander Karelin?
joe rogan
Yes.
unidentified
He...
steve maxwell
That's where he's from.
joe rogan
What a scary fuck that guy was.
steve maxwell
Yeah, bring that guy up.
Alexandre Corrala, man.
joe rogan
There's some amazing photos of him.
steve maxwell
The most crazy, scariest...
People would turn themselves over and pin themselves so not to be thrown with his patented gut wrench throw.
joe rogan
Yeah, they would be belly down and he would get his hands underneath him and take a 250 pound man and throw him like a pillow.
steve maxwell
And toss him like he was like nothing.
joe rogan
And smash them under the ground.
steve maxwell
So there in Novosibirsk, the Russian experiment...
No one spoke any English whatsoever.
So I have a universal translator on my iPad and iPhone that I can write a question out and then show it in Russian and then hit a button and change the keyboard to Russian.
And then they can type back and be in English.
So you can communicate with this modern technology.
joe rogan
That's crazy though, but what if you want to get something to eat or you want to get a room in a hotel or something like that?
steve maxwell
Well, usually hotel personnel, someone there speaks English.
That's one of the nice things about being a U.S. citizen.
I mean, there's a lot of things I don't like about this country, but it's still a superpower, and it's still the country, so to speak.
So most people speak English in these hotels, because tourism is a real big thing for a lot of these places.
joe rogan
That's so fascinating that you do that.
You go from one place to another like that with no stops.
Pretty much none.
Because you're living out of this 65 liter bag.
steve maxwell
Everything I know.
joe rogan
You don't really have a place where you're like, well, we're done work.
We're going to just hang out at home for a few days.
steve maxwell
No, there is no home.
Everywhere I'm at is home.
joe rogan
Do you foresee that for the rest of your life?
I mean, you're 62 now, is that what you are?
steve maxwell
I'm 61. 61?
joe rogan
I'm sorry to give you an extra year there.
61 and a half, like a kid?
Yeah, like a kid.
Do you foresee living the rest of your life like that?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
I mean, I enjoy it that much.
It's really nice not to be tied down.
Once you get that roaming spirit, I can't even imagine just settling down.
joe rogan
But what about your body?
I mean, you're essentially teaching people health and physical fitness.
How long do you think you'll be able to do that for?
At 61 years old, that's a...
Very unusual for someone to be teaching people how to lift weights and exercise.
I mean, I've seen some of the shit that you've done.
Somebody posted a video of you working out with those guys that do the playground workouts, which is incredible.
steve maxwell
That was just like a year ago, man.
That was...
joe rogan
The guys are so fit.
I mean, it's amazing watching some of those playground workouts that those guys do.
steve maxwell
The urban gymnastics, yeah.
joe rogan
They have no legs, though.
You ever notice that?
Little skinny-ass fucking toothpick legs?
steve maxwell
Well, the other thing, too, a lot of those guys are hurt a lot.
joe rogan
Oh, are they really?
steve maxwell
A lot of the stunts.
It puts a lot of stress in your body.
It's not necessarily the...
That's the kind of thing that you'd want to do.
joe rogan
But, I mean, it's amazing how these guys, I mean, essentially, they're just doing this for their own fun, right?
steve maxwell
Oh, yeah, they love it.
Absolutely love it.
joe rogan
Look at that.
That is incredible.
steve maxwell
That's a strong dude, huh?
joe rogan
That guy can put his legs up there in the air.
What do they do for their lower body, though?
There's so much upper body stuff in all these exercises.
You very rarely see them doing lower body stuff.
steve maxwell
I didn't get a chance to actually see it, you know, what they did for the lower body.
For sure what they do is pretty amazing, but it might not be the best way to go for especially people over 40 because of the joint trauma.
Because remember, there's a difference between working for strength and demonstrating strength and doing feats and stunts versus just regular exercise.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
And stunts and feats take its toll over time.
You know, like Olympic lifting, powerlifting, those guys are pretty bunged up by the time they get to their 40s or 50s.
joe rogan
So you consider what those guys are doing with this playground workout?
Oh, it's a stunt.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is built towards developing these tricks.
joe rogan
Right, to show that, like, that's incredible.
unidentified
Yeah.
Yeah.
joe rogan
The ability to hold your legs up like that.
Folks don't know what kind of core strength that requires.
steve maxwell
That requires an incredible amount of core strength.
joe rogan
Like doing that stripper thing where you're on the pole.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, it's no joke.
joe rogan
These guys are incredibly fit for that.
steve maxwell
They truly are.
joe rogan
That's amazing.
steve maxwell
These flags are just like, wow.
joe rogan
It's so hard to do.
steve maxwell
It's really hard to do.
But the torque and the pressure on your shoulders.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Incredible.
Look at you.
steve maxwell
Eh, not bad for an old guy.
joe rogan
Not bad at all.
steve maxwell
Not quite as high as that guy was.
joe rogan
But amazing that you never did this before, and I hear you're doing that.
steve maxwell
Nah, I've never done any of this stuff.
You know, most of my training was all geared towards trying to make myself a better wrestler or a better jiu-jitsu fighter.
So it's a slightly different energy system and a whole different emphasis with the workout, so...
joe rogan
That's incredible that these guys have developed a sort of way to work out on these playground workouts that has gone worldwide.
I mean, there's so many of these people.
steve maxwell
Oh, yeah, there's the Bar Stars, and then there's, when I was in Australia, there was the, what was it, the Bar's Beasts.
Down in Bondi Beach, these Australian guys that, you know, so in every country, especially the poorer countries, you know, most of these outdoor playgrounds and gyms are pretty available to a lot of these guys, whereas they couldn't even afford a regular commercial gym.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
When I was in Russia, I was really pleasantly surprised.
You could find a pull-up bar and dip bar everywhere, not for kids, for adults.
And you'd see people using them.
I mean, just all over the place.
joe rogan
Look at this guy.
steve maxwell
Jesus Christ.
Doing dip bars and pull-up bars and all that kind of stuff.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
steve maxwell
That's pretty incredible stuff, isn't it?
joe rogan
Yeah, this is amazing.
Look at this guy's hanging on this other guy.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
Some of these guys are crazy strong.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
Amazing.
steve maxwell
But in a lot of these Eastern Bloc countries, they don't have a lot to do, you know?
joe rogan
And they're not big guys.
steve maxwell
No, they're not thin, wiry, lean.
But, you know, bodyweight training has a way of kind of...
I mean, obviously, different physique types are going to be attracted to different activities.
A lot of times, people have this mistaken notion that if I do this, I'm going to look like this.
In reality, the physique type has success at a particular activity and then stays with it.
For example, women often want to do dance because they want to look like a dancer.
But if you don't have that proportionate dancer's type body to begin with, you'll never be successful at dance.
joe rogan
Right, like if you're short and squat and you have big thick legs.
steve maxwell
Exactly.
I don't care how much dance you do, you're never going to develop the long lean lines of a dancer.
And the same thing with the urban gymnastics.
You know, really big boned guys with big heavy legs, they're never going to be successful in that type of activity no matter what they do.
Just as they wouldn't be able to do what the football player does.
joe rogan
Isn't that also a case for guys that want to compete in MMA? Like those big bulky football player type dudes, they're never going to be able to have good endurance.
steve maxwell
It's going to be really hard for those guys, you know, because they're kind of like just naturally fast-twitched guys with low anaerobic endurance levels.
And no matter how much they train for endurance, they're always going to be lacking in that particular department.
You know, the cool thing about combat martial arts though, And combat sport, there's a whole array of physique types that seem to do pretty well.
You have like little fireplug guys that do pretty good.
joe rogan
Husamar Pajarez.
steve maxwell
And then tall, thin, wiry kind of guys.
joe rogan
Roger Gracie.
steve maxwell
Yeah, exactly, that do well.
joe rogan
You find like what's good for your body style.
steve maxwell
You start to develop a style for your particular physique type and all that, which makes combat martial arts different than any other sport on the planet.
Because you won't find a big rare physique playing NBA basketball, for example.
They're all tall guys.
Occasionally you'll see a little guy, but rare.
You only see huge behemoths playing NFL football.
Once in a while you might have some little guy, but he's like one in millions, you know what I mean?
They can make it.
So the sport attracts the physique type.
These people are...
Good at it because they have the body that does well with that particular activity.
joe rogan
It's interesting when you see a guy who was an elite football player or something like that get into MMA, their bodies change.
They slim down, they become a little, they're still big and bulky, they become a little bit smaller.
The guy who's freaked me out the most is Herschel Walker.
steve maxwell
That was pretty amazing, wasn't it?
joe rogan
Because he was like 47 or something when he started fighting in MMA. Not again at all, man.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
And just yoked huge at 47, shredded six-pack, and just throwing guys around, and training at AKA. I mean, look at that.
That's him at like 48 years old fighting in Strikeforce.
steve maxwell
That's pretty remarkable, isn't it?
joe rogan
What a super athlete that guy was.
Wouldn't it have been incredible to see him as a 20-something year old competing in the UFC? For sure.
steve maxwell
Boy, he was something special.
Guys with his genetic propensity for size and strength and endurance and explosivity...
They probably wouldn't be drawn to mixed martial arts because of the money factor.
joe rogan
I don't know.
steve maxwell
He's going to make like 10 times the money playing NFL football.
joe rogan
Probably, but he probably could have made that kind of money.
unidentified
Look at the fucking size of that guy, 48 years old.
joe rogan
He could have probably made that kind of money doing anything.
He would have been so dominant.
steve maxwell
He would have been successful in almost any sport.
You do have a point there.
joe rogan
How does a guy stay that big?
Look at the size of him at 48 years of age without lifting weights.
Because that's what he always claimed.
He always claimed that everything he did was body weight.
Do you think that's bullshit?
steve maxwell
You know, I just don't know.
I really couldn't contest that one way or another.
joe rogan
There's a lot of people who have called bullshit on him.
steve maxwell
There's no doubt that bodyweight training can make you pretty muscular.
joe rogan
Oh yeah, well those Bar Stars guys.
steve maxwell
Yeah, they were pretty yoked up, man.
joe rogan
Look at that.
That's him when he was younger.
That's a good picture.
Thank you, Jamie.
Perfect picture.
How the fuck does that guy become that other guy?
Show that other picture again.
How the fuck are those two?
One is the young guy and one's the old guy.
steve maxwell
Well, you'd almost have to start suspecting some type of enhancement therapy.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
steve maxwell
Would you not?
joe rogan
Mm-hmm.
Just go back to that other picture, Jamie.
The picture of him swole up and, come on, son.
One is when he's young and one is when he's 48. Open a new tab and go back and forth between the two photos.
steve maxwell
MMA does not build that type of physique.
I'm sorry.
joe rogan
Well, he's doing, obviously, he's doing some sort of body weight conditioning, strength conditioning.
steve maxwell
Well, I mean, there's no doubt he works really hard.
joe rogan
Yeah, but the other thing about Hershel Walker that's really crazy is he said he eats like a bowl of soup and a salad every day and that's it.
steve maxwell
It's hard to understand.
joe rogan
It's a double hard to believe.
steve maxwell
But maybe.
joe rogan
We'll fucking know.
steve maxwell
I knew a guy that only slept three hours a night.
joe rogan
Who?
steve maxwell
Dr. Ken Leisner.
joe rogan
Look at these two pictures.
Look at that one, and then look at the other one.
Jamie, do you know how to do tabs, you motherfucker?
Too big?
Can't you just go back and forth?
Look at that.
What the fuck, man?
Jesus!
That's when he's young, and here's when he's older.
I'm confused.
I get super confused.
I mean, that looks like a guy who probably doesn't actually...
steve maxwell
Wait, how old is he in that picture right there?
joe rogan
Young.
unidentified
1982. That's crazy.
joe rogan
So he's 50-something now.
steve maxwell
Well, he might not have been to his true man strength and so forth at that age, too.
joe rogan
Well, he's got some fucking man strength going on right there.
steve maxwell
Yeah, don't he, though?
unidentified
Jeez.
joe rogan
And they say, you know, he would go to AKA, he works out with the team, works out with everybody.
steve maxwell
Amazing.
joe rogan
I don't know why he's not doing it anymore.
steve maxwell
Well, maybe he started having some joint problems and, you know, there is a reason why there's a due date in cottage cheese, you know?
I found that out a few times, you know?
joe rogan
That's a good way of putting it.
steve maxwell
You can't outrun Father Tom.
joe rogan
He's so big at 48 with no body weight or no weightlifting.
It seems like to be that big, you'd have to throw some weights around.
steve maxwell
You would think.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
I mean, I've never seen anyone with that type of musculature that just did it on bodyweight training, but that's not to say that maybe he's an exception to the rule.
He just might be that type of, you know, have that type of genetics, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, that is the other thing, too.
It's just some folk.
There he is.
Doing some bodyweight exercises.
steve maxwell
Looks damn good even there.
He's not quite as ripped as he was back in the day, but he looks freaking phenomenal.
joe rogan
Dude was a super athlete.
I mean, that's the thing about football, is that they get the big super athletes.
The really big, strong guys.
steve maxwell
The biggest, strongest, fastest athletes pretty much go NFL in this country.
joe rogan
I think it makes so much money.
steve maxwell
Well, I mean, yeah, that's where the money is.
I mean, NBA guys are pretty big, too, but they're taller and more rangy, you know?
But the real power guys are just...
joe rogan
Look at him running sprints.
Jesus Christ.
That's not a sprinter.
What size of him?
That's a goddamn water buffalo.
steve maxwell
But for sure, you know, I've seen guys build tremendous physiques just with body weight training.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
One of my all-time favorites was this guy, Woody Strode.
He was the black gladiator in the original Spartacus opposite Kirk Douglas.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
steve maxwell
Old school.
Yeah, bring up Woody Strode.
joe rogan
How did he spell his last name?
steve maxwell
S-T-R-O-D-E. Strode.
He was one of the original bodyweight trainers.
And a lot of people don't realize, but that fight scene in the original Spartacus was one of the most dangerous fight scenes ever filmed.
They actually fought with real weapons.
unidentified
What?
steve maxwell
And they had trained for three months, according to Kirk Douglas' biography, they had trained for three months with those weapons in order to put on that fight scene.
And Stroud just had a magnificent physique, man.
joe rogan
That's terrifying.
They used real weapons to film a movie scene?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
And they did the fight.
And they had rehearsed that.
Imagine, three months now of rehearsing.
And Stroud was also a stuntman.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
And that scene where he jumps up to...
Remember, he defies the Roman patrician.
joe rogan
I don't remember.
steve maxwell
Who orders Sparty because of his death.
And Strode runs up and grabs the wall and pulls himself up.
He says he's probably the only stunt guy in Hollywood that could have pulled that off at that time.
It's like a 10-foot wall.
He jumps up there and grabs it with his fingers and does this...
Almost like a muscle-up, like he's trying to get this guy.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Because he's defying Rome.
He refuses to kill...
The character of Spartacus.
Cool movie, man.
joe rogan
Kirk Douglas was in pretty good shape back then, too.
steve maxwell
Yeah, Kirk, he did his training.
He was training with Woody at the time, doing the bodyweight training.
joe rogan
Do you work out with any other athletes at any other sports besides MMA guys?
I know you've trained quite a few MMA guys.
Diego Sanchez, you trained him infinitely for his BJ Penn fight.
But what about other athletes in other sports?
steve maxwell
I've trained a couple NFL guys.
David Akers, that used to be the famous field goal kicker.
He used to come and do jujitsu with us as well as do some conditioning work.
joe rogan
Didn't you have an issue with him where he was kicking with one leg all the time, so he was developing problems?
steve maxwell
He had a chronic hamstring pulse on his non-kicking leg, which was his right leg was his non-kicking leg.
He was a left foot kicker.
And so at my suggestion, I said, hey, why not balance yourself out?
You're kicking like 50 kicks a day, which is a lot of kicks.
But you're not doing anything for the other side.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
So start kicking with the other side.
And lo and behold, hamstring problems disappeared.
joe rogan
Well, I wanted to ask you about that because I'm getting into archery.
And I've got this bow.
It's 90 pounds.
steve maxwell
That's a pretty hefty bow.
joe rogan
I'm pulling 90 pounds all the time with my right arm.
steve maxwell
Is this a compound bow?
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
With a pulley system?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Wow.
joe rogan
I should probably get a 90-pound bow for my left arm, too.
steve maxwell
Well, what I would do is just hold the bow and just do some rows with it.
unidentified
Can't.
joe rogan
You can't grab it with your other hand.
I'll show you afterwards.
steve maxwell
Well, then get yourself a chest expander.
joe rogan
Is that good enough?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
What about rows?
I've been doing rows.
steve maxwell
Yeah, you can do rows.
joe rogan
I do 10 or 15 rows every day.
steve maxwell
But you would want a similar movement pattern, right?
joe rogan
Well, I do it like that.
I do it like this.
steve maxwell
So are you holding it with your right hand or your left hand?
joe rogan
I hold the bow with my left.
steve maxwell
Left and pull it back with my right.
Okay, so take a chest expander, like the old school rubber chest expanders, and just start pulling just to balance yourself up.
You know, I worked a fairly well-known baseball player by the name of David Bell.
I'd been working his wife out for a couple years.
I didn't even realize that she was married to a Philadelphia Philly.
And then one day she says, hey man, my husband's having some serious problems.
He's in pain a lot.
And I'd like you to take a look at him.
So David comes up and I ask him, hey, how many times a week do you throw a baseball with your right hand?
And he looked at me like, thousands of reps.
And I just simply said, what are you doing for your opposite side?
And he looked at me like, wow, I never thought about that.
And I'm thinking, well, for sure, baseball got to have some top trainers, right?
Wouldn't you think that one of those guys would have figured that out?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
That if you have a guy throwing thousands and thousands of balls with your one side, wouldn't it make sense to do something with your left?
joe rogan
They don't want to look like a girl.
unidentified
So...
joe rogan
When you throw with your left, you look like...
steve maxwell
Well, I gave them one of those little clubs, you know, a little Indian club.
joe rogan
What's that?
Oh, we're running out of time.
steve maxwell
Oh, my God.
joe rogan
Shit, we did three hours.
steve maxwell
Holy shit.
joe rogan
I got you.
Look, go to maxwellsc.com.
How much time we got left?
unidentified
Ten seconds.
joe rogan
Ten seconds.
It's over.
Thanks to our sponsor.
This fucking thing is over.
Steve Maxwell, you're awesome.
Fantastic podcast.
unidentified
Thank you, man.
So much fun.
joe rogan
We ran out of time.
See you guys later.
Bye, everybody.
For folks still listening, the audio, thanks to Ting.
Go to rogan.ting.com and save yourself some money.
And also for Steve, all of June, he's going to be in Germany, Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, all of July in the UK. Edinburgh, London, Stockport, Lancaster Shire, Lancashire?
How do you spell that?
steve maxwell
Lancashire.
joe rogan
Lancashire.
August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, Revgear University, RevgearUniversity.com, presenting kettlebell and medicine ball courses, and thanks to Black Belt Soap.
That's your buddy's company, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah, in Maui.
joe rogan
In Maui.
Black belt soap.
Okay.
And maxwellsc.com is the website that I've been looking to the whole time that we've been talking to you.
Fantastic website.
A lot of interesting stuff there.
And people can sign up there and go and get your online course and become one of the 60 people that you have to handle every day.
God damn, that's a lot of people to deal with.
That's awesome, though.
Thanks again, man.
Time flew by.
Let's do it again.
Do it again.
steve maxwell
Next time you're back in town.
Thanks, Mel.
joe rogan
Alright, thanks everybody.
We'll see you soon.
This fucking podcast is over.
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