ZE: Mark, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I know you’re busy with your own training, your new facility, and your family so I really appreciate this! Give us a little background on where and when you started lifting and what you’re up to at the present time.
MB: I’ve been lifting since I was eleven years old. Back then, I was kind of just messing around. Things got serious in my garage gym when an incident happened. Ok, I haven’t told anyone this story before … not even my brothers know this one. So here goes.
I started lifting because of one person. His name was Joe Garlup. Joe was a true 80s dirt dog, rocking a sick mullet, ass-tight acid wash jeans, and a yellowish wife beater that was supposed to be white. Joe smoked cigarettes, had a mustache, got into fights, and banged chicks like it was his job.
The funny thing was that he was only 15 or 16 years old. One day, I was playing football by myself at a local park. That’s right—by myself! I was just tossing my cheap Jets football up in the air over and over and over again. Then I heard, “Hey, kid. Let me see that ball.” I turned around, and there was Joe Garlup wearing a wife beater when it was probably 20–30 degrees outside.
Joe would do anything to show off his ripped guns. I looked at him and said, “Nah. I’m about to head home.” I knew Joe was a prick so I thought he would try to steal the ball or something. He said, “Come on. I want to chuck the ball around with ya.” I said, “Really?” He replied, “Yeah, I’m bored.” So I chucked him the ball. Joe caught it and said, “This is a nice ball.” He held it up to eye level, took a few steps, and kicked it as hard as he possibly could.
The ball went deep into the woods never to be seen again. Joe laughed and peeled out on his BMX bike. I yelled at him as he sped off. Like I said earlier, Joe was much older and stronger then me. So I decided if I trained for it, I would be able to whoop his ass. Later that night, I started lifting weights and asking my older brothers how to get bigger and stronger.
As the weeks and months went by, I got stronger and stronger. I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to run into that son of a bitch.” Years went by, and still at the heart of every rep, every set, and every workout, I wanted to beat the crap out of Joe Garlup.
One night I decided to hit a football party with some friends. And wouldn’t you know it, there was big bad Joe Garlup weighing a rugged 175 lbs. I looked at him and thought to myself, “God, he looks small.” Maybe I thought that because at the time I was 16 years old and weighed 240 lbs.
I ran right at him and tackled his skinny ass to the ground. The fight was broken up before any real damage could be done. I yelled at him and said, “Remember me?” He looked at me funny and said, “No!” I asked him if he had my football. His eyes lit up, and he said, “Oh shit!” I calmed down for a bit. His friends kept coming up to me and telling me that he wanted to say he was sorry. I decided I’d talk to him. I shook his hand with my left hand and smashed him in the face with my right hand. I knocked him out cold. It was kind of scary because he still wasn’t up when I left ten minutes later. So that’s my lifting story. Sorry it was so long, but I thought some would get a kick out of that.
After I trained for a while, I jumped into some powerlifting meets at age 13. My mom called me the other day and told me that she had just watched one of my meets from back when I was a kid. I asked her what my numbers were. She told me all I did was bench, but that at 14 years old, I benched 365 lbs. I set some state and national records and fell in love with the sport.
ZE: The first time I saw you was in Louie Simmons’ Special Strength DVD. He had you doing 50 rep sets of Romanian deadlifts, five minutes of dumbbell presses on a stability ball, and more training that most people would be shocked to see. Tell us about your experiences at Westside and how Westside has influenced the way you train yourself and others.
MB: Westside! Damn, I miss that place. Training at Westside was awesome to say the least. I’d thank Louie for letting me lift there, but he’d get mad at me. He’d say, “Don’t thank me. You did the training.” One thing that separates Westside from every other gym is that they follow principles but not a routine or plan. They take ideas from everywhere you can think of and make them their own. They utilize methods that work for them. If something doesn’t work, they get rid of it. I think other gyms have gained success over the past five years because they realized that you have to learn things on your own. Reading has never made anyone strong but lifting weights has.
The type of lifting I did while I was there was fairly simple. When I used to wrestle, a match would typically last between 5–15 minutes. There are no breaks or time outs in professional wrestling. Because of this, I’d often train 15 minutes straight. This wasn’t done all the time because it was very taxing. I would pick 15 exercises and perform them for one minute straight. This is WAY harder then it sounds! But training at Westside was always hard, demanding, and challenging.
Westside helped mold me into who I am today. If I never trained at Westside, I would never have opened up my own gym.
ZE: I believe at the time of that DVD you were training for professional wrestling. How were you able to balance your training in the gym with your training in the ring? I can imagine you sustained many bumps and bruises so how were you able to keep your training at a constantly progressive level?
MB: I balanced my training by limiting the total number of exercises in one day. Unless I was conditioning, I limited myself to 5–6 exercises. I backed off from things that would leave me extremely sore. When I say that I backed off, I mean I’d only do 1–3 sets. For example, the real problem was lower body work. On these days, I’d hit a main lift. I’d move on to assistance work, and I’d do two sets of a bunch of different things. Here’s a sample workout:
Warm up
Box jumps, five sets of five
Hindu squats, two sets of 50
Main exercise
Safety squat bar box squats, work up heavy
Tread sled forward, two sets of 100 steps
Tread sled backward, two sets of 100 steps
Pull-down abs, four sets 15–20
Reverse hypers, two sets of 10
Glute ham raise, two sets of 10
As a side note, I’d also do small exercises in between some of the main exercises. Right now, I’m fat, fluffy, and out of shape. That was the kind of workout I did when I was at Westside. When I moved to Kentucky and wrestled more, I ditched the max effort lower body exercise.
ZE: You were very lean during your days as a professional wrestler. What do you attribute your leanness to and was it difficult to stay so lean?
MB: It was very hard mainly because I was born to be fat. Back then I ate less and exercised more. Wow, that’s some hardcore stuff for all those internet science Barneys out there.
I have more late breaking news … I stayed away from fast food. In fact, I went nearly two years without any fast food. I also stayed clear of bread and excess carbs. During the week, I’d follow a very low carb routine. I used carbs as fuel when I thought I could really use them. I’d eat carbs post-workout, and I’d limit my carbs for the rest of the day. On the weekends, anything goes, and I’d eat like a savage.
705 Deadlift
This worked really well because I wrestled matches every Saturday and Sunday. I’d like to point out that during that period of time, I was chemically enhanced. The reason I bring this up is because I’m sick and tired of people lying about drugs. I want people to understand that nearly every guy you see in a bodybuilding magazine is on shit. Nearly everyone who is in good shape and over 200 pounds is probably on shit. It’s important for people to know the whole story. People aren’t just naturally 240 pounds and 10 percent body fat. I’ll also say that I benched 515 lbs naturally at 220 lbs. But performance enhancers pushed me up to 240–250 pounds of lean mass when I was wrestling. I was able to bench 500 lbs without a shirt just six months after I struggled to bench 515 lbs in a double denim bench shirt.
ZE: How did you condition yourself for the rigors of wrestling? Did you do any specialized conditioning to physically and mentally prep yourself?
MB: One huge key to all my training is to make the training much harder then the actual sport itself. I utilized many forms of conditioning. I ran hills, did body weight circuits, and utilized Strongman training. I used kettlebells, ultra high rep bench, squats, and deadlifts. I also did interval type cardio on treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, rowers, and whatever else I thought would help me breathe better in the ring. Whenever I did conditioning drills, I’d visualize myself going through a 30-minute match.
I used the same method to bench and deadlift 705 lbs. While doing triceps push-downs, I’d visualize myself benching 705 lbs and grinding it out through the top of the lift. Like Mickey says in Rocky, “You see yourself doing good, and you’ll do good. You’re gonna be a greasy, fast Italian monster! You’re gonna eat lightening and crap thunder. You’re gonna be a very dangerous person!”
ZE: Knowing what you now know, how would you advise someone to train if they were aspiring to become a professional wrestler?
MB: Surround yourself with the best people you can find. Get a fellow wrestler or meathead to train with you. Use the basic lifts that have helped anyone get big, the lifts that stood the test of time such as the squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press, and bent over rows. Hit your first two exercises heavy, and then do some bodybuilding type of shit. Super set as much as possible.
ZE: As you began making the switch from wrestling to powerlifting, what were the steps you took that have allowed you to be so successful in powerlifting?
MB: Commitment! Powerlifting is something that I’ve always been good at, but in order to get to the next level, I needed to work hard and commit myself to the sport. One step I took was to simply start squatting. I didn’t squat for about two years. It didn’t mix well with wrestling and neither did anything other then sitting on my couch scratching my balls.
The biggest step of all though was to find a gym. I posted some information on EliteFTS.com when I was moving from Kentucky to Sacramento. I moved to Sacramento without knowing anyone other then my in-laws—yikes!
I was lucky enough to be contacted by Steve Zaretsky, the owner of Natomas gym. Steve invited me over to his house for an early morning workout. I remember it like it was yesterday. Standing outside his house, I watched as his garage door started to roll up. The first thing that I saw was a reverse hyper. As the door opened up more and more, I saw an entire garage full of EliteFTS.com equipment. I couldn’t believe it!
Training at Westside
I found exactly what I needed, and I knew I’d hit my first 600 lb bench if I worked hard in “Z’s Garage.” If it wasn’t for Steve, it would have been a long, difficult road trying to find a good workout partner or other lifters. Basically, if Steve had never responded to my post on EliteFTS.com, I probably wouldn’t have my own gym full of powerlifters. Even though Steve is a real ball buster, I will always be thankful that he let me train at his place.
I’d also like to take a minute to thank Dave Tate and Jim Wendler. After I benched 600 lbs, I was sponsored by www.elitefts.com. When Dave decided to sponsor me, I took that sponsorship as my responsibility to get strong. In that period of time, I went from a 1905 lb total to a 2215 lb total. Thanks, Dave and Jim.
ZE: Your background is in wrestling, powerlifting, and training among the greats at Westside and consulting with top coaches everywhere. It must be amazing to see what you can do with athletes now that you have your own facility and so much knowledge and personal experience. Do you have a general template for athletes or certain guidelines you tend to follow on a regular basis that have given an excellent return in results? Give us an example of how you split up a training week or a training block.
MB: The gains that the team has made have been outstanding. We have had guys add 100–200 lbs onto their total from one meet to the next. We had a 19-year-old kid squat 804 lbs and a 17-year-old kid deadlift over 600 lbs. To me, the numbers mean a lot, but the progress that people make is also very important.
My greatest asset is my ability to steal ideas and network with some of the best. My ideas on training aren’t just from me. I’ll grab stuff from everyone that I can.
reverse band bench of 585 lbs. I hit 635 lbs later in the workout.
I don’t like to be organized. I’m a big believer in the term shut up and train. Everyone at my gym follows the methods of Westside Barbell. Over a period of a few months, our team has learned what they need to do to get better. So we don’t really have an organized program.
When it comes to training athletes, my beliefs are the same. “Sport specific” is a queer word used to rope parents into bringing their 10-year-old kid in to workout. Are you going to simulate a game in the gym that you would do on a field? For the most part, you can’t. If you wanted your boy to learn how to play football, would you bring him to the weight room? Lift weights, gain muscle, and get strong. Then go play your sport.
ZE: At your high level of powerlifting, how do you go about constantly getting stronger? Did you feel you had to gain weight and pack on more mass to lift more, or did you have to tweak your training in certain ways? Give us the lowdown.
MB: In life, you do what you need to do. If you needed to pick up a second job or you’d lose your house, what would do? Go look for a job, right? What would you do if you lost a deadlift due to grip? You’d work your freaking grip.
If you’re six feet tall and only 220 lbs, you won’t have the proper leverage to be great in certain lifts. Actually, even at 242 lbs you won’t be great. At six feet tall, I realized that the minimum I could weigh would be about 275 lbs. I realized this when I was standing in the crowd and not on the stage at the Arnold Classic last year.
You do what you need to do to get better—plain and simple. If you don’t know how to get better, ask your training partners. Attitude, atmosphere, and consistency made me stronger. I believe that all strong men have that in common.
ZE: Mark, you’re a crazy man, and I’m grateful for your time. Please let our readers know how they can contact you and find out about your gym (your website, gym location, etc.). Also, can anyone train at your gym or is it only for personalized training? Thanks again, brother, and I look forward to meeting you soon enough!
MB: You can contact me at www.powerbear.com or www.iwork4honey.com. That was a JOKE. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. At this time, the only form of website I have is www.myspace.com/supertraining. I have a bunch of videos and pictures of the gym and the team on the myspace page. Currently, we’re in the process of putting together a training DVD. I feel very strongly about this product, and I guarantee that you’ve never seen anything like it in the powerlifting world.
Super Training is located at 310 Harris Ave., Sacramento, CA 95838. Our powerlifting team trains from 5:00–9:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at 9:00 am on Saturdays and Sundays. Anyone can try to train with us, but to make the commitment to train four times a week for 2–3 hours isn’t easy. I offer group training sessions to anyone looking for more personalized training.
Thanks for doing the interview with me. I’ve held off for years on articles, mainly because I still feel like a student of the game and not a teacher.
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