Podbit · Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Arthur Saxon, a 200-pound German strongman, set the one-arm bent press world record at 370 pounds — and that record has stood for over 120 years. The bent press looks like a shoulder press but uses whole-body leverage to get massive weight overhead, and it bulletproofs the lower back, core, and glutes far better than any modern isolation exercise.
Where this was said
At 7:31 · chapter starts 3:08
Sal opens with a deceptively simple premise: the best muscle-building hack is learning an exercise you've never done before. He traces how lifts like the barbell squat fell out of fashion in the '90s not because they stopped working but because influential bodybuilders stopped doing them, pushing gyms toward machines. Studying Bronze Era, Olympic, and powerlifting auxiliary movements, Sal discovered exercises that provided carryover to competition lifts and filled structural gaps conventional training never addressed. Adam adds that for anyone lifting consistently for 3–5 years, the plateau is real — and a phase built around these movements can restart strength and physique progress simultaneously, since the novel stimulus also carries over to the squat, bench, and deadlift.
Most experienced lifters stop making gains because they run out of novel stimulus. These seven forgotten exercises — bent press, circus press, Zottman curls, weighted windmills, overhead carries, trap bar farm walks, and tibialis raises — come from Olympic lifting, strongman, and Bronze Era competition and carry over directly to the squat, bench, and deadlift.
Thomas's wife deferred her CrossFit career — she's in the global top 1% of athletes — to put him through law school debt-free. He wants her to chase the dream now; she wants the emergency fund and house down payment first. On a $200K lawyer income with no debt, the opportunity cost is just a few months of slower saving.
Underground calisthenics battles are exactly like UFC meets a rap battle — 150 people crowded around a circle, fighters walking out with masks and chains, nicknames like 'Extra Money' vs 'Calisthenics the Prince,' and people throwing money and betting. The battle set: 100 burpees, 50 muscle-ups, 75 dips, 75 squats with a 65-pound dumbbell. This is the next big spectator sport.
Rico Verhoeven controlled the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion for approximately 10 rounds — and had his appeal upheld when officials admitted the fight was stopped after the bell. The result was never overturned. Rogan calls it either incompetence or corruption, and argues the money behind Usyk made an upset politically inconvenient.
Rogan lays out a blunt case: boxing's 3-judge system is structurally broken, and the judges know who the promoter wants to win. Glory's 5-judge format is the right model. Corruption doesn't have to be conscious — just knowing Usyk is the cash cow is enough to tilt the scales.
With the Usyk-Wilder fight stalling and Fury-Joshua coming too late, the real fight the world wants is the rematch. Rico is a free agent. Usyk vacated his belts. The story is unfinished and both Rogan and Rico know it. His Excellency Turki Alasheikh already called for it ringside — the question is money.
Rico texted Jason Statham during the Canelo-Crawford fight. Statham showed Rico's highlight videos to promoters. Two days later, Rico was on a call about fighting Anthony Joshua. When Joshua pulled out, Rico pitched Usyk himself — Undisputed vs. Undisputed. Usyk said yes in two weeks. The whole thing started with one text.
Every heavyweight who faced Usyk tried to move to the right — straight into his power hand. Rico and Peter Fury identified the obvious solution: move left, away from the left hand, and smother him with size. It sounds simple. Nobody had done it. That one adjustment was the foundation of 10 dominant rounds.
MMA fans boo when fights go to the ground. They love stand-up. Kickboxing is pure stand-up. Yet it barely exists in America while boxing and MMA are enormous. Rogan's diagnosis: no promotion machine. If the UFC got behind kickboxing the way they've built MMA, it would explode. The talent is there — the storytelling machine is not.
A nation of 17 million people gave the world Ramon Deckers, Peter Aerts, Badr Hari, Melvin Manhoef, Rob Kamen, Ernesto Hoost, and Rico Verhoeven. Rico's theory: the country is so small that every gym shares knowledge freely. In the US, you need a flight. In Holland, you drive 40 minutes and spar the national champion.
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