Barbell Shrugged - [Peak Physique] The Journey to a Bodybuilding Pro Card w/ Dr. Eric Helms, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #726

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Eric Helms PhD, CSCS is the Chief Science Officer of 3DMJ. He helps the team members play to their strengths, stay up to date with best practice, and acts as a science communicator, helping lifters find sustainable pathways to high performance.    Eric is the chief author of the Muscle and Strength Pyramids, a founder of and reviewer for Monthly Applications in Strength Sport, and is a research fellow at the Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand at Auckland University of Technology, pursuing research in training, nutrition and psychology for strength and physique sport.    Eric has a PhD in Strength and Conditioning with a research focus on autoregulating powerlifting, a masters with a research focus on protein and macronutrient manipulation for dieting bodybuilders, a second masters in exercise science and health promotion, and a bachelors in sports management, fitness and wellness.    As an athlete, Eric is WNBF Pro bodybuilder and competes in multiple strength sports.   Work with  Dr. Eric Helms Instagram: @helms3dmj Website: https://3dmusclejourney.com Podcast: https://3dmusclejourney.com/podcast/   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Dr. Eric Helms is coming on to talk about his journey to becoming a professional bodybuilder. And it is not the path most traveled. The dude competed in an enormous number of bodybuilding events consecutively, basically throughout the year, just staying insanely lean. And what's really cool is talking about how he built up so that even with the extended period of time that he was living very lean throughout the year, that his last show he thought was actually his best show, which resulted in getting his pro card, which is super cool. I really enjoy just anybody's meathead journey is always welcomed here. And Dr. Eric Helms is one of the leading voices kind of in the strength and conditioning hypertrophy space. But we got to bring him on to tell some

like more of a personal story today. So super cool. As always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dr. Eric Helms. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I think this is your first time, somehow, I believe this is your first time on Barbell Shrugged. You know, I'm a listener, and you've had the other people on. I don't know how our Venn diagrams haven't crossed,

but I'm just glad to be here. It's an honor. We recently had the rest of the mass review crew, mass research crew on the show. You're the last of the four. You had the better Eric on already. So, I eric on already so i mean you've done it it doesn't get confusing at all i'm sure uh we were just talking pre-show and i thought i had read somewhere that you had done three bodybuilding shows almost in back to back to back succession to turn out and it turns out it was actually five. That's crazy. Spent all of 2020,

2023 in a caloric deficit from like February to five bodybuilding shows later, all natural. I'm really stoked to dig into the nutrition and really the mental side of how you can stay that lean that long throughout an entire year. Where did this idea actually formulate in your brain to cause, we'll call it performance, but also lots of pain to go along with it to start the year? You know, the funny thing, so I turned 40 this year, and I've been in and around bodybuilding for about two decades. When I first started lifting weights, it was 19 years ago. And I was coming in at an era where there was a lot of changes and we helped to prompt some of those changes. So believe it or not, especially in the natural bodybuilding world with the modern conditioning standard conditioning

just being how lean you have to present on stage um that is not that that that odd and the reason why it breaks the brains of people who are a little more used to the typical 12 to 16 week you know diet that you will see traditionally in bodybuilding is that approach for one it didn't typically get you quite as lean for two there's a reason why it's you know eight to sixteen weeks from way back in the day and most of the time that's the length of a steroid cycle um so that's happened allegedly allegedly allegedly right so it's it's it's a little different when um you're you not, those two things aren't coinciding. You can only lose body fat so quickly as a, as leaner you get regardless of whether you're

drug free or not, but especially when you're drug free. So you kind of have to sneak it off. So if you think about the total amount of weight I lost, it was a fair amount, but it was far less than losing like a pound a week when you think about the deficit. So I would say like the quote unquote stock standard bodybuilding division drug-free prep is typically about six months. And people are starting, depending upon, you know, their eventual stage weight and how big of a person they are, somewhere between 20 to 35 pounds over it's it's definitely not a crash diet and that is that's kind of the old school approach is like you know we'll we'll go hard and the diet basically changes

you know like i start with quote-unquote clean foods and then i cut out most of my fats then i cut out most of my carbs and then for the last four weeks it's just protein and veggies and cardio and and and grit you know and then and then i i do a carb load on day three and wonder why i look you know terrible you know three days later or whatever a few days out um that is kind of like old school and in my opinion now and there a, there's a lot of better ways to approach it. So we started 3d muscle journey, uh, back in 2009, and we were trying to really bring more evidence-based practice, um, and more drug-free specific practice to bodybuilding at that point. Uh, and we've been doing that now for, geez, it's going to make me feel old, 14 years. So back then we started in California. I was living in Sacramento. My colleague, Alberto Nunez in the Bay Area, Jeff Alberts in the greater Bay Area, Stockton-ish, and then Brad Loomis just real close near Reno. And we all noticed that it was a lot of inherited practices from the NPC

ranks that were, you know, largely influenced by, you know, they fed the IFBB. So it was heavily influenced by folks who were, you know, enhanced. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, depending upon if you understand the differences. So to get really, really, really lean, not flatten yourself and lose a ton of muscle, and also the psychological side of it. When I tell someone I'm dieting 30 weeks, and they're in the mindset of, oh, this is a 12 week diet, but two and a half times as long, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. For the first, I would say 30 weeks of the diet out of my 41, it really wasn't that disruptive or hard. You know, I hadn't pushed to a point where I'm incredibly shredded yet. I'm steadily losing the, you know,

the 30-ish pounds I lost. My diet is very flexible. You know, I'm basically just trying to hit a calorie target and a protein range and hitting a step count. You know, I'm still supervising my master's and PhD students in AT. I'm still consulting with my athletes. I'm traveling. I'm speaking at events. It doesn't really get hard. And in my opinion, it shouldn't until you're getting down to that point where, at least for me, I'm say six, seven pounds over stage weight and trying to get down to those elite levels of conditioning yeah um on top of that there's also a lot of approaches that people use now to break up the diet uh diet breaks

refeeds non-linear dieting approaches um those things at least anecdotally really seem to reduce the like the difficulty of the diet and they can kind of take you when you're you're starting to feel like you're treading water and sinking and going all right let's let's hit pause let's take a breather let's take a week let's fill you back out get a week of training where you actually get a pump and then we'll dive back in with a little bit of mental refreshed you know mental clarity some glycogen yeah what does that what does that? You know, and that that's kind of the approach. When I hear that long of a dieting phase, I immediately just think, well, how do you keep, how do you not go flat? Especially if you're competing in multiple shows and back-to-back weekends. There isn't like a, a big three-day window when you've got seven days to stand on stage on a Saturday.

And then the next Saturday, you can't just go feed all of those gluttonous cravings Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then think you're going to be back to stage weight and feeling good three days later. What was a little bit of the flow once you got down to a stage weight and then start kind of like checking boxes on those five events? How did you handle in between competitions to prepare yourself or at least stay prepared? That's a great question. So now we're moving from basically the strategic approach to prep that is kind of what is occurring in modern natural bodybuilding. Just to let everybody listening know, he just raised both hands and just big biceps straight across his arm.

He tried not to make it look so direct, but that was awesome. Let me just give you an air figure here. This very lean, shredded bicep. We saw both seps there which was fantastic great job thank you thank you very much and uh credibility building this is just how i talk with my hand it's totally normal yeah um yeah yeah yeah so yeah you got to sneak it in you know when your ego is this fragile i i that's us bodybuild. We only have a few things in life that we can hold on to. The double bicep flex at any point in time is acceptable.

Absolutely. You know, it's worth the subclinical eating disorder. So in all seriousness, though, like, yeah, that is a very good question because there is a specific tactical level approach that you have to take when you're doing back to back shows. And this also comes down to some of the traditional approaches that are also common in the enhanced ranks, and then what is more common in the drug free ranks. Most of the time when I talk to someone, and I tell them that I did, you know, three back to on September 30th, October 7th, and October 14th, those were my first three shows of the season. And then I had a two-week break and then a three-week break.

When I see their eyes light up, if they're familiar with bodybuilding, I know what information sources they're coming from or what they expect. And they're often thinking, okay, there's a carb depletion phase. There's a carb loading phase. And there's a water manipulation phase where they're dehydrating and potentially manipulating sodium and potassium. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs.

That means the inside-out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com.

You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. If it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com. And let's get back to the show. And they're often thinking, okay, there's a carb depletion phase, there's a carb loading phase, and there's a water manipulation phase where they're dehydrating and potentially manipulating sodium and potassium. Now that may be traditional and it may be common

in the enhanced ranks. but I think a thing people need to remember is that the level of water retention that drug-free athletes are dealing with are orders of magnitude less than what you're dealing with in the enhanced ranks. And even in the enhanced ranks, there's a huge disparity. Like just because you go to a local NPC show doesn't mean that everybody's running a ton of androgenic drugs that are creating water retention and that they need to be using you know like diuretics and and manipulating that stuff now they probably do it anyway because they're copying mr olympia but you know that's the problem exactly that's the problem a hundred percent yeah yeah like there was a recent survey that was published um by a really good group of folks who

went to some of these national qualifying npc shows and something like 40 of the competitors at these they're they're national qualifying but they're not necessarily like go here get your pro card something like 40 of the competitors were saying you know anonymously i'm drug free so when you're kind of siloed into these different, because there's unfortunately not as much crosstalk between the natural and the enhanced ranks, but there are very different practices. Like if you sit down and you talk to a, you know, Elaine Norton or me, or if you talk to some of the high level coaches like Cliff Wilson on the natural side of it, and you sit down and you talk to some of the folks in the enhanced side of it,

there are some things that are very similar and there are some things that are very different. So typically in the drug-free ranks, if you talk to some of the coaches who are experienced in the know, water is, you typically don't dehydrate. You're keeping water high. You want to see clear urinations. If anything, sometimes you're increasing sodium a bit on the day of the show because it keeps blood pressure higher, which tanks when you're in prep, you notice you can actually get a pump. You're not manipulating potassium much at all. You're just trying to keep those ratios relatively constant. Like I might make sure that, you know, in my, some of my meals, I'm having potatoes or banana just so I'm not like way unbalanced with my sodium potassium

compared to normal, but you're kind of just trying to keep your hydration and your electrolytes solid while you do a carb load. And then the main variable that changes is when and how much do i carb load and how long does it take my body to kind of look better um some people store carbohydrates quickly they don't see a lot of water retention and that time course is fast like you give them a carb load and they're looking better on that day the next day they look better some people they have what we call like a kind of a spilly load look. So when you load carbohydrate, the whole theory of what we think we're happening here is that glycogen is getting stored in the muscle. However, there's a rate limiter of how

quickly you can store glycogen in muscle. So all of the associated glycogen bound water is not necessarily where it should be yet. And we think we're seeing, you know, spill over into the subcutaneous space, hence spilling over. Whether that's actually what's happening or not, we don't know. But what we noticed observationally, you load a lot of carbs, depending on how much of a metabolic freak you are, you're going to look better immediately or after some time. So for me, what we've found over time and for actually a lot of athletes, the look you kind of want is a full but slightly spilled over look the Friday night before the show. Because when you go to bed, eight hours of sleep or, you know,

five hours of nervous sleep because you're competing the next day. But nonetheless, you go eight hours without eating. You wake up in the morning looking a lot more crisp maintaining that fullness as soon as you start hydrating and then you just need to kind of maintain that look on game day is that an individual approach do you guys have to like practice that months out um for each individual exactly yeah travis the that this is different for everyone so like i was in the middleweights at the in was in the pro middleweights at Worlds on Sunday. There's a guy nearly the same body weight as me who won the class. His name is Benjamin Schuster. He's a 21-year-old phenom from Germany. He's maybe an inch shorter than me, a couple of kilos heavier than me, and a little bit leaner than I was. And there's a reason why he won the class and I play seventh, but he's loading like 800, 900 grams of carbs for three or four days in a row. And then game day, it's basically the same thing.

And there's no change in his look. He just looks full. And if he stops, he flattens out. Lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He's 21. I'm 40. He's winning. You know, he's, he's clearly just as genetically a freak. I'm not taking anything away from his hard work, but you know, people get different things and you put them the same thing sometimes. But for, for me, I'm loading on say 400, 500

grams of carbohydrates on like the Wednesday. And then I taper it down to 300 ish. And then I basically, I barely eat anything on, on, on game day. I just eat. Cause if I, especially if I'm commuting early in the morning, I maintain my water intake. I had some potatoes and eggs for breakfast. And then I have like a little bit of deli meat to get my sodium meat, sodium up. And I do a pump up. So I'm walking into, I'm on stage on like 600 calories. He's on stage on 600 grams of carbs you know i know he's got such advantage you poor guy you know he's like why do you feel so bad i feel great you're like you know yeah i mean you know it's it and i'm there's there's people who i'm placing higher than

who are also loading on on on larger amounts it's it's just it's just wild you know as having coached maybe a couple hundred competitors through this stage um i would say the other coaches at 3dmj i'm like the science officer i was a full-time coach up to like 2015 and now i'm part-time coach full-time let's make sure we're up to date with this with the science but um yeah like uh alberto nunez who has handled my it's been been like the help to me during my prep. He knows my body just as well. It's not better than I do. And he's more objective when I'm at the end stages of prep where you get a little crazy no matter what.

You're like, I need more food. I can tell. I know I need more food. And he's like, nope. Or less. You sit in your hotel room and just stay right there. Or less. I tend to be the person who's always trying to chase being shredded sometimes.

So you get, you know, like your personality just kind of dictates what kind of dumb things you would trend towards. Which is funny since you're a PhD, obviously brilliant, but still your psyche takes over when you're like about to compete. Travis, well, A, I appreciate that. And there's a PhD in sports science is like the equivalent of, you know, maybe two thirds of a, of a real degree. But, um, I would say that, you know, we're all, we, we're all coaches here and we value our profession. We understand that it's not just about knowing what to do it's about how do you communicate it observing changes how do you adapt it um and providing an objective eye and also having the right bedside manner when you're working with athletes and helping them help themselves and i think it is the it's it's one of the supreme heights of arrogance to think well

because i know things i don't need a coach right yeah totally yeah man like so when I go to S&C conferences or when I'm working uh when I when I when I speak and someone asks me like and they put me on a pedestal I'm like listen listen like if if good coaching was defined by the latest science that means 10 years ago everyone was a terrible coach but that's like John Wooden's the man and that's never going to change, right? Agreed, yes. So the methods we use and some of the tools we have in our tool belt,

those are going to change, but the person wearing that tool belt is what determines whether they're a really good coach. And just like it's unethical and dangerous for a doctor to do a surgery on like their wife or their son, because they're too emotionally close to them. They can't be objective. Like who are you more emotionally close to than yourself? You know? So this is

brilliant. And I totally agree. I'm the worst coach for myself in the world. I would never do for my athletes what I would do to myself. It's crazy. It's literally crazy. And you're not alone. I think different coaches are more or less coachable depending upon how much they can take off their coaching hat and put on their athlete hat. I think I'm pretty good at putting on the athlete hat. I'm certainly not the best and I've gotten better over time. But there's also a way to work with, um, athletes who have more experience and no more things. Like I'm a two,

two decade veteran of lifting and I've been competing. This is my fifth season. My, I think this is my 18th show that I've done this year at worlds. Um, and, uh, you know,

so Berto, when he works with me he doesn't work me the same way that he's working with the the first time competitor um he tells me he gives me ranges he encourages me to auto regulate like when i have a refeed when i don't and he gives me like outcomes like hey i want to see us during february to apr want to lose about, you know, six, seven pounds. Your performance should look like this. I want to see these things. So it versus reduce your carbohydrates, 25 grams, you know? So I think there's a, there's a way to work with athletes where you, as they progress

and their experience grows, you're not only encouraging that and cultivating that, but you're also then using them more and more in a collaborative way and leveraging the experience they have. So you don't hold them back. So Berto still is able to provide me that objective eye, that ability to step outside of my emotional tendencies when I get stressed and provide me another intelligent, collaborative, more experienced coach than I am, but also leverage the fact that, you know, I've been doing this for a while and I have some advantages over that 21-year-old, not physically, but at least

experience-wise, right? So, yeah. So anyway, it's a bit of a a tangent but essentially uh to get back to your question um the way that i actually did these three shows in a row was i just shifted my refeed schedule so during my dieting phase to get in shape i was doing five low days two high days on the saturday sunday um you know then i could have harder training days on on the weekend and on the monday when i'm still full and then you know a little have harder training days on the weekend and on the Monday when I'm still full and then a little bit easier training days and shifting around just so it worked with my life

and my schedule. That was a useful way of doing things. Then we could also evaluate, when did I look best? We noticed I'm looking my best on typically a Monday or Tuesday. After a couple of days of having loaded carbohydrates, we knew I looked good there. That's something we've seen consistently over the years. So we just adapted that schedule and just pushed the refeeds back for the shows so that each time I competed, I would load in a little more. Instead of having two moderate load days, I'd have one high and then taper down. And I loaded either Wednesday or Thursday and then tapered down to the show to compete on Saturday. And because on Saturday I'm eating, like I said, only 500 calories,

800 calories by the time I get on stage, even if I go out and have a very modest celebratory meal, we're talking like salmon and rice and maybe an appetizer or dessert, by the end of the day on game day, I'm only eating 1,800, 1,900, maybe 2,000 calories. And you're on your feet all day on days you compete. So I'm actually still running a deficit the day I compete. And then I've got Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and I do it again. And it just takes the discipline to go, right,

I know everyone else, this might be their last show of the season. This is my first, second, third of five. I'm not going out to celebrate any more than just the social experience so um i'm right back on the plan i'm back it's it's it's game day in seven days so so let's go yeah on a on a similar note did you notice yourself looking any different on any particular show out of the five shows did you look significantly better on one of the shows versus the others are just consistent across the board did you notice any any delta there better better better better better better i each time i stepped on stage it was the the best look

i've ever presented and um and that was your paper on why you should compete every weekend then take it to the end yeah don't prep just compete every weekend stay shredded year round what could go wrong well things stay consistent though it sounds like it's like not much change from your training you got your you got your weekend where you loaded your monday was starting to come down so it seems like you were just kind of rolling right into it yeah exactly it fed into it itself quite nicely um the biggest challenge was uh just because the first show was in new zealand the second two shows were in the states that that was a little bit hard you know but it was kind of an advantage because we're a day ahead down here like right now for me it is wednesday it's wednesday morning at 7 a.m for you guys it's where are you by the way

auckland new zealand oh yeah sweet yeah yeah so you know for you guys it's where are you by the way auckland new zealand oh yeah sweet yeah yeah so you know for you guys it's uh what is it tuesday afternoon yeah um yeah for me it's wednesday morning so i had basically an eight day i had a little window and the feedback i got after my first show which which i won but um there was also a panel there that decided whether or not I was pro quality because it was, I don't know if you get it at the federation specifics, but WNBF, World Natural Bodybuilding Federation, it has a bunch of different international affiliates. The New Zealand affiliate has only been around two years. So the shows aren't quite that big yet.

So they have a panel that decides whether or not if you win the overall for the national title, whether or not you you can get a pro card. So it's a little subjective still. We're doing away with it next year. I was actually a judge the first year last year. And they said, hey, you know, Eric, you weren't in peak, peak, peak condition yet. And my physique, I'm not a big guy. I'm relatively aesthetic. But for me to be competitive at the highest level i have to be peeled um and i was i had glute striations but they weren't like so i was uh legally shredded as we like to call it i met the conditioning standard but they were

like hey you know eric if you were a little leaner or if there was more competitors in the show that's another way if there's at least eight in the the division, then we could award a pro card. So I was like, okay, I need to get leaner. So we pushed. So I definitely, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're all low days. I'm running a high step count. It's a low of a calorie intake. It's just reasonable when you're that lean.

And then I came in slightly tighter. And the thing is when you're, when you're that close to being shredded, um, like think of it this way. Like when you are, when you've got 20 pounds of fat on your body and you lose half a pound of fat, you don't really notice it. But when you literally only have essential fat left. So like when you're 6% body fat and you're able to lose a quarter pound of fat, you can literally see it the next, the next day. It's a wild thing when you're in peak condition for a bodybuilding show and you start making these manipulations, you can sometimes see like daily changes. So, um, yeah, I looked leaner from my first show to my second show. And then for my second to my third show, I did get get leaner but we also pushed the carb up a little more so i looked about the same but fuller so that which is a net better um then after

those three shows were done i came home and we had two more weeks until the australia show um and i had been just short of getting a pro card which was the goal of the season for me in those prior three shows. The first show, like I said, I actually won the show. I couldn't have done better, but the panel said, hey, you know, not quite pro quality. The second show I did, I placed second to the eventual pro card winner. I was second in the middleweights, and then the middleweight went on to win the overall.

And then the third show, I won the Masters, and I placed third in the middles so and it was a really really competitive show there was actually um some guys who are pro men's physique competing against me who were trying to get their bodybuilding cards so it was a it was third but i was very very like pleased with it given the quality of competitors and then i I had two weeks for the Australian national show for the WNBF. And I went, all right, now I've got a little bit of runway to really push it. And at that point I reached like equal to or probably the leanest I've ever been.

And I was very fortunate to win one of the two pro cards available at the Australian show, which is pretty big. They had close to a hundred competitors. Nice. Were you tracking any lab markers or doing consistent blood work on yourself uh throughout the process that's just for a natural bodybuilder that's just a that's like just watching your bank account during a time period with an economic recession i really wanted

to know what happened to your testosterone levels well i, I can tell you. I mean, I can tell you that tracking. It's not good. Low. Lower than normal, you know? Low and trending lower. Yeah. Honestly, I think that can really get in your head. And what I have done in previous years is in 2019, my last season, I tracked, I got some blood work in the off season to see my testosterone levels. And I got it during the recovery. and not just my testosterone as well.

I'm looking at like mineral status. I'm looking at thyroid. I, I, I get the whole full panel because there's a lot of indications of recovery besides testosterone. Yeah. So I got off season blood work and then I got like a early recovery phase, like six weeks post show and then three months post-show. And I think that's what matters. Because I know what's going to happen six weeks out. It's going to be like, oh my God.

And I don't think that's good for my psyche. So no, I did not. But I am actually planning on getting some blood work done in about a couple of weeks, probably. Right now, I'm two and a half weeks post Worlds. What are your KPIs? I noticed you said step count. So like what are all the things that you are actually tracking?

Good question. Yeah. So I am essentially hitting calorie target, protein target. That is auto-regulated to some degree and the subjective feedback and objective feedback that I get to decide. So for example, my low days were generally during prep and the harder phases between 1400 to 1700 calories. And my step count was between, let's say 10 to 12,000 steps. So, uh, the steps, I just kind of let them fall where they were. I would get a couple walks in and then based upon other things I had in my life they'd fall in that 2000 range um and then the calories would be

dictated based upon how lethargic was i how was my performance in the gym how was my sleep i do notice the lower my calories the more i'm more likely to wake up after three or four hours and you can only burn the candle at the end of both sides before you start to have problems with sleep like shredded lotus stuff everything we talked about you start getting four hours of sleep consistently and that prep is going to go south pretty quick um so yeah if i was getting consistently bad sleep then we i'd run a couple days at 1700 and try to keep the step count closer to 10k and then i'm getting six seven hours i'm good um and also this is pretty subjective but it is one of those benefits of being experienced

there's a level of hunger lethargy and fatigue that is appropriate for the for the deficit you're running at the level of leanness you're running at your proximity out from the show so one of the reasons i wasn't in peak peak peak leanness for the september your proximity out from the show so one of the reasons i wasn't in peak peak peak leanness for the september 30th show is because we were going look we got to make it all the way to november 19th um and we want to be in the best condition possible but if we were absolutely peeled and we crushed ourselves to get there you're a are you going to make it all the way november 19th mentally not yeah and b if you can push through it are you going to look better yeah um i look leaner but what do you look better or would you look kind of like the shredded guy who got jumped in an alley

and then crawled out and went on stage you know so yeah how much protein i'm curious like you know everyone you you get so many wide ranges like at this point how much and like why what's your basis yeah so i'm typically consuming around 160 to 200 grams of protein um i compete right around 175 on stage so that's just just around or above a gram per pound um and i like my masters was on protein intake in bodybuilders this is something that i so actually what brought me out to new zealand was i wanted to figure out all right there's you got your rda of 0.8 grams per kilogram you know we got our our bodybuilders saying you need at least a gram per pound and we're talking 2012 when i did this and then we have our double for people who don't know pounds kilograms that means double or a little bit more than double

the rd yeah almost triple like two and a half yeah so we got 2.2 grams per kg minimum is what your your your flex magazine is telling you back when i started looking into this we got 0.8 gram per kilogram you know rda and then in the middle when you have in the nose sports dieticians and some of your textbooks that are in more up-to-date stuff they're going going, hey, 1.5, 1.6, 1.4, 1.7 grams per kg. And I'm going, all right, why is there this disparity? And there is absolutely greater demands on utilizing protein for energy. You use less fat and carbohydrate for fuel when you're in a deficit and when you're lean and when you're active. So there is certainly a argument for having a higher protein intake, especially when dieting and training and being active and being lean in a deficit and getting leaner.

Now, the amount of actual empirical study on that is limited, but the limited data we have, and I'm honored to have done some of it, is that there is that higher requirement. Exactly how high it is, is not super clear, because we don't have a whole lot of moderate to very high comparisons. But those that are out there generally are telling us like, hey, even in a surplus, you're benefiting from having at least 1.6 grand per kg or higher. That's where you start to kind of plateau as far as getting a benefit from protein. We've got like studies of studies, meta-analyses, and multiple ones now in 2023 have found kind of this break point where you start to get diminishing returns from higher protein intakes.

Most of those studies, though, have been done in people who are at calorie balance and not necessarily very, very lean. And when we look at more mechanistic data, so kind of short-term studies looking at the way physiology is operating, we see that when someone is in a deficit, muscle protein synthesis actually is a bit capped. So the anabolic stimulus from resistance training is less. And that's the primary way that someone who's trying to maintain muscle when dieting retains their muscle is the anabolic stimulus from training. We think of training as like an anti-catabolic when we're dieting. But in reality, it is just, we're trying to build muscle when we lift and it's counteracting the, the, the fact that we're also dieting and trying to lose it. Now, when you're a lean and you're in a deficit,

you also see muscle protein breakdown go up. So there's a theoretical rationale for trying to increase your protein intake so that that is not coming from your tissue, but ingested amino acids, and that you're also increasing your protein to hopefully offset the fact that mps muscle protein synthesis from training is capped a little bit is that super well studied no but there's also other benefits from higher protein intakes like a little bit of enhanced satiety that also that's what i was gonna say but it's there it's definitely there

and it's individual at what point that happens. And it's also important to note that we don't eat macros, we eat foods. So there is a limit to that. Sometimes people think, oh, protein is the most satiating macronutrient. And that is true, but we eat the whole food matrix. So like if you were to tell me, all right, I'm just going to eat all of my calories from protein, I would say, you know, a bowl of broccoli is pretty satiating, and it's only like 50 calories. Like, if we were to think of a high protein diet, plus a whole lot of fruits and vegetables,

and it's relatively lean proteins, now we're actually having a more satiating diet than let me not think about food sources, and let me just start cramming a bunch of protein in. So there are limits to that statement, but it's, it is certainly something present. And I think also when you have a calorie deficit, you also have to think that you're always robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's one thing to look at, say the Jose Antonio studies, where they've got people in the off season eating three to four grams per kilogram of protein. And they're finding, oh man, I can, I'm losing weight or I'm losing body fat because I can't even eat all this protein. At least that's what we think is happening. It's another thing to say, I only have 1800 calories to play with

and I want to have 300 grams of protein because now you only have 600 calories from, from fats and carbs. Yeah. Good luck with that. Yeah. That's going to make you pretty hungry. So, so I think, you know, when you're dieting, there's an argument for higher proteins, but there should be a limit to that so that you're not driving carbohydrate and fat so low that you're creating other issues, like your training becomes less effective. Especially when trying to shred. Yeah. What about increasing the thermal effect?

Do you think that's a thing or not? It's definitely a thing. Like there's no denying that the thermic effect of protein is higher than carbohydrates or fat. Protein is primarily used for structural purposes. That says we can cleave off that amine. We can, you know, send it down and convert it into, you know, ketones or gluconeogenesis, make some glucose out of it and that process means that you know about one of those calories of every four if we're using a

lot of protein for energy and not for actual tissue building um is going to be burned in the process of converting protein to other metabolic you know sources yeah but then you have to think like well what point do i need to be consuming a protein where that matters and and what's the inflection point where that has a practical significance and yeah if you're going from like say 1.6 to 4 grams per kilogram there might be something there you know that could matter that could do 100 calories or more per day but when you're going from what's reasonable to not cause those other issues i said on a budget like let's say 160 in the off season to 180 when you're prepping or 200 when you're prepping i think the difference is going to be pretty minuscule it's not it's not not there

is what i was what i should say travis but i don't think it's it's not a key outcome it's like a nice feather in the cap you can you can say as a, but it's not going to be a game changer. For your training, how do you periodize that out? Cause anytime I hear like an off season in bodybuilding or improving a physique, there's always some sort of like lagging body part that somebody's working on, but that's hard to do when you're in a deficit for an entire year. How did you and you were saying that you're you're you thought your physique improved with each show. If I were to line the logic up on that, none of that makes sense. So the primary reason my physique was improving from each show was just better conditioning,

just getting leaner. Gotcha. yeah, to be, to be really clear there and then a better peak, which just means that I looked fuller cause I, I pushed more carbohydrate in and that can make a pretty substantial visible difference, even in the drug free ranks, not massive differences, but, but a difference. Um, but you are right that especially at higher levels of experience in physique sport, it's not just like, hey, this is a hypertrophy phase. And we're going to do, you know, the compounds and we're going to go from fives to eight to 12. There is a lot more targeted emphasis. So for me, I have relatively narrow shoulders in a small rib cage compared to people who are just God's gift to

bodybuilding. Um, I have some nice lines and, um, you know, I, I like, I have some aesthetics and symmetry for that are, that are going for me. Um, and I have a decent amount of muscle mass, but structurally I'm not like the, the classic, but I mean, I'm six foot for one and I'm in the middleweights, right. Which, which, right which which which for even for for for natural bodybuilding that tells you something like if uh if i was to be a little more genetically gifted as far as the the chassis my skeletal frame and then how much muscle i could carry i'd be 190 in the heavyweights um and and that would probably be a better place for me. I wouldn't look quite as apples orangey. But so what that means is that for a guy like me, I have to emphasize things like my lats, my medial delts, and my quads.

Because the reference point of trying to see what good proportions or symmetry is for bodybuilding is always how small does your waist look? Not how small is your waist, but how small does your waist look? Not how small is your waist, but how small does your waist look? Because I have a small waist, but you can have a relatively large waist. But if you've got a massive rib cage and really broad shoulders, the reference point is the V taper, right? The X frame. So in bodybuilding judging, at least in the WNBF, there's two rounds that they do for bodybuilders. One is the symmetry round and one is the muscularity round. For the symmetry round, what they do is the judges give you two separate scores and they essentially, they're trained to look at you like you're a

silhouette. So they don't think about how lean you are. They don't think about muscle detail. It's just your outline, the shape. And whoever looks more like the quintessential X-frame V-taper, you know, your Flex Wheeler, Ronnie Coleman, your Frank Zane, your Arnold Schwarzenegger, that is who is going to get scored higher. And then the next round, the muscularity round is the silhouette goes away. And then it's a combination of how shredded do you look and how big are you? And those are intermixed. You know, you can look much bigger when you're shredded with your clothes off at least. Clothes on, people come up to me and they're like, hey, are you okay?

Are you on palliative care? Give me a second. Let me get a pump real quick and then you'll be impressed. Just let me take my shirt off and you'll shut the heck up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've quite literally, this is a funny thing that almost all natural bodybuilders will understand. I've quite literally had people who are not really in the know ask me while training i'm wearing a stringer because you know i'm a bodybuilder and i'm you know doing shoulder arm day it's the day after i did my

carb up and they're like bro you've gotten a lot bigger in the last few months like so how much weight you put on and i'm like i've lost 25 pounds and they're like what you know but then the same day i'm at work you know i go i go to I go to AUT and I'm wearing my, my, my, cause I have like two different wardrobes. So like my, my shredded wardrobe and then my, my off season wardrobe. And like, let's say none of my polos were clean. So I'm wearing kind of a baggy polo I'm wearing, you know, like pants and my butt looks like it's flattened them. And you know,

one of my colleagues comes up and just puts their hand on my shoulder and go, how are you doing, Eric? You know, hungry hungry but shredded they're just frail like just i i know you're doing this and this is your you know you're not your first rodeo but but are you healthy and i'm like ish you know yeah so to do it with intent yeah so anyway the uh to get back to your question if people only knew what you're saying in your brain they would never do that yeah it would not be nice get out of here yeah like don't tell me i'm looking sick and small when i'm three weeks out from the show but that's i hate you but yeah this is what we we agree to when we decide to starve ourselves voluntarily. You have to manage the social weirdness.

I mean, I could have chose baseball. I could have done something. If I'm going to decide to do the weirdest quote-unquote sport in the world, then I got to take some of the flack on my own back, right? Well said. Sure. So anyway, the specialization thing definitely an off-season focus yeah then you're pumping more volume more frequency potentially more targeted

exercise selection um and emphasizing things like you better make sure you can actually feel that muscle working in a compound so that is definitely a thing it's less of a thing when you're dieting especially that close to a show it's more about about maintenance. How long is an off season? Like how long does it take a natural bodybuilder to add any significant amount of muscle mass? Great question. And it depends on how young they are and young they are. I mean, primarily in their training age. So my first season in 07, you know, I had only been training for about three years before I got on

stage. The three very dedicated serious years. When I started lifting weights, it was almost immediately for the goal of bodybuilding and strength sport. But from 07 to 09, probably the biggest changes that I made to my physique. So I competed in 07, 09, 2011. Then I moved to New Zealand, did my second master's, a doctorate, and I took off until 2019. And then I would have competed maybe a year earlier, but, you know, COVID. And then I thought, you know what, I'm turning 40. It'd be cool to compete the year I turn 40. So the changes I made from 07 to 09, pretty striking. I went from placing last in the open division, and I did win a novice though. I went in placing last in the open division. And I did win a novice though. I went in placing last in the open division in my first show when I first competed in 07.

To 09, I actually won my class a couple times and got into a couple overalls. So that is, and I was a couple pounds heavier on stage and leaner. So we're talking maybe five six pounds of lean body mass and just one off season quote unquote um i generally recommend longer off seasons for drug-free athletes in their earlier career stage like before they've got a decade of lifting under their belts and decade of quality lifting at that point um if they are getting feedback and what they need to modify the biggest thing they need to change in their physique is putting on more muscle mass i like to take a couple of

years off like i took four years off between 2019 and 2023 and i'm glad i did because it was the difference between being right there good enough but good enough to be a top amateur but not quite to actually turning pro this year and that was because i did an intense focus on specializing my lats and my delts i was doing basically every session started for the last i think eight months before i started this contest prep with four sets of medial belt work and lat specific work because i just really had to to get those parts of my physique accentuated to the point where the front relaxed the front lat spread all of my front shots i did not look so narrow um because what i was getting the feedback was is hey man you're you're killing it and your side shots but your front shots you're you're losing points in this image

around is really based upon like when everyone walks out yeah and you're in the front relaxed position that probably dictates it's the first impression um and it is the quintessential like x frame that probably is going to influence like 60 of the placings right there everyone when the judges are just looking and they're going to decide how many call outs they're going to do and who's going to be there that front relaxed pose is so heavily weighted even though it's not on paper but having sat in the judge's seat myself you just start making decisions right there you can just immediately see like x frame not so much x frame wide you know you know so so you really need to to do everything you can in your power to make that silhouette.

Can I clarify that? So you did, you know, four to six extra sets every, how many days a week do you train? And what about frequency, like able to recover, you know, amount of fatigue? Like, how does that work? You know, you would think that you would stay fatigued like that? Yeah. So I think for me, I find that when I want to do higher volumes, especially for my upper body, not so much for my lower body, I find that I recover best when I break that up between days. So there's a big difference between having say a chest and back day and doing three sets of back on that day and then doing three sets of back

the next day i think why i used to have a very kind of traditional mentality of you know we do the body part split because you know you grow when you're recovering and sleeping and i can't train back two days in a row because you know i've just created all this muscle damage but i think that stems from the idea of your typical back day is like two different lat pull down variations two different row variations and deadlifts you know like yeah you're going to need some time off after that especially when it's four to five sets per exercise and going to failure but if you're staying one to two reps shy of failure and you're doing four sets for for on one exercise right are you good to go the next day? Some people aren't. I am. So for me,

when I want to get 20 sets on, say, my back or my lats specifically, and I'm doing specific exercises, if I try to get that all done in the same session, the quality starts to fall off around eight sets. So the strategy I took was i kind of took your basic template i train five days a week in the off season generally and i train like basically upper lower ish but i'm throwing in additional work onto some of those lower body days and upper body days i i find that um i don't like to do full leg days because they create such a recovery sync so i'm probably only gonna like i have a day that will look like legs with the emphasis on on quads where i might do like leg press and sissy squat or leg extension but then the rest of it is an upper body

session and then i might have the next day it's an upper body session hitting And then I might have the next day, it's an upper body session, hitting all the stuff I didn't hit on the prior day and calves. So starting around 2015, 2016, I started playing with different ways of trying to distribute my training to reduce the overall fatigue and see what was the inflection point where I could get the most work done at the highest quality. And the best thing I ever did, although, you know, my bodybuilding spiritual animal inside of me hates me for it, is jettisoning leg days. Now, I have always had a lower body dominant kind of physique. And I've had to spend most of my career doing a lot more work in my upper body to balance out. I don't know if that's just genetics. Like I got horse legs on my mom's side of the family and I ran track in high school and did martial arts early on. But nonetheless, it's taken me years to get to the point where my upper body is balanced in my lower body. And now

I'm finally there. And now I kind of have to grow all over as a pro. So, you know, it's now we're back to just pushing everything. But I was doing probably six to 12 sets for all of my lower body musculature besides my calves for the last almost decade while I'm doing 15 to 25 sets for most of my upper body. So what it kind of looks like is I'm always training upper body in some way. And then I've got basically a leg day and a half typical amount of volume sprinkled between my five or six days per week are you oh sorry when you mentioned the the leg day uh and how you're splitting that are you staying away from some of the like like are you doing heavy back squats um because that's i would assume that the fatigue that comes from kind of the eccentric loading on that as well as just

general fatigue that comes out out of moving big weights on that as well as just general fatigue that comes out of moving big weights but while i i mentioned i've done 18 bodybuilding shows um in my career since uh 20 to the 19 years i've been training i've also done uh 18 powerlifting meets five weightlifting meets two strongman competitions and one highland games comp so wait so i am i am just a lover of the iron and all things that allow me to to throw 10 around the first time the uh the first thing i ever did in 2006 was actually a push pull meet so literally from the very beginning um i have i do i've done powerlifting and bodybuilding. And I've branched out a little bit into weightlifting.

I just don't have the mobility for. But I really gave it a good crack, man. But like my best total is like 200 kilos. So in the, I think the 95 kilo class, they changed the weight classes. 96, but yeah. Yeah. It was, when I did it was when i did it it was still when it was 94 so right right um and my best total um in power lifting i've done

uh 617 at 93 and then high 500s at 83 kilos so i'm i'm a far better bodybuilder than i am strength athlete um like i said, small joints can help and not help depending upon, you know, how much muscle you can carry, but also like how big your muscles compared to your joints. So I've always loved being a strength athlete. And I've taken that, I think reasonably far, and I'm pretty proud of what I've done, but I'm just prettier than I am strong. And this is the first time starting. No, it's Travis. No one's ever told me that, unfortunately. Let's put it this way. I think if I was to do...

I've turned pro and I play seventh at Worlds in the middleweights in drug-free bodybuilding. If you were to take that and apply it to the IPF or the USAPL and drug-free bodybuilding. If you were to take that and apply it to say like the IPF or the USAPL, and you put me into like nationals and I did my best total, I thought I could possibly do in like the 83 kilo class, like the 181s. I'm placing like 50th and I'm not sure I'd qualify. So it's like I'm 80th percentile in drug-free strength sport,

and I'm probably 90th percentile in drug-free bodybuilding. So it's hard to accept because I love it all. But for the entire time up until literally this season, I have basically trained for both and periodized them both and combined them. You sound very similar to like lane. I don't know what she's, I guess he's better at powerlifting.

He's really good at both, you know. Yeah, he's way better at both. You know, there was a time when he had a squat world record and he plays second back in the 20 teens in the open 93 kilo class. And now he's actually won Masters World. So Lane is a legitimate elite powerlifter. Yeah. You know i i could probably push myself to a 1400 pound total for the american lifters lane we're talking is in the 1700s right so there's there's there's levels to the shit um we're probably similar level in terms of

bodybuilding um very different physiques but but as far as our competitive accomplishments um similar personalities i'm just kidding not i love lane though i love lane's my boy but lane is also my boy um yeah little known fact is that he was actually my first coach in 09 uh for most of my shows and then burdo took over. And then from that point I've worked with Berto and Lane and I have presented at conferences together many times. So no, he's Lane is, is probably the person who inspired my career. So I owe a lot to Lane. I don't spend quite as much time yelling at people on, on Instagram as Lane does, but we need someone. We do. we do yeah yeah

i saved lane norton's life once when he was like 19 uh we were at the olympia and two i guess he did back then that was when there was the um the wasn't it was like what do they call chat chat rooms or whatever and anyway these two big samoan guys wanted to fight him and so i protected him so when he was a little boy he was just little back then but now he's i'm proud of him he's grown he can protect himself now but yeah that's a little known fact you allowed him to yell at all the people on the internet man you made the way for him yeah he did a service to all of us that he is now busting busting pseudoscience and taking down the uh there it is yeah that's my dude he's a great guy don he's um we have very very different personalities but we operate in very similar sectors i give him a lot of shit but we have

me too yeah like he you know like i've told him that um he gave me an archetype of where to go and what to do, you know, like there, there weren't bodybuilding like him and Dr. Joe Klimczewski, actually, that those are the two people who inspired my career. There was not online drug-free bodybuilding coaching as a career before Dr. Joe and then Lane who took it into the burgeoning social media age. I got it. So, you know, nothing else ever say, like I always underpin it with that. So, yeah, to answer your question, for years, I've trained as a strength athlete and a bodybuilder and periodized that and balanced it. And at a certain point when I saw that I was lower body dominant, I kind of just let my

squatting and deadlifting take care of my lower body volume and just chuck some calves and hamstring curls in there. But now that I've spent 16 years trying to turn pro, I set the goal in 2006 when I first attended a WNBF show and I was like, that's badass. I want to get a WNBF pro card. And I was reading Natural Bodybuilding and fitness magazine back when we had magazines at borders and Barnes and Nobles, right next to blockbuster, you know, back in the good old days, damn it. Um, when I was 22, 23, I was like, I want to be a WBF pro. I want to compete at worlds. And like I said, in 2009, I actually got in some overalls. I was a top amateur. I didn't know at that point that it would take me another 14 years to actually turn pro at 40. So this is an incredibly emotional

year for me. It's the culmination of 17 years of working towards a goal. I turned 40 and I finally did it. And not only did I turn pro, but I competed at Worlds and I didn't get totally stomped. Like seventh out of nine at basically the equivalent of olympics for for natural bodybuilding i was ecstatic i was like i'd be two pros you know i'd take it yeah but now i have the task of going from all right you turn 40 it took you 17 years how do i how do i crack the top five and i'm so motivated so now i've actually decided to go monogamous. I'm hanging up my powerlifting, weightlifting singlet.

I'm putting the tacky away for stones. You know, the Highland Games kilt, I might wear it sometimes just for fun, but it won't be in competition. And I'm- Not while you're squatting. You're full speedo now. You're full speedo.

I'm speedo all the time. I actually just bought, I replaced all of my underwear opposing trunks just so I can be more specific. I love that. Much less laundry to do when you're wearing one 100th of the singlet. That's right.

Mantini all day, baby. There you go. This has been awesome, man. I'm so glad we got to have you on the show. We'll do this again. We clearly have an enormous amount of stuff to chat with you about. Yeah, I could go all day with this guy. This is awesome.

Where can people find you? You guys can find me in my mankini in the gym. But no, in all seriousness, since we talked about bodybuilding today, probably the best place if you want more of this type of information is 3dmusclejourney.com. That is the number three, the letter D, then musclejourney.com. If you want to nerd out and learn about some of the underpinning physiological stuff related to all this, my books are at muscleandstrengthpyramids.com. I have both nutrition and training books. And then of course, I'm the last mass member, but last but not least, massresearchreview.com. And then if you want to hear me on lovely podcasts like this, check me out on Instagram at helms3dmj.

I will surely share this appearance. And I really appreciate the honor you guys give me by having me on. Thank you. Beautiful, man. I appreciate it. Coach Travis Mash. Instagram at Mash Elite Performance. Twitter at Mash Elite. I've been a loyal member of Mash since I think you guys started.

And it's good stuff. It really makes it easy for me. I appreciate that. Doug Larson. You bet. Eric, I appreciate the deep dive into the natural bodybuilding scene here. Very impressive.

What you've done with five shows in a row, this, this entire year prepping for all that. And congratulations on getting your pro card. That's very cool to hear. Hell yeah. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it.

Awesome, man. Come on. Instagram. Whoa, very cool to hear. Hell yeah. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. Awesome, man. You bet. Come on, Instagram. Whoa, whoa. There he is. At Douglas. On Instagram. Douglas E. Larson.

Go ahead. I'm Anders Varner. At Anders Varner. And we are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where Dan Garner

and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing free lab, lifestyle, and performance analysis for everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization. As always, you can access that for free at rapidhealthreport.com.

Friends, we'll see you guys next week.