Barbell Shrugged - The Path to IFBB Pro w/ Aaron Starker, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #814

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Aaron Straker is a N.A.S.N. Licensed Primary Sports Nutritionist. He prefers a pragmatic approach to nutrition that focuses on simple food selection, the importance of nutrient density, and the importance of objectivity in dieting and reporting. Today on Barbell Shrugged we dive into Straker’s path to becoming and IFBB Pro. From injury, setbacks, discipline, and his transparent usage of performance enhancing drugs. He is the cohost of Eat, Train, Prosper podcast with Barbell Shrugged guest, Bryan Boorstein. Operating Straker Nutrition Company, he provides nutrition coaching programs and education on exactly how to leverage nutrition for improving body composition safely and sustainably. Aaron is passionate about providing sound education and information in the fitness and nutrition space and putting nutrition at the forefront for producing optimal health.   Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization   Links: Aaron Straker on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram  

Shrek Family this week on Barbell Shrugged, a very good friend of mine. We actually even competed on the same team in like 2015 CrossFit regionals. That's a long time ago. That's like a whole lifetime ago of fitness. Aaron Stricker, one of my best stories of a human being that walked into the gym, found himself in the fitness space, and is an absolute monster. not only is he now an IFBV Pro, which we're going to be talking about at length and how he set his goals to become an actual IFBBB Pro,

but also, man, he's really, really good at what he does as far as nutrition, coaching, one of the best in the business, and I'm very stoked to have him on the show today. As always, friends, make sure you get over to rapid health report.com. That's where Dan Garner, Dr. Annie Galpin, are doing a free lab, lifestyle, and performance analysis. And you can access that at brapitelfreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Marvin El Shrug. I'm Andrews, Ronald, Doug Larson, my homie, the ultimate homie.

Aaron Stranger, dude, I don't even know how to stop. You are the most jacked human I have ever been a part of, like, for like, the last decade of my life. And you are a monster now. I need to know how I get super jacked like you. you just recently what like a month ago got your ifbbb pro card and lots of things to dig into man i want to know when when all this when did the idea when did the light flicker when did the stoke hit the flame to stand on stage and looked as yoked as you do yeah so it wasn't it was really i had this man so i've been living in bolly now for over three and a half years so

You chose a place. Yeah, I did, chose a place. I've been here for a bit. This is the final year of being here full-time, but it's been quite a wild couple years here. I kind of got really back, like, super deep into, like, training and in hypertrophy stuff, like, just very, very deep. I just started really, really enjoying training again,

finding it just a new gear and a love for it. Yeah. And then found myself, you know, in, with some friends that I had made here and they were like amateur bodybuilders, like men's physique athletes, things like that, in training with them. And everyone was bigger than me because I was obviously still natural. But I found myself that like I could handle myself very well. Like my recovery capacity was just as good.

I could handle the training volumes. I could handle the intensity. And there was a lot of these generally spoken about what, I will call misconceptions in the space of like, oh, when you're a natural, you can't do these things. And I was finding that these just, that wasn't true in my personal experience. But I'm also fortunate in regard that like everything was dialed, my nutrition, my lifestyle. Like when you, when you dial everything, the human body is pretty resilient and adaptive. I think it's what most people experience is they tell themselves they have everything dialed. Like when I

was, for example, like, you know, when, when I was, you know, at CFPB, like, I told myself, like, oh, my nutrition's like, perfect. It's styled. Like, it was far from it. I was binge drinking every weekend. Like, you're just, you're lying to yourself. You know what I mean? Even if you do have great nutrition Monday through Thursday night, if you're binge drinking,

like, you're, you are objectively lying to yourself. Yeah. So, once I got honest and actually learned all that, I learned, like, you know, capacities are actually quite high and adapt to. is quite high over time. It's a repeated bout effect. But I had kind of laid out this big plan that I was going to go for a lifetime natural best physique ever. And it would be like just before my 36th birthday. So I hired one of my friends here, coach Jackson Piaz, who's now become like one of my good friends here,

business partner, et cetera, et cetera. And I laid this out. I said I want to do like an eight month, you know, maybe it took a year-long build, this big diet. And then at the end of it, like, I'm going to put in TRT, you know. And I had planned all this stuff when we were still back in the States. I got like sperm frozen and stuff just because I was, I wasn't super aware of the world. It was a contingency plan. So I had already like, you know, crossed my tees dot in my eyes sort of thing in case something, um, went wrong. So we did that. And that's where I learned, you know, all these new gears and stuff that I had with, with all this training and then get to the end of this like big year and a half long project i get super shredded i'm

like five six percent body fat and i'm like all right i'm i'm good like i don't really care to be any leaner than this it's getting i was like creepy lean yeah um where i'd come out of the sauna looking like an alien and stuff and like you think it's cool and then you're like i don't i don't think i need to look like this i need everybody staring at me all the time yeah yeah so then the plan was like I'm just going to start, you know, like my own self-directed TRT. Like, there's no TR, like, there are clinics here, but you have to, like, drive into the city for one injection every, like, two weeks, and it's super expensive. Like, I'm just going to do it myself sort of thing.

So it was kind of this big, long plan that I had. And then I get to the end. I start. And then what I wasn't prepared for is in six weeks after starting TRT, just 150 milligrams per week, like an actual legitimate TRT dose, I had the physique that I thought of, like, my dream physique. I was 10% body fat at 212 pounds. Yeah.

And I'm like, and at first I was like, oh, it was cool. And then I kind of was just like, oh, like the wind was kind of let out of myself. What do I do now? Like I had this big two year goal. It's accomplished. And I found myself like searching, you know, for a goal. I'm like, what do I do now? I'm kind of, I'm, I've reached this pinnacle and it doesn't feel as good as I thought it would be.

And now I'm, why am I training this hard? Why am I in the sauna? Why am I doing cardio? Like, I don't have any goals anymore. And it became kind of like going through the motions and I, and I didn't like it. So we were talking in the sauna one day and Jackson's like, I'm going to say this once. I think if you wanted to do some competing, you would have, it would be, you would have, you would have a favorable response. And it would probably be worth your effort.

So I talked with Jenny about it. Jenny's my fiancee about to be wife. And I was like, okay, I'll give it one season of competing. You know, I have this one, you know, kind of year block. I can dedicate to this little bodybuilding effort. And then, you know, we go back to, you know, building. It's like family time and stuff at that point. Yeah.

That was March of 2024. So about like a year and a half ago. and the plan was to compete at the end of the year. So that's when things went up from TRT to steroid use. Let's just call it for what it is. I'm still very, very moderate. Things are going great for like three months, and then I get a hernia in Thailand in June.

That's nasty. You know, it was very interesting. I didn't notice anything at training. I trained legs. And then I'm in the shower later that day. And I'm like, why does my belly button look like that? this is the same thing happened to Phil Heath, right? Potentially, yeah.

And then I'm like Googling stuff and they're like, oh, you just kind of, and I like put, you know, like I push it in and then it just like pops back out. And I'm like, a little bubble. And then I'm like, oh, fuck, is that a hernia? And then I Google and it's like, put your, you know, put your finger over it, fit your fingers over it and cough. And if you cough, it'll like, and I cough and it's just like,

I'm like, oh, no. So fortunately, We were in Bangkok doing fertility stuff. Bangkok has wonderful hospitals. So I just got to surgery like two days later right there. So that put things on the back burner a little bit. No training for June, July. I kind of get back into it, you know, at the end of August.

And then everything gets pushed back like a season. Right. So I go through my build from like, you know, September kind of to March. And I start my first ever bodybuilding prep this past March. And that brings us to. I had to do, the plan was to try and get a pro card, right? I think that's what anyone who wants to do it. I wasn't just going to do like one show.

And then because of how the rules work with the NPC worldwide, because I live in a Southeast Asian country, I have to do a regional to qualify for a pro qualifier. So I did my regional in June in Thailand. That went well. I took second in the overall. And I'm like, fuck, okay. Like this is not bad for a first show ever. and then I did the pro qualifier in Taiwan

July 19th which was the biggest show Taiwan's ever had there were over 600 competitors which is a giant show and I won yeah bang there was not 600 men's physique

competitors everyone yeah wait so just pointing that one show is enough to get your pro card or that was that was just a piece of it that's a pro quo it was a pro qualifying show so every the winner of every division or the overall of each division gets awarded a pro card yeah yeah got you have to get first place and then you get a pro card when you're on stage yeah you know when you're on instagram and you see those

teenage mutant turtle looking humans and you're like that guy is so jacked and shredded and then one day a picture shows up and you go, that's my friend. That's what you look like. You look like one of those people, dude. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the Artei program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garland and I have learned

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It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit Arteelab.com. That's A-R-E-E-Lab.com. Now, back to the show. That's what you look like. You look like one of those people, dude.

obviously we have a long history together and i'm i've never never been the most like confident person but i was so nervous and the thing with taiwan is i was there by myself um so i'm in taiwan everything's in mandarin and i'm literally by myself jenny was on her bachelorette party in vancouver just awful timing because she was like when are these shows because like they need they need to start planning things but the show schedule doesn't come out until like february yeah so It was just like a very unfortunate, an unfortunate lineup of things, but I'm there literally by myself, getting my ass kicked, like, just trying to navigate and stuff. You know, and what's funny is it's, like, with anything, like, I'm sure the first time

you went to, like, the CrossFit competition, you realize, like, oh, I'm unprepared for the things here, but there's, like, everyone brings, like, blankets and stuff because you're just like backstage is just a concrete floor you know yeah my dumbass just has a backpack so i'm just laying on a concrete floor with like my head of my backpack you know completely unprepared um you know as far as like as far as like being dialed you talked about that earlier like you're in a foreign country you don't speak the language you don't know all the all the cultural nuances you don't know what foods to eat you can't even read the menus like as far as like having your nutrition specifically dialed in pre show and and doing that whole prep how do you

you do that when you're when you're in a place that's so foreign to you yeah so fortunately you don't like i feel like the show was saturday i got in thursday morning um so you're not there like too too long and then effectively for for most prep stuff you're going to have like a two-day food load in that food is very rudimentary so i i basically had one meal was like a very small amount of chicken and just plain white rice with like some almond butter or peanut butter. And then the other meal was like cream of rice and honey. So like I packed all of my cream of rice.

I brought my honey. I brought my rice cakes. I brought my peanut butter. The only thing I had to source there was like white like just Fuji rice like white rice and just like steamed chicken. And fortunately, 7-Eleven in the Asian. countries is like the best place on planet earth you can literally do your entire eating at 7-11 it's incredible that's why exactly opposite of uh like you can get show ready at 7-11 yes that's so wild

yeah i'm talking like like Thailand's 7-11 you have amazing coconut water all these incredible like zero calorie drinks steamed white rice smoked chicken breast individually packaged steamed chicken breast individually packaged eggs mixed vegetables that are ready to be in like a steaming container like you can get whatever you need

at 7-11 yeah it's really cool and I'm like what the fuck why are the 7-Elevens in the United States just garbage compared to these West bars as good as it's getting yeah seriously yeah the hot dogs on the rollers oh and sweet potatoes on the rollers yeah at the seven oh yeah

oh nice let's go I'm there yeah yeah yeah it's fine it's cheap and they're everywhere yep yeah yeah earlier you you made yeah go ahead Doug sorry I was earlier you said you have some misconceptions

that you you kind of glossed over and moved on to the rest of your story but when you were talking about kind of your initial path into bodybuilding, you were talking about hanging out with some guys that were just doing physique and you were starting to get into that world and you said you had some misconceptions, can you dig into what those were and how you changed your thoughts on them? Yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't say my misconceptions. I would say like a generally accepted fitness space misconceptions around like, oh, well, Someone will say like, oh, well, so-and-so trains like this and he's on gear. So you're a natural, you can't train like that, right? Or you can't do three sets to failure because you're not on gear or those sorts of things. And I just found that to be not the truth. Like I was recovered.

Like we would all train together. I was the only one that was natural. And I was older than everyone else by at least like four or five years. And I recovered just as well. obviously my loads were less because everyone had like 20 kilos on me but it for it was I did not find it like my recovery capacity because of my endogenous produced testosterone you know was any statistically significant reduction in in capacity to recover on when did you realize and do you think it was because of kind of like having everything dialed in that you could be one of the like hyper responders that once you started going from natural to being on TRT and everything you just like instantly had kind of like the body you had been working for so quickly. Was that the moment or was it because you had so many

things going in the right direction from lifestyle nutrition, et cetera, that you were like, all I need is just like a bump versus like the people that just pour stuff into their body and don't get the response that they're looking for. I mean, I think it's multifaceted. So one, I will some people will say like my I have average, you know, my genetics are average. It's, it's hard work. Like I cannot deny that I have a favorable response to performance enhancing drugs.

Like there's no denying that. I would be a liar if I said otherwise. So there's like that part of it. to because like I'd been I'd literally trained for over 20 years as a natural so like I so many of these things that like I learned I learned how to get pretty freaking jacked as a natural so like when you figure that out you have a lot of the puzzle already solved and then you put in this this this addition that is incredibly helpful but then you're still not trying to solve the other things like there's there's these three four main four major variables right you have like

your nutrition, you have your training stimulus, you have recovery capacity, sleep, lifestyle management, and then like performance enhancing drugs. I already had three completely dialed. Like I work in the nutrition space as a professional. I've been training for over 20 years. The lifestyle, sleep management

side of things by work through my professional careers, like all dialed. The only thing to add in is this final leg. And then when that came in, it was pretty immediate, but, But then also, I was fortunate that I, you know, I had a knowledgeable coach and stuff that

we timed things really, really well. We got me very, very, very, very lean when we started. So then at the end of the diet, food went up immediately. Testosterone comes in. And, I mean, I just grew like crazy. I mean, in 12 weeks, yeah, so January 16th. was the first day I started TRT in 2024 at 150. So from January 16th, February 16th was one month, March 16th with two months, April 16th was

three months, I went from 190 to 218 to 218. And it's still like 11% body fat at 28. Yeah, dude. That is probably. It was insane. It's been on like three, four pounds a week. Yeah. I assume the before and after it's on a week to week basis.

you're like, dude, I am a mutant right now. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I would step on the scale and like it literally just kept going up. Yeah. Do you have like weekly photos of that? Oh, yeah.

I have a time lapse and you can just see yourself just inflating. Yeah. Yeah, that's wild. Throughout the process, do you, and this is one thing that I, I'm going to preface this with when I see kids that are like 17 years old and they're on like a like on a cut I'm like dude why are you cutting at 17 years old you're supposed to be eating everything and getting so jacked right now worrying about your abs at 17 you're going the wrong way dude go get as much muscle while you possibly can and you just laid out like a two plus year path to now competing as a

pro with an injury in the middle of it like did the did the time of doing this um laying out such a a long ramp to get where you want to be that's kind of like a a super skill that probably is hard to develop i mean yes and no like i enjoy this that they're like You're going to do it forever, but yeah, it makes it easier. Yeah, and I think if, I don't know, I enjoy that kind of personal challenge pursuit sort of thing. And it is inherently a longer goal, right, even though I really only did my one prep, which I'm still in, obviously, but it, I mean, I think it is a skill. It's a skill to stick to something that you said you're going to do when it, when it gets hard. Like, for example, I started prep in March.

It's about to be September. There's been no restaurant meals out. There's been no date nights. You know, I mean, we're going on five months. So it has taken its toll on just like psychologically. Like, yeah, dude, I just want to go fucking get a steak at a steak and sweet potato fries somewhere. But like one of the things that I write down, I told myself, like, after September 7th, you can do that. And I have like this is really simple algorithm.

Like is today's date before September 7th? Yes. You cannot. It really is as simple as that and holding, you know, your own word to yourself. And I have found everyone's different in this regard from a human psychology sort of thing. I do really well with black and white because then there's no wiggle room for justification of anything. Right. Because if it's like, well, last week I went and I just like made the macri.

work, why can't I do it again this week? Why can't I do it two times this week? Like where do you draw that line if it's not a hard yes or no, right? You can always, like the first time you justify something to yourself, the second time it's easier and the third time it's easier, you know? But if you never justify anything, you never lose that line. It's kind of the big picture of putting on lots of muscle mass and then keeping that muscle mass as you get leaner and leaner and leaner.

but have you kind of dug into the nuances or do you need to work on any specific body parts or bring up lagging muscle groups or imbalances or like kind of all the smaller details of bodybuilding so although now here's the new wrinkle so which i was never expecting now that i'm competing as a pro i have a weight cap that i have to be under and i was well well over that weight cap when i won my pro card so So kind of the opposite problem. I had to actually really start dieting significantly harder after the pro card win to make the weight cap for my pro now competing as a pro. And then effectively, now that I am a pro, anytime that I compete, I'll compete in pro shows.

And my weight cap will stay the same unless they like adjust things a little bit potentially. Because this is the first year of the weight cap for men's physique. But I can't get any bigger because. I'm like, I am, I don't know, 6% body fat, something like that, like creepy lean. And I'm like two pounds under my weight cap right now. And we're just kind of teetering that line. Yeah. Is there a piece of you when you see that you're like, call it five, six, seven percent,

whatever it is like paper thin skin. And you kind of like remember back when Ronnie Coleman would be like, yeah, I'm walking around at like 3%. And you're like, dude, you'd be dead. And you're like, now I'm going to 3%. How do I get to 3%? Like, that's such a mind game. Yeah.

I mean, the thing that's really wild is if you watch the natural bodybuilding guys, like the day that the day after my show, there was a natural show in Taiwan. And one of my friends here, his name is Brandon Kempter. He's really big in the natural bodybuilding world. He won his pro card in natural bodybuilding. And I mean, he is inside. out lean but those guys like I said I started my prep in in March he started his in January yeah same show you're not even a lot of when you've been doing that you'd have to get rid of all

your friends it it's it's really challenging right like natural bodybuilding doesn't really get the credit it deserves but if you go look at those guys especially at the top they are inside out lean yeah for sure and they do it naturally So it's way harder in my opinion because you have nothing to rely on. Like I can be like, okay, I'm in prep, you know, drugs come up to help maintain training performance and all that stuff. You know, certain compounds help with like, you know, cortisol modulation and things like that to keep your system, you know, system at bay. Like you have none of that when you're natural. It's like you just don't red line because if you do red line, everything falls apart.

and it's like a gas break sort of thing. So, yeah, I have like a super bro question for you. Oh, yeah. How awesome are drugs? Like, I've been my whole life in the gym. I've never taken anything in my case you're seeing me on Instagram lately, 100% natural. If there was any questions. But, like, there's always a thing in the back of my head where I'm like, wouldn't that be cool?

Like, to just go on the Ronnie Coleman. level of or the Phil Heath left like is it awesome I just I need to know there's there's like 12 year old and these like drugs awesome the the things that people don't realize especially like now like you mentioned Ronnie Coleman Phil Heath right open class bodybuilders the volumes that they that you would have to inject into your body at that size the volumes of that the oils is staggered yeah that like it's that's not fun like i after the show like i go back to just like regular t r t at like 150 175 and i'm very much so looking forward to just going back to like a small insulin syringe you know and in much smaller volume so like that's one thing that's very

not fun the closest i feel i've ever gotten is like i know explode when i was like 21 years old where it's like you just feel like ah like everything what what is what is it like um i guess after a week of it where you're just like man this is wild one of the things that i remember very vividly maybe like nine 10 days after starting just my 150 testosterone i could i could contract it's like you know they talk about the mind muscle connection right and like on the leg extension right you have it's it's an exercise where most people have a pretty decent mind muscle connection yeah it like doubled or tripled just from like having that the exogenous testosterone and like i was able to contract the muscle so much harder uh and i had like these disgustingly painful

quad pumps from just like two sets on the leg extension and i couldn't believe it i'm like this is insane. So, like, that's one thing. It just, they, like, some of the compounds can kind of just, like, increase the intensity of your connection with certain muscles, and then you can, like, contract harder, produce more force. That's, like, pretty undeniable. But I would say there's related to that, like, I've heard Huberman talk about how testosterone, especially, you know, excessive amounts of testosterone or super physiological amounts of testosterone, and, and It makes effort and struggle feel good. Whereas if you didn't have it, like, the effort would be like,

oh, this is hard. It feels bad. Like, this is hard. It feels awesome. Like, that's like a distinguishing thing that never really considered that before. Yeah. I mean, it does. I mean, it definitely, people think of it, the testosterone.

I mean, let's speak about testosterone, right? Like the primary compound as like, it's a muscle building agent. Like one, yes, that is one of the things that it does. But it's also like a foundation. of what it means to be a male, right? A distinguishing factor between, you know, females and males, obviously the significant level. And then as that turns into like super physiologic levels, it, it bleeds into other facets

of life. Like one thing that that I wasn't expecting in prep is I just wanted to work all the time. Like my drive to work and stuff was so much higher. And, you know, I think about these times. we're like, I have an alarm that I set at 630, right? Then I get up and start my day. I can't tell you the last time I actually slept until 630 and that alarm went off. I'm up well before it out to start the day.

You're a conquer. And yeah, you just want to get up and go. Like there is the desire to lay in bed and it feels good to like lay in bed and comfortable. It's just not there. You're just like driven, ready to go. It has its ups and downs because, it can kind of get like over stimulated and then you can't like shut it off right like a downside of that is like I can't I can't sit down and watch a movie I can't watch a show because I just can't

like sit there long enough and like kind of relax because my mind's just like in kind of overdrive um that's obviously much more driven by like some of the other compounds the dhTs the 19 nors with like prep uh but but there is the best thing that I would say is the best way it was explained to me with the drugs is more money, more problems. That's a very, very good way to put it. It's not just this silver bullet where everything is great. There's problems that arise that you need to learn how to manage and you need to learn whether your estrogen's too high or too low because there are symptoms that are on both

sides of things and that's not fun. Sometimes you're wondering why you fucking just start tearing. up in the corner of the gym for no reason and like there's there's there's there's baggage that comes with it as well and and i always try to be very transparent about that that's interesting as far as like the TRT only you're talking about like once you're done with your show coming off all of the extra things did you see that with TRT as well or was it just when you started add like the anabolic's oh no just tier t and by like week seven eight on tier t i started getting like incredibly sensitive nipples and stuff like that and had to put in an ai i was at the gym one day

and like just using a chest supported row raised one of my nipples i had to fucking go to the bathroom because i thought i was bleeding yeah raised it on the bench and i was like what the fuck was that it literally felt like a paper cut and i literally go check if i was bleeding um Off of just 150. Yeah. So the way that I like to describe it, because I have a fair amount of clients that like start TRT or something like that. And like we know the majority of the clinics in the states are pretty lackluster.

I like to describe it as like, you know, as a male, we are fortunate to post puberty and stuff. If we think of our hormones like a bucket of water, that water has just been, let's say you're 35 and you went through puberty at 15. That bucket of water has just been sitting there for 20 years, right? Stable. Yeah. You start TRT, it's like you're pushing that bucket and everything's going to slosh one way and then it's going to like slosh back the other way and then eventually it settles. But like you're going to be finding, you know, yourself in situations that you have an

experience for a while and wondering why you're either really upset or, you know, something's like triggering you or these different things. It's like you're playing with your hormones. And everyone responds differently. The individual genetic response is massive. and you've got to find what works for you and it's it's not a one size fits all the responses are drastically different and it really is individualized it's super i always have like in my brain it's like even when i was like in my 30's like when i'm 40 if i need it i'll like dig into it and then i turn 40 and i was like i still feel like i can play the game i don't now i'm like yeah maybe 50 like maybe that but I don't know if I just keep doing what I'm doing and feeling pretty good and like managing all the lifestyle factors like I don't know if I want to go back to feeling 17 and then also having like a swing back to feeling like I'm 70 like I don't want those waves of craziness with if if things if you don't I don't want to say like the word need but like if you don't if you don't need it I wonder how much. like squeezing out like an extra 4% or 10% of maybe performance or feeling good.

But if it swings back and there's like a negative side to it also, because it's probably very hard to find a good doctor that's going to be able to manage a lot of that stuff. It is. I think it is. And unfortunately, like one of the things that I will always say with all of my clients is like you will have to be the champion of your own health. like no one will help yourself better than you and it's a lot to learn and it's if you already feel good why potentially have to learn all these new things on top of like needle gauges

injection techniques like what happens if this happens infection management like there's a lot the baggage that comes with it if you already feel good and the end mileage varies like you maybe one of those dudes that puts in 130 per week and then acne is fucking everywhere like that can happen I've seen that happen and that's something new to manage

you know and maybe yourself conscious about it you know like it's there's a lot that can happen and you just don't know yeah I think that just so much to that point resonates with like the elimination of alcohol in my life like basically completely

stopping marijuana last year like completely almost you know it's like I just don't want to have like a crutch that I need to worry about and manage and starting to throw hormones into your body seems like something that is like now there's like this like new boogeyman in your life whether it's good or bad it's just like a thing that you have to like like oh today's like a great day and I'm working 15 hours and then tomorrow um who knows I might be an emotional wreck like well once things are stable they're stable but it's finding stable right like let's say you find like hey for me 140 is perfect i administer three times per week and that's like perfect and that's your you know

energy's great training is great sex drive is appropriate for where you are in your life right which i like to always describe it as that like everyone has a pretty decent spot but it's how how much friction or less friction there is to find that, it just depends. Yeah. Finding it basically implies you're going through many different iterations over time, trying something, seeing how you respond, making tweaks, iterating, and then eventually you settle on something that feels pretty good. Like how many different variations or iterations rather have you gone through

kind of over the last year, year and a half? Well, it's hard because with like TRT is different than, competitive bodybuilding because there's escalations as size necessitates and durations on certain compounds once health risks become some varying level of like deleterious and things like that. But let's say it's just like you're just, hey, I want to go on, I want to go on TRT because I want 10 extra pounds of muscle. I want more energy, you know, I want to be, I want to stay leaner.

I want a lifestyle dose, like a lifestyle dose. It depends. I would say the starting lower is better than starting higher because the less likelihood that there will be side effects. And then you can be like, hey, I'm going to run like 120 is something that's like pretty safe that, you know, like I have like clients with different providers that will start them there. You're not going to, you're probably not going to be slapping on three pounds of muscle per week. But you're probably not going to have to worry about yourself like randomly. crying or your nipples feeling like they're turning to ice, something like that. The first time I've heard that one.

Oh, yeah, it's not fun. And then typically there's like either a six week follow up, maybe an eight week lab follow up, maybe a 12 week lab follow up depending on the clinic or the provider. And then they might be like, okay, well, you know, 130 per week only puts you at 600 nanograms per decilator. But we want to get you like optimal up to a thousand or 12. 1200 or you know whatever ever it's it's it's it's it's medicine so it's uh open to interpretation through the the the eye of the provider effectively and everyone has their

different approach right i'm not a doctor so i'm i will not judge them on what they do because it's not my profession how often were you getting your own blood work i know that you kind of like read and do your own analysis um did you see big fluctuations and if so like what we're kind of How'd you manage those pieces? Yeah. So I should actually back up with it. Like I was really scared getting started. Like yeah.

And because like my health is it's like you cross the RubeCon. You're on the dirty side, bud. Yeah. It's like one of my biggest important things to me. And I was afraid. I was off because you hear all these horrible, horrible stories about, you know, steroid use and stuff and health. I was legitimately afraid.

So that first year I was on, I counted. I got blood work like nine times because I would like if something, if I felt kind of off, I would just like text a lady like, hey, can I order labs? So I was getting it done a lot. But like I said, I just picked a number, right? Because I did self-administered TRT to start. And I'm like, okay, normally the range is like 100 to 200. Like I know I have clients who are prescribed 200 milligrams per week, like from their doctor in the US. So, like, I'm just going to start right in the middle. I have a good amount of muscle mass.

Typically, if you're leaner so that there's less, there's more estrogen receptors, the more adipose tissue that you have. So the fatter that you are, if you're running a higher dose, the higher the likelihood of side effects because of the aromatization to estrogen. So it's like, I'm pretty lean. I should be able to handle that. I have a good amount of muscle mass. So typically, if you don't have a lot of muscle mass,

you're trying to run higher doses, there isn't enough muscle for the gear to, you know, settle into so it settles into the peripheral tissue. So typically the smaller you are, you run less. That's why Ronnie Coleman and Phil Heath run the larger mouth because they have so much goddamn muscle. Okay. So it's like a threshold. Like as a natural, pretty, pretty big dude. I'm just going to pick right in the middle. Okay. I pick right in the middle. That 150 dose put me over 1,500 nanograms per decilator off the reference range. So like a hyper responder.

Yeah. You were like double 17 year old. Yeah. So like for for me at that time, and the thing is everything changes, or sorry, not everything changes. Your response changes over time. So now like when I go back to

150, it may not put me over that anymore because I've then now been exposed to these higher doses. Yeah. But So for me, if I was actually on a real replacement dose, it might be like maybe 90 milligrams per week, maybe 110, something like significantly smaller for when I started. But you just, you just don't know. That's the thing.

You have no idea how you'll respond. I would imagine it's not like a slow off ramp too, especially from the antibiotics. We're just like, now I'm out. That's going to get wild. That's going to be like down, right? Yeah, well, I'm not just. going to pull everything because no, then you'll feel like absolute horrendous dog shit. Yeah.

So I'm like. It's still like coming down from full gas to a quarter tank of gas, it's going to be a bit of a wild ride, I would imagine. I, in my context, potentially not because there's these other things. Like my stress is going to come way down. My cardio comes way down. My food comes up. Right. So it's like I'll get energy back just by not having to do all this cardio in severe food restriction. And I get to put some body fat back on, which improves energy level. So it's a bit like, yeah, total, you know, androgen load's going to come down. But I get to like sleep again because I'm not crazy sympathetically driven all the time. I get some, you know, dates back in with my wife and I get to eat food with my friends. I get to not do cardio. for an hour and a half seven days per week you know so it's like some things come down but other

things like drastically get better your testosterone might drop a little bit but your what is what is the love hormone you're gonna feel like oxytocin oxytocin's gonna go way up to balance all it out yeah um dude i i i do want to pivot uh just a a little bit um in that how is your energy and like moving past kind of the the steroid side of things but you're a week out right now nine days yeah week and a half what how is your energy going in and I say this under the context of like having all of this stuff like super dialed in and been so strict have you had the like the just drain of this is so hard I want to be done with this kind of like where's the energy mindset right now going with the very last push yeah so one thing

I was very fortunate to have this idea of is when I had an idea that I was going to start I was going to start journaling every morning when prep began yeah because I was afraid like I mentioned early in the episode like I was really afraid I've seen friends like lose themselves in a bodybuilding prep lose sight of the real things that are important and stuff and that wasn't an option for me like I know my priority is number one you know my wife and number two my coaching business right well I mean obviously like family and stuff but like that's my immediate things here my family's on the other side of the world and I was afraid that I would like because you don't know like I said you don't know how like it's my first exposure to

the dh t compounds the 19 norms you don't know how you're going to respond so i was like hey if i if i sit down the first thing i do every morning is journal and if things start changing i'll be able to like capture it and i'll be able to identify it so uh i've journaled every single day and i'm fortunate that that's really helped with my mindset oh my god i love it now i love that like 10 15 minutes. I sit there with myself, a coffee, you know, first thing in the morning. It's like my, I'm like paying myself first. I love that. And I'm really tired. This past week was really, really hard because we were pushing to make the weight cap. I said, this is the week we have to get the weight down so that we can kind of de-stress in peak week and flush information and like

bring food up. And then I also got Bolly Belly. last week while we were on the hard push so like I had a bacterial stomach infection while food was down it it did help but like unfortunate like body weight didn't rebound or anything after so but it was just it was just like insult to injury because you're like trying to train and then your stomach's like doing all these things and like and I was just just I'd never been so tired where, like, caffeine did nothing. Like, I would hit a 300 milligram scoop of pre-workout, and it did nothing. Yeah.

Nothing. And I was like, wow. Like, this is insane. And I was just so depleted. And then you watch the physique just melt away because you have no carbs in any of your muscles. And there's like, all your veins disappear. And you're like, you're like training and there's just no pump. And you feel horrible and performance is bad.

Last week got really, really rough. But fortunately, like I said, I just was able to conceptualize it as we're in this hard season of life. It's going to be worth it. You just achieved this incredible thing that you never thought possible. You did it on your first attempt. And now we're going to compete in Hong Kong as a professional men's physique athlete. Like, you know, how crazy is this?

So I'm fortunate that. I'm able to, to, you know, create those perspectives for myself where, like, today was another, like, really hard day, like, training legs, and I'm just miserable. I don't want to be there. I might enter, like, walking up the steps, I feel like I'm moving through mud, and I'm not having any fun. And I'm like, Aaron, you're nine days away from one of the coolest things you'll ever get to do in your life.

And then you get married two weeks later. And, you know, you're going to have all these crazy emotions. like you're in the thick of it, you're in the hard parts but these really hard shitty days are going to make those good days feel so fucking good. So like don't try and rush through these hard days. Just embrace

them for the perspective. Yeah. Hell yeah, dude. I feel like we should wrap the show, but I don't want to. That was awesome. Dude, I want as just a little

background, you moved to, you've been traveled in the world for like the last decade I want to say. Is it about that long? 2019 is when we left. January 2019, yeah. So it's been a while. Six, seven years, six years. Yeah, yeah. Crazy. You built a gym

in Bali that is super badass. It's like one of those gyms where I'm like when did they find the money for this? Because you remember my first gym. It was like a little bit of bumper plates, five barbells, and a whole bunch of bad attitudes. And yours is the opposite of like nice lighting and the nicest equipment. Like where did, where did all this come from?

Well, there's five of us all coach, well, four of us are just online coaches, right? And then obviously Jackson is an online coach and entrepreneur of different sorts. Just pooled, pulled funds to build it. Jackson's the primary owner, the majority shareholder. and I mean it's Jackson's project right like I'm an investor and I would say I have the second most control over things like I told him I want I want the gym floor I want to choose all the gym equipment and stuff and that's what I was able to do because that's all I really cared about you know I was like I want a cool I care about equipment and that was one of my like pet peeves with the gyms

here is like a lot of the equipment was just fucking dog shit from my opinion and and we wanted to build a spot where like people can come do like like Bali is incredible to come do like a bodybuilding prep the environment is so conducive the weather is typically favorable you have amazing food at cafes healthy food everywhere you know the sun's out there's a recovery facilities people from all over the world come here so you get to meet a lot of cool people on on similar journeys but there was in a place to like really tie it all together uh so we wanted to build that but yeah it's been we're open

we're not finished it's been it's been way harder than than any of us had thought and it's just you should have called you talk to Brian every week you should you should have said hey is this easy no just I mean there's there's things that are just

so far out there like our original contractor was effectively like a con man and went bankrupt and what would you call it like uh not squandered but there's a specific like legal term for it like squandered the money away effectively

and like didn't build things and then the things that were built were straight up non-functional so I mean it's it's been a really big headache project but eventually we'll get there there's been a lot of setbacks but the gym floor's done it's really really cool I'm really proud of a lot of the things that we've done and it'll be a built grown to a pretty cool brand that, you know, I get to say I played a role in with the exercise equipment selection.

Everyone loves the kit, which that's all I cared about. Yeah, I think it's rad. The only place, I mean, I'm sure there's others, but, and we kind of know the owner of it, is wanderlust out there. And every time I see it, I'm like, they must have zero competition of cool gyms. Because it looks like there's 400 people on the floor every single time I see a video of that place. yeah they they they have dave's really done it right but i mean he he used he had all the balls in like 2018 or whenever he opened that place you know they're like a decade deeper or near

he has like a compound over there and and i remember the first time i came to bali i trained there for a couple months he only had the like one the one spot of that kind of they're in like a like an alleyway you would say like it kind of like a cold a sack sort of thing they had like one spot and there used to be like a soccer field and then like all these other things and they slowly as the business has grown he just like bought up everything else and now he has the entire entirety back there so yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's pretty cool um to see what they've built and what he's done um but it's just like fertile soil here you know so many people coming here there's so much relocation around the globe and stuff right now and uh there was just definitely not a

a bodybuilding spot here so that's why undefeated was created i love it um dude tell us about the podcast where people can find you all the things yep so i host a weekly podcast with our friend brian boorstein that is called eat train prosper you can find me on instagram at aaron underscore straker and you can find out more about me my training programs and my coaching at straker nutrition co dot com there it is dog larson you bet yo hi I really enjoyed hearing your story into men's physique here. And dude, good luck here in nine days in Hong Kong. Very, very cool to hear.

I'll be watching on Instagram for sure. Appreciate you. You being on the show, Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. Yeah, dude. Yo, I'm going to do a super personal thing right now. I'm so freaking proud of you, man. Like, I'm 15 years of being a pro fitnesser or whatever I am. am like in this industry and i feel like i'm always going to look back and go uh dude there was

this guy straker that left his gym and moved to pacific beach to train with us and then became so much better at the industry than i could have ever imagined um and i feel like you did it all man i remember like the moment you and jenny met like the day she joined the gym there was like this giant magnet and now you guys are about to get married like of all the cool things that happened back in the day when we were all grinding super hard in the gym like you're one of my favorite stories and I'm very proud of you thank you Anders it truly does mean a lot I'm eternally grateful for for you and Brian for creating that space because of it completely took my life in a completely new trajectory and like I said I'll forever be eternally grateful

for you for the both of you for that You're the man, dude. Get over to rapid health report.com. That's where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galpin, are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. I'm Anders Varner. Find us at Barbell underscore shrugged. I did all that backwards, so I'm a little off right now. See guys next week.