Mark Bell's Power Project - Drug Addict to Pro Bodybuilder, How Bodybuilding Saved My Life - Doug Fruchey || MBPP Ep. 969

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

In Episode 969, Doug Fruchey, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Doug went from a drug addict to an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder and while a much better choice, he admits he left one addiction for another. Follow Doug on IG: https://www.instagram.com/douglasfruchey/ Sponsors mentioned on air: ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night! ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Sometimes people are just thinking about like how big they can get right now or how strong they can get right now. But it seems like you have a longer term plan. I think it started with understanding that this was all I was going to do. I'm 20 or some shit. I've been in jail. I got an ankle bracelet on. And bodybuilding was like an immediate boom. No, you're not stuck. You're bigger, you're stronger, you're faster now. Bodybuilding saved my life. Do you sometimes feel like you traded one addiction for another? Oh, absolutely. Honestly, I thrive on being addicted to training.

Like, so what? I'm addicted to training. I'm addicted to being a better person than I was yesterday. Was there concern over the use of anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs? I didn't even think twice. I was like, that'll make me better at this. I just basically bent over. I will definitely agree. You know, there's an argument to be made that anabolic steroids are addictive. Yes. It doesn't seem to have the same negative impact as the drugs that you did before. Yeah, it's not going to make your teeth fall out as fast as meth. I've told some of my clients, they're like, oh my God, you're going to go to the doctor and get your blood work done while you're on steroids?

Like, they're going to know. I'm like, well, yeah. Every day, the first thing I think about is what I'm going to eat. The last thing I think about is what I'm going to eat tomorrow. Hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We continue to produce these podcasts for free. And if this podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us Hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We continue to produce these podcasts for free, and if this podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us if

you guys could give us a five-star review on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts because that helps the podcast grow. Thank you, and enjoy the episode. Please let's not do a post-down with Doug because that would be disgusting. Doug, I wanted to tell you something. Make sure you stay on the

microphone there. It's going to be really important people hear your lovely voice. Oh, yeah. There we go. I used to be 300 pounds myself, and I wanted you to know I'm here for you. Okay. Thank you. And we can help you push through this. It's not going to be a problem.

It's not going to be as hard as you think it is. I'm so thankful. I was worried. You probably feel great. Yeah. I've been 300 pounds for like four or five years, but it's a different 300 pounds every year. It's unbelievable, 300 pounds. Any idea of like a waist measurement?

Like if you have any clue or what's your pants size or something like that? Yeah, like when I bought a suit when we got married, it was like a 38. And that's pretty – I was pretty – I felt like I was pretty fat when we got married. So I like to keep it lower than that if I can but 38 36 though and being being 300 pounds pretty reasonable you want to make it match your leg if your waist can be as big as your quad then you're good that's one of those it's not an arm book you know and arnold has that book your neck your biceps and your calves are supposed to be the same well your waist and your quad is also supposed to be the same you know am i tripping or does like does Doug seem like a healthy 300, though?

Because you're walking around 300, but you don't see your blood pressure necessarily. I mean, no, real talk. You're less purpley than 300-pounders. Yeah, man. So what are you doing? Well, I think one of the things is I'm a little taller and bigger framed, so I think my body can handle it a little bit more healthily than some of the other guys.

Like, but there has like, like I said, it's a progression. Like I was 300 pounds in 2020 and then I got up to like, usually I'll get up and I'll touch like three 10 or something. And then it's like, I can't tie my shoes. So let's take it down a little bit. But every time I've hit this number, it's been a better composition of that number. And I just, you know, I mean, I take inspiration from guys like you that are still running and moving

and it's like, if I, I mean, I can't run that, like, surely, like I said, I could take like 10 steps or something, but that wouldn't be a great idea. It really wouldn't. But I walk as fast as I can, you know, and I make sure that I break a sweat and get my heart rate up above 160 while I'm doing cardio. Like, I feel like that stuff is really important, you know?

And it's almost like as a bodybuilder, you want to see, I mean, some guys just, I want to see, I want to get as big as I can or how much muscle can I hold. But to me, there's kind of some other requirements to a healthy body holding that kind of weight. And those kind of things I pay attention to as much as I can. I mean, I'm not a portrait of health by AMA standards or whatever, but who wants to be that anyway? But, you know, I really try to stay like that. So thank you. I'm glad it's noticeable that I'm not breathing super heavy and stuff like that.

I think, you know, sometimes people are just thinking about, like, how big they can get right now or how strong they can get right now. But it seems like you have a longer term plan. Was that something that was taught to you by, you know, somebody at Gold's or, or, or a mentor? Do they say, look, man, this whole process, because you seem to be, you seem to have been very patient from the time I've known you, even though you're not, even though you might not feel like you're patient, it looks like you, you've kind of signed up for this and you're like, I understand this is going to take a while. Yeah. I mean, I think it started with understanding

that this was all I was going to do. Like I, that was the first understanding was like, okay, I love this more than anything. And this is what my life's going to be about. And so it never felt like patience because I always had these lofty goals and aspirations for what I'm trying to do. always had these lofty goals and aspirations for what I'm trying to do. But over, so I was always, everything's been full bore, a hundred percent pretty much every day. So you tell me that's patient and I'm like, no way. But it's, I look at it more as it's perseverant.

Like you push, okay, that doesn't work. Change direction. Okay. That doesn't work. Change direction. Okay. We need something else. Add this. And so over time I've kind of developed a system or this,

this method that, yeah, it's taken a lot of time to develop. Kind of like we were talking about yesterday with how long did it take you to paint that painting? A lifetime. How long did it take you to do anything? A lifetime. We were talking about a local artist, David Garibaldi. When I asked him, he did some paintings of me and I asked him how long it took him. And he paused for a moment. And then he kind of mentioned, yeah, like it took him three, four minutes, right?

Yeah. But it took him a lifetime. And then kind of same thing with building a body or building a really strong squat any of these things or building a skill set in jujitsu absolutely how long did it take you to tap the guy out well it might only took a minute but then it also probably took you like 10-15 years if it was a black belt that you tapped out well you know back to what you asked like that that's kind of one of the things that's that's happened to me is my goals in this have evolved so much that they're not even the same anymore like initially my goal was really i wanted you know to come on storm and be like you know all the other bibles move all the way up go to the olympia win the olympia be in the magazines and now as it's gone on and on and i've realized

it's more about how far can you take your body and how well can you manipulate your body and how well can you know your body? And now how well can you communicate that to other people? And how well can you help other people know their body? So it's like the goals have changed. The direction has changed so many times. I just knew right away that this is where I wanted to be in this space. How many years have you been training intentionally for this?

Because, like, yeah, we've all been training for a long time, but there's, like, I'm training intentionally to be an onstage bodybuilder. I won the Mission New Mexico in 2012, and then that was pretty much, no, it was, excuse me, 2012 was my first Mission New Mexico, and I won the Super Heavyweight, but I didn't leave Albuquerque until 2014 when I won the Missing New Mexico, the overall. And so that was, like, once I won that show and decided to move to California in 2015, that was when it was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do.

And so then it became, you know, then you start the process of switching from, okay, I go to the gym every day to, okay, it's my job to live this way every day. You know, and it's more of like this is work now. So you can't look at it as leisure. You don't skip it when you want to. You don't diet only when you want to. It's like, okay, now you've decided to make this a profession, live like that. And so that's kind of what I've always done.

So what's that, 2015? Eight years. We'll say it took a year to adjust to that. And then I'm sure there were some bumps in the road. I'm sure there definitely was some bumps in the road along the way. But, yeah, we'll say seven, eight years, all in. And you're, at least from what I remember, you were pretty early, like an early riser.

Do you still do that? Do you still get to the gym super early, or do you get more sleep nowadays? No, it's actually gotten worse. Since COVID, it's gotten worse. It's like, I mean, I had to find another gym to go to because Gold's Gym won't open early enough. So I have a 5 a.m. client, and usually I go and do cardio at 4 before that and then get to work. So, you know, yeah, like I'm a 3 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. guy. People always wonder why I don't text them back in the afternoon or the evening.

It's like, well, because I went to bed by the time you finished dinner. So you're at bed at 7.30 to 8 p.m.? Yeah, 8 p.m. That's goal is 8 p.m usually i love it i love it nothing good happens when it's dark outside yes yeah and how do you know this doug how much time do we have yeah what was it like being on that uh that show um forgive me i forget the name of dark soft white undery? Soft White Underbelly. Mark is just such an interesting guy. I've known him outside of his podcast.

I didn't even really understand. I didn't know. People just say, oh, yeah, that's a YouTuber. He's got a podcast. But I didn't really pay attention to what it was. He's got a crazy podcast. Amazing. Oh, man.

But he's been around the gym every morning for as long as I can remember. T.R. Goodman trains him every morning with James Pressfield. Or Steven Pressfield, excuse me. They train together every morning. He's a real nice guy. And one day we just asked. But it was awesome. He's an extremely professional guy.

And he has a really interesting method, which that's one of my favorite things about this as a whole, is just getting with other people that have a method of producing a product you know art or art information whatever and then being a part of that and being able to be like either the medium or you know in the photo shoot i look at myself i'm the medium you're the painter you know i'm basically the paint that's cool you do what you want but in this case it's just like you have a way of presenting this information well let's let's do it and it was such a cool just partnership or collaboration and i really i really enjoyed it a lot i think it's amazing that he's given a voice to people that probably haven't been heard from And it was such a cool just partnership or collaboration. And I really enjoyed it a lot. I think it's amazing that he's given a voice to people that probably haven't been heard from before.

A lot of these people are people that have been addicted to drugs. A lot of these people have been homeless. And you've been in those situations. We've talked about that on this show in the past as well. Yeah, I think what it does is it really humanizes it. Because a lot of times people who either are in denial and feel like they don't have any of the problems that his guests do or, you know, they're just not as much of a presence in their life or it's been far enough removed that they're able to think that they're better than or not experiencing it so much. It humanizes it. It's like, oh, man, I was almost like that guy or, oh, I do remember feeling that way. Or I do remember going through something like that. And that, that kind of connection, that's

the human experience as a whole. I mean, that's what we're looking for is, is a way to relate and understand and empathize with each other. How were you able to talk about those situations, um, like so directly without much emotion attached to it? Does it seem like it was a lifetime ago or, or, uh, was it like kind of so painful that you detached yourself from it in some way? Because you were just talking about these horrific things that sort of happened or these maybe not even horrific, but these circumstances that you were in where it didn't seem like you had a lot of parental guidance and stuff at all times and so forth. And you just talked about it very candidly without a lot of emotion. I was like, man, that's really a brave motherfucker right there,

being able to talk that way. But what do you think allows you to? I mean, I feel like that's very – it's interesting for me to hear you, that feedback from myself because really I look at it as part of my coming to terms with it and overcoming it was just accepting that it's just what happened. And in accepting that, you know, I feel like before you're able to be honest and open with anybody else, you have to be open and honest with yourself. And that's something I still struggle with in a lot of ways, you know, every day. Yeah, it sounded like you weren't a victim is what I was picking up.

Oh, I definitely wasn't a victim. Like, okay, this happened, that happened, this person treated me that way, that person treated me that way, but this is still ultimately on me. Absolutely. I feel like we are, yeah, and that's a big part of it is accepting that gives you the power to change it. Like once, if you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, all this shit happened to me and I didn't have any control over it and there's nothing I could have done about it and there's, I wasn't wrong, I was just beat up, and how could this happen to me? Well, then, logically, you're obviously not going to feel like you have any power to change it. You're just going to continue to be the victim because it's so much bigger than you that it puts you down.

But as soon as you tell yourself, well, if I hadn't have done this and I wouldn't have done this, I wouldn't be in this situation. Well, then you can not do that and not do this and not be in that situation anymore. But that's the only way you're going to get there is to accept that whatever happened in my life is my responsibility. You know, and of course, there's other people you can blame and sure you have to learn those lessons. So you can learn a little bit about how you guard yourself from predatory people or people are going to take advantage of you. But the fact of the matter is, you know, yeah, they took advantage of you, but you also got taken advantage of, you know, and that's your fault.

It's you got taken advantage of. I mean, even if that means, well, that person was smarter than you and they got one up on you, well, couldn't have fixed it at that very moment. But in the future, you can be smarter, and you're probably smarter because of that thing actually happening to you, and so you can change it in the future. But, yeah, that's how I got there, just accepting that it was my fault. For those that don't know or they didn't watch the interview,

you don't need to go through your whole childhood, but what are some things that happened? And did you get to a certain age and then you just felt in control, or did you always feel in control? Oh, I never. Half the time, I feel like I have to convince myself I'm in control every day. Sometimes, in a lot of ways. You have to wake up and remind yourself that you have control of this, and your outlook on your day really affects the outcome of your day, and your mindset really affects your position and all that stuff.

I feel like I have to – I mean, not to say that every day I woke up with a blank canvas and you've got to restart, but it definitely helps to renew your commitment, renew your commitment to where you're going and renew your commitment to where you are. Um, some of the things that, that I went through, you know, we'll put it all in a nutshell. There was a lot of drugs, um, got kicked out of the army prematurely at a young age. I joined the army at like 17 and a half. And then I was out by 19, I believe. And then once I came back from that, I just, you know, the best way to put it is I struggled to find my way. I struggled real hard to find out where I was going in life and who I was, really. And through that struggle, there was some time in jail, some time on probation. And then after I finished all that and escaped Albuquerque, New Mexico, I came to L.A.

But, yeah, I never, I mean, it's not as though the struggles have ever really stopped. I've, I mean, they've gotten a lot better. I don't struggle with drugs anymore. Thank God. Or I've, I've finished those kinds of things, but, um, the renewing my mind and, you know, you, you still, you have to remember that you're in control a lot of times. I think, I think you have to, it's really empowering to be like, no, this is you, man. Step up to the plate and handle your business for the day. You know. You got into drugs at a pretty young age from what I remember. Yeah, that was probably one of the first things I got into was drugs. How old were you?

I started smoking pot early in high school. And, you know, New Mexico drugs are pretty rampant. If you've ever seen Breaking Bad, it's accurate. Like that's not a – I mean it's fictional, but it's not a tall tale. That's how it is. And so, I mean I had a job. I remember I had a job at Arby's as a sophomore in high school, and that was where I first found methamphetamine from the cook.

And so I remember going to school as a junior in high school all tweaked out on meth, trying to go to football practice after. So, yeah, drugs were early for me. And it was – How awesome is meth? Meth is terrible, man. I mean, it must be awesome if people get addicted to it so much. Like what's the elation or what does it make you feel like if people get so addicted to it? Really, I think the best way to describe it is it's like half as good as you expect it to, but it does a really good job of building that expectation that this is going to be a lot of fun. And then as you start – so you continuously chase that, but you're only half as high.

And then when you get ready to stop, it's three times as bad as you think it is. And then so it's just – and you're able to – the thing I think that gets people the most is with methamphetamine, you're able to go for like a week. Whereas like first off off with cocaine, you'd probably run out of money and you know, you just, it's too, it's too overwhelming physically and mentally. You can't last that long. You'll, you'll, your body will overstimulate and pass the fuck out, you know, but with methamphetamine, I mean, it's, you can easily fall into living a lifestyle for weeks at a time where you're

staying up all night and just doing crazy shit. And your brain chemistry just changes ever so slightly as those days go by and so by the end you're having crazy hallucinations and people are talking to you through the door because you're running literally on chemicals you find under your bathroom sink there's no food there's no water there's no you know minerals there's no electrolytes there's no nothing in your brain or your body and you're just running on this you know phosphorus and amphetamine it's pretty pretty wild shit and that's why you know you see the malnutrition physically so bad after like a week or so people's teeth start falling not a week but after a while people's teeth start

falling out and you the skin the hair the nails you just see the nutritional deficits i think that's probably one of the things that helped me the most in overcoming that addiction is really feeling the physical effects and being like god i work so you know i work so hard for this how could you ever destroy you know like how could you it's crazy man it's crazy and it just sinks your teeth into sinks his teeth into people and that's it it's scary scary stuff yeah yeah nowadays you know you you don't even want to do a workout without a meal yeah no and i mean you know a lot of time i think initially when i started bodybuilding and training like this it really saved me like i was coming out i was on probation and i was going to the gym and and finally seeing that i had control over something

of my own and like something to better myself because at that time i mean i've been in jail i'm 20 or some shit i've been in jail I got an ankle bracelet on and people are like, you know, my peers are going to college and having families and stuff like that. And I'm like, wow, what the fuck? You know, I'm just, I just really fucked myself over. I'm just stuck here now. And bodybuilding was like an immediate boom. No, you're not stuck. You're bigger, you're stronger, you're faster now. You know, no, you're not stuck. You feel good. You're moving forward. And that attitude really helped me to get through those initial weeks and months of, you know, really just monotony, trying to find a normal job and, you know,

live and pay your apartment bill, stuff like that. And so it really saved me. Of course, now it's blossomed into so many other things. But initially, bodybuilding saved my life. You know, training every day saved my life. It helped me to stay in there and keep going. Do you sometimes feel like you traded one addiction for another? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I've come to terms with that a lot because I feel like one of the things I experienced through all this is that I

feel like some people are addicts and some people are not. Some people have the propensity to rely on stimulus on a deeper level than others. I think other people get really uncomfortable when something stimulates them at a level higher than they're really comfortable with or something takes away the control from their faculties. I always laugh at it like this. Like girls, my wife, for example, she doesn't like smoking pot because it makes her nervous.

It makes her like all nervous and antsy and she doesn't feel like she has control. And I'm like, man, anytime I've ever taken something and feel like, whoa, I'm out of control, rock on. Let's go. Show me. And so I think that's really one of the bigger differences between an addict and a not is I'm really not that uncomfortable being out of control. It actually helps me because chaos is in my brain a lot of times. I feel like I can't control that.

But so in doing that, yeah, I feel like I've accepted that I'm the kind of person that has an addictive personality. And honestly, I thrive on being addicted to training. Like, so what? I'm addicted to training. I'm addicted to being a better person than I was yesterday. And if – I mean, that's – I just kind of turned it into an asset, if you will. If I'm addicted to it and I'm able to form that habit, sure, I have to be careful of the fact that I form habits really easily and they can be good or bad, but that also means I can form a habit as long as I see there's a benefit to it. So I found a benefit in everything I do over there and it kind of helped me.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but your sleep quality most likely sucks. It's one of the biggest things that we talked about on the podcast. So many guests have come on and talked about how sleep can help you stick to your diet, stick to your workout plan, lose body fat, gain muscle, all the good things that you're trying to do. But it's hard to do because you might be snoring. And if you're snoring, that's why we've partnered with hostage tape, which is mouth tape that you can put over your nose, your mouth when you're asleep to help you stop snoring and breathe through your nose. But if you haven't been breathing through your nose this whole time while you've been sleeping, it's going to be a little bit difficult to get air through there. That's also why hostage tape has nose strips to help open up your nasal airways

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And I'm curious about like your early years of serious bodybuilding training, right? Because you do a lot of stuff when you train now. But what are some things that you think maybe you would have trained or a way you would have trained differently? Things you would have just like changed in the way you're training when you're younger? Oh, gosh, there's so much. I try not to think about it too much because you'll just sit there and tear apart what you used to do, right? And it's the journey.

You could be 325 right now. Yeah, exactly. The journey is really the beauty. But I mean, I definitely would have paid a little bit more attention to the body mechanics. I feel like I started training and then I learned anatomy and body mechanics as a result of that and in a way to further my training. Whereas if I would have studied that prior or at the very beginning, I probably wouldn't have had to use it to overcome obstacles. I probably would have used it to put myself in a better position. had to use it to overcome obstacles, I probably would have used it to put myself in a better position.

Yeah. So like all my stretching and ART stuff, I would have started that a little earlier. And I would have been more open to different things. I feel like it's taken, you know, when I started, it was just kind of like, no, I'm just here for this. I'm just going to bodybuild. And now, you know, now it's like I've taken some stuff from yoga. I've taken some stuff from a lot of the athletic stuff wrestling you know brazilians are

brazilians are super smart people and so you know the the jiu-jitsu stuff that i've learned as far as taking care of your body and staying mobile and and being strong in that mobility like i would have never i would have never listened to any of that stuff before i would have stuck to my big water jug full of aminos and just squatted all day, you know, shit like that. But to see how everything works, the body, fitness, life in general, really, but the body and the fitness world, everything works together to produce, you know, what we're all looking for is the epitome of physical capability, right? We're looking for the paramount of that. And you can't get that from just one angle. And I would have been much more diverse early on.

It is pretty cool, like, having lifted with you yesterday and Mark lifted with you today, And you can't get that from just one angle. And I would have been much more diverse early on. It is pretty cool, like, having lifted with you yesterday and Mark lifted with you today, but, like, seeing the way you move through a lot of these movements, you have a really large range of motion for being such a big guy. You move extremely well. Was it always that way or did you, like, again, as you started focusing on mobility and other things, did it change the way you move? When I was, like, for example, when I was here four years ago, I keep thinking back to that squat day we had. Like, I remember before I did that, the big-ass squat, I was, like, running and jumping around the gym.

And, granted, I was younger then, I guess, and I wasn't quite as big. But when I started to see that level of mobility kind of go down, that's when I got more and more serious about it. So, like, as I was younger, I really never had those issues. My elbows didn't hurt. I didn't really get my shoulders internally rotated for a good while. I never had problems with my hips or my knees. But as I've put more muscle on, I've realized how much more of that work I need to stay as mobile as I want. But guys like O'Hearn really,

as much as I don't like to give that guy credit for anything besides his Botox, guys like him, I mean, O'Hearn's a fan. He's an amazing athlete. And the things that he's done to maintain that level of mobility, I learned that from him. He's mobile because he wants to be, because he trains himself to be that way. And so like a lot of the movements I do,

I insist on that level of mobility so that you can continue it. You know, I feel like that's one of the biggest things, guys. You know, like I know some guys that can't get their arms on the bar to squat. And I'm like, well, I mean, and I know powerlifters sometimes have a reason for that tension and strength and their stuff. But I'm sorry, man. You got to be able to put the hands on the bar when you're squatting. If you're calling yourself an athlete like i just i just believe

that i really do yeah there we go some pictures from the last time you're here i had a much bigger beard then yeah i did i did want to ask you really quick sorry mark um like even yesterday some of the uh the movements that you were showing everybody in the gym they were just they were a little bit more unique than anything like I've really seen. And you hear people all the time talk about don't reinvent the wheel, but like this movement right here you're doing for your traps. Where are you learning some of these things, or are you just playing in the gym?

A lot of playing in the gym. That's another one from O'Hearn and I. But, yeah, you hit your traps and your rear delts there because then when you flip around and do it facing forward, your lats are the only thing that can work because your trap your upper back is already smoked from the first one got it and so that's why we really like that because you know for one my rear delts and my upper back are quite a bit more active than my lats are so sometimes it's easier for me to just

get those guys tired before i go and hit the lats so that they get the most of that stimulation. Have you beaten O'Hearn on some exercises before? No, of course not. No. Mike is every bit as strong as me for one or two reps. That's what I'll say. He's a nice training partner. He has a lot of tricks. I know that.

Were you ever concerned about, you know i mentioned uh trading one addiction for another was there concern over the use of anabolic steroids and and performance enhancing drugs and moving into you know you knew like you know the deal with bodybuilding yeah and then with your background were you kind of concerned like ah this is another thing i'm gonna get hooked on or did you have a different perspective on it i never i didn't even think twice i'm not gonna lie i won't even think twice. I'm not going to lie. I won't even try to sugarcoat that. When somebody presented them to me, I was like, that'll make me better at this.

This thing that I love so much, it'll make me stronger. It'll make things go faster. I was like, absolutely. I just basically bent over. I was like, let's try it. And I come at it so honestly. There was no thought. I was like, absolutely.

They wouldn't approve of this in AA. Yeah, well. This is not part of the steps. Keep coming back, man. It works if you work it. But yeah, no, I mean, and maybe it should have been a consideration, something I should have thought about. I'm sure it was a consideration for

my mother and the people in my life that really love me, but, I mean, let's be real. I'm not the kind of person that heeds advice I don't want to hear anyway, and I think my mother knows that more than anybody, so one good thing, my mom, I mean, let's be real. I'm not the kind of person that heeds advice I don't want to hear anyway. And I think my mother knows that more than anybody. So one good thing, my mom, I mean, she's the best mom in the whole world. I'll say that over and over again. But one thing she always did was support me when she knew I was happy. And I feel like that's the other thing.

A mother always knows when her son's actually happy instead of when her son is saying he's happy. And I think that because of my endurance when it comes to the bodybuilding thing, I think people at first are like, oh, great, here goes Doug. He's going to do something crazy. This is nuts. And then I remember when I won the Mr. New Mexico, my uncle, who had always kind of been like, oh, you're still doing that stupid weightlifting thing, huh?

He came in and he was like, this is Mr. New Mexico. And he was so excited. And so once they saw that it was going to be there for the long haul, I think the support was there. But, yeah, no, I never really thought about that. Definitely didn't spend too much time thinking about it. Well, they're clearly different, right? I mean, yeah.

And I will say, I will definitely agree. You know, there's an argument to be made that anabolic steroids are addictive. Yes. You know, on their own. But it doesn't seem to have the same negative impact as the drugs that you did before. Yeah, it's not going to make your teeth fall out as fast as meth. I mean, I know they say it'll make your hair fall out and there's all these things, long-term side effects, but no, yeah, I don't agree with all that.

It's definitely helping me and where I'm at. It's allowing you to do the things you're doing now and you really enjoy them. Is there any aspect that you think about in terms of maintaining safety when it comes to using anabolics that you think maybe people should try to consider? Absolutely. Granted, you are a IFBB pro bodybuilder, but what do you think people should be trying to consider? Yeah, I mean, for one, I don't think that a huge stack of Tremblone and all these other crazy drugs are a good idea unless you're competing. As a matter of fact, I do not

use Tremblone, ever. For mental reasons, it makes me fucking crazy in the head, but it makes everybody crazy in the head for the most part. I think that you need to be realistic about what you're using these things for. I mean, we are. We're professional athletes and we're at the height of the game.

So there's a reason there. But I think one of the most important things that I started doing recently is I get my blood work done like every three months, whether I'm on cycle or not. So you can look at your hemoglobin level. So you can look at your liver enzymes. So you can look at your kidney function. And so you can look at your blood mainly, all those things. Because, you know, if those things are still relatively normal while you're on cycle, then your body's processing them fine. And if you stay on top of that kind of stuff, you're going to see, like, hey, maybe the 200 milligrams of anadrol a day isn't a great idea for my liver.

You know, let's pull that back because my enzymes are high. Stuff like that. And I think it's important. And interestingly enough, I've told some of my clients, they're like, oh, my God, you're going to go to the doctor and get your blood work done while you're on steroids? Like, they're going to know. I'm like, well, yeah. You're turning around. Good idea.

Your doctor knows what you're doing. You're under arrest, young man. Exactly. Like, this is your doctor. But, yeah, you've got to have the full picture. You've got to have the full picture. And you have to listen to your body. I mean, I've had so many, i've heard stories of people that are like you know they were sick for

two three weeks and then they die of internal bleeding in a stomach ulcer but it's like bro you know blood was coming out of your ass while you're on the toilet more than once and you weren't in the hospital yet like dude i'd be calling 9-1-1 from the toilet yeah literally and i feel like stuff like that that's where these negative effects of the steroids come in is people just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing it without any sort of knowledge. And I'm not, I mean, I'm not sitting here saying that I'm like the steroid doctor or anything like that. Like this is all intuition and, and a little bit of medical knowledge.

And we thank God my wife's a nurse, but so there's a little bit of medical knowledge, but I mean, I truly believe that if my, you know, I would know if there was a big problem in my internal organs, you know, like we can know that our body will tell us. You guys are all about that. And we can fix ourselves. We can heal ourselves. But the first part of that is knowing ourselves internally. So being on cycle versus off cycle, it seems like the old blast and cruise has turned into blast and then get on cycle. Blast and blast them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like sixth gear versus fifth gear, it's like, but they're never going back to neutral anymore.

Yeah, so I guess without getting too detailed on that, but how often are you technically on cycle, let's say, per year? I would probably say twice per year i i like to i like to if i can like i just took eight weeks off and i think it's good to do that at least once a year as a competitive bodybuilder twice if possible the more rest i think is is obviously going to be better and that's where i think the biggest addictive property of the steroids comes in is we don't want to stop. You know, you're feeling good. You're making gains. You're going forward. And when you say you're, you know, as a bodybuilder, when you say, okay, I'm coming off cycle, you're also kind of saying like, well, I don't have a goal right now. So I'm just going to kind of hang out. And that's where the addiction comes from is when I wake up,

I love to wake up and be like, okay, I got this, this, this, this, and this to do because of this go away on the future. So in that way, but I do, you know, it's better to be, have a little bit of those rest periods. I don't really think the blasting cruise or the on-cycle, off-cycle thing, especially with TRT being such a big thing now, like guys are going to take 250 milligrams a week probably no matter what of test. But giving your body the rest from all those other things that's that's where i think the most important part back to the livers kidneys blood pressure and hemoglobin stuff like that has any of your blood markers ever come up like with a red flag and you have to address something in a certain way i've been

pretty pretty pretty lucky not to the one that gets a little high for me is the liver enzymes. We'll do a glutathione push and some SAME pretty heavily. The glutathione we get intravenously and just hit it in. That really helps a lot. That's pretty much the only one that's gotten big on me. I've been blessed. One of the last times I had blood work while I was on cycle, the doctor was like, how long have you been running gear? I was like, this long. He was like, well, your body's handling it really well. And I was like, good. That's what I want to hear.

You know, that's the exact thing I want to hear. Yeah. There's the genetic side to being able to accept some of these performance enhancing drugs as well, right? I believe so. Yeah. Because it definitely affects everybody differently, you know. And some people, they handle it like nothing. Other people, they're like, you know, they're really struggling with little stuff stuff and then you see the same in like aromatization and stuff like that you have

guys that'll break out like crazy from like one shot attention you're like well either your gear was made in a bathtub or you know like you really gotta look at your action levels or something but and then other guys like myself i really don't aromatize that much at all i stay pretty lean i don't hold much water i don't get get the acne. I mean, thank God. That's great. Over the years, like, I mean, I didn't see you the last time you were here, but like you have just consistently been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Have you adjusted anything in the training? Because people would always, they're going to put it towards PEDs. But

has anything in terms of training or PEDs changed at all to help you make more progress? But has anything in terms of training or PEDs changed at all to help you make more progress? So much. I mean, PED-wise, honestly, the use of PEDs has gone down probably about 30%, 40%. I use less anabolics than I normally have. I think one thing that's always been really good for me is since I started bodybuilding, like I remember when I started bodybuilding, it was like, okay, we are going to eat six times a day now. And that was, you know, eight years ago. And it's pretty much like that every day. The first thing I think about is what I'm going to eat.

The last thing I think about is what I'm going to eat tomorrow and how I'm going to schedule that. And also training. Like it's just we train. And like when I married my wife, we kind of just decided like this is just what we do every day. How lucky am I to have someone who's going to come with me and make sure that happens every day. And it's like that when we go on vacation, up at 5, go to the gym, even if we're going to have a full day.

And so that's really what has helped the most. I mean, training changes all the time, but at the same time, it stays exactly the same all the time. You learn, you change a little bit of what you're doing, but you chase the same stimulation every day. And that's, I mean, I've consistently gotten thicker and put on more muscle because I've consistently put myself in that environment. Yeah. Food, drugs, and training, all of them. I mean, that's what my life's been about for eight years. Look into my eyes. Now, I know that you want to be looking better. You want to be going walking the streets being like,

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And you'll automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. How do you afford it all? I work hard. I mean, I'm a personal trainer and I see probably like six clients a day. And that's the least amount of clients I've seen a day in years. But I mean, I'm blessed to have the opportunity to work at Gold's and have the clients I have, but I afford it

by working and by the grace, I mean, really I should say it like this, by the grace of God I work enough to afford it. But it's just, it's a blessing. You train all different kinds of people? Oh yeah, man. Yeah, I don't even really like training athletes that much. I mean, I do. John, good job with the USA's, man. Yeah, I don't even really like training athletes that much. I mean, I do, John. Good job with the USAs, man.

You did a great job. But normal clients, normal guys that, like, I just love training people that want to change their life. I love training people that are passionate about whatever it is they're doing. I mean, I don't care if you're an IndyCar driver and you want to get stronger because it's hard for you to keep stable in your seat while you're pulling two Gs. Like, let's do it. Let's attack that together. together i mean let me tie your neck down and we'll do some presses you know we'll figure out some way to that's what it's about just just being being

there to help people do what they want to do others just do you ever wake up with a little bit less less enthusiasm and kind of have to get yourself motivated to, you know, the training, the eating and the coaching? Um, yeah, definitely. I, I, you know what I tend to wake up, I tend to wake up really pessimistic. I like wake up just in a bad mood. And if you catch me in that bad mood, it's, I mean, a lot of times it's really not good. I feel bad for my wife, you know, so it's, it's good when we wake up and I go off and do my cardio and stuff like that before she gets up or when she's got to go to work because it's a little bit easier. I do. Sometimes I wake up grumpy.

I mean, one reason is sleep is really tough for me. I have a CPAP, and I'm still trying to learn how to sleep on my back, and it's important. We've got to sleep, and I want to hold this weight, so we're going to figure it out. So sometimes I just don't sleep that great, and I just wake up in a bad mood. But that's where the renewing your mind comes in and getting up. And you know, for me, I like to walk on a treadmill. I know that's weird. I could walk outside. Sure. That's cool. But I like a treadmill and I just like to get up and go and do that and stretch. It's not like a super hard workout, but it's an extremely important part of my day. And it really helps me to then come back and, and give what I

need to give to my clients and to my training and stuff like that. Like, it's never a lack of motivation for training. I can't remember the last time I was like, I don't really want to train today. You know, no, I love to train. But I also really love to put yourself in the position to have a great session. So if I have a shitty morning and I don't put myself in that position, well, then everything's fucked. Yeah. But to answer your question, yeah, I definitely struggle with that quite a bit.

And I have to wake up and get myself back there. You were saying the other day that sometimes you start to get in an argument with yourself before you do your cardio. Yeah. You're like, fuck, I don't really, I don't know if I want to do this. Yeah. You know, you always, I think that's, in our nature, we always want to try to take the easy way out. And just part of training your mind to not do that, it starts in those little basic things. Like even we were talking before about the cold shower.

And it's like, you know, you turn on that water and you can turn it on a lot hotter and nobody would ever know. Or like the treadmill, the same thing. Like no matter how many times I get on this treadmill, I don't get off early. But I talk about it with myself every time. Every time. Like, oh, it's 1745. We can just go to 18 minutes. We don't get off early, but I talk about it with myself every time. Every time. I'm like, oh, it's 1745. We can just go to 18 minutes. We don't need to go to 20.

Like, no big deal. But then you start doing that and what happens in your life? You start making those exceptions and then those exceptions breed more exceptions. And then before you know it, you're sitting on your ass all day and you're fat. And now you got your wife yelling at you too. And then we had the peanut butter incident. You mind explaining some of that? She's a peanut butter thief.

There's nothing else to explain. She decided that I didn't need the peanut butter so she took it and put it away without my permission. Like hid it from you so you can't find the peanut butter? I don't know what happened to that peanut butter. She might have eaten it. Probably long gone.

It is long gone. It was years ago. Were you like binging on peanut butter or something? I mean, I like a spoonful or four of peanut butter. Who doesn't? Who doesn't? Exactly. I mean, she did good. She did say that you had a ladle.

I'm a big guy. I got big hands. A little spoon, no good. I remember on a contest prep, I went through like three-fourths of a thing of peanut butter one day. Oh, my God. And I was on prep, so I fucked up. Peanut butter will do that shit to you. It will.

Peanut butter is tough. Peanut butter is a good one. She did a good move. Ever since I was a kid. Chucking it out of the house. You don't need that shit. That's what she said. You don't need that shit.

You mess with the peanut butter powder stuff, though? I use it a little bit. I mean, it doesn't do as good on a spoon going in your mouth which is that's what it's all about you know but that stuff's good in shakes though yeah yeah when you're training uh other people are using a lot of bodybuilding techniques and stuff like that are you using different methods no absolutely bodybuilding transpires all all all across i use pretty much all bodybuilding techniques you change the the rep schemes. You change the intention. Like we're still going for hypertrophy,

but really what I think is important about bodybuilding training for normal people is it teaches you to use muscles individually and promotes body awareness. And so I don't care if you want your lats as big as mine, but you need to know what position your body is in, where you're going to use your lats, and then how to use your lats as big as mine but you need to know what what position your body's in where you're going to use your lats and then how to use your lats and then how to activate them and also in promoting bodybuilding training you're able to demonstrate first because people don't understand where their imbalances really are so you're able to demonstrate them their imbalances by saying okay when you pull your shoulders back you feel on the left side feels worse than the

right side it's because the left side can't go down all the way like the right side can. So if we strengthen that, put you there, then this will feel good. And so causing awareness to imbalances and then eradicating them completely, you know, and just helping people to understand the position of execution and just, I think bodybuilding helps us use our body so much more efficiently. And yeah, it's a little less athletic and a little less fluid in a lot of ways. But, you know, there's no saying you can't go from one mode to another. Absolutely. I think the gym is a...

Oh, there's David Meadows. You know, it's kind of hard to figure out. It's kind of hard to figure out certain things to do in the gym, but gaining muscle and getting stronger, for the most part, I think should be prominent for most people because I think that people think they're going to go to the gym, they're going to exercise and they're going to like lose weight. And yeah, maybe because there is a more energy output. You are burning calories, but to me, it's not the point of the gym. Like, what are your thoughts on that? No, the point of the gym is to understand how strong you are. And I think that,

What are your thoughts on that? The point of the gym is to understand how strong you are. And I think that strength breeds mobility and functionality across the board. So like you take an obese person who, sure, they want to come to the gym to lose weight. But what's going to happen when, I mean, let's pick something real basic that they're going to do. Like let's say they try to do a push-up on their knees, right? Okay, well, as they go to do that push-up on their knees, which is pretty much all they, you know, say they don't want to go to a gym, they're scared, they're intimidated, whatever. So they try to do that push-up on their knees. Well,

so many things are going to fatigue on them so fast and it's going to frustrate them so much that they're just going to stop. You know, whereas if you take the time and sure, you may need it. A little challenging getting down on the ground and taking the time to do all that stuff, yeah. But, you know, and they haven't used their body in so long.

It's so many pieces of their musculature and structure just going to be in complete chaos and inflammation. Whereas if you have someone take the time and show them, like, look, as you get stronger, all of this gets easier. As you get stronger, you're going to be able to walk longer. As your heart rate increases, you're going to be able to endure this stuff longer. And that's what's going to create that change. You can't get that level of endurance without that first part of strength. At least I don't see. I don't see how you're going to get there.

And then the gym conveniently has a lot of different options. So you're mentioning like push-ups on the knees. Well, now we can use a table machine or a machine or dumbbells. Stuff like that. And I think that's, as a trainer, like people like you mentioned earlier, don't reinvent the wheel or all these different things that we do. Like I tell people, a lot of times people are like, well, why do we do it? You know, we'll do three different types of lap pull-downs over the course of a first month with me. And they're like, well, why do you do it differently?

Does it work different things? I said, yeah, it does work things a little differently. But honestly, I'm doing it this way so you won't get bored because last time you did it that way. You know, it's my job as a trainer to keep you excited. So here we go. We got four different ways to do this. Let's keep it interesting. That's a big part of being a coach, being a trainer,

is just helping people with that stuff. The thing I think is also super cool about, honestly, the way that you go about it, you were talking about the body awareness when we were pulling up you training that client. But, for example, yesterday we were doing a shrug-type movement, whereas when somebody looks at it, they're going we were doing a shrug type movement. Whereas when somebody looks at it, they're going to think you're shrugging, but you instructed, keep the shoulders down, pull the elbows up. You're going to feel that in your rear delts. I've never done that movement before, but with the superset we were doing with like the plate loaded front raise and

that movement, I was really feeling that shrug looking movement in the rear delt. And the thing that I think is so frustrating is that that was extremely effective and we had the awareness to feel it. But a lot of coaches are going to look at that and say, that's not optimal. You're weird. You're too much, too much trap involvement and too much this involvement.

But when you actually do it with you, you feel it. So it like your ability to, I guess, have that body awareness and, and feel those things. It's something I think more people should try to take advantage of. I agree. I mean a lot of times I ask clients, they'll be doing something, they're like, am I doing this right?

And my first question is, you tell me. Where do you feel it? Yeah. And that's where that awareness comes from. You have to feel that. I think a lot of coaches who don't have a lot of experience necessarily. Or a purely textbook. Yeah, they're just like, well, that's not right because, you know, exactly like you said.

It's like, well, when's the last time you picked up some 50s and did it? Like, let's go train. You know, come on, feel it. And I can honestly say there's not a single thing that I'll ask a client to do or tell a client to do that I haven't done myself. You know, like so and a lot of times I'm really, one of the things I'm most proud of is I'm like, okay, like around rep five or seven, you're going to start feeling it here. And then around rep number 11, you're going to get really tired. Your chest is going to roll forward and your shoulders are done.

That's how you know you're done with your set. And they're like, you know, I'm proud of myself because I can be like, I did that yesterday. That's exactly how I felt. You know, and if you feel it that way, that means you probably held the position as good as you can. Stuff like that. How do you help people with their diet? Because that seems to be a real tough one.

Man, diet is so simple, right? Unless you're a competitive body and you're in a bodybuilding contest prep or something where you have to be 0% body fat. Unless you're really at the top level dieting is so simple eat frequently lower the calories and and just keep going right and so i that's basically my diets are very simple for my lifestyle clients and i try to make it as as easy as possible granted i'm a bodybuilder so a lot of times when people like well i just didn't like that i'm like i'm sorry you should eat it anyway you know but like and so i get that there's a little bit of a disconnect there. But with diets, it's literally just about providing people the information and then helping them find the commitment to stick with it

or the versatility to make it fit in their life, which is something I think people screw up on is they'll be like, well, you know, I just don't have time to eat this. And I'm like, well, look, you have to look at it like this, not like, okay, here's a piece of paper I need to fit in my life. It's going to fit perfectly. And then everything's good. And if it doesn't fit perfectly, well, then screw that. I can't do a diet. No, man, you have to eat these, you know, you have to adhere to this nutrition plan, fit it into your life and understand that it takes time.

It's not just going to be like, okay, I start my diet on Monday. By Tuesday, it's perfect. No, man, it takes weeks of, you know By Tuesday, it's perfect. No, man. It takes weeks of, you know, if I eat this meal 10 minutes earlier, then the next meal is going to feel better. Okay, we'll try that. Or, you know, this food really didn't work for me. Here, let's try this. And that's okay.

But people give up, even when they have a coach. People give up before they're willing to work on it. And I think a lot of it is because they see it and they understand it's so simple, but they still can't bring themselves to do it. And it makes them ashamed of themselves. It makes them really hard. It's hard to accept that, wow, this eating thing is not as easy as it sounds. Have you found that frequent meals kind of help because it helps kind of push off hunger when somebody has four, five, six meals?

I encourage all my clients to eat like at least four times a day. I think it's important. I know that there's a lot of research talking about fasting and stuff like that but i think that in my experience the most effective way to change one's body is to manipulate the metabolism to process more food and to turn yourself a little bit more anabolic a little bit more higher functioning and the only way you're going to do that is by frequently eating so that your body's used to processing that food be able to process more food and not less food. Not less food.

No. We starve ourselves all the time. And I look at our body more as a performance machine. Like I use the analogy to a race car all the time. It's like, well, are you going to really minimize the amount of fuel that you can give your race car and then expect it to run the best time for the longest time every time? No.

You have to fuel the machine to work. And the more efficiently that you can give your race car and then expect it to run the best time for the longest time every time no you have to fuel the machine to work and the more efficiently that machine can process fuel the more output it's going to have and so that's really the way i look at dieting um and so yeah like most of the time people be like wow you gave me all this food and it seemed like so much food but i've been eating it for three weeks and i lost five pounds and i'm like imagine that you know imagine that your body is running more efficiently it got rid of all of the extra stuff it's carrying around because it doesn't know when it's going to get food again. And you're maybe not as stressed. You know, if you, if you fast, which I'm a proponent, I like fasting. I like a lot of different methods, but if you fast and you're not really used to it, uh, and you had a rough work day and this went wrong and that went wrong, the stress that that might have on you might cause you to overeat

or might cause you to end up binging on something. Yeah. That extra hunger through a hard day is going to – yeah, you get home and you're just going to – Or just the impact of those stresses that you had are worse. Absolutely. They're worse than normal. How about what – I guess what types of diets have you seen clients have more success with, whether it be high-carb or high-fat or anything like that?

I think that for men that are overweight, the carnivore or the keto diet really works well, especially for that first 8- to 12-week time period when you're really trying to lose that body fat. I think that's one of the most effective ways for guys to lose weight. I don't think it works very well with women as much, but it works really well with guys. I think that a basic kind of well-balanced, lower-carbohydrate, higher-protein diet is best for somebody who's in the gym because you need that protein to keep the muscle healthy and to keep the muscle growing. You need the carbohydrates for energy, and I think it's important when somebody's either starting or getting into a weight training program to to understand the value of carbohydrates for fuel um and to kind of look

at them more as for fuel instead of luxury or something like that like carbohydrates fuel a lean body into doing what we needed to do and then I think minimal fat is is pretty good if you're going to eat fat make sure it comes from steak or eggs or something like that especially when you're trying to get leaner um and i think the only time that extra dietary fat is good is when your carbs are so high that it causes blood sugar issues and you need to you need to your metabolism necessarily it's in effect going so fast that you need the fat to slow down the carbohydrates or your blood sugar is going to go up down up down all over the place that's something that i deal with personally i'm curious curious, actually, you know, Rico Rivas was talking about how, like,

he's on prep and his coach has him have no fat, right? Is that how, when you prep, like, when you're at the deepest parts of prep, what are your fats at? It's pretty low, pretty low. I mean, I always, again, this is just, I think, because of the size, the muscle that I have, I always have, always have whole eggs and steak at the very minimum. Even towards the end of prep? We had steak always, right?

Even the last day of the show, I ate steak. But as far as extra olive oil or peanut butter or stuff like that, no. That goes away pretty quick. Gotcha. Rico was talking about how he eats. He's on fish for the next 10 weeks.

That would never work for me. I would be, I would look like a marathon runner. I've tried it. You know, we did a keto diet when I won the Excalibur. That was a long time ago, 2015, 2016. And I did that keto diet, but it makes your skin thin. It makes you peel, but you're not going to get a pump. You're not going to be full.

I'm not going to be full or some guys at works, I know. But, yeah, thankfully, I would not enjoy bodybuilding as much if I had to diet that hard. Yeah. You know, I definitely wouldn't. I feel for those guys. Yeah, I think really plummeting your fats, even if somebody is on performance-enhancing drugs, I think just screws with your libido, kind of screws with your mood. It's very difficult. I'm not saying it doesn kind of screws with your mood. It's very difficult.

I'm not saying it doesn't work. It definitely works. But again, you go back to saying I look like I'm a healthy 300 pounds. I try to look like I would really love it if even my show prep could be healthier. I'm not one of the guys that dehydrates my water for three days and then really gets low. I take a mild diuretic and i drink water the whole time and i try to be ready two weeks before a show i try to have as much homeostasis from eight weeks out to the show as i possibly can and i think a

lot of guys go the exact opposite direction in that way and that's why we're seeing some of the stuff we're seeing in bodybuilding where guys are dropping dead because it's like you're trying so hard to make your body do this thing that it's really not used to doing where if you just train all year round and live that lifestyle you're just going to go on stage doing what your body's used to doing in a polished way like you know i mean i i don't i'm not holding a bunch of water right now. You know, I feel like that's really important stuff. And even, you know, my wife was with me through the Boston Pro and the New York Pro. We never cut water. I drank two gallons of water every day until the Friday before the show.

And, you know, I wasn't – I mean, I just don't feel like it hurt me as much as it hurt all that. Now, granted, it was 11th place. Maybe there's something to do with that, but I'm okay with that. So you're working out. You're working on nutrition, you're working on your feet, you're working on your sleep, and all these things are having benefit. But what's going on underneath the hood? What's going on with your hormones? That question is answered by working with Merrick Health. It's owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. And getting your blood work done by Merrick Health will help you understand what's going on under the hood. They have different

panels that you can do once every six months or every single month. So you can understand how your sleep, all these different protocols that you're adding into your routine are affecting your hormones. It's important to understand and it's also important to know if what you're doing is actually working. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the checkup panel, or any individual lab that you select. Again, that's at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject.

Promo code PowerProject at checkout. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Have you gotten into taking other performance enhancing drugs like growth hormone and insulin and stuff like that? Oh, yeah. That's always been part of the game. Insulin I don't use very much anymore. It doesn't seem to do what I had hoped it would do for me. So my coach and I, we worked with it a little bit.

That was one of those things that's funny. I think, guys, as our development grows, it's like that next big thing that you've never tried. You're like, oh, that's going to be it, man. Once I start that, that's going to just put me over the edge. And so there was that with me for growth hormone where I was like, once I can be on growth hormone consistently, then I'll be like the pros. That's what their secret is. It's not. But, I mean, and insulin was the same thing. It's like, oh, man, if I could figure out how to use insulin the way that Kai and Ronnie used insulin, that would put me there.

It's not. But, yeah, I think we all go through those things. So insulin I don't use very much. I think growth hormone probably is one of the reasons that I'm a little bit healthier than a lot of the other guys is because I've used it so consistently. I feel like it helps with recovery and regeneration so much. And there's – it's not just for getting huge. I mean, growth hormone rebuilds the cells of our body. And I think that's really an important thing. And if there's a negative side to it, it's just my understanding is it might mess with your

blood sugar just a bit, right? It messes with your blood sugar. And I think in higher doses, it can cause some problems. Like, you know, if you're taking a bottle a day of Sarastin or something like that, yeah, of course, you're going to see the growth through the midsection. Maybe the forehead grows a little bit. Yeah, looking like Cro-Magnon. But the blood sugar was one of the things that I think is the one that you have to watch out for the most. And it's not anything that's going to, like, cause an issue at the moment,

but over time that would be something that you wouldn't want to have happen because it can make you kind of register as almost like pre-diabetic. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. I really did kind of like how you're talking about this because you've been extremely consistent with everything over a long time. And I think it's normal to want to hear what's the thing that's going to allow the grass to be greener. 500 milligrams of this. What's the dosage?

What's the drug? What is it? And it's like you keep just saying, I'm consistent with my food, my sleep, and my training. And I've been that way for a long fucking time. Of course, with some PEDs. But it's not like there's magic to the PEDs that you're using. No, and I truly believe that for a good long time that there was magic to the PEDs. I truly did.

And I like to say, God rest his soul. I'm sorry that this is what he's a good example of, but I like to say that we've all tried to be Boston Lloyd at one time. And I've told my clients this too. I said, look, dude, I've taken two grams of test a week. I've done those things. There is no benefit. It is a point of diminishing returns,

and I think everybody needs to find that level for themselves. And there is an optimal level of everything. Like, that's why blood work is so important. Even with protein, right? Even with protein. You have 200 grams of protein. It's usually pretty good for most people. But do you need 500 grams?

Probably not. And everybody's different. You know, that's why it's like those, you know, those, oh, you know, your body can process 52.4 grams of protein per hour that's it it's like well what about thor you know thor's like 400 some pounds you can't tell me that his his body's needs and ability to process protein is different than mine it must be um but yeah with everything it's it's versatility and consistency combined yeah do you currently like track macros or anything like that? I pay a guy to do that for me. AJ does my diet

and I just follow it. I've never been a macros guy. The guy I coached for the USA, he did his entire prep on tracking his macros. That's cool, but for me, I feel much better and I function much better if I have a certain list of foods I'm supposed to eat and that's what I eat every day. It just makes

it easier for me. I get home, I pack the food the day it was you know it's like I basically I come home with empty tupperwares I put exactly what was in those tupperwares back in those tupperwares put them in the fridge that's it um so your coach gives you more like a meal plan yeah he gives me a full meal plan these are the six meals you're gonna have every day with your post-workout shake and so on absolutely yeah and that's that's really the way I like it and people ask me about calories and I'm like well he I hope he I hope he did that. If he didn't, that's fine. He's my coach. You know, he's telling me what to eat. I don't really do that that much. When I, when I set up a client's diet, of course, that's when you do the math, you figure out how much

protein they need, how many calories they need, but then still I'd much rather give them a meal plan and say, follow that meal plan. Yeah. Eight ounces of this and so on. And then you see the ounces are either going up depending on the goal. If you're trying to bulk, the ounces are going higher. You go from half a cup of rice to a cup of rice. And if you're trying to lean out, it just goes the opposite direction. And all the coaches I've had have been a little bit different. But for the most part, that's how it's been. I remember I started working with one guy, and it was pretty short-lived.

Charles was like, you need to work with this guy for nutrition. And so I go to work with him. Charles Glass. Yeah, Charles Glass. And so this guy sends me like an Excel spreadsheet with all these different options and all this stuff. And he's like, okay, so when you go to eat, just input this, this, this, this, and then send it back to me. And I was like, this ain't going to work, man. Like, no, I'm just not going to do that.

I'm sure it works just fine. I'm sure you're going to give me in good shape. It doesn't work well with you. Yeah, that's just not how it's going to be for me. And like Chris Aceto, when Chris and I worked together, I think throughout our entire 20-week prep, we might have shared 100 words via email. It was just like, here's your diet. Okay. Good luck today.

I would say that to him, not him to me. Chris don't care. Yeah. But, yeah, like, I mean, it varies. But for the most part, yeah, just total. Just give me the meal plan. I'll eat it. How about cheat meals?

Again, I'm blessed. I'm very, I'm fortunate. Half the time, I need, like, it's like, well, you're getting flat. You need to go have some burgers and cookies. Like, weekly. You know, it's nice for me to be that way. I need to go have some burgers and cookies. Like weekly. It's nice for me to be that way. I don't even really look at them as a cheat meal.

It's like I better eat some shit. That's just what I think about it. For Boston, for example, there was like four weeks where it was Wednesday and Friday was two burgers, two fries post-workout. It was just like that's just what we needed. And then you just look crazy the next day. Yeah, dude. You just, it's like, it's like. Kind of baffling, right?

I love the analogy of a campfire for like your metabolism, right? So most people, they have a campfire and you just kind of feed it a little kindling at a time and it gets a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger. And then once you get there to the, you know, you get your fire big enough, what happens when you throw a giant log on there? That was good. Real good. But once you get that fire stoked up enough, what happens when you throw that big log on?

It just gets bigger fire. But if you throw that big log on too early, it puts the fire out. I've always liked that analogy a lot. And those burgers for me are just like big logs. You just keep stoking that furnace. a lot. And those burgers for me are just like big logs. They just keep, you just keep stoking that furnace. Yeah. How do you convince some of the, cause right there, right? You just, you ate the food because you needed fuel for, you know, for your body. So how are you convincing clients to look at food as fuel, as opposed to, like you said, like a luxury? Repetition. If there was a

club that said that and I could hit them over the head with it over and over and over again, that would help because it's not easy. I mean, that's, it's one of the things that like, it just fascinates me how, and I think honestly, my history of drug addiction is one way that I can kind of empathize, but I don't see food that way. Like I'll call my mom on the phone. She's like, I'm, you know, I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, I'm eating chips, stupid chips. And I'm like, well, put the chips down. And she's like, no, chips stupid chips and i'm like well put the chips down and she's like no i wanted them and i was just like well you're not gonna you know anyway but you know so literally it's just repetition you just kind of have to that's part of my job is to just work with people and help them to see they're like no you didn't need to eat that you don't

need to eat anything you know you just have to yeah it's just it's a total mindset shift if if anybody has any advice on how to help clients understand it, shoot me a DM, man. I want to talk about it. It looks like you kind of ramped up your Instagram. Yeah. You got somebody kind of helping you now. And that's a part of why I work together. Cause I just, your Instagram started popping up more again and I was checking it out and you were sharing information. Is that something you really enjoy doing or do you feel it's like just sort of part of, you know, part of where we're at? Honestly, I definitely think it's part of where we're at. When it's effective and

especially I'll share with y'all, it's Dan Mendoza from Muscle Icon Media. He and I kind of partnered. He and I have worked together on his business and my business together for probably three or four years. And when I decided to go, it was for some personal reasons, and it was such a distraction. I was just like, look, I don't want to deal with this Instagram anymore. I don't want to sit here looking at comments. It was a big distraction.

That's the best way to put it. But I knew that there was, you know, I had spent a lot of time building the following, and I knew there was some marketability there, and there obviously is stuff that I want to share with people. I love sharing what I do. So once I took myself out of it, it has become such an enjoyable thing because I create and present, and that's it. You know, I don't worry about the feedback.

I don't worry about what people are saying about it. It doesn't infect my day with that kind of stuff, which usually would turn pretty negative. We all read comments sometimes. They're rough, man. Y'all are rough out there in a peanut gallery. You're still fat even though you're two weeks out. You're like, Jesus Christ, what a tough audience out there.

Exactly. What the fuck are you doing, you stupid ass? It's like, whoa, bro, it's a lateral raise. Holy shit. Can't believe you used your legs, whoa, bro, it's a lateral raise. You know, like, holy shit. Can't believe you used your legs. Most of us call that a leg raise. You're like, what? Dude, let me ask this. What kind of form is that?

How much do you personally think about symmetry for your physique? And the reason why I ask this is because when I've seen quite a few, even top-level IFBB pros, a lot of them have good symmetry, and a lot of them, like, it's kind of fridgy. You know what I mean? Like very thick through the waist, and it just doesn't look good. So do you pay mind to control that as you're trying to gain size and get bigger? Are there certain things that you're not working as much and certain things that you're working more?

Yeah, for me, that's one thing that has come on pretty recently. I used to really believe that the body needed to be trained balanced, right? And so I would try to really train everything, one body part a week, really try to give everything the same level of attention. And for the most part, that worked pretty well for me. I stayed pretty balanced, stuff like that. But I did notice that my back grew. And so over time, the feedback has been that my shoulders chest are are lacking compared to my back and my legs okay and because my shoulders

aren't quite as round as or you know they make my waist look a little bit bigger so you have to work on the illusion i think and that's where in bodybuilding we we do we focus on you know keeping the small the things that need to be small you got to keep them small and the things that need to be big you got to get them bigger so i focus a lot on my waist, trying to keep my waist down and trying to keep everything else bigger. Like you can see there, the waist needs to come down quite a bit. Yeah, you don't want your dick to look too big on stage because it will distract from everything else. Well, then everybody will think you're natural. But so I really focus like that's why.

It's fucking big right there. Yeah, the back definitely overpowers the shoulders and the chest. And so we're really trying to increase that on the front side so that, you know, the way I look at it, when when I see that picture of myself, I expect a lot more when I turn around, you know, from the front. And so that's one thing I'm really working on is we need, you know, everything from like that top ab up to this to the beard needs to be just a lot more to match what we have going on in the back. Gosh. Chris Bumstead recently was on Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom podcast. I don't know if you had an opportunity to check that out. No, I didn't have to.

Yeah, you should check it out. I think you'd like it. Chris Bumstead mentioned that he puts his phone on airplane mode, I think at night, and then he just leaves it there until all his work is done. So I thought that was really, I thought that was a really smart thing to do. He just, he's not going to look at a lot of comments anyway, he said. He said he tries not to get caught up in that anymore, but he keeps his phone on airplane mode until he's done his cardio, until he had his first meal and stuff like that. That's really cool.

I like that. cardio until he had his first meal and stuff like that. That's really cool. I like that. I mean, I really think that the more we can remove ourselves from the stimulus that we get from that and get away from relying on that stimulus, that's helped me so much. Like even just, I haven't looked at my Instagram in like months now, right? Feels good. It does.

It really does. And it really kind of takes, even in creating the content, it takes the pressure off to know that it's like, hey, I'm going to create this. He's going to film it. He's going to post it. And that's it. You know? You don't even really worry about the quality in the same way because you,

I mean, you already know the quality of the content is going to be good because you trust your producer and you trust yourself, right? So you know it's going to be up to standard. It just takes away that whole extra thing. people used to gauge the quality of their content or even i did a lot a lot of people do gauge the quality of their content simply based on the response and it's like that's you know yeah no it shouldn't be that way i uh also uh heard recently from uh i saw a clip of J.J. Watt, a football player, probably a Hall of Fame football player. And he was talking about the risk to reward of like hitting a heavy weight. I'd like to get some of your thoughts on, you know, what are you thinking about in the gym?

Because you like to get after it. We've seen you squat 700 pounds here before. You like to handle some heavy weight. We've seen you squat 700 pounds here before. You like to handle some heavy weight, but there's probably some sort of mechanism in your brain of like, well, you know, this is fun to overload. It's nice to get some of this on the body and it's important for growth. But like I don't want to, you know, I don't want to maybe, you know, unfortunately, Ronnie Coleman, you know, there's guys like that that have pushed it maybe too hard for too long and ended up compromised. So what are some of your thoughts?

I mean, one thing for me that's definitely been a part of my progression is understanding how much control is really needed in a lift. Like, I feel like weightlifting for me or, you know, training in general has just become so much more complex. Like it used to be, even when I was here, you know, four years ago when we squatted at 700 pounds, my mental process was literally, okay, get under the bar, put your hips back, drop down, go. Right? That's it. And I feel like that's the way you, you know, like you said earlier,

you're training that heavy weight and basically what you're thinking of is I'm trying not to die as I execute this lift. Right? And that's what, I mean, a lot of people lift that way and move that way a lot. But as I've trained more and more... That's a flawless technique that we're watching you squat this weight with, which is awesome. When was that? That was pretty recent. That's one of the heavier squats

recently. With your knee wraps, of course. Still love those things. Those are the same blue knee wraps from four years ago. They're the same ones. By five. Jesus. How much is it? 650 by five. Yeah, that's with our new bar. That's a good one. Yeah, so while that sounds insanely

heavy, you got to keep in mind Doug's a mutant. And he's doing it with picture perfect form and a lot of control. 505 for 16 reps. Oh, puker. Dude. So you have

beaten Michael Hearn on exercises okay we get it no I said he's every bit as strong as I am for one or two reps he's being very nice now I get it I didn't get the first time he said it okay I love you Mike

Mike's gonna be so sad for what You didn't get it the first time he said it. Okay. I love you, Mike. Mike's going to be so sad. Maybe he'll come to the gym next week. He hasn't heard this, and he's already prepping for meeting you in the gym. But back to your question, that's the thing. As I've gotten older, I know we have to be safe. There definitely is a huge risk to reward ratio from that heavy, heavy squat. But you can take the reward. You can really spread that ratio apart by how well you control yourself prior to that lift and how well you execute that lift.

You know, now when I squat, I'm focused so much on hip position and scapular retraction and chest up that I'm like locked in. I mean, I might as well have been on a Smith machine or in a machine as I squat that weight because I feel that control. And that's a cognitive thing. You have to choose that. I mean, like I go through that same process on a bench press, on an incline press, on I mean, even a lateral raise. There's a position of execution.

I try to put myself in where I literally get myself there so that as I execute, it's exactly what I expect. And I think that's one of the biggest things that has allowed me to continue to go as heavy as I possibly can without really putting too much risk into it. I mean, there's obviously risk. Anytime you have 500 pounds on your back, something could go wrong. Sure, we know that. But I call it like training lazy. You can never train lazy. Like you just lay down, grab a bar, and I call it like training lazy. You can never train lazy. Like you just lay down, grab a bar and press.

You're training lazy. You have no idea where your hips are. You have no idea where your feet are. You have no idea where your shoulders are. Stuff like that. That's when people get hurt. When you're training lazy. When you're training absentmindedly.

When you're just in there fucking around. You know, this is serious stuff. And you got to treat it as such. A bunch of people listening right now who are like, yep, I've done that. A bunch of people listening right now who are like, yep, I've done that a bunch of times. I mean, I've done that with a 225 squat before where I'm like, oh, something just, I think, and then you put the weight back in the rack and you're like, oh, great, I'm not going to be able to walk very good for a couple days.

And it's not a weight that is heavy to you. Most of the time you're going to get injured on the, but it was only weight, you know? But it was only a 95-pound curl. But, you know, that was a weird example. Sorry, that that was really weird i don't even know what i was thinking but you know what i mean the really cool thing though is like when you when you watch yeah when you watch the six feature by five and the five for five by 16 you're super slow you're super controlled and the thing that happens or you tell me if I'm correct,

you get done with a set like that, it was hard, but it doesn't feel like it thrashed you that bad because you were in such good control of it. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm sure I felt like it thrashed me. Yeah. But I got some advice once. I don't even remember who said it.

It was like literally in the middle of a set at Gold's, and some guy was just like, you just need to do it like muscle and fitness is standing right here. And that worked for me really well. That really worked. If you're doing a photo shoot and somebody was filming you, I kind of think that sometimes. I'm like, all right, well, you've got to look like you've really got a handle on this. Because I feel like if you focus on looking like it, you're going to do it.

I mean, I don't know if that's a super effective way, but I think about it like that a lot. Like you have to maintain your composure because once you lose your composure, you lose control. Question for you because like looking at that 650 5.5, right? The 5.5 by 16, you could have done something heavier. But the thing is, is like you chose to work with 650 because you had control over it, correct? Yeah. Is that how you handle most of your stuff? Do you ever lift somewhat erratically?

Is anything ever just uncontrolled? Yeah, if it was light, like my light. And even still, that's pretty rare. I would feel like you'd have to really find a good reason. I don't know. Some would have to be like, hey, Doug, why did you let your shoulders go when you were doing that? I'd have to have a really good answer.

Otherwise, it's like, no, you should have just done as many reps as you could with your shoulders tight because you know that's the most effective way to do it. But it's pretty rare. But especially with heavy squats, that's where my limit is. Even on my heaviest squat ever, it was, let me think, that would have been the 760 or whatever that I tried at Gold's. And I go down, and I remember it wasn't that I didn't feel like I could push up. It was that I knew my lower back could not hold me up. And so I went like this. And I just knew that that's how you know.

If you lean forward on a squat, then you're more vulnerable than you would be if you're standing straight up. So there was your limiter is how well you can hold yourself straight up. And so that's why I kind of feel like I would not go up if I didn't feel like I could get under the bar and lock my body into that position and still feel stable. That to me is my new max. It's not how much weight I can actually move,

but it's how well you could perform that squat correctly like that. Yep. You know, a lot of people get into like, you know, the form Nazis and stuff like that. And they're talking about, well, that form sucks. You know, a lot of people get into, like, you know, the form Nazis and stuff like that. They're talking about, well, that form sucks. You know, but really, it seems to me it's much more about, you know,

you perform the exercise correctly by bracing yourself correctly so that your body can work the way it was designed. And so, you know, like a squat can look perfect, but if a guy's shoulders are loose, it's not, you know. So it's all very individual. You're thinking about competing in Romania and Japan? Yeah, thinking about it's over. We're doing it.

Doing it. Thinking about it's over. That's November? November. What are some of the goals there? Well, if you pull up a Boston picture, you can look at, like, the pivotal of my conditioning was the Boston Pro. It was the best I've ever looked.

And, you know, I asked a lot of people their feedback from that show, and Jay Cutler gave me the best feedback because everybody kept saying, well, you just need more shape, Doug. You just need more shape. And I felt like I went on a quest for what the fuck does that mean? But Jay Cutler kind of explained to me, he goes, you just need more, Doug.

And so it's like with the conditioning that I put forth in that show, I just want to do that with more. I mean, the cool thing about bodybuilding is as you bodybuild competitively more, winning becomes less and less important every time you compete, I feel like. At least it has for me because the goal shifts from a subjective placing that somebody else is going to give you to an achievement of a vision you have in your brain of what you want to look like. And that's really what I have now is that vision in my brain of what I think my physique can actually be. And that's much more important than anything else. Like I'd love it if it was rewarded with a trip to the Olympia.

You're going to just place where you're going to place. Yeah, but you're going to place where you're going toia. You're going to just place where you're going to place. Yeah, but you're going to place where you're going to place. You're going to end up where you're going to end up. But the fact of the matter is I want to – I mean, I'm 35. I probably don't have that many more of these runs into professional bodybuilding left in me. I really want to get to the pivotal where I know my body can be. I know I can be like 295 pounds on stage in the same condition I was in Boston. 295 on stage?

I know I can. What were you at Boston? How much did you weigh? Like 76, 77, something like that. Okay. And then two weeks later on the New York Pro Stage, I was 88. Is this it? Yeah, this is Boston.

Okay. This is Boston. You've been almost 290 pounds on stage before? Yeah. Yeah, I was blown out. But see there, the waist is small. Everything's good. The conditioning was just, I mean, we really peaked perfect for that show.

And you can see the need for just more up top. And that's just what I'm after. I mean, I feel like the work is already in process. We're just going forward with it. There's more pictures. You can just cycle through them. Yeah, go down there. Oh, there we go.

I didn't see them. Yeah, show those glutes, man. Looking dangerous. pictures you can just cycle through them yeah go down there oh there you go i didn't see him yeah show those glutes man looking dangerous that was you know that was yeah right there yeah it's got to be kind of cool to be able to travel oh damn yeah strided glutes glutes there that's what i really that i mean that that's, especially as my career has progressed, I remember watching these guys going from the Olympia to the Sheru Classic in India, over to Dubai, and then back to Europe, doing all these shows, doing all these expos. And I just remember wanting that life so bad. I just want that experience.

I want to meet those people that love bodybuilding just as much as I do, and the people that love training as much as I do, and other guys like y'all. We've all been on this journey for so long, figuring out all this stuff. They're like, hey, look, this helped me with this. And hey, look, this changed this for me. It's like I just want to be in that community. I want to learn and soak it all up and give all that I have back.

And so that's what I think is – that's why I want to travel is there's just more people. Who are some of your favorite bodybuilders? Oh, man. Where do you want me to start? Back in the day or now? No, let's start back in the day. I mean, Charles.

Charles has taught me everything he knows. I like to say it that way. Charles is big. Tom Platz is big. Lee Haney. Kai Green is a huge one for me. I love the way Kai really knows his body. And, I mean, that's a lot of training legs I've taken from Kai

just because he trains his leg muscles individually, and he has that capability. And that's where I kind of saw that that's possible for people to do a hamstring curl with the same level of activation as a bicep curl. I mean, think about it. That's the way it should feel, right? And that's an achievement. I really like the guys from the 80s that were just starting to understand the intricacies of nutrition and the depth to which one could take conditioning.

You know, of course, you had like guys like Gasparri who did it pretty healthily and pretty intelligently. And then you had guys like Munzer who killed themselves, you know, and you had both of those together. And it's just like, but that exploration, so all those pioneers are really near and dear to my heart. And that's one of the reasons I love training at Gold's is it's like, you know, I share the same space that those guys did. And I feel like I'm just on another part of that frontier doing that same thing. Anybody who, any bodybuilders, you know, they're all my favorites.

I mean, Gunther is another one. Gunther Schlierkamp is one that I recently sought out to sit down and have a conversation with because he's a guy, first off, he's the only dude to ever beat Ronnie Coleman in a show. Like, he beat Ronnie Coleman the week after the Olympia. He's also the only other guy that's like 6'2", so we have a height comparison. And he was like 325, 330 pounds. Yeah, there's Gunther. Holy shit.

On stage? Oh, yeah, he was huge. He was huge. Jay Cutler beat Ronnie Coleman, though, too, right? Did he? In an Olympia, I think. I think at some point he caught him. At some point.

But I know that Gunther's definitely one of the few guys that has beat Ronnie. Unbelievable. And I went to talk to him because there's you know, there's not many guys that are over six foot tall that have made it there. And I think that that's, you know, you got to share that knowledge. So I really have a lot of respect for him. I think for bigger guys, like guys with my frame, bodybuilding becomes so much less of a, or it becomes so much more of an endurance sport.

Like a guy that's five foot5 can get his pro-level physique and max out his physique in, let's say, let's be real, I don't know, we'll throw a number, 10 years, right? You can take yourself at 5'5 and be 240 pounds, and if you have the genetics, you're going to be on stage, and your physique will be, quote-unquote, finished, right? But for guys like me, I mean, this is, like you said, eight, nine years in, and I feel like I'm five years away.

Yeah. Maybe 10, you know? And so it's, it's much more of, can he afford to keep going? Can his stomach, can his stomach keep up to keep eating? Can he maintain the mental discipline to actually live this life for 15 years?

Wow. To make Ronnie look normal is something special. Yeah. Gunther was awesome. Gunther. I mean, he's still, he's,

and, and you know, another thing that's awesome about him is he's still in really good shape, moving around, training every day, living a good life. So that's a huge inspiration for me too. Where can people find you? Man, email,

Instagram. Email's DougFrusche at Gmail. Training inquiries or want to talk shop, switch, swap up some ideas, that's cool. You can always find me on Instagram. Even though I don't look at it, I still get the messages and read them and pay attention to all that. It's just for all you haters that I stopped. No, I'm just kidding.

But, yeah, Instagram and email is great. Definitely reach out and look forward to it, man. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye. Boom.