Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 327 - Ron Partlow

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

“BIG” Ron Partlow is an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder from British Columbia, Canada. He is also the co-owner of the gym, West Coast Iron and is a successful competitive bodybuilding coach. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT10” at checkout for $10 off $40 or more! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject  ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject   ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok ➢Power Project Alexa Skill: http://bit.ly/ppalexa FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

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of all worlds you guys got to check this out it's piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 your order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. What's happening, guys? You know, some stuff. We got some bodybuilding going on here today. Yeah, a little bit, eh? Yeah. There's the first one.

There's the first A. That one's for you. IFBB Pro. How did all this get started, man? How did you get started in lifting ah man um i was always into stuff that was different you know like i didn't play hockey which was you know mostly frowned upon probably right yeah you know i i was like no i'm gonna like freestyle ski instead you know and then you know other kids would do other sports and I'm like, I'm going to ride BMX bikes on half pipes.

Right. So I was always like that kind of guy. And yeah, I did martial arts and all that sort of stuff too. I was in Taekwondo and I grew up super active and, and I was just sitting around watching a late movie with my dad one night and Conan the Barbarian came on and uh I said to my dad I go he's pushing the you know the wheel of pain and and I said I want to look like that he looks like a superhero because I was reading comic books you know how it is you know watching wrestling you know and uh my dad goes it'll take you 10 years to look like that and I was like, oh,

okay. So I like just started lifting weights in the basement. Cause there was an old set in the basement immediately started. I was 13. Was your dad into lifting at all? No,

he's a hard nose farmer, you know? So I grew up on a farm, so no complaining, shut up and work. I don't want to hear your problems, that type of stuff. So it just kind of, you know, bodybuilding

just, yeah, I went to the gym and, and was instantly just, this is it. I quit doing almost everything else. You know what I mean? And, uh, and here I am just been training my entire life. So I just, you know, the gym becomes everything to you, you know, it's where you go for like

the solution to everything, you know, and that's just what it was. Yeah. And, um, the bodybuilding bug was, you know, I was reading flex magazine in grade 10, grade 11, and I was like, I'm going to be a pro bodybuilder. You know, I didn't realize how utterly

ridiculous that, that was to say, you know, cause like back then I could pro cards were so rare, you know, because like back then, like pro cards were so rare, you know? So, but that's what I wanted to do. And I did play football in high school. I was a good football player. And my coach thought I was crazy when I said, I'm not going to go, I'm not playing college.

I'm going to go be a bodybuilder. He's like, what? You know, but I just didn't care. Like I couldn't be swayed. Why are you going to like go on stage and flex in front of people? It's strange. It was funny because there was no hesitation. Yeah, bodybuilding is very different. like something like football or something like soccer or these other sports where it's uh they're

more performance based and obviously once you get into bodybuilding you recognize it's performance based too yeah but it's like it's about how you look which is a tough thing to figure out and then it's hard to you know you got this judge saying this thing about this person then they have different ideas each year about how you should look and it's yeah it's a very it's a very tough sport you know the the funny thing is is looking back on all of it um the stage was probably my least the actual competing was was the the least important part of it which is like weird to say now because that seems like what it's all for, but it was the training, like the, the, the life in the gym. That's the, that's the stuff that I remember the most.

And that's the most important stuff. And like just the hard work that was put in and the testing myself and, you know, all that stuff. Like you come up against, like you get hurt during you're preparing for a show and you get hurt. And now you're like, spend the next three weeks, four weeks of your prep, like wondering if it's all for nothing and trying like just all the struggles you go through and how you get tested and, and mentally. And then the actual, you know, competition part of it, you know, you got to stay focused. You can't be intimidated. You have to, you know, like just all that stuff is what I remember. But the actual, like getting out there and posing, like I don't miss that at all.

You know what I mean? What about the change? There's a lot of people that listen to our podcast, and we've been fortunate to have a message that has helped people change. But there's a lot of people that still haven't really changed, and they want to. They want to change for the better. Maybe they want to drop weight. Maybe they want to be a little bit bigger. But how has that transferred over into your life now? You know, that constant change where you're like, you know, you're big. You're just fucking huge, you know, and you're not sure if you can get to be 290 or 300. Like you're not sure what you can push to.

But then you did push to that and you did show yourself, I can change that way. Right. And then you cut down for a show and you're more shredded than ever. And you showed yourself you could change that way right and then you cut down for a show and you're more shredded than ever and you showed yourself you could do that you showed yourself you had the discipline uh to eat properly to go to bed on time to get the protein shakes in when you were supposed to to do i mean it's a lot right it's the tanning i mean there's just a lot there's like a lot of stuff that takes a lot of time all the meal prep all the meals that you have to eat oh man you know you showed yourself you could do all these things and then how is that kind of transferred over well it's funny um

you know right around the time that i blew my quad and went through that whole you know rehab thing i was like on the verge of you know retiring anyways like i couldn't decide if i was gonna do another show and and then uh myself and some of my partners, we opened a gym. And, you know, I always wanted to open my own gym. I mean, you know, that's every hardcore guy's dream. But as soon as the gym was open and the people were coming in and they were loving the gym and they were having the best workouts of their life. And I was walking around on like a Monday night and people are like PRing on the deadlift platform and then they're PRing on the incline dumbbell. And then these guys are having this crazy drop set on this and these girls are lunging up and down the turf. And I just thought, this makes me so happy.

I don't need to compete anymore. You know what I mean? And then I realized my girlfriend said to me once, she's like, you know, I think i was putting in like you know 10 12 hours a day at the gym and i was you know hardly sleeping and i was working full-time at mutant still like i was like just slammed and she said to me she's like you've taken you've taken competing and you've just dropped it on the gym and the gym is now that you're that's your show you know what i mean you're just fucking bam bam bam bam non-stop and i realized that and i was like actually like you know the you know best

thing that ever happened to me was you know it was the best way to get out of competing there was no like you know some guys that go through that really hard time where they don't have anything to kind of jump on you know they don't have something to like fucking try to work on and it's like something's got to grow yeah right something's got to get bigger yeah the uh the analogy you know to like someone that's been in the military you know their their hair is cut a certain way everything's done a certain they have a schedule they got to make their bed perfectly and then when as soon as they're out of the military like their room's a mess and like right because you just like you're just you're kind of just done with that but even those people i think think a lot of times they feel like they really fell off

they don't feel the same anymore yeah and they need that schedule they need that discipline so you just replaced it from going to the show to owning a gym yeah and then you know eventually i quit my actual job at mutant you know and went back to being just an endorsement. Um, and left the office because, you know, I started taking on more clients again and being at the gym more. And, you know, so now, now I just work for myself. So it just was all such a great transition. You know, I'm really happy. And I guess, you know, sometimes you, you know, I like to, I guess I'm supposed to try and take some credit for, you know, making it happen. And sometimes we say, oh, I got lucky, but no, you didn't, you know, you, you made your opportunities, you made the decisions that led to where you are. So I think one of the things I'm trying to do is like give myself a little more credit for things I do. I think that's a bad habit that I've maybe had in the past was I would say, oh yeah, you know, I got really lucky here. And these, you know, these people really, really helped me out. And you know, like, but sometimes you gotta like say, no, man, like I did a good job at that. You know, I kicked ass,

you know, it came out of that really well. So I'm trying to look at it that way, you know? Yeah. You know, earlier you kind of alluded to falling in, at least when you were younger, falling in love with training rather than competing. And I think, uh, what happens with a lot of people that end up, you know, doing a lot of bodybuilding competitions is that because the competition stress is so great, having to get ready and trying to get first place and pretty much trying to do better each time, right. They, I guess, fall out of love with the training experience. Yeah. Um, did that ever happen to you? Uh, and then also like you were mentioning that you kind of replaced, um, Uh, and then also like you were mentioning that you kind of replaced, um, competing with the, the gym that you have now.

So where does training fall into that with you? Is that a constant? Is that like, how does that work for you? Yeah. So, um, well, one of the things about the gym is I, I told myself like, you know, now that I have a gym, there's no excuses for missing workouts. And I thought that also, you know, I know, I know some guys open gyms and they like, don't train for six months. Right. Cause they're so busy. Um, but I always thought that, you know, for me personally, that, that would not work out, you know, and I always thought that I had to sort of keep, I guess, in my head, I had to keep a standard for the gym.

Cause you know, the gym, my name's on the gym too, with my partners, like all of our names are on it. And like, you know, I don't want people, you know, I want people you know, the gym, my name's on the gym too with my partners, like all of our names are on it. And like, you know, I don't want people, you know, I want people to know I'm in there kicking ass every day. You know, it's sort of part of the character of the gym, you know? So, um, you know, like that, that sort of came

a little easier than maybe, maybe I just prioritized it more. There you go. I almost didn't take credit for it. You know what I mean? But yeah, I just prioritized it and just made that happen. You know, maybe other areas of yeah, I just prioritized it and just made that happen. You know, maybe other areas of my life were absolute fucking disasters, but I was getting my workout in.

Yeah. So, so yeah. Yeah, I just prioritized that. But the love of training, I know exactly what you mean about people doing too many shows. So what I thought when you said that was sometimes, you know, people are doing, you know, three, four or five shows a year to try to get to nationals or something. That's just an example. Um, but in my opinion, the only people that should be doing like that many shows a year are professionals. Like amateurs should be taking more time.

There's money involved. Yeah. Yeah. Like sponsorship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like sponsorship. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I think as an amateur, if your goal really is to be pro, you should be taking time between your shows to improve.

You know, that's my opinion. You know, if you, if you go to a certain show and let's say you, you know, you, you place really well,

you go to the next show and he plays really well. Six weeks later, you place really well. And two months later, you place really well. What would happen if you just didn't do any of those shows and just came back next year, you might be like, you know, that's just so many guys that I know that turned pro that's how they turn

pro they didn't compete all the time. You know, they showed up when it mattered, when they knew they were improved. And, uh, I didn't really fall into that trap because I come from the old school, I call it, where there was really only one pro qualifier every year in Canada. It was the Canadian nationals. That was it. If you didn't turn pro there, you could go to the North Americans if you wanted, but you better be pretty good or you're just going to get stomped. And so, you know, there wasn't all these shows to do, you know, I was

qualified for the nationals pretty much my whole from the very beginning you know so i i kind of i did really really well at first and i got to nationals like right away so within three years of starting to compete i was already second at nationals wow so but then i stayed at that level for like a long time and i just couldn't get that pro card i banged away forever but because i only had one show a year to do and then maybe the north americans it was it was like two weeks later or something you know i wasn't perpetually dieting and never eating and like always caring about how I look. Like I used to get like, I'd blow right up off season. I didn't give a shit.

I wear a hoodie all year, you know? And I'd be like, oh, those guys can diet, you know, if they want, I'm going to get big, you know, I'm going to get bigger, you know? So that was, I never had a problem with that. I was never, I was never addicted was never addicted to competing in that way. Probably addicted to the process, the whole structure of competing every year, yes. But I wasn't a show junkie at all. Got it. Yeah.

How about the time? Because you mentioned that you did really well at nationals all the time, but it took you a long time to get your pro card. So how long did it take you to get your pro card, I guess, from your first great national appearance? And then also what's the mental part of that? Because I've heard of a lot of bodybuilders that have been chugging and chugging away for decades and then they get their pro card and then it's like a rise from there. How was that? Yeah. So yeah, just the way it worked out for me, you know? Um, so I was, I was second at my first nationals in 2000. And then I did the nationals every single year except for a couple of years where I was hurt. So I wound up doing 13 nationals in 16 years.

So between 2000 and 2015, I did 13 nationals and I placed second at eight of them. And then- And first would be a pro card. I won the super heavies once and didn't get a pro card. It was a middleweight one, the overall. And then I wound up getting my pro card in my last show. So I was like, okay.

You know? And then that was the, that was going to be my last try. Cause I was 39 years old. And I told, I remember I told my girlfriend, I was like, this is the last one. If I don't get a pro card this show that's fine i'm totally fine with

it and then i called chris aceto and i said he's coached me for my last like i worked with chris for a long time yeah i called him i said one more time and he goes kate last one let's do it so yeah it's worked out i remember i sent sent Chris my pictures cause I actually looked terrible, terrible. That was like the worst I ever looked cause I had just been hurt and I was getting older and I was kind of banged up and I sent him my pictures and he goes, you got 20 weeks and you need every single one of them. And I was like, let's do it. So it was just like fucking on, you know?

So that was, that was the last year I prepped. Yeah. Did you have to like jump into cardio early for that? No, I just, just had to get rolling on the food, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Just get the body going. You know, I hadn't taken anything for like months and it just had to get, you know, had

to get the body going again. You're talking about, uh, you know, not taking credit for stuff, um stuff being like a bad habit for you. Did some of that have to do with being raised on a farm? Like there's stuff to do every day. There's work to be done every day. And you don't really get a chance to celebrate it because you have to do the same thing that you did yesterday all over again today. That's exactly what I think. That's exactly what I think. That's exactly what I think.

Because my dad, like, you know, and I'm not complaining at all. I think it's probably, you know, in a way. But your dad, I mean, he couldn't be like, woo, we did it. He can't be like, hey, let's go for ice cream because it's like, do it again tomorrow. Yeah, like we won the high school football championship

and he's like, good. You guys should win. You're the best team. Right. Yeah, should win. You're the best team. Right. Yeah. Should win. You're the biggest school. Yeah.

You're my son. I expect you to kick ass. All the guys on your defense are big. Yeah. Like you got the biggest defense and you're the biggest school. You should win. You guys lift. You work hard.

Yeah. All right. Dad will just have another protein shake, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I remember I came home from Taekwondo once with my green belt. I think it was. And he's like, oh, okay. You know? I remember I came home from Taekwondo once with my green belt, I think it was. And he's like, oh, okay.

Well, how long until you get a black belt? You know, like the green. That's cool, but it's not a black belt. Right. Just keep working. So, yeah, a little bit of that for sure. And then how do you give yourself credit now without, you know, I don't know, without like celebrating and being complacent, I guess.

Oh, just trying. I think it's just a self-talk thing more than anything. You know what I don't know, without like celebrating and being complacent, I guess. Oh, just trying. I think it's just a self-talk thing more than anything. You know what I mean? Just a little pat on the back and then move on. Yeah. Yeah. Just acknowledging like, hey, you know, I actually, I actually did that. That wasn't just like a, that wasn't just getting lucky or whatever.

Like take a little credit for things that you do. Pause for a second and be like, you know what? My legs are actually pretty fucking big. Like that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when, you know, it's, you got to follow a second and be like you know what my legs are pretty actually pretty fucking big like that's pretty cool yeah yeah you know when you know it's you got to follow a certain number of sort of like emotional self-help people on instagram and they'll just like you know help you pick these things apart just have it all uh leaking into your subconscious all day long you know you okay so your bodybuilding career is really long. Um, but you, the difference between your career and I guess a lot of other individuals that call themselves bodybuilders is number one,

you've been doing it for over what? Two decades? Well, 30 years now I've been training for 30 years. Okay. Competed. Yeah. I competed for 18, but training for 30 now. Yeah. Competing for 18 consistent years. And you're also working that whole time. Yeah. So what I'm curious about is like, you know, you're not just some guy that's built and post pictures on IG. You're a competitor too, as a bodybuilder, what were you doing to like work? Like what, like, right. Right. Cause I, I guess a lot of bodybuilders probably listening, like I got to compete, but how the fuck am I supposed to work and job and all that? Bugging around all that food all the time. Right. Right.

How'd you do that? Well, it's,. I actually spent 16 years in the bar industry. And so, you know, when I was young, 18, I started out bouncing for a few years. Oh, here we go. War stories. Oh, there's a bunch of those. So four or five years on the door. And then the work in the door was a great job because that's how I traveled, too. Like, I lived in Australia for a couple of years and New Zealand for a bit.

And it was easy to get a door job, right? You know, I had to get a certification there, but you know, this guy, and then, you know, plus I was, I was, you know, uh, uh, a good door guy, you know, I could talk things down. I could sell things, you know, it was good with people, customer service, you know, all that stuff. Well, I never had, you know, it's funny. I never really had to do that. Okay.

You know, you gotta get some, definitely some very violent. Somebody acting like a real asshole and they turn around look at you they're like oh there's some good man i'm gonna i'm gonna leave i have some yeah there's some very violent stories but i never had to like do anything ridiculous to anyone but um you know you just it's there's a lot more to bounce and you know like so that that job was great and then i got behind the bar and because that's where the money is right especially in the old days i know nowadays now tips aren't like what they used to be but for most of my bar life I I was living in Edmonton Alberta which is like an oil city and it was during like the peak so like the whole time

I was there there was like just money everyone had a new truck everyone's got a house everyone's living large everyone's throwing 20 bucks in your tip jar you're leaving every ship with four 400 bucks a night you're leaving you know i bought a house on tips and like just crazy shit you know and it was great and i'm i did made good money and worked you know three four nights a week and then you know cut it down to two because i started taking a lot of clients and helping people prep and then i just slowly stepped right out of the bar and was just full time prepping people had a lot of local and provincial competitors and national level guys and you know had a couple guys turn pro then and eventually move you know start getting more and more competitors and and so now i you know i i work with a lot of of competitors now what did your days look like because you know that's kind

of hard you're working until but when do the bars close there yeah so i spent 20 years going to bed at 4 a.m getting up at noon right you know and i was a bit and i was a lazy bodybuilder so like you know like i could have done so much with my time when i look back but i was just like nope i need eight hours of sleep maybe nine but you know i don't get that now right when you own businesses and stuff it's like yeah no you get yeah you get what you get you You get what you get. So, uh, so yeah, that was my sacrifice, I guess, was I was like fully committed with my time, you know, cause a lot of bodybuilders are committed in the gym, committed here, committed there.

And that's great, but they also have kids and they also have other commitments that they just have to do. Like they absolutely have to do them. I had none of that. I was just, no, I'm focused on this one thing. So I was like as tunnel vision as you could get. I tell everyone, don't do what I did. I managed to like, you know, survive the whole process positively, but it really could have been a nightmare.

Like if I would have got like badly hurt earlier on and had no backup plan before social media and like, then what do you do? Right. Right. You know, it's just, it's just so crazy how it worked out. You know, I, I guess I kind of gambled. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I just, I was just fully committed. You're talking a lot about this, like kind of positive, uh, self-talk. Have you been doing that kind of the whole time or is it something you kind of learned later on? Yeah, I think I sort of more lately I've been like more focused on it lately. I think I, I, I wish I would have had a bit more of it. I was sort of like, uh, I was super hard on myself when I competed. You know what I mean?

Like I just had, I was so hard on myself that I think that maybe that's why I think now I need to take a little more credit here and there. I think it's a little positive for you. Did you get in your own head about some of these shows after finish second so many times where you're like, oh, the lights at this place or this venue or this guy's going to be there. You know, these three judges there, you know, because you have a tendency to kind of get that way when it's not really working out the way that you want. I can't explain it, but i guess i just didn't let anything i just thought if i just get good enough i they have to give me a like you just that's a great perspective that just get good enough yeah you just weren't good enough you weren't strong enough

this wasn't good enough power lifting sometimes like wasn't good enough let's not fucking blame the wrist wraps and the lift off and everything. Yeah. Yeah. You just need to be better. And that's what I used to just tell myself. And I think that that's what you have. That that's just the truth. That's just, yeah. Maybe you missed your lift off. Well,

that's still your, you still should have rehearsed a thousand more lift offs. Right. Right. You know, I was a little tighter in the glutes. Well, fuck you started your diet two weeks earlier. Like you, you know, that's still on you. You know, I was a little tighter in the glutes. Well, fuck, you started your diet two weeks earlier.

Like you, you know, that's still on you. You know, everything is on you. You know, I took this guy's advice. You still took his advice.

Still. Yeah. You chose the coach. You chose the gym that you're training at. You chose the training partner. Yeah. You know, stuff like that.

You chose your training partner. You chose your girlfriend. You chose your, you chose your situation. You chose how much stress is in your household. You don't have to work at night necessarily. So, you know, it really does all come down to you. You just have to try to engineer a situation where you can be better. You know, Ron, I hear what you're saying with that. And bodybuilding is one of those sports where I've been to a lot of shows and man, I've seen some just ridiculous stuff as far as judging is concerned. Oh, right. Like going to happen. Like, and it's just like night and day and you look around and you, you see what the judges did and you look around to see if everybody else is

thinking the same thing and they all are. Right. Have you, like, I know that every show that you said that you just like, I gotta be better. better yeah but have you ever stood on stage and somebody beat you and you were literally just like for a second well a couple times i was really because i there was a couple shows i lost by one vote like four to five so i had four first and five seconds and the other guy had five first four seconds that happened to me a couple times um but i i thought, shit, that's still on me. It's still on you. Yeah, that guy was really good, and yeah, you might think you were better, but five guys thought he was better, so it's still on you.

So I think that was just what it always came down to. I mean, there was times I was upset just because I thought, fuck, that was basically a tie if someone would have just had a bad day they might have picked the other guy like but then you just got to quiet that stuff down and go it just it doesn't matter no one cares and bad calls if there is a legit bad call that is just statistically going to eventually happen and so i don't necessarily think that i don't, like I know so many judges I've known over the years, they volunteer their time.

They sit at that table for like the whole day just to get shit on by like 50 people that fucking email them about something they're upset about. I just don't think that they're investing their time and energy into any sort of engineering of any outcome whatsoever i think you just walk out and stand in front of them and they're like you don't look good enough sorry man i really like you we're buddies but you still look good enough like i i never thought anyone ever gave me a vote for any good reason or bad reason you know what that perspective you actually gave was really good in terms of the judge's perspective yeah how long they're sitting there

how many bodies they're seeing yeah they might like you a lot or hate you a lot but i mean i've seen people that nobody liked win shows and all the judges are like fuck that guy i can hate that guy but i mean he's fucking one like i've seen that you know it's just they they don't want to look like idiots you know because if they have a bunch of bad calls, they're going to look like idiots. Sometimes maybe there's someone on the panel. We shouldn't be on the panel, but I mean, that's just going to happen. You're dealing with volunteers, you know, fuck. You ever get people to do stuff for free?

Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. You know, how about your like client's mindset when it comes to that? Because working with a lot of bodybuilders and they don't get, you know, or, or female bikini athletes and they don't get, you know, the judging they think and they don't get you know the

judging they think they deserved how do you deal with that because not everybody has that mindset you have where i just need to work harder yeah i just tell them um like the morning of the show i maybe try to say something to them like okay it's over with like it's it's done like mind bullet shot going on here yeah so i i I realized I hadn't had this yet. So this is Kratom. It's some Kratom, yeah. It's the potion. Okay.

Let's see if he turns into a werewolf. What, are you doing the whole thing? It's going to give you a crazy boner. I assume you're joking. Whoa, you shouldn't have done that. No, I'm just kidding. Nah, you're good. You're the shouldn't have done that. I was kidding. Nah, you're good. The first guy in history to take a whole survey.

I looked on the back. It's like an eyedropper. We're all just watching him see what happens. Oh, man. So, not the best aftertaste. No. Anybody got a Diet Coke or something? That tastes horrible.

Help a brother out. You'll start floating pretty soon yeah yeah yeah yeah no as far as the clients go uh yeah i just try to say something to them like you know it's out of your hands now you know yeah you work as hard as you worked and this is how you look and there's an you know i'm a big believer in like i see guys backstage like shoveling food and all that. I'm like, too late. Too late. You know, I don't even have my clients eat much the day of the show because I want their waist real small and tight. You know what I mean? Yeah, we used to kind of have the same thing in wrestling.

Like people would pump up to try to like, you know, walk through the curtain or whatever. And it's like, you just don't have it, dude. Like you're just not in shape. Like it doesn't matter how long you sit there with that rubber band. It's not going to fucking do anything for you oh shit damn look at that that was good service oh damn smoky flying in with that monster energy awesome ultra paradise so would you sprint yeah power lifter's gonna have a heart attack yeah you're gonna pull up pull a hamstring you know were there any competitors when you were like competing or individuals that maybe you looked up to in the competing sector you're like i see that

guy doing that i want to try and emulate that anything like that well i was yeah so i'm i guess essentially i was a massive dorian yates fan like that he was like the root of everything that i did right because i started training in 1990 so lee haney was my first mr olympia right but then right away yate showed up on the scene and there were articles about him like he trained differently yeah he was so different than everybody you know the shadow and these you know i saw his program in a magazine it was like you know this set is is fucking all like i got it i got what he meant like there's four straps there's an extra negative there's someone pushing down on the bar like just like that set is meant to be like the you're hammering the nail into the board with one smash and i got that concept and it for some reason it really appealed to me

and i maybe it was because i like intense people and intense like if i want to do something i'm gonna do the hardest like fuck let's fucking do the hardest you know like i want to like that's just how i am and you know i think i like the coolest wrestlers you know i like the ultimate warrior you know like and you know macho man was my guy and like you know i like the coolest wrestlers, you know, I like the ultimate warrior, you know, like, and you know, macho man was my guy and like, you know, I like the extreme, you know, stuff. So this training, I think this, it just was, cause it was different. It was like a kind of a fuck you to like the whole industry.

It was like, hey, you guys over there posing in the mirror can do 20 sets of quads, but come train with me. You'll last for like half an hour and you'll be puking in the alley. And I was like, fuck, I want to know more about this guy. And then that's just, you know, and I started training like that and I got way stronger, like right away.

Like, you know, I put a hundred pounds on in high school. Holy in high school. From freshman to senior year. Yeah. So at the end of grade nine, when I started training in a gym,

I was one 35. And when I graduated, I was two 30. Holy shit. God. Wow. wow yeah and i trained like i did like two all-out sets of squats awesome we gotta see some pictures you know that's amazing yeah where could i find something like that online yeah my my and my my parents photo albums there's no digital records of those yeah you know what i mean it's funny but yeah and i was training like that like fucking trained super hard and like you know and then the older guys in the gym are like hey you want to come train with us let's explain this a little bit more

this is heavy duty this is uh mike mentor well yeah the more the dorian style but yeah a little more volume a little more volume yeah it's switched a little bit when uh dorian yates picked it up a lot of people don't know some of the history of some of this stuff. Arthur Jones is one of the master creators of gym equipment in general. Yeah, the inventor of Nautilus. And he was a big proponent of kind of like doing one hard set. You know, you would do a set or two or three just to kind of get warmed up, get used to the machine, find the weight that you need,

and then you would go at it hard on the thing. Yeah, yeah. warmed up, get used to the machine, find the weight that you need, and then you would go at it hard on one thing. Mike Benzer, who is a very popular bodybuilder, an icon in the sport in a lot of ways, and a forward-thinking person. Yeah, the heavy duty. Really took that one set, I'm going to go all in. And sometimes he would blend things together. He might do a leg extension and a squat together or something like that.

But it was one super set and just smash the shit out of yourself and then what did uh dorian gates kind of yeah it's training like dorian sort of made more of a bro split out of it you know he had you know chest and bys quads and hams day off you know shoulders triceps back calves day off you know it was more of a bro split style but it was like a like a five day program a off. So you would hit, you would hit the same muscle group every about five days, five, six days. Yeah. You know, and, and, and, you know, he, he would keep the, you know, maybe two work sets per exercise, but then later in his career, only one, you know? And, um, so that just appealed to me because I thought I'm just going to, you know, I like the idea of putting everything you have into something. Was it like a drop set or was it just as to, you know, I like the idea of putting everything you have into something.

Was it like a drop set or was it just as heavy as you could go? Like what did it look like? Just, I think a lot of it is the control. So there's max tension through the whole, whole set. The reps are pretty on the low end, like six to 10 and you're going to absolute failure. And then there's always assisted reps beyond failure for a couple, but the form stays perfect. You know, it's very locked down, very mechanical.

You know, I have a term, I don't know where I got it, but I've had it in my head all these years, but I always say to myself, robot reps. Every rep has to look the same. You should look like a, you should look like a mechanical machine. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes about training was,

is from Charles Poliquin. He said, your last rep should look like your first yes like your last rep or your last set now obviously we have some wiggle room and if you're gonna do like a higher yeah form wise it should look really clean it's gonna slow down but it's when when people like go out of form to compensate yeah that's when you get yourself jacked up yeah yeah so yeah just real it's super strict but super intense and yeah it just appealed to me you know and then i saw the blood and guts video like that was the famous you know that vhs tape came in the mail and you know you watch that and and the cool thing was i watched it and i was like oh i'm really on the right track like this is what i'm

this is what i'm doing like i'm not as crazy i thought i was this guy's doing it from from reading what he for from reading about him i had pretty much got it right because when i watched it in motion you know back then you didn't see videos on the internet yeah so it's the first time i was watching him move weights and i was like okay i i got it i'm doing the same thing okay you know i'm on the right track you know and over the years i did other things i added volume sometimes and i played around with other things and I did other styles of training, but I always came back to that. It was always my root of what made my physique bigger, what made it look denser and the shows that I thought I looked the best at,

I was training that style. And I was just like, yeah, you know, looking back on it, I think that was, that was the training that, you know, worked for me the best, you know, I got injured and stuff like everybody, but it's still on me. You know, I knew better at sore spots and things that hurt and you still go in and hammer it and, you know, but, uh, but yeah, you know, I'm, I think that, uh, people overcomplicate everything now. And I, I just really emphasize with, you know, the people that I help or people that listen to my show or whatever, you know, they, I just emphasize simplicity, keeping it simple, keeping your head clear of nonsense variables. I think that's important. And I think it's important in business

and I think it's important in relationships. And I think it's important in everything that we do, like keep your head clear of nonsense variables that you really don't need to be concerned about. And so that's something I'm trying to practice more. As you get busier, you have to get like efficient with your space. Right. You know? Yeah. Like.

Well, and you know, I say this all the time, but the things that are simple, they're going to be. And again, there's a difference between simple and easy. You know, it's not necessarily easy, but it it's it's a simple concept to hold on to yeah in the face of all the noise that's going on all the time yeah and when you have something that's simple then it then it can become repeatable and when you can repeat it and you can do it over and over again and it kind of stays simple and it never gets too complicated or never gets too stressful or never has a high barrier of entry then then you're like, ah, I can go do it. When you just make agreements with yourself that aren't too crazy,

like I'm going to go in and I'm going to do one set for shoulders, and I'm just training shoulders today. So that's not going to take very long, a few warm-up sets. Maybe I'll do a little tiny superset at the end. It's going to be a 30-minute workout. That's a really easy thing to to agree to but to think that your workout's going to take like two hours right you know how repeatable is that for especially like your average person yeah put that block out there and they're like i don't

have time to train because i work nights or i don't have time to train because of uh x y and z but if you have something that's repeatable then you can do it for a long period of time and we all know that the key to anybody being halfway good at anything, never mind even being great at something, is to be able to do it for a long period of time, getting that consistency. Yeah, consistency. And then one of my favorite things is the only diet that works is one that's sustainable. And that's exactly true.

So yeah, it's funny how much from the gym applies to life. Like it, I look back, I shake my head sometimes at like how I make decisions. I, I, I, I don't even realize I'm doing it. I go back to like something about the gym and it, for some reason influences a decision on like something that has nothing to do with the gym. Right. It's just like some other life issue, but it's, it's, it, it always on like something that has nothing to do with the gym right it's just like some other life issue but it's it's it it always comes back to that you know you know you you get what you put in like simple stuff that it sounds ridiculous to say it again but it's we

forget this stuff you know and so i i just i i, I, I try to get everybody to everyone that I help anyways. I hope they come away with, you know, whether I coach them for three months or, you know, four years or something, I hope they come away with that. It's not about like what's written on the paper. It's about like the concepts and the philosophy of applying yourself consistently over time, you know, measuring progress, paying attention to, you know what I mean? Learning from what your body's telling you, like all these sorts of things. I think that's the value that, that, you know, people sometimes miss.

I think it's super important that you, that you do find a way to get in some things that are difficult and, you know, it could be just, it could be difficult for you you know not not your level of difficulty but your own level of difficulty because if we were to think back you know from an ancestral standpoint if like we were a tribe or something like that yeah uh you know we would have to fight you know for our food and we'd have to fight other people for like territory and stuff like that and we would go through hard shit together Kind of same thing that you're doing in the gym. Like you got to go through some hard stuff. It's really important that we do that as human beings.

And you, I don't know, you just, you learn so many things, learn how to interact with people better. Somebody comes over and you're on the leg press and they're like, hey, can I hop in for a set? And you're like, sure. Boom, you pop off like two plates. We're not always so nice, you know, outside the gym. You know, somebody who, you know outside the gym you know somebody who

you don't wants to do something or they need help with something you might be more reluctant but you're you're kind of in this mindset of like we're in this all together like we're doing this thing together we're like a you know we're like a team you know obviously you might not let someone to work in right as you're about to do something but you'd be like oh man yeah of course soon as i'm done with this set of course i'll help you out right that's optimal environment to be in you know that's why that's why i do the show like you know the the whole reason that i do mutant on a mission is because i i i meet these kids at expos who are like man i watch all your videos and you know blah blah and then you know i realize they love bodybuilding and i go i always ask people i go where do you train that's just like i don't know

i don't even realize i ask it i just something i like to ask everyone and you know they might say oh i train it you know this you know iron barbell and whatever city you know that or this this gym or that gym but a lot of times they go oh i train it you know la fit and i'm like oh yeah where and they'll say oh and in you know la and i'll be, well, do you ever go down to gold's Venice? And they're like, no, it's like really far. I've never been there. And I'm like, you live in LA and you've never been to gold's Venice. Like, wow. Like you, like if you went, you would never want to go back to LA fitness. You're going to get a benefit from doing something that's a little less convenient. Right. Like, right. You know, don't just accept the fact that the 24-hour fitness is right there

and that it costs 19 bucks. I get that you might have to train there most of the time because it's convenient. But, you know, I started, I just wanted people to know the difference between the gym that maybe they're, because, you know, some people, that's the only gym they know.

And then they see the show and they're like, holy shit, like these gyms are cool. You know, it's like 30 years of history. Heavy, heavy inspiration that will, you know, they say like sometimes holy shit, these gyms are cool. It's like 30 years of history here. That's some heavy, heavy inspiration. They say sometimes motivation is fleeting, but I do think inspiration can stick around a little bit longer. You see somebody zipping around the gym at Gold's Gym, and you say, hey, man, you're looking great, man.

What are you doing? And they'll say, I'm 65 years old, and they look like they're 30. You're like, what the fuck? That kind of stuff stays with you for a long time. I'm actually curious about this because like for me when i started um training here at super training i got strong very very quickly right because of like everyone around me was stronger than me everyone was critiquing me everyone was fixing like my shit your form of shit bro yep exactly and they came at me like that your form is shit bro seriously so for you what like when you entered different

training environments what change did they make for you was it like were you and i was also curious about this did you notice any other times in any specific times in your career where you were able to do something new and that put on more size than in the past right that's like two questions yeah yeah no i'm i can i can juggle um yeah i I guess I kind of got lucky cause, um, I started at a gym. It was just, you know, Grand Prairie family fitness center or whatever. And, uh, but you know, when it's a smaller town and there's not many gyms, there's going to be some bodybuilders there, you know, like if there's anyone hardcore, they're going to be at the same gym as everyone else.

So, you know, there was normal people, but then there'd be like some power lifters in the corner squatting with you know chalk on their back and there'd be a couple bodybuilders that were competing and they were all ripped up and i was like you know i'm only 14 so you know i i guess i felt like i kind of makes you scared a little bit when you're that age right like you're excited but you're kind of like whoa like what the hell's your eyes are wide open yeah like oh i'm Oh, I'm, I'm not in the high school gym. I'm in like a real gym. Like, you know, so I, I, I always had like a good environment and I don't know, it was just, I mean, I'm just, I'm a pretty social person. So like within a few months of joining the gym, everyone knew my name and I knew everyone's name. And I was like, you're saying hi to everybody.

And like, you know, I've just wound up working at the gym in high school. So I worked on weekends. I knew everyone. So I had a real, like real family feel at the gym that I grew up at. So that, that obviously contributes to my love of gyms and why I love the community of a good gym. You know what I mean? And why that's something that I just couldn't go without. Like, you know what I mean? Like I've moved because of gyms. Yeah.

Like, oh, I got to move to the other side of the city because this gym closed and I got to train there now. So I'm going to move. Like I did that, you know? And so, you know, when people just kind of accept their local gym, I'm like, oh man, I just, that's just not how I was. And, you know, obviously that's a big reason why I wanted to do a gym, you know, be involved in the gym myself is I want to try to contribute, you know, a great place to train. Yeah. You know, where people come in, they're like, oh, this is different. This isn't like, this is not the, you know, the fit club I'm at.

This is like a completely different thing. So that's what, that's what I always wanted. And, you know, I, I just, I always searched out good gyms and i found some amazing gyms man i got like some of the gyms i trained at were just madhouses you know really awesome i mean this guy i mean this guy trained a west side i mean fuck you know but i i didn't train a west side but i trained at gyms where there's like 30 people prepping for the same show all training on a monday night everybody's ripped shows four weeks out. Everyone's ripped.

Everyone's going hard. You know what I mean? Like really crazy atmospheres, you know, gyms with like the music blast in and stuff. And, and you know, I just can't walk into a corpo gym anymore.

Like I just, I'm broken. What was it? Destroyed. I can't handle it. What was it like seeing like all those people training for the same show? Like was there enough room for egos in the gym? Yeah.

Well, yeah, yeah. It was a great spot for egos in the gym? Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. It was a great spot. It was a great spot. Yeah. You know, I wasn't afraid of any of them.

So yeah. That's awesome. No, no, I'm just kidding. It was a great gym. It was one of my favorite gyms ever. But yeah,

I just have a passion for gyms. I just, you know, some people like some people just don't really care and that's fine. Like they just don't care. They're fine. They're like, Oh,

I'm easy to please. I can train here. But I just had like a passion for gyms i you know i just love the concept of a unique spot that the owner has put his like it always comes down to the owner like it almost every time like that's what makes a gym interesting is the owner and the best gyms and the ones that wind up being the best episodes the coolest episodes in the end are the ones where like the owners are just the most passionate about their gym yeah it just bleeds out into the show bleeds out into the equipment why is this piece here you know like i remember the first episode we shot at dino's gym in england and

dino's just a great guy if you ever get to meet dino i don't know if you've ever met no he's he's great but he's got the burmese accent you know the brummie accent and and you know he points at a bench and he's you know he's like uh oh casmeyer bench 600 on this bench in 1978 and then the guy that owned it gave it to me and i put it in my gym in 1984 like he's got a story about every piece yeah and so i love that shit it means a lot to him yeah yeah you know what i mean so and i love that shit so just to expand on what you're saying a little bit you know um you know the gym is kind of like inside of you too you know so like you still have to bring it even if you do have a crap gym sometimes you gotta work out in like a hotel environment sometimes you gotta work out by. Sometimes your training partner is sick or whatever, and you don't have the opportunity to always train with people that are completely off the rocker like you would like to.

But at the same time – Lunatics. Yeah, at the same time, if we go back to keeping things simple and having things be consistent, if you have to bring the energy to your gym every time and you're kind of just find yourself complaining about it quite a bit like i wish they had this bar i wish they had more space i wish that right find a spot that has more of the things that you're looking for yeah so you start because that's going to be hard yeah it's hard to do that every day and then the percentage of effort that you're going to uh put into that every day is not going to be great because you're going to be fucking just beat down from the from the gym, just sucking and seeing somebody in the squat rack doing curls. Right. I remember one time the gym, the gym I was talking about before it closed with all the competitors at it.

It closed suddenly closed. Right. That's how gyms do. They did the midnight move. Right. So I did like suddenly just train at like the health club it was big health club they had all the hammer stuff it was perfectly fine gym it was just you know it wasn't the great gym it was the health club so all the equipment was awesome um it was all atlantis and stuff so it was really good right um so i was fine and i just do what i had to do and i was preppingpping for a show. And by the end of my prep, there was like 30 bodybuilders training at that gym. And the manager came over and she's like,

oh man, ever since you came here, like, cause you know, when the first gym closed, everyone's scared, they don't know where to go, but I was prepping. So I had to pick a spot immediately. Yeah. So I picked that gym and then everyone's like, well, Ron went there.

So I guess they're okay. I guess the management must be okay. And everyone, like, came. And then the manager was like, I got all you meatheads on my back. You know? But then we turned that gym into, like, a really cool spot. You know? Because everyone was training. There was, like, NHL guys training there.

And, like, it turned into a cool gym. Yeah. You know? Goldberg came to town to film a movie. We had him there training every day. Like, it was just funny, you know? So. I think that's just a big note on how like, it's more so the people like, yeah, there's the gym, right. But it's the community of individuals that want to go train there that

actually make it like guys here at ST, the people that come train here when they train, that's a big part of why the gym is what it is obviously mark like stamped the yeah what the culture was going to be here but the people still have to congregate and come and train yeah so that's huge come and train that's my gym's uh catchphrase west coast iron come and train oh yeah yeah dope and that's just what we wanted to create was like that's all we care about like you know you don't have to you don't have to wear fancy clothes you don't have to like you know you don't have to wear fancy clothes. You don't have to shave. You don't have to look special.

You don't have to be in shape. You just want to come and train. I think the biggest thing at Westside Barbell was just the environment. Louie's got a lot of different training methods, and obviously those are super effective, and he definitely knows what he's talking about. He knows how to put the finishing touches on somebody that's prepping for a powerlifting meet and all that kind of stuff.

But at the same time, it's just because everyone's so goddamn crazy and super competitive. That's what really drives it. Now, how did you feel about the documentary versus the world? So you were, yeah. Cause you know,

you know how that stuff goes. You never know what clips. Yeah. I liked it a lot i um i do think there's a couple things that they missed they kind of talk a little bit about louis simmons being like a genius in some ways and stuff but they they could have they could have expanded upon that he's he's very well off like he's you know there's there's different ways to show that people are smart and not everyone that's uh smart is like really wealthy but he's figured out a way to capitalize on it which just shows you uh that he has you know maybe another facet to his game that

maybe other people didn't know about but he right you know he's i mean reverse hypers i mean you you've been to so many gyms right i mean you see them all over the place yeah we have one that's that's one of his he's a he's a great inventor i guess is my point and i don't think they really um they didn't really touch upon that in the film but i think it's because they wanted to show how connected he was to power lifting uh regardless of of kind of anything else and so they did a good job of that right i love the part about the russian textbooks and i didn't know that like i knew i was i knew a bunch of it's like i knew about the hyper and stuff but i didn't part about the Russian textbooks. I didn't know that. Like I knew, I knew a bunch of this, like I knew about the hyper and stuff, but I didn't know about the textbooks.

And I love this story about when they started using bands and just banded the shit out of everything. And the first, the first guy to go would get crushed and they'd be like, oh, I should take some bands off. Like, you know, just that sort of stuff. Yeah. He would, I mean, that's a gift too. You know, that's another side of brilliance is to not be scared to take stuff from other areas and other people and give it a shot.

The bands were really weird because the bands came from a guy named Dick Hartzell who had a company called Jump Stretch. And he would teach at basketball clinics. So why would Louis Simmons go to a basketball clinic? Well, what do you need in basketball? What do you need in most sports? Expl to a basketball clinic well you know what do you need in basketball what do you need in most sports explosiveness what do you need in power you know yeah and louis you know our speed yeah louis studying all this and and learning about you know quickness and stuff like that dick hartzell made a platform and uh you kind of attach bands to like whatever you could could be some dumbbells or could just be attached to your body whatever way you can think of maybe put a belt on and you would jump you know you would jump with these

bands right yeah and then the bands if you can kind of picture this as you go to leap up into the air they pull you down aggressively yeah so now you got to figure out it's like a plyometric on crack right now you have to kind of figure out how am i going to organize my body so i don't get fucking killed when these bands pull me back down towards the earth because you got a harder landing now yeah and so you you gotta land and absorb and then flex again to pop back up and the good athletes can just boom boom boom they can pop up uh really quick and really easily almost like uh anyone that follows basketball you watch like dennis rodman you know why he was able to rebound so much obviously he's tall he's got these long ass arms and stuff like that those are all huge things and just the desire

the guy had his ability to hit the ground and be airborne again yeah he would jump up five times to get one rebound yeah and he jumped five times before anybody else could jump two or three times yeah so having that explosive power is a huge thing but louis was smart enough to realize like if we can slow down if we could slow down the barbell a little bit, we'll really be on to something because you're still trying to apply as much force into it as you possibly can. You know, your body's not dumb. You know, if you grab a 45-pound dumbbell and start trying to fling it around as fast as you can, you can only go so fast because there's more deceleration going on than there is acceleration. Right. You know, if you were to take us, well, well he's kind of young so he might not care but if we were to

throw if we were to throw different stuff you know if we were to throw a baseball a uh a shot put a football or a wiffle ball as hard as we possibly could the wiffle ball would hurt the most because there would be the most amount of decel our body your body's trying to organize like you put all this force into it so to equate it over to weights it's not an appropriate weight yeah to push on as hard as you need to to get stronger so you'd be more likely to get hurt yeah get hurt and then it's just not it's not an optimal weight to put the most amount of force into either yeah i see what you mean that makes sense i mean if you try to try to chuck a whipple ball and it'll fucking hurt. It's funny.

All this time, I thought bodybuilders were the smart ones. You think powerlifters are the dumb guys, and then you get done, and you realize they're the ones doing the fucking Goodwill hunting formulas on the whiteboard. You're just weighing out your chicken and your rice. Oh, it's 150 grams.

There we go. Look at all the math I'm doing. Look at all this math over here, huh? Patting yourself on the back. Patting myself on the back, you know? We got a guy here named George Lockhart. He works with Conor McGregor, and he was in our room there, our conference room. And, man, he started doing like a Goodwill hunting type of thing.

He started to have all these equations, and it was just to really get someone to drop weight. I'm like, where did the 14 come from? Why are you dividing stuff by 14? He's like, you know what, man? Like, I fucking forget. I don't even know where that came from. He's like, maybe it's 12. And then he erased it.

He's like, oh, yeah, it was 12. And he like gets to the right number. We have no clue what he's talking about. And it's really just to like figure out how much like glucose and water you need after you weigh in or something. Right, right. Like, holy shit. To get full glycogen. He's trying to get math and glycogen out.

I've seen those. And he kind of talks like a fighter. He talks like a fighter. So when it's coming from him, you're like, I don't know if he knows what he's talking about. But he fucking certainly does. He certainly does. Oh, God. Earlier, you guys were talking about keeping things simple and it's almost frustrating when talking to a bodybuilder because you know someone like me will come up like oh dude like what's a new new thing to get my triceps bigger what you know what's changed or what's new yeah

yeah so like oh so with that in mind mean, is there anything different from when you were competing to now that you learned where you're like, ah, shit, you know what, if I had implemented that, maybe, you know, things could have been a little bit different. Yeah, actually, it's a great question. with what science is telling us, I mean, I'm not up on everything. Like you got to talk to like guys like Pakalsky or somebody who's read like every single study that's been out in the world. You know what I mean? But I, I, I like to gather, you know, some metadata, you know, I like to listen to, you know, the hypertrophy coach about the latest study on Barster, you know, speed. And, you know, I like to look at the graphs that other guys put up and, and, uh,

from what I see, um, a lot of what I did still makes a lot of sense, you know, keeping tension on a muscle it, you know, they say now it's about hyper, hypertrophy is about tension and fatigue. You know, that's, you got to stress a muscle. You got to stress it to failure. At least sometimes I might've, you know, that's, you got to stress a muscle. You got to stress it to failure at least sometimes. Yeah. I might, I was sort of a go to failure all the time guy. Some people are saying that's not the way to do it now,

but everyone still agrees that there's some failure involved for sure. So, you know, heavy failure training, using straight sets with good form, putting yourself in positions where the stress is mechanically being placed on the target muscle, you know? So we're not benching like powerlifters, you know? We're benching with our pecs and we're squatting with our quads.

But it's about mechanical tension, which has a lot to do with load, but not everything. So it's like, you know? And that's where I think you have to just, that's where some common sense has to come in too. Like you have to be, you know, like I asked, I asked Joe Bennett, I said, how much heel, heel raise would you recommend if I'm really

trying to target my squats? You know, if I'm safety bar squatting and I want maximum quad recruitment, how high would you elevate your heels? And he's like, how many injuries do you have? You know, how much stress do you want to put on your quad tendon because you already tore it once do you want to maybe kind of happy and i was like oh yeah i guess here it is back to just common sense what works for you right you know it's it's science

plus injuries plus your training age right plus other problems that you might have or whatever you're you know that's where it gets to be complex. That's where I guess that's where, that's where it is. You know what I mean? Um, so, and then even with the guys getting older, I, I'm, you know, I, I really think that, um, also one thing I think we do know now is I think rep range matters less for hypertrophy. I did the six to 10, five to 10 on pretty much everything was where I trained. Right.

Cause that's what we were all doing, but we're seeing some studies now where the hypertrophy is equal. It's about fatigue. It's about the intensity of the training. So even up like 15 reps, they're getting the same amount of hypertrophy as a guy's doing six interesting studies. Um, strength might not be the same, but the hypertrophy is, so you have to, so there's, there's all this stuff going on and I try not not to let it fuck my head up too much.

I just like to keep it simple. But I think because I'm older, I do keep my reps a little higher on a lot of things just so I'm not handling loads that are riskier. There's a lot of ways to reach the same thing that you're talking about. So you could go absolutely fucking bonkers and insane on one set. could go absolutely fucking bonkers and insane on one set or you could do like three sets of 10 with uh kind of a medium rest or very little rest in between yes you know try three sets of 10 with like 315 on a squat with a minute rest with a minute rest yeah and you're breathing and it's hard and then then you can try to have lower rest the next time you go or you can try to add a set or add another rep or even add a whole day you know yeah so rest rest pause sets the old kind of dc style rest pause set where you you go dog crap train

yeah yeah so like where you go to failure rest 30 seconds go to failure rest 30 seconds go to failure again with the same weight so let's say you get 10 on the first round five on the second and two on the third yeah so i love that shit but because i'm older i'm shooting maybe 15 on the first round then you still get like seven on the second less weight maybe land three reps or four reps on the last one as he got like a plate less on you know so just raising up the numbers but the the fatigue the concepts the way i'm moving the weight that stuff's never really changed i think i i got lucky you know i got lucky and got off on the right track and you know i don't i i think it's

been interesting to see how many things bodybuilders were doing that got confirmed by medicine yeah you see that a lot yeah like people going off like i've had so many people say oh man i got on the bodybuilding diet and i'm off my insulin. Right. Yeah. Like when you hear that and like, there's lots of people now. Bodybuilding is like the NASCAR of like nutrition. Like with NASCAR, they get all the safety stuff, you know, for your regular car. Like things like these different mirrors and stuff we have on our cars and different types of seatbelts and stuff that obviously don't have a full fucking harness when you're driving in a normal car.

But a lot of the safety features of those types of cars have leaked into the general pop because it's like well if that's the safest why don't we just do yeah yeah yeah same thing with bodybuilding it's like that gets you the best physique the fastest well why don't we try some of that yeah yeah and that's that's uh keto diets all of it it all came from bodybuilding. It all came from bodybuilding. Yeah, it all came from bodybuilding. It's funny how people use... I mean, I always say, you don't know the struggle. Back in the 90s, I'd carry around a Tupperware dish, and people would just think I was a fucking alien. Like, what is this?

Why do you have a Tupperware dish? Like, you know, just the concept of that to people was mine. And now there's like- Why do you have weird baggy pants? Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, okay. That's still a legitimate question.

I don't know what we were thinking. Some of this stuff we were wearing, man. But yeah, it's just, you know, I remember that. And now to see, you know, like a good friend of mine, I mean, we all know people that don't meal prep companies now. Yeah. you know like a good friend of mine i mean we all know people that don't meal prep companies now yeah they got like lawyers and doctors and you know just every type of person ordering you know chicken green beans and brown rice with just some spices on it and they're buying they're getting their meals done and i'm like you're all doing what i fucking did you're all taking your

meals to work and you're a bunch of followers you know it's but it's it's awesome because it's a little it's some vindication you know it's like fuck they're all doing what i did my whole life and they're all getting value out of it and they're all feeling better and looking better and you know judging others who don't do it and you know all that stuff like welcome to the team you know you've tried a lot of different styles of diet um have you tried a diet that you could actually follow and uh have you had it not work you know that's a great question the answer is i've made every type of diet i've ever tried work because there's a way to make it work.

Right. It still comes down to calories and hormones. Calories plus hormones. Like that's kind of how I think a diet. Just like you just mentioned about the training. Well, it depends on, you know, your injuries. Yeah. It depends on your history.

It depends on, you know, are you a nurse who's on your feet 12 hours a day working shifts? It's like you've got to eat differently than someone who's office worker. And I might give you a lot more carbs than you think you're going to get. You're like, Oh, I'm all these carbs. I'm like, you're on your feet 12 hours a day. Let's just see how your body handles it. You know, like, um, you know, guys that are sedentary sitting in an office, I might have them doing cardio.

Whereas a guy who's on his feet, you know, running a big construction project all day. Yeah. I'm not putting him on the treadmill. Are you fucking kidding me? You know, he's going to be super tired all the time. Just a waste of his time.

A complete waste. That's another thing. So something that I didn't realize I was so focused on it, but now looking back on it, it's one of the things that I use to select everything. It's efficiency. Like, you know, that's why I like doing things the hardest way possible because you just get it done like you know that sort of thing like i'd rather be intense and short then i guess it's an attention span

problem you know i don't know maybe so do you do do you like kind of are you a proponent maybe of like hit cardio well yeah so um i still i'm careful using it with clients because i want them to train so hard in the gym that they're like a disaster that's their hit cart that's their kind of hit cardio with the weights right but i sometimes will use it to get people going at first when they've got lots of fat on them you know and then towards the end if they're like their glutes are getting ripped i pull them off hit and just use steady state because they're already kind of trashed and stuff like that. That's a very general rule.

I don't want to be quoted on stuff like that. But yeah, use HIIT with some people for sure. I actually am trying to get myself to do some more HIIT because I have experimented with it. And now that I'm trying to be a little healthier and stuff, I'm doing some cardio, but I haven't been doing HIIT. But I want to throw some in, you know, make it fun. What's your nutrition for yourself look like right now?

Yeah, I, I, I, I don't eat a lot of food compared to what I used to eat, which is the best part of it. Like, honestly, you know, like the force feeding I did all those years. Um, I just, you know, that, you know, okay, let's say I had no injuries and my body was a hundred percent healthy and symmetrical and I could do another show if I wanted.

I don't have what it takes to be 320 anymore with the food. I don't have that, that, that, that switch is turned off. I always love hearing, uh, like when you're competing, like the, uh, the macro breakdown. Yeah. Cause it's always just like, holy shit. Do you remember what some of your numbers were? Well, yeah, it was pretty common for me to eat about 400 protein a day. Um, for like the, pretty much the whole year. Right. So I'd eat like 400 protein a day for the whole year. My protein would never move. My fat would just be

what's in my protein. Like I would eat whole eggs and steak and you know um that sort of stuff and uh i wouldn't use maybe like butter mayo no no i never use any of that shit but i would use nut butters or sometimes some healthy oil in a shake or a bit of mct oil if i was trying to bump my calories up and then off season i'd try to take in like 800 to a thousand carbs every day. Um, mostly food, but liquid around the workout. And then also too, like I had a lot of junk bombs when I was big, like when I was three 2330, I'd have like four or five like bomb meals a week. You know, I spent way too much money at steakhouses. I could have bought another investment property if I didn't go to steak ste steak houses so much when I was that, that whole period of time, man.

I had the VIP seat at the restaurants and everyone knew my order. Nice. You know, 12 ounce of extra fries coming right up, you know? Wow. So, uh, so yeah, it is a lot of food. Now I eat, um, average day for me is about 300 protein and about 250 carb. So it's not a lot of carbs. I know you don't eat many carbs at all, right?

You're pretty much keto. Um, but 250 carbs isn't much. That's 50 grams at five meals. I mean, that's like a cup, like less than a cup of oatmeal or a cup of rice, you know, that's it. And then, and then it's because I'm in a calorie deficit. Most of the time I can just eat out if I want. And I still stay lean or even get leaner.

Like right now, I've still been like losing weight slowly. But, you know, I just follow my diet all the time. And then if my training partner is like, hey, you want to grab a burrito? I'm like, sure. And I don't even care because I know I'm not going to like put fat on, you know. So that sort of stuff. That's kind of how I eat. Then on Saturday, i'll have like

a pizza or something you still weigh stuff and things like that or yeah i still i just it's just like i said man it's just right it's like brushing your teeth right it's like just get up in the morning put the bowl on the scale put the oatmeal in and i know at this point i can eyeball everything but it's just routine it It's like making coffee, you know? Well, if you want to get bigger again or leaner again, then you can tweak it, right? Yeah. I want to start adding, like you mentioned the HIIT cardio.

I want to start adding that sort of stuff. And I think it's because I didn't do any for so long, and it's how I hurt. I blew my quad on a trampoline. Damn. Yeah, I was 315. I got on a trampoline. Damn. Yeah. I was 315. I got on a trampoline, jumped around, snapped my quad.

Damn it. I don't know what I was thinking. It was just a bad, bad decision. I just didn't, you know, I was just excited to see a trampoline. I was like, you know, I got some. You know what, actually, it's probably a good thing you hurt yourself that way rather than with

weight on your back. Absolutely. In the gym would have been a head fuck. And it probably would have happened. Yeah, probably. And your leg was probably ready. Yeah, that was my, I had tendinosis in that knee. It was a problem.

So, but because I snapped it on a trampoline, I'm like, fuck, you know, I want to get a little bit of plyo back into me just in case I fucking fall off a step. That's a great fat guy story. Hurt yourself on a trampoline. Yeah, yeah. You know, I was told I was supposed to have a poop story.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You do have to have told I was supposed to have a poop story. Oh, yeah, yeah. You do have to have one. Yeah, imagine all those years competing, all those calories you're taking in. All that protein. You must have shit a lot. You must have pooped like four or five times a day. Oh, yeah. It's pretty.

With all that food, especially the cheat bombs you had. I was told that I had to have a poop story. It was going to be like an opening show initiation thing that's the impression i was under so i got one ready oh yeah and now i can't not tell it because it's sitting in the front it's sitting right here yeah my frontal lobe and um you pooped yourself this morning didn't you no no so i have never i have never told another human being this story. Oh, I'm excited.

It's just us. It's just us. Yeah, no one's listening. Yeah. So this is a first, very first. Hopefully it turns into a meme or a cartoon or something. Like the Jay Cutler one. Did you see that one?

Oh, that was incredible. Unbelievable. He had to throw away his car. He raised himself off the seat he says so so i was at the nationals backstage at the nationals right morning of the show i'm looking really good you know i'm excited you know that they're on like men's middleweight or something you know it's a long show, pretty slow pace. I got a few hours before I'm on stage, but I, I'm, you know, I'm in my posing trunks

and I'm stripped down and I'm, I'm flexing a bit and I'm moving, trying to keep moving, you know? And my stomach is a big rumble and I'm like, oh yes, this would be awesome. I'm taking huge shit and my waist will be even smaller because i look pretty good like my waist was tight and i was like oh get all because i had a massive meal the night before like yeah 24 ounce prime rib double order of fries piece of cheesecake and i you know like to just push fullness i was and i was super lean so i was excited and i was like my waist can be even smaller so i go in the bathroom and i take this enormous shit

and i'm a little self-conscious about the you know i'm going to do a courtesy flush yeah right because you know there's like all these girls back there too and i guess you know let's say so you just want to do courtesy you don't just want to sit there and take a dump for 20 minutes and just kill everyone yeah so as soon as i take this huge explosive dump like it's like a monster you know those million dollar dumps where you're like for a million dollars there's i couldn't get anything else out like if someone offered me money right now i'm like i'm empty i'm totally empty got nothing left nothing left so i do a courtesy flush because i figure you know i'm gonna i just want to get it done right away right well this toilet was like a powerful fucking monster of a flush machine.

And I heard. Like the ones at the airport. Oh, fuck. I wasn't thinking. So this just tornado of shit water just splashes up and sprays like my ass and my hamstrings and my nuts and my dick. Just fucking horrible. Horrible. And I am horrified.

Are you tanned out? I'm ready to go. Oh, no. I'm fucking horrified. I'm like, oh, my fucking God. This is like just, you know, you got dirty shit water all over your fucking ass. Not something you can just wipe off with a towel either. It's going to stink.

So I do the best job I can. I clean up the best, but you're not clean. Yeah. You're just dry. This is where baby wipes would have came in handy. So now I have to go find baby wipes, right? And this was many years ago. They were harder to find.

People weren't carrying baby wipes because they like to have clean assholes back then. You had to go find. It's a thing now. It's a thing now. Yeah. You got to keep the spotless butt. Everyone's eating so much ass now.

Let's be honest here. Let's be honest. Everyone's, everyone's eating ass. Everyone's got ass wipes. So, so I'm like, the only way you could find those wipes is you had to find a chick that had them in her makeup kit. Oh, wow.

That's the wipes you're looking for. Yeah. So I'm just thinking of like, I need some wipes or something. So I go looking and I find some wipes. I'm very, very calm about it. Hey, do you have some wipes? I want to clean some of the tan off my nails or

something. I made some bullshit up, right? Take these wipes, fucking go clean up the best I could. So I do the best job I can of sanitizing myself. Right? Now I got to fix my tan. So I got a bottle like extra tan out and I'm

like trying to fix my adductors and my fucking clout. It's a horrible combination of things going on here. Oh Jesus. But just the panic, like now I'm thinking is my cortisol going to go nuts? Am I stressing out?

As I got everything fixed and went out on stage and managed to put it behind me. Yeah. But that, like, hour of time that I was like, fuck, it was so terrible. You do okay in the show? Yeah, I got second. Yeah, I got second. It was a close show. A little flat in the morning.

You know how it goes. Yeah. I got second. It was a close show. A little flat in the morning. You know how it goes. Wow. I burned too many carbs cleaning up my fucking shit water. And I'd imagine using the tanner, you're like, is that tanner or did I miss a spot? Well, the good thing is the ProTan, it was ProTan back then. The ProTan had so much alcohol in it that it sort of like gave me peace of mind. I was wiping ProTan all over everything. You're okay you know i'm okay yeah i'm not you know i'm not you know committing any sort of social atrocity by walking out on stage at this point yeah

wow man yeah it was disgusting that's why like whenever i whenever i flush after i shit i walk away from the toilet or i put my toe up to it. I was just lazy that one time. Run away. You know? And then, of course, flying. You know, doing that Australia flight at 300 plus pounds. Sweating the whole time.

Sweating the whole time. Yeah. There's just, there's a lot. Bathrooms are an adventure. How would you, switching gears here uh how would you uh reload uh after finish second you know would you ever you ever get depressed you ever get like super upset about it yeah a couple times you know like you know people because it doesn't really the placing isn't i mean the placing is disappointing because you're trying to get that pro card

but the whole year you're promising yourself like this is yeah we're doing gonna do it and then it happens again and again plus yeah i i think maybe one of the hard things was i i remember this sort of period i went through where maybe i thought it was i obviously thought it was necessary like it was like a strategy i took where the self-talk i used was really extreme. You know, I'm sure you've been there. You know, you say stuff to yourself, like,

like there's first place and then there's, and everyone else is a fucking loser. Like I'm winning this fucking show. You know, you tell yourself that like you you're on the treadmill and you're like, there's no possible life outside of winning this show. Like that. You just try to almost paint yourself into a corner mentally. And sometimes it like works but then if it doesn't it's like you have like oh shit i

was if i don't win this show i'm driving right off a cliff yeah driving right off a cliff and then you don't win the show so now you're like whoops oh okay is that is that you know you know and you you know how it is when you're younger and you're just trying to get something done. You do things, you try things mentally. In the gym the next day? Yeah. Yeah, well, usually not the Sunday, but, you know, if I was doing North Americans and I got three weeks to that show, I'm in the gym Sunday. Yeah.

Yeah, but it would be in the gym Monday for sure, thinking about next year. it would be in the gym monday for sure thinking about next year i i i was one of those guys where people be like you know all through my 20s and into my 30s people like oh yeah so what's going on this year nationals in september oh like what else nothing wow that's my year they're like oh so you're going on any trips or anything no like fucking training in a hoodie all winter and then in the summer i'm dieting for the show oh you're going to the no you're not doing it okay like that was me that was my life and you know i i guess maybe that's what i thought i had to do with my level of talent i just as i saw i wasn't a dummy like i saw guys that had way more talent than I did, and I knew they did because I saw just how easy they grew and got bigger.

But most of them quit or did a few shows and then vanished or whatever. So I just always thought if I just don't quit, it'll happen. Like you just don't quit. Like that's just all, just keep it simple. Just don't quit. And then, you know, something good will come of this. You know what I mean? That was always kind of the attitude. I like that because, you know, as kind of at the exclusion of how hard everything is, I mean, obviously you're working really hard, but it's a good message for everybody. You know, just like, just don't suck at stuff. Just don't quit. Don't let yourself down,

for everybody you know just like just don't suck at stuff just don't quit don't let yourself down you know the the best that you possibly can yeah and you know i started to see at the end at the end i started to realize that the pro card actually wasn't the be all end all because things have started to change a little bit you know i didn't turn pro till 2015 right so things that started to change so i was like you know because i mean all through the 90s and stuff you don't have a pro card it's like well fuck but then later on it started to change. So I was like, you know, cause I mean all through the nineties and stuff, you don't have a pro card. It's like, well, fuck.

But then later on it started to change, but I managed to, you know, get it right. It kind of went right before things really shifted. When you say the change, what was that change and shift? Was it like the social media?

Well, sort of how they started giving way more pro cards away at way more shows. Oh, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, and it did sort of devalue the pro card to a certain extent.

The bodybuilding pro cards still, to me, holds quite a bit of clout because there are fewer of them. Yeah. You know, they, they give a lot of pro cards in the other divisions. I think they give more of them out. So, and then some people don't know the

difference, right? So someone will be, they'll be like, oh yeah, my buddy's a pro too. I'm like, well, he's a pro in a different division division but he's not a pro bodybuilder yeah because that's still the hardest one i mean let's face it that's the most extreme one like you know most muscle most muscle big it's the most biggest most ripped so it's still the hardest thing to do not that the other things aren't incredibly challenging but let's just you know call it what it is it's kind of the craziest one too like that's you got to be crazy too yeah you know you you look back on what you did in

back in your power lifting days and go fuck i was just nuts oh yeah no i think about it all the time like when i go to a powerlifting meet and i see like the weights on there that the guys are doing i'm like these guys are fucking crazy what are they doing like someone's gonna get fucking really hurt why is there eight plates on each side like someone's gonna get jacked up like i i'm so far removed from it that i don't even you know what i mean it doesn't even really compute but yeah when i look back or someone sends me a video or something of me doing a big weight i'm like yeah i was fucking out of my mind people ask me um you know what you know oh you know the you know they'll say something like well dorian was you know dorian was considered a very strong bodybuilder and he was like in climbing four plates for his like

main main set whereas now you go on instagram and like guys are doing five plates for reps so they're like what is that and i think that that's the same i think instagram did well you can you'll know because you come from powerlifting when instagram happened did everyone in power lifting get stronger? Oh yeah. Way stronger. I think that's the three, the four minute mile. Yeah.

Three minute. That's four minute mile. That's the four minute mile effect. That's what Instagram. High school kids were starting to do it and stuff. Yeah. That's like when Instagram happened, it just changed. Cause then you get the guys who don't know any better.

Right. Like they don't come from an age where four plates is a lot. Right. They don't know so they just like it's like seems like those guys were the ones that just because it makes you wonder how much do we hinder ourselves with what we're viewing around this is where this is where crossfit has slaughtered everybody i don't think people even understand how crossfit really works but like we had colleen fach on yesterday so that things have changed in crossfit so i'm unaware of

like what they do exactly now right but they used to have the in crossfit so i'm unaware of like what they do exactly now right but they used to have the crossfit open so imagine imagine if for the entire year that you were training for these shows you could see your ranking in your local area compared to other bodybuilders you could see your ranking in comparison to people in canada you could see your ranking in comparison to everyone in the world just by looking at a website or just by looking at a website so the crossfit open they do like i think it's like a six week thing um and uh let's say and sema does a workout and he's in sacramento and let's say i do a workout i'm in new york and you're in canada and you do a workout

we can all compare ourselves against each other but but even he can compare himself in Sacramento. I can compare myself. I can be like, well, I keep seeing this guy's damn name come up, and he's ahead of me. But at least I'm like the best in my area. So that generates greatness. It generates greatness, just like we're talking about with social media. So CrossFit was smart to do that. They implemented that kind of almost – they implemented it simultaneously as social media was growing.

kind of almost they implemented simultaneously as social media was like growing and then when social media came around and other people would be like uh you know who's this uh who's this colleen colleen fotch you know they'll look it up and then they would go to her instagram now and they'll go to the youtube and be like oh my god like she's a monster i don't i need to figure out a way to catch her and then you'll do any and everything right to try to just just so you can look it up and you're like oh yep there okay i moved up two spots fuck look at that and the key is is that you know it's possible yeah you know it's possible because she fucking did it right yeah that's that's what instagram did for a lot of a lot of the strength that we're seeing in the gym now because the drugs are the same food's the same everyone's training hard you know but like fuck it's crazy some of the weights are crazy

like i just saw i just saw a 22 year old kid deadlift eight plates for four reps the other day with no belt and no and you just don't even know who half these guys are anymore either yeah and and it's all new and you know and that that i mean that's just something you i've never seen that before yeah like there was like i saw a 17 or 16 year old kid. He was a football player, but he was squatting 700 pounds. Yeah. Like, just like, wait,

pause. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, you'll see it. It's a,

he was training while we were filming. So we got some of the members training in the last episode and, and he pulled eight plates for four. So it'll be in the episode, but like you just, you know, when it's just like, that's just not,

you know, not something that I've ever seen before, a 22 year old anyways. And what about how strong the girls are getting? Well, yeah. You know, the females have exploded. I am a huge Steffi Cohen fan. Oh yeah. I just like, she's just awesome.

Like cool person. Oh yeah. She seems super cool. But like, I, I just, I love following, watching her. They have a gym in Florida. Yeah. I was, I was following her deadlift when she was getting up to like the 500 and all that stuff and then the five plate squat she did the animal cage and that was just fucking awesome i show her i tell i tell people to follow her all the time

yeah she's a monster yeah yeah you know the believable yeah it's amazing just seeing that that progress but like you said i think you know the big thing is just seeing that it's possible yeah you look at someone else and you're like that guy's kind of like the same weight as me or sometimes they weigh a lot less and you're like oh shit all right well i i guess i should be able to figure out something like close to that you know yeah yeah there are genetic differences right but you're like i should figure out something yeah have you have you felt like uh because you were so driven do you feel like you may have like missed out on some stuff do you feel like there was some maybe uh maybe some key mistakes that you maybe could otherwise avoided um oh there was lots of things i could have avoided like injuries and stuff you

know just being smarter in the gym and i'm just you know how stubborn you get you know you just like or you're prepping for a show so you don't have time to skip stuff. So yeah, I mean, there's things I could have done that way, but I don't really feel like I missed out on anything. I, I, I guess I don't really believe in regret. Like, you know that, oh, is there anything you regret? You know, when people start listing stuff and I'm like, I don't regret anything because if you changed one thing, my whole life would be different.

Like that concept I can't get away from. Like, you know, I regret that I hurt that person when I broke up with them. It's like, well, if you wouldn't have broken up with them, then your entire life would be completely different. Or if you just never would have chose to go out with them in the first place. Yeah. Then, yeah, yeah. Like, like you can't just regret things or like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have worked there. Well, why not?

You learned like this lesson and this lesson. And then, you know what I mean? It's what you wanted to do. Yeah, it's what I wanted to do. And you understood it. I didn't give a shit about a lot of the other stuff. I just didn't care about going out for drinks on a Friday. I just didn't care about that stuff.

I always surrounded myself with people that were pretty laid back and chilled out and supportive. And, you know, I was, I was just kind of, you know, like I engineered my environment. Was it kind of, uh, all the people around me were like, you know, was it kind of gradual? Like, uh, you know, the, the discipline, the willpower, the like understanding, like, you know, when you get around like a Jay Cutler and some of these people, uh, was it kind of like a, a long, like progression to get that like hardcore or did you kind of start out the game? Yeah. I, you know, I started training at 14 and by the time I was 16, I was all meal prepped and had my shakes and drinking my shake at my locker at 10 minute break and then eating peanut butter sandwiches and then smashing another shake before the gym and then you know i was lucky as a farm kid right so i'd come home to like a roast beef and potato dinner every night my mom like i never had a shortage of food like yeah i was fed to the

fucking gills like you know we had two deep two deep freezes full of meat and ice cream and bread and whatever you like it was it was you know you were fed oh yeah you were fed you know what it's like i was lucky i had that type of family so i would eat a huge plate of food and then i'd make a second plate and saran wrap it for before bed and then i'd go play video games or whatever you know and then eat one more plate of food like i was just you know i was fed so um you know i just i was very lucky in that regard. You know what I mean? So it, uh, it, it, it just was so important to me at an early age that it just, every single decision revolved around setting myself up to train, you know, like when I went to

Australia, that was just me. I was 19 years old. That was just me, like exercising my need to like experience life. You know, that wasn't a bodybuilding move. How old were you? 19. Yeah, that's awesome. So I sold my truck, sold my truck and I had some savings.

You know, I think I, I think I had like eight grand in the bank and I was like, I got a work visa, one year work visa for Australia. And I was just like, okay, I'm just going to fucking go and just have fun i'll find a good gym i'll set myself up and you know i just got lucky i landed on the gold coast and wound up at archer's gym which back in the day was like just all meatheads man yeah and got in with the bodybuilders right away and then i was like that's fucking awesome here and one guy got me a job and next thing you know i'm living with the one of the best bodybuilders in the country and we're training together and and you know so it just was one of those experiences but um you know i i you know backpacked through hong kong and malaysia and um i you know went to the gyms and trained and you know ate tuna out of a can and

i was like that that guy you know even though I was going on this adventure to try to experience life, I still, bodybuilding was like software running in the background the whole time, you know, I was eating at Arby's and Wendy's a lot, but I was still training, you know, just as, just as normal as I would have been at home, you know? So yeah, it was just, it was, you know, I just,

I didn't allow anything else to come before it. Was farming, was it a, you're kind of karate kid, paint the fence, wax on, wax off training to kind of build a strong discipline for you? And seeing your dad maybe or something? Yeah, so that was definitely it. So it's funny, I look back now on how I work. now on how I work. I tend to work in spurts, which is kind of funny because bodybuilding is sort of like, you know, you start your prep and you got like four months

of like a certain project, right? And then you have your off season and you have a couple different projects during your off season. Like I'm going to go up and wait here, you know, do take a little rest, go up and wait, you know, like, you know, it's kind of structured. And I watch, you know, when your dad's a farmer, he, he works like 16 hours a day for five weeks

straight when he seeds the crop. Right. And just fucking, you don't even know how he's doing it. Like, you know, he's fucking. Just living off of coffee probably. Just living off of coffee and Kentucky fried chicken.

Like just mom's running lunch out to the field. She's running breakfast out. They're working all night trying to get seeding before it starts fucking raining again and what you guys have for we had 2 000 acres of grain oh cool so it was really huge you know i had a dirt bike and i had this whole world to roam around on and it was really an outdoor grown up outdoors you know um but i watched my dad do like the seeding and then he'd sleep for like two fucking weeks. You know, don't bother your dad. Okay.

You know, and then. And a real serious thing. Like you didn't mess with it, right? Yeah. And then, and then he, you know, and then over the summer that he's got work to do around the farm, but it's a few hours a day here and there. And he's working here and working there and there's lots of time off and we take a vacation and we go in the motor home for three whole weeks with the family. And, you know because the crop's just growing yeah and then fall comes and it's harvest time and it's fucking 16 hours a day and just bam bam and oh shit they're saying it's gonna snow so we're working all night

36 hours in a combine like just the craziest shit because you do what you have to do. And that was something that I saw on the farm and, and, and, you know, it's catastrophic if you don't catastrophic. Yeah. That shit ain't going to grow the right way. No. Yeah. You're not going to have any crops. You can go from having a $300,000 harvest to a $200,000 harvest. Wow. If you just don't get something off before it freezes or I, I really love this. I think this is amazing. And I think that people listening to the show that are trying to figure

out their diet and really having a hard time controlling their weight, whether it be, they want to get bigger or smaller, whatever direction is they want to go. You got it. First of all, we've got to work hard. We already know that, but I think it's not maybe taught enough that you need to have like a little bit of a break. You need like a little's not maybe taught enough that you need to have like a little bit of a break you need like a little hibernation going on you need to uh you know go double calories for a while like just double up like right eat a little extra i think even if you're heavier as long as you're not obese and addicted to food that can be a real slippery slope so you got to be more careful um but man i think you just every once in a while you just you

need to kind of figure out a way for you to let loose because it's going to look different for each person. If you let loose too much, maybe it could lead to like alcoholism or something crazy. Right. So, you know, use your own discretion for yourself and make sure that you're not, you know, kind of overdoing that, but just fucking chill the fuck out for a little while. It's relaxed. So you can reload and go at it again. Well, I did, I did one of the most farm kid jobs you could ever do. And it's picking rocks.

Have you heard of that? No. Yeah. You got to remove some of the rocks out. Yeah. Till and stuff like that. Every, every year, you know, the soil gets turned over with every crop, right?

You know, the seeding and the cultivating and all that and, you know, erosion and wind and rain, and you're going to have rocks come out of the ground. And they're, you know, big rocks. Like sometimes they're big, sometimes they're, but you can't plow or seed over them. You'll damage the equipment. So, you know, you got these giant quarters of land and you, you know, and my dad would throw me in the tractor at nine in the morning and I'd have a, you know,

one of our tractors with a big box behind it. And I would just drive up and down the field all day. And whenever I just, you're just driving and then, Oh, there's one, you stop, get out, put it in the, you know, and you wind up pulling like, you know, over the course of a few weekends during the summer, you're pulling like thousands of pounds of boulders out of the ground and dumping them on the edge of the field.

And it's just, it's a job that some people think is a joke they're like picking rocks that sounds like made up like prison labor but it's like a farm kid job you know and you're in the tractor for like 10 hours it was probably kind of fun yeah and i just had my headphones on you got older you probably like fuck this no man i used to i i used to put you know the old walkman with the cassettes you know i'd throw my walkman on I'd just listen to my music all day and drive the tractor. You know, and you're making mixtapes. You know, that's back when I was, you know, you're first making mixtapes. I was like 13, 14. So, you know, you're making like, oh, fuck, I got lots of Metallica on this one.

Yeah, Metallica, some of the Rocky music, right? Yeah, lots of ACDC, you know, and you're just driving in the tractor, listening to tunes. And, uh, you know, it is, it was a, it was a great, a great discipline maker. So that's a bit of wax on wax off, I guess. We're shoveling out grain reefs, you know, or just that sort of stuff. Driving grain truck, you know, I did all that stuff. I didn't work a lot. Like I wasn't the

type of kid that had to work all the time on the farm as my dad had hired hands. Right. But you know, I've definitely pitched in, you know, definitely. Well, you learn a lot. I mean, you become, you end up being exponentially smarter than a lot of other kids, maybe not in every facet, but like, you know, how to like drive, you know, these, these, I mean, these expensive equipment, which could later on turn into employment somewhere else. Yeah. Or maybe even fix some of these things and stuff like that. Right.

Also does not being intimidated by certain types of work. You know, like some people have never held a shovel. There's never fucking held a shovel. And if you go to hand it to them. Shoveling stuff really hard. Yeah. And if you go to hand them a shovel, you can see they don't even know how to hold it, you know? And so I guess all that stuff's valuable.

Shoveling snow. Shoveling snow. Yeah. You want to kick ass workout, shovel some snow. Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was, it was great. And I think it definitely leads to, you know, how you turn out as a, as a, you know, crusty old adult.

Yeah. You know. Does he still do farm stuff right now? Are you involved with that at all? He's, they've been retired for a long, long time. Yeah. He's my dad's 80 now and just watches world war II stuff on TV. When you were doing all this, um, how did you keep relationships or did you keep relationships? Um, I've seen, you know, from a lot of people, they, they make, they make some mistakes as they're going along the way. They, you know, you, you had your bodybuilding, so obviously like you're not going to get out of shape or anything like

that, but I've seen people, uh, get detached from their fitness, you know, as they're building a business, as you go for one thing, other things tend to really like fall apart. Right. And, uh, something that I, uh've uh took have taken a lot of pride in and i've also lost myself along the way a few times but keeping my keeping my family like involved in what i'm doing right so they know everybody like you've met my wife before you had conversations with her and then so that way you know you know if my kids ask like oh who's coming around or whatever they already know some of the story. I was a Canadian bodybuilder guy. Remember, I met him a long time ago and he's super jacked.

And now everybody kind of is in on everything. Were you able to do some of that in your career? Didn't have time for it. You mean like sort of bring my family involved? Yeah. Yeah. Like your significant other and that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Well, my I've I mean, I've i've basically you know all my girlfriends you know everyone i've been in a real like relationship with have always been very fitness minded i mean that was just a you know i never went out with like a non-gym chick um you know it just wasn't gonna happen yeah so there had to be like this deep love of you know steady routine gym going you know what i mean? So that's just, they had to understand. Yeah. And then, and they were all, you know, really cool with the competing thing and seemed fine with it. And, um, you know, that was just another thing. I never allowed there to be like conflict there. Like I never tried to like win a girl over that hated

bodybuilding, you know, that's just, I just saw it as a waste of time. Like, you know, uh, you know, there's some guys that are, you know, power lifters and their wife hates it. I just never wound up in a situation like that at all. And then as far as my family goes, um, they were always cool about it. Like, you know, they, uh, you know, they were

always like, oh, my brother's a bodybuilder and they'd like tell their friends about it and stuff like that. Um, my mom came to several of my shows you know even when she was in her late 60s she came to nationals one year when i won which was great and um so yeah i mean she was always she was my biggest fan what about now like uh is your girlfriend like uh she involved with some of the stuff oh yeah she's like i mean just yeah the reason why i'm sharing this and i think it's important is that like i don't know it's just it can really reduce conflict oh you know that she knows about like this girl that you're you're helping for a show like if she knows

her that kind of helps everything oh yeah and then you don't get in trouble and like hey who's this you know and that kind of stuff as far as that that whole side of things, Emily is, we've been together for eight years and she's awesome. Like, I mean, we just have a really great relationship. Like there's no, no stress about any of the industry stuff. Like. I think that's huge. All the guys from the gym are liking her picture. And I think that's awesome because I want everyone to see her picture.

I don't like it too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it all you want. And then she's, you know, I don't, there's none of that whole, that social media thing. That's none. If I get a female client, she's like, awesome. Get her shredded. Like, hope she wins.

Like, you know what I mean? She's super cool about that. She doesn't have any, anything, you you know she's no reason for her to worry and and um you know she's competed many times she was national level bikini she got top six at the arnold spain one year wow in bikini so she she's you know she knows what it's all about and she's been there and i prepped her for that's how i met her was i was actually her coach when she first started competing so molding her to be the way yeah yeah yeah you know and it's kind of funny how it worked out but um but yeah we're totally in it together and like and she helps out a ton at the gym too like there's you know she really really pitches in and she really

cares about the gym and keeps her eyes peeled and she'll come home and say oh i think that's something you know i think something here might need attention or what's going on here you guys getting married or what like what are we waiting for over here buddy we well neither pressure on yeah yeah here's the pressure well uh neither one of us really ever wanted like we're not really sort of the kid thing just never really came never really had we you know we weren't really into it um i told her she's still got a good thing i think it's great for people to recognize that yeah so that just didn't happen and then i i guess without kids i sort of see it as just kind of inviting the government into the bedroom.

So, uh, you know, the, the joke that I make is, Hey, you know, like all these other people met, got married, had kids and got divorced and we're still just together. Right. So maybe we're onto, you know, we always joke, like if we don't get married, we won't get divorced. So, um. That's an excellent point. I don't know. We're also very get divorced. So that's an excellent point. I don't know.

We're also very good at avoiding the subject, both of us. So, but no, it's, I think some people wonder, they're like, man, but I don't know. I just sort of feel like we have a great thing going, you know, we've got a great thing going. So, I mean, you know, we'll see. Why mess with it? And if she's comfortable with it too, then. Yeah. Who knows, you know, we'll see. Why mess with it? And if she's comfortable with it too, then. Yeah. Who knows, you know.

What about her family? They're kind of like, Hey, you know, what's going on here? No, she's got it. Her family's great. She has a very small family. She's an only child. Oh. And, uh, you know, she only really has one cousin and like, so it's very, very small

family. Wow. And they're just, thank you. They're just glad to see her happy. And they're all, they're all great people. Everyone's just, Hey, you guys are happy. You do what you gotta do, you know? Yeah.

So seems like, but you know, if we do it, it'll probably be sneaky. I'm not a big deal type of guy. Right. One of you were mentioning like all the guys at your gym liking her pics, man. Like what you just mentioned there, it might seem just like a like a joke but social media has caused a massive wrinkle in terms of like the way people are in relationships yeah you're only as loyal as your options right that's right say no that's what chris rock said but wait did he actually say that yeah when he uh it was of course when you know bill clinton got

caught up with uh what i can't remember her name but he was like yeah men are only as faithful there it is men are only as faithful as their options and he said it over and over it was freaking hilarious yeah bro but but that's real like because like you have all these people following her following you whatever it's just like just like you have to have a little bit more, a much, I think a lot more control these days. Yeah, I think the key is to remember, like you have to remember that you're not seeing someone's life.

You're seeing their highlight reel. You're seeing their ad. You're seeing their movie trailer. You know, like it's not real. And you have to keep that in your head. I mean, I, I've, you know, I, I work with all these, these bodybuilders. I mean, some of them are young dudes, right?

So man, I, I don't know what I'd be like, Hey, if I was 25 now and single on Instagram, I would be a disaster, would be a fucking mess. There'd be so many problems in my life. I just, oh, because like you had to work for chicks when I was growing up and you had to like work for them and put like attention and focus on them. And now you can just like, you can just like,

just like, like, like, and then just wait for her to respond. Yeah. You have to like write her letters in the past. Yeah. One just wait for her to respond. Yeah. You have to like write her letters. Yeah. One of them's going to respond. Yeah. One of them, he just, yeah, it's just crazy. And, uh, I, I, I find that stuff fascinating. So like, I'll watch a YouTube video, like, you know, Rogan's got all these, he's have a behavioral psychologist on who talks about how people can't form

intimate relationships anymore. And you're like, Holy shit. You know, like I pay attention to that stuff cause it's important and um yeah you i know a lot of people have a really hard time with it but it's just it's not reality you have to just remember and you know an old saying that i heard when i these older guys used to say when i was younger was you know no matter how hot she is somebody somewhere is tired of fucking her so no matter who you're looking at on Instagram, there's some guy that she drove crazy. Who's like, doesn't want anything to do with her. Right. But you just got to remember, it's like every girl and then every guy, right?

Like every guy that the girls are oogling over. Yeah. There's some chick that he just hurt or there's some one he just like you know like it's you just have to remember they're just people you're looking at this crazy representation of who they're who you who they're supposed to be and i mean we all put it out like i don't post pictures if i look like shit in them you know and i try to write a caption that'll sound good you know it's it's all your marketing yeah you know you're selling you know selling the goods selling the goods man i think you pointed down pretty low right though yeah the low parts yeah have you ever had to help

a client or somebody you're coaching with their significant other as far as because like we get messages all the time from people saying like i really want to do you know x y and z with my body or fitness or whatever but my my girlfriend my girlfriend, my husband, whatever, they're not encouraging. They don't want to help me out or they're kind of slowing me down. Uh, yeah, I, I'm, I mean, I I'll give them advice, but I, I really don't want to Dr. Phil anything, you know, like I don't, I don't want to be involved in people's personal lives. You know, I think maybe i might have tried to help i would have been more likely to try to help with like other stuff when i was younger but as you know i can't fix your problems yeah i do think it's important for people to uh communicate with each

other about how important something is to them yeah because if you're like oh i want to try this like bodybuilding thing then i mean maybe the other person is fearful that uh you're like, oh, I want to try this like bodybuilding thing, then I mean, maybe the other person is fearful that you're going to run into a lot of new things and you're going to be excited by these new things and maybe even excited by new people. Yeah. And like you get in shape and then that kind of leaves them, you know, fat and not, you know, not heading in the direction that you're heading anymore. I mean, it is a different world. I mean, you see a lot, you know, a trainer will start to train, you know, someone's wife and then like, then, you know, you've been around a lot of gyms and then they're not together anymore. So I think that people are fearful, but if you had a conversation and said, Hey, look, I really want to invest in my health more. I want, I want to,

I want to be in better shape. This means a lot to me. I really want to go after, and I promise that I won't be off doing whatever right right right but just communicate that it's important to you yeah i i know there's been a couple of times that i've had a client where like a guy client and his wife was a little like you know yeah weirded about what are you doing yeah yeah but then i would always just like you know whenever i was around her i'd always just make sure i talked about like emphasize that like you know to a I was around her, I'd always just make sure I talked about, like, emphasize that, like, you know, to a lot of us, this is just about the hard work. It's just about seeing if we can do something that's, you know, obscenely difficult. For some wacky reason, you pick this, you know, you could be trying to, you know,

climb a rock face or you could be trying to race a car or you could be something. But yeah, it's just, there's, I, that's something like every bodybuilder, every power lifter, there's for some, there's something driving them for some reason. Some people don't have that. You know what I mean? Like they just, they work their job, they

don't have a hobby and they're really lost. Yeah. And I don't know when it got turned off. Like I think sometimes when we're teenagers or kids or maybe early 20s, maybe something happens that turns off your drive to chase something, some kind of event or disappointment or something. But I hate seeing that gone in people, you know? And I love seeing them find it. Because like I've seen people you know guys in their 40s that hadn't done anything for themselves since they played high school football and then

all of a sudden they're in their 40s and they're like holy shit like i'm borderline diabetic 50 pounds of her weight like can you help me out and you know it's awesome when you see like the fucking eyes change sometimes people don't learn anything new until there's like something painful that happens. You know, they go to the doctor and doctor says, hey, man, you got to make some huge changes or, you know, it's too late. They already have a heart attack and they're kind of behind. And now they got to, you know, and that's most of it. I mean, a lot of times that's how we like learn stuff. Sometimes it's based off of just pure interest.

Oh, I like bodybuilding. I'm going to go and check that out. Right, right. But a lot of times I think what happens to people is they're just involved in their life so much. You know, when people have kids, a lot of times the kids kind of like run the household and they do everything for their kids, which is actually killer. That's kind of cool. But at the same time, if you're not taking care of yourself, then you can't really take care of your kids. So you got to kind of take a step back and think I need to, you know some more time on myself which sounds selfish but in the long run is going to be the thing that works yeah yeah because you can't resent the people around you and if you feel

like you know you're not getting your one hour a day for you because you're giving everything to everyone else that eventually is going to come back and bite you in the ass yeah you know because i mean everyone knows what it's like to feel resentful and it's like a shitty, you don't want to feel resentful. Like that's, it's like something you got to get rid of, like figure out how to get over that shit. Cause that's just your own, you know, what they say is it, you know, you're drinking your own

poison, hoping the other person dies, you know, that's how, that's what it is. So it's just, it's a waste of time. Great description of marriage. Yeah. So yeah, dodge that of marriage. Yeah. So you had dodged that so far. Yeah. This one, actually, and Seema, you'll love this.

So Smokey was just telling me that you and your girl go to the AVN Awards. Yeah, so. Look at Seema. Hey, you know, you got to do something that's just for you. You know, the couple's got to have their little holiday. So, yeah, Emily and I. I can picture Ron standing up being like, she got best anal. Are you fucking kidding me?

Are you kidding? She got robbed. She phoned it in on that scene. Oh, it's horrible. Are you kidding me? What are you guys thinking? Better effort. No. I know, I know, I know. horrible are you kidding me i've seen thinking better effort no i know i know i know no uh that

that was just a funny goofy thing my girlfriend's really wild like she's she's she's just funny she got a crazy sense of humor she's really inappropriate my girlfriend would be the one who would crack a joke at the table that made half the people go oh my god she just say that so she's she likes that she likes to kind of edge people a little bit right she'll she likes to be outrageous and and she's i was a class clown and she makes me go oh god yeah right so she's a bad combination yeah she's she's she's she's great so um i think one time we were just talking about getting away because like you know i always went away for mutant trips mutant trips mutant trips and she's like i just want to go away with you but and it was like january so it's you know shitty canadian winter at the time and i don't know i think we saw like on the internet that

they're like avn awards the vegas porn awards was like the oscars of porn i'm like holy fuck this is like in two weeks she's like let's go to it i remember it was actually her idea she's like let's go to it that'd be crazy let's just go see what it's all about i don't think any guy would say no i think it'd be like sure i'm like fuck let's go so we booked a room and it's at the hard rock right we booked a room and just go and like hang out for two days or three days and it was like it's just an expo it's actually remarkably like the olympia it's a mini in terms of the way people are dressed and stuff like that same amount of skin um a lot of weird fucking people and then a lot of just normal people and also really friendly like honestly like everyone is super

nice because everyone's just trying to be nice and they just you know no one wants any stress it's like there's no hostility in that and really interesting and you know if you like to people watch i mean just sitting at the restaurant walking everyone watching everybody walk by and all the people and you and and then if you're a little tuned in you know what's going on right because you know it's like noon and a bunch of people come down in an elevator and they're all pulling their suitcases and they come up and they sit down and they order a bunch of people come down in an elevator and they're all pulling their suitcases and they come up and they sit down and they order a bunch of food. And you're like, they all just filmed a scene. Yeah. They all just fucked their brains out for three hours.

And now the crew and everyone's down here. They've been working all day. They've been working and the girls haven't eaten for 12. So they're having the pancakes for sure. Oh my God. You know? It's just a funny time. And then the red carpet.

Like, we went to the gym. We usually go to the gym and train. We don't miss workouts. So we take an Uber to the gym and come back. And on Saturday, they do the red carpet through to the award show, right? We went to the award show once. It was kind of funny, but it was kind of just a goofy award show, right? So we don't normally even go to that. We just go to the award show once. It was kind of funny, but it was kind of just a goofy award show, right? So we don't normally even go to that.

We just go to the expo one day and the red carpet's crazy because all the girls are in their crazy dresses and stuff. So some people are just, that's all they're there to people watch is they're just the red carpet, you know? It's just, it's funny. And, but the expo itself is just like

people at booths signing autographs, taking pictures. And then there's another hall that's like all merchandise. That's all it is. So it's just kind of funny. But you, you, you run in, I remember, I remember the first time we went, I felt that I had this moment where I was like, oh, that was awesome. Cause you know, you see a porn star that you're like a fan of and you're like, okay.

So my girlfriend goes, Hey, there's that girl that you like. And I was like, ah, okay, let's go meet her. So we go over and we're talking to her and she's super cool. Cause another thing that's funny is if you're just a single dude and you're at the expo, they assume you're a fan. So they're like, Hey, and they do the whole thing, right? You know, they flirt with you and do the bullshit. Cause you see them do it.

But if you're a couple, they just come out of character. So we get to the front. She's like, Oh, how are you guys doing? My feet are fucking killing. And we're like, Oh,

how's your weekend been? And she's like, good. I have to go shoot a scene after this. So like I've been on my feet already. I'm kind of tired. And, and they just talk normal to you.

And it's a bizarre, weird reality they live in. And then we're standing there talking to her and my girlfriend and her talking about face creams and makeup. Right. And so they're having this conversation and she seems to really be relieved to be talking to like kind of pretty normal people and not having to put a show on for the fans. Right. She's like leaning on the table and talking to us. And I look over and there's a guy standing there and he's wearing a gasp t-shirt.

Wait, wait, pause. I don't get it. Gasp. Yeah. The clothing. gasp t-shirt. Wait, wait, pause. I don't get it. Gasp? Yeah. The clothing? Oh yeah. Bodybuilding. Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. He's wearing a gasp t-shirt and he's standing there with his phone and he's, and I'm like, this guy's waiting to talk to me. So I turned and I go, how's it going? And he goes, Ron Partlow? And I go, yeah. And he goes, oh man, I'm a huge fan.

This was back in the piano days. So he goes, oh, I'm a huge fan of you and Rich. I watch all your videos and I watch all your mutant stuff. And I was like, oh man. And then his wife comes in and tells me about how he had this big surgery and he was watching our videos while he was rehabbing. And now he's back to deadlifting. And it was like, awesome. I met this like really great fan, you know?

And I got a photo with him and everything. And then I walk back out, my girlfriend's still talking to the porn star. I walked back up to the counter and she looks at me. She's like, so you're a big deal. The porn star. Yeah. Okay. And I'm like, yes.

Just that little moment. I got to look important in front of, you know, it was just kind of funny. So my girlfriend was just shaking my head emily's like i can't believe you got recognized at the avns that's fucking great yeah oh my god that's awesome you guys want to take a trip let's talk a little bit about uh rich piano. How well did you know him? Because you've been with Mutant for a long time, right? So, yeah. So I knew Rich really well. I traveled the world with him for just over a year.

So he was only with the company for about a year and a half. But it seemed like such a period of time because he blew up. Yeah, he fucking exploded. He exploded. So what that was, was, um, I was already sponsored by mutant and, um, I knew the marketing director, Ryan really well. And, uh, we were just about to go into the States

because mutant wasn't in the States yet. So it was like 2012. And, um, so they were looking for an American who was a freak, but the company didn't have much money to spend on athletes. So they didn't want to sign an expensive pro. They wanted to try to get some bang for their buck. So Ryan's idea was, well, let's try to get someone cheap who's like really freaky, which, you know, hard to do, but we don't care how good they are. We're trying to get some value out of our money, right? We just care that they're good on camera.

Like their placings don't matter. They just have to have a personality. And Alex Ardenti, who's a longtime friend of Ryan, Alex Ardenti called him up and said, hey, this rich piano guy trains at my gym, North Hollywood Golds, trains at my gym every day, nicest guy. He's still a freak, still has huge arms he's still in shape he's covered in tattoos he'd be perfect and he's retired and he's got his own money so

you don't so he'd probably just want to care too much and he just kind of he probably just wants to have fun and be involved in the industry because he was technically out of it completely so they you know any idea what he had money from prior uh well i know he had a bunch of real estate that he'd like he had condos that he'd flipped and you know that sort of thing um so anyways uh they started talking and wound up getting rich on the team and and i remember the you know they flew me down to la to do, because Ryan had an idea where I would interview Rich, because I had already started kind of like showing signs that I was good on camera, and I was good on the microphone and stuff. So Ryan thought, man, I'm going to have you

interview Rich in one of his episodes, and it'll really help introduce you to Mutant, because you'll be on camera with Rich, you know, and that sort of of thing so that was my first ever interview and uh and it just kind of blew up rich just exploded i mean his video series that ardenti made for mutant that just got millions of hits like the one with the pit bulls and the cars remember those videos that was just like ardenti made those and they just fucking blew up so rich can't stop looking at the guy rich this guy's huge this guy's massive and he's ripped and he's got the Rolls Royce and everything. Yeah. So I remember the 2012 Arnold.

We showed up. I think that was the first expo I did with Rich. And, you know, it was packed. It's the Arnold. But man, he wouldn't stand behind the counter. He would stand out in the hallway a little bit. And it just caused this crazy commotion and all of a sudden we had this massive lineup and security was trying to direct the lineup and

clean up around our booth and other booths were complaining about us and we were just like holy shit you know and it was just full-on and then it just it just got crazier from there every single expo was nuts and you know and then, after about a year and a half, uh, he left to start his own brand. Right. But during, during that time we were together,

like I went to Rich's house a few times and, you know, I saw his book and he had his dog and all that stuff. I mean, we trained a lot. We went and ate, you know, I knew him really well.

So he was, um, he was a, he was a nicest guy, but he was a very extreme person. Like things were either just full fucking speed or not on at all. It seemed like there was never a dull moment. No, I got the expos. I remember there was like some fights and some different things. Later on. Yeah. There's, there was always a bit of commotion. Um, he, he,

he grew up, his mom was a bodybuilder right and uh oh yeah so this was a this video was just a funny like there i am all jacked up see how big i am there still i'm actually getting ready for north americans there but uh so i'm i'm about 280 there which is like yeah yeah but but anyways uh we had filmed content like proper content all week right and then we thought oh let's just go to down to the muscle pit and we'll just you know pull out a little camera and we'll just gorilla footage a little bit of stuff and see how it does so this was like the non-production of the trip and it got the most views right this is like the just the thing they shot from the fence and they're kind of waiting for someone to come and ask for a permit at this point you know how

it is when you shoot down there right yeah they come and they come and hit you pretty quick for permits so we were just trying to get footage and uh the other guys are just pumping up and fucking around because we'd already shot so much footage that week but i'm actually training because i have north americans coming up so i remember i was actually kind of irritated that we were shooting this because i was like actually trying to train back see i'm loading up the barbell row um i was like oh fuck to be so hot you know like it was it wasn't ideal um but i you know hit my heavy rows anyways and but yeah it was it was a great that was a great era what a great time that was just uh you know big gabe moan and ronaldo gary who was a very good pro bodybuilder um a good friend of mine so yeah was Rich Piana so damn

jacked did he use like synthol or anything like that did you know anything about that so so Rich Piana did not use so I'm just going to speak from my opinion and what I know from him and what I believe Rich Piana did not use synthol so I think he has that silicone stuff, PMMA. I think that's what was in his arms. I mean, he told me about- Maybe his shoulders too. Yeah. Well, I think later he got it elsewhere, but I can't speak on that. But I know he told me about, he tore his bicep once and he didn't like the way it looked.

So he got PMMA in the one bicep to try to fill the hole. And then I think from there, it kind of wound up doing both arms. What is that? What is, what is this? Well, from, from what I know, it's, um, it's for doing fillers and faces and, and then they can inject it underneath your glute muscles. So it's like little silicone beads. Wow.

And then apparently the scar tissue forms around them and they get like, it kind of creates a mass. Kind of stays there. Yeah. So, but I, I, I don't know a lot. I just know that he had some in his arms, but I mean, you also have to remember he had 21 inch arms before.

Right. He had. He's that massive. Like if you look at his old. And a small waist. Yeah. If you look at all of his old competition photos of before he did anything to his arms, they were

still huge. So, you know, it's not like they're totally fabricated. They're just, they're enhanced. They're, they were so round, but the reason i know it's not synthol is because they always look the same and he never had red marks on them and he never had sore spots i mean come on if someone's arms look the same all the time and they're never red and they're never swollen and they're never irritated looking like you know i never ever saw a little red dot on his arm. Can't say that for lots of other guys, you know,

you see bruise on their tricep or something like that, but no. Did he train hard? He trained as hard as he could because his joints were all shot. He used to say like, I mean, his shoulders were real bad. So he'd use like, you know, he'd use like two or

three plates on the hammer machines, but he pound out a lot of reps and just rep, rep, rep. He was pumping everything. What do you think it was about him that got so much so much attention because like i mean it really hasn't been anybody like that like i mean i guess maybe a maybe a ct fletcher you know maybe but like so i don't know he was unique so yeah it was also the perfect storm man it was he came right as instagram came he was the first guy to just like he was the first internet uh the first instagram uh youtube kind of bodybuilding explosion he kind of was he just he was the

one talking about if your dick's longer than your balls or whatever yeah just well yeah so his extreme sort of openness about yeah you Yeah, he would talk about everything. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons why he wanted to do his own brand, right? Was because there was stuff that, you know, we wouldn't let him say, right? But if he does his own brand, he could say, he could just talk about drugs for like two hours straight on a, on a video. You know what I mean?

So, um, so yeah, he just, he just polarized people, you know, anyone who polarizes, I mean, that's what, that's what gets the views and the clicks. I mean, you know, we see that with everything like politics and everything. Fuck. I can't, I forgot how fucking big I was. That's a big boy right there. I look, cause I, you know, I never thought I was big enough.

Right. I was thought, oh, I'm six foot one. I, you know, I, I would have needed to be bigger to be, you know, better better as a pro and all that and then i see some old footage and i'm like jesus so you know how rich peona died um i just know that he collapsed at home i believe i mean i just heard what his girlfriend said where she was uh i think she was like he missed a spot on his back she was like shaving his spot on his back or something. I can't remember, but he was like facing away from her and he just dropped. Oh man.

And then of course, you know, she called 911 and so, and then I know he, um, I remember getting the call that he was in the hospital in an induced coma. So I was aware of that. And then about a week later or two weeks later, I can't remember how long it was. I was actually in Dallas in a hotel room and, uh, it was like midnight and I was just about that. And then about a week later or two weeks later, I can't remember how long it was. I was actually in Dallas in a hotel room and, uh, it was like midnight and I was just about to go to sleep and I got a call and you know,

when certain people phone and you see the name, I'm like, fucking Rich died. And I answered it and my buddy goes, Rich just died. And I was like, fuck. And I looked on Instagram and there was nothing

up. And I was like, like, you know, it's just happened. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and like, you know, it's just happened. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and then about 20 minutes later I saw Stan McKay, he posted.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, here we go. You know? And then the next day I realized, you know, it really was, you know, for sure. So, but man, that was Rich, Rich lived full speed, man. Rich said to me many times, he's like, I'm not going to be around long. Like he knew it. That's just how he lived.

I don't know. I don't know when it like became that way for him, but he just, he used to say to me all the time. He's like full speed, man. You know? So. So when someone like that dies and I think Dallas McCarver may have died, I don't know, roughly close to each other. Right. People like that dies and i think dallas mccarver may have uh died i don't know roughly close to each other right people like yeah it was only it was like same week yeah yeah same week yeah it's brutal when people like that die you know everyone's gonna jump on the kind of steroid

bandwagon that's a handsome guy right there yeah yeah except gabe's got the tan right you know still white as fuck are these people like dying from steroids or i mean like how dangerous i mean i know that you talk about them openly you know how dangerous do you think they are well i think they can be very dangerous and i think they also can be used for extremely long periods of time without being very dangerous it's all i mean the dose makes the poison right and when you're dealing with stuff like steroids it's an interesting drug uh it's an interesting category of drugs because you can't overdose like it's not like anyone like takes a bottle of test and dies or oh i took too many d-ball and like it's just you know there's

no overdoses there's there. There's just no... Yeah, I've never taken a shot and like felt weird like you might if you had way too much caffeine. Yeah, like it's just, it's not something that, that's just not how it works. So it's guys, you know, I mean, again, this is just from my experience and also trying to keep things simple

is your blood pressure. That's a big deal because that can fry your kidneys long-term. So if you're going to just un, un, just not monitor your blood pressure for long periods of time, like a decade of being bad, you know, that can really cause problems. Um, your cholesterol, you have to watch like your blood work when it comes to your arteries. You know, that's a really big thing. It can mess up your cholesterol, triglyceride ratio. Yeah. It could also thicken your blood.

Thicken your blood. It's all this stuff, you kind of that sort of category of things. So it's like blood pressure because of kidneys and then, you know, cholesterol because of cardiovascular health and all that sort of stuff. You have to watch those things are huge. Um, I think that's where like a, a great portion of longterm concerns lies. And if you're smart in those areas and aware,

I think that's like, you know, you're dodging the most bullets if you take care of those things, you know what I mean? Um, and then I think the, the other thing is is um the body weight is is the main thing it's like the drugs don't kill you but you know how some people have genetics

for great calves like they don't even have to train them they just have so many muscle cells that they just stimulate them a bit the way's the way their calves are. And their calves are just fucking nuts. And then I got like, I kill myself with drop sets that, you know, I could pass out from the pain and my calves wouldn't grow. And so it's all about muscle cells and genetics in a lot of ways. I think that that's, that can happen in your heart too. If you have too good a genetics for smooth muscle hypertrophy, because smooth muscle is not supposed to hypertrophy nearly as well as skeletal muscle.

Right. But maybe your heart does grow. So you take the same growth hormone and a bunch of tests and you crank like the other guys and put it under pressure and lift heavy weights and their heart doesn't grow. And your heart grows. Cause didn't Dallas's heart weight, 800 grams,

something like that. It's supposed to weigh 400 grams. So his heart was twice as heavy as it's supposed to be, you know? Well, how come? Well, I, I, you know, I mean, drug doses obviously are, are, are going to be part of that. And I don't know what Dallas was doing, but I think there's also a genetic element. Like, you know, some guys are lucky and their tendons just. Yeah.

What are you, what would you know? You know, what would you weigh kind of like naturally, like with some strength training? I think you said you weighed 135 at one point freshman year of high school and then left at about 230 or so, right? And did you take anything during that time or was that naturally you were able to gain 100 pounds? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I remember I squatted 405 when I was 16. So I was going hard, man, hard. So I was going hard, man, hard.

And so to say that, like, uh, if you're within the realm of weighing, you know, 230, 240 pounds, that would probably be relatively very healthy for you. Or even maybe where you're at now. I see what you mean about a healthy set point. Yeah. Yeah. Because it, it represents like, you know, I, I weigh this, I weigh less now than I did when I was 16, you know? Right.

Right. Like trying to get back to a, a't know a more normal if you're always 50 pounds heavier than you've been right maybe not maybe not so great yeah i mean i'm still looking at coming down again you know i'm it's sort of uh getting myself used to looking and feeling a certain way you know in the in the 260s and then it's funny like that muscle memory man i mean if i just ate i'd be 280 in like six days and probably. Your body's like, woo! Yeah.

But I'm like trying to come down. Like I'm going to try to get into the 250s next and try to kind of ride that for a while. See how I feel, you know, sort of try to keep my strength up enough that I still feel good in the gym and don't feel like too much of it. You know what I mean? Um, but yeah, I, I see the value in that too, but I mean, yeah, you know, I, the, the stuff now that gets me and it turns me off of, of everything and it's the drug doses. Um, they're just utterly insane. And I get questions from guys, like I had an email from a guy's like, Hey man, you know,

I've got these headaches all the time and my can't sleep and I'm getting all these nosebleeds, you know, but you know, I'm 310 and you know, I, my coach really wants me to hit 320. And I'm like, I'm like, man, if you have headaches and nosebleeds, you need to seriously like stop doing something that you're doing, you know? And I'm not saying I was smart enough to like panic at every nosebleed I ever got. Cause there was lots of leg press sets where my face exploded, but I thought that was more effort related than just like having chronic nosebleeds for no reason, you know?

Yeah. And like you just, some guys are just ignoring common sense health because, well, no, I've got to finish my cycle. Like it's 16 weeks and I'm only halfway through. So like, I guess I'll just gotta, you know, wait until I'm done and hopefully fix everything then, you know, and I think that's just a terrible approach. And then also to, you know, back in my day, only said that once so far, which is great.

We used to actually come off, right? You do a cycle, you actually come off and like not actually be on anything for a while and then like do another cycle. But you know, everyone's like, oh, well, that's two steps forward, one step back. Yeah, now you go from being on five things being like two or three.

Yeah. That's like you're off. I'm cruising, I'm cruising on 500 tests. It's like you're cruising on 500 tests. That's like, that was my third cycle. You know, it's just, it's funny. Yeah. So no one wants to come off anymore.

And I feel like that's also social media related as well. What age did you start? Lifting at 13, training at a gym at 14. Cause you had to be 14 to join the gym. I mean like what age did you start like taking stuff? Oh, juice. Yeah. 18. I actually did my first cycle cycle at 18 which looking back now was like so stupid young and i don't recommend it but i mean that was that was 1993 and um there was just no

information like there's no internet no the only guys were just the hardcore guys around the gym you know i knew that the guys that were squatting five plates were all taking a bit of stuff yeah and the guys that were you know kind of kind of looked up to in the gym that were competing and stuff they were taking a bit of stuff but i mean the doses were so you know so low compared to now yeah i mean damn what about side effects what kind of side effects have you run into? I just had real basic stuff. Like, you know, I remember when I first started, I got like zits, but then I just kind of grew out of them. Like they just kind of went away and I never really had them again after my first couple cycles.

Um, I learned really quick that certain drugs gave me side effects. So I just never took them again. Like nandrolone is the only thing like DECA or anything in the nandrolone family can give me side effects. So I just never took them again. Like Nandrolone is the only thing like DECA or anything in the Nandrolone family can give me gyno. So I just don't take it ever. And it can also make your dick feel like it got run over by a truck.

Right. Yeah. That was always like. Can't ever get us to wake back up again. Yeah. That was always an automatic disqualifier. Cause I mean. Yeah.

You're like, what is this about? There is a few things I need in my life, Mark. Yeah. No, no. You can't, you can't have that happen. That that's all that's a quality of life thing yeah you got to be able to fuck when you you call for duty man you got to step in no man but you have a really good point like a lot of um a lot of young guys on youtube are like they're you know they're sharing all the stuff that they're taking and you see in the comments some people are like yo that's a all the stuff that they're taking. And you see in the comments, some people are like, yo, that's a lot of stuff that you're taking.

But young guys are now following that. And that's scary. I know it's, uh, another thing too, is I think a lot of people are taking really shitty drugs. So they might think they're on a lot, but they're,

but then that, that's a worry in another area. Like, what are you putting in your body? You don't have that good stuff anymore. Yeah. Those European amps. It's depressing. area, like what are you putting in your body? You don't have that good stuff anymore. Yeah. Those European amps.

It's depressing. Or the good old days when you knew what was real. I had like these Sussanon ampoules. It was like the strongest thing. I mean, you just touch the bottle and you gain 10 pounds. My favorites were those. Did you ever have the old pot, the, the, the

Cytahose, I call them, the Russian pop-outs? I don't think so. It was an amp of Sussanon or like a paper back and you pop it out of the little. Oh, they were beautiful. Can't get the same halo testing that you can get, you know, that you could get back then. Oh God.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I have a few souvenirs you'd love. I kept an empty bottle of Upjohn Winstroll. Oh, there you go. The good old days. We call it the Ben Johnson special. Yeah. Right?

That's a Canadian icon. That white bottle with the red stripe on the bottom, that's the Ben Johnson. That's the whole thing. I love that you kept it. Oh, yeah. I kept it, man. Those were the days. I used to get those off the vet.

My stuff has always been in a shoe box. How about you? I got a metal lockbox that I bought when I was 18, and I still use the exact same metal lockbox. My whole life I've had the same box. Yeah, my box has, like, blood splatter on it from, like, you know, you're going to run into an accident here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got to leave it that way. You got to keep it that way. I still have it. No, no, it's a good time. But mine's just a graveyard. It's like a Nike swoosh and a big old blood streak right through the swoosh. All I have in mind now is prescription

siponate and then all my, my souvenir old ancient like conversation piece bottles I have. I've got a few of those. Again, first time I've ever told anyone about all this. Don't do drugs, kids. No, don't do drugs.

Don't. This is so funny to me. Holy shit. No. Oh, man. You're getting me to talk about all this stuff. I actually have a question for you. I brought this up when I came in

and they didn't know the answer. How much is this thing fucking worth? You know, uh, so like cards, that's a real Bo Jackson rookie card. Yeah. Cards have gone. Well,

to me, it's worth millions of dollars, you know, I know they're not what they used to be, but still, yeah, yeah. They went down.

I don't know what happened, but they went way down. But, uh, well, you know, if I was just taking guests, it might be like 200 bucks or something.

really? Okay. I thought I'd be kind of surprised. I don't know. It's just cool. Cool conversation. It's amazing. And then I thought it would be worth it. I'd be kind of surprised. I don't know. It's just cool. Cool conversation piece. It's amazing. And then I noticed you had Jesus and John Cena.

So, and then they said the two Jaycees. Is that what that is? The two Jaycees? Yeah. I forget where Jesus came from. Maybe the sky? But yeah, somebody bought me the John Cena doll because I had all the weights with it. Oh, that's perfect.

And yeah, I don't know. Jesus, he's always been with us. Has John Cena been on the podcast? He has not. You got to get him on. You know him, don't you? I do, yeah. You can just call him, okay?

Yeah, I've been friends with him for a long time. I'd have to sneak attack him or something to get him on. Okay, okay. I'd have to jump him. He doesn't care about stuff like that that much. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you ever see his Instagram. Yeah, I follow him.

Yeah, his Instagram is completely random, and he never says anything. He just posts them. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. He called me one time and had a bunch of questions about social media in general, and I started giving him some of the rundown. He's like, how does this work? How does that work? How are you using this, and how are you using that? And and so i'm telling him and i go through the whole thing and at the end of the conversation he goes man this

has really been useful he goes you know what he goes i'm not interested in any of that he's like i want no part of it he goes now i'm totally sure that i don't want no part of it and i'm like fuck yeah sounds good he's just hire somebody yeah maybe i don't know you know i don't know if he would i don't think i just don't think he cares you know those those celebrities are like really upper level so every post is a photo shoot post yeah right like that that's like you know like there's no casual thing right no they're not sitting on the couch yeah it's like sitting on the couch with a cigar with his new shoes on. And then the next photo is like getting in the car with the briefcase and they're all staged and beautiful and stuff.

Yeah. That's, that's another level of living, you know. That's the next evolution. Yeah. What's coming up for you? Well, I mean, you know, I just started filming Mutant Unemission season six. So this is the first trip I get. Like I, I like to hit two episodes per trip. This has got to be insanely fun for you. I mean, I know it's a lot season six. So this is the first trip I get. Like I, uh, I like to hit two episodes per trip.

This has got to be insanely fun for you. I mean, I know it's a lot of work, but it's got to be a lot of fun. I, I, um, you know, I am really, really, uh, I, I have to take a minute once in a while to appreciate the fact that I get to do all this awesome stuff and a lot of bodybuilders are way fucking better than me.

Aren't doing anything. Right. You know what I mean? And, um, you know, No one knows who they are. They don't have a social platform. They're not really making much income. Yeah.

Or maybe they won some pro shows five, 10 years ago and then that was it. And they had no real, nothing else to do in the sport or no other kind of part about the industry that they loved. You know, I'm just such a lifer, you know, like, you know, the only thing I could do after I was done competing was work at Mutant in the office for like four and a half years. And it was like, awesome. But I got like a, I got like a degree in the supplement industry working there and then i opened a gym and now i'm like holy shit like first two and a half years open in the gym with my partners like we got a degree in opening a gym like how much easier would the second one be you know you make all the fuck ups and you screw ups

and waste all your money and stuff and you learn a lot of lessons so um you know just to have so many other ways to continue on in the industry and and stay involved and stay in the gym and you know i'm emceeing shows now so i got a few shows around where i live where i am emceeing so great so i'm i get to be on stage you know i'm still on fucking stage like that's the funny thing it's like you get to uh maybe even give credit to people that you're like wow like who's this person like i want to go and check out what they're doing and yeah and put some uh like sunshine on them because you have cameras with you and stuff like yeah no and and you know what i really like is every time i emcee a show there'll be you know

at least a few bodybuilders where you can see that they have like it you know like there's nothing missing he's got oh he's got hams he's got calves he's got triceps so the fuck guy's got lower lats he's got small waist he's got oh shit this guy's and i like going up to that guy and just being like hey man like you know what's your name and just kind of get a feel and um i always try and say something that maybe let him know like you know you really got something you you know like don't ever you know maybe they don't place the best because they're not in the best shape yet but just say man like you know you you get better these, you know, maybe they don't place the best cause they're not in the best shape yet, but just say, man, like, you know, you, you get better.

These shows will be a thing of the past for you. You'll be at the next level and the next level after that. What about this guy? You can turn this guy into IFBB pro. Well, that guy looks like he's a lifelong ultra athlete to me. You probably played three sports.

Did you? I played soccer. Oh, you played soccer? I played the other sports when I was younger. I played soccer, baseball, and basketball when I was younger, but um soccer baseball and basketball when i was younger but soccer was my main sport yeah yeah but i took to college you're a big soccer player man yeah i was damn yeah yeah don't go near him i'm thinking linebacker corner or something like that you know i know yeah yeah no that's that's awesome so you got the footwork then which is like to me i love elite athletes of other sports like i love just

giving them credit for what they do like you know you see someone like soccer players man like the skill level is so bizarre to me yeah and like swimmers like i would die trying to swim literally i can't swim right yeah so when you know you meet someone who's like oh i'm an olympic swimmer you're like holy fuck like i just gotta take a minute swimmer, you're like, holy fuck. I just got to take a minute and just let you know. I think that's incredible. Or like Kobe Bryant, he was famous for saying that he wasn't the best at any one in a particular thing, but he's like,

I'm going to keep studying the game. I'm going to figure out the angles. I'm going to figure out how to position my body so I can get in a little bit better position. He's going to be in better shape than the next guy. All that kind of stuff. Yeah. Do you know when he was a kid,

he said that he would, uh, he learned how to dribble and, uh, shoot with his left hand because he knows that all the other kids couldn't guard on that side. Yes. So he fucked them up with that. That's the shit.

He's the only kid. That's the shit. That's crazy. I love that video that someone made out of, of that. Just obviously just recently where it was, um, Jordan and Kobe blended together and they move the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that shows you how much he watched him. He just fucking watched Jordan, like absorbed him, which you have to give credit for that. That's like student, you know, a lot of people want to fucking train and they want the glory and the fun, but it's that stuff. Like, you know, the mental stuff, the planning and the,

cause it's not just going in the gym and kicking ass. It's the six hours earlier where I had in the back of my head, it's fucking leg day today, you know, or the night before it's leg day tomorrow. Like that is what makes you great in the

moment. Right. It's not just, well, that guy's an animal in the gym. Yeah. He's an animal in the gym because he has his mind right for like earlier on, even the night before or the week before. Yeah. After his last leg workout. And you need that in just about everything.

I mean, when it comes to the diet too. Yeah. You know, you need to be like, all right, you know, when you wake up, you need kind of talk yourself into it each day that's maybe even the night before a little pep talk all right man like we're starting to prep like it's time to get yeah time to get all in or near the end when you're just doing like i i've i've talked to chris acido near the end and it's he's like just just one meal at a time like just that's where most people struggle because you're kind of going crazy. You're not eating enough food. Yeah.

Just hang in there. Hang in there. Almost there. Just one meal at a time. Don't get ahead of yourself. Every time you have a meal, you've been successful. And then the next meal, you've been successful again. And just keep being successful repeatedly for just a few more days.

Yeah. Hang in there, dude. Hang in there. Yeah. It's tough when you come down to the end like that. Yeah. And again, all this stuff just comes right back and becomes just blatantly obvious in business. You know, later on it's, it's funny.

I remember people telling me all the time, like, oh, well, you know, if you, you know, if you, if you learn from bodybuilding, you can apply it later. You know, you hear people say that sometimes they're just trying to kind of cheer you on or maybe whatever, but, but then later on, you're like, holy shit. Like you can't, you can't step out of, it's just part of you, you know, that mindset. You can't like outsource that, you know, you can't, you can't have anybody do any of that for you. I mean, you, I mean, I guess you could have somebody maybe like prep your meals or something, but you know, beyond that, you're still the one eating them. You're still, you know, you're, and like, uh, the story is about Jay Cutler, you know, him driving to Chris Aceto's house, you know, two, three hours there, you know, and two,

three hours back. And he's just like posing in front of him for 15 minutes. And then he like knows his new mission and he goes out and he, uh, and he executes it. And, you know, the things that are going to be inconvenient, the things that take a lot longer, those, a lot of times that's the road that you should be traveling down. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, one of my favorite sayings is, uh, if you want to leave the orchestra,

you got to turn your back to the crowd, you know? So you have to be willing to, you know, step away from what everyone else is doing, you know? And another thing too, that I always embraced was I cooked all my meals. Like I never, my girlfriend isn't expected to cook my food. Yeah. You know, I, I, I understand that some people that's, they got kids in a different family dynamic and it's totally different. So maybe they are getting their meals cooked for them and that's cool.

But I don't know. I always felt like I was the one who was bringing bodybuilding into the relationship. My bodybuilding was my baggage. So I wasn't going to make anyone work to do any of the work that had to be done. And it was almost also still like every single show I did, I prepped all my own meals. I also did that because it was sort of like,

like a felt like a rocky thing. Like I'm doing all of the work you know what i mean like this is my problem this isn't anyone else's problem you know and just taking responsibility for what you're doing and um owning the the annoying shit as well like you know so i was just kind of like that so i always felt like that was something that i would focus on who's been the most influential in your bodybuilding career? Wow. Like maybe in terms of other bodybuilders, you mentioned Chris Aceto.

I'm sure you had great coaches and stuff too, but. So, well, Dorian was my idol as a kid, you know, as a kid, you know, all the way through my twenties and thirties, but Dorian was kind of my bodybuilding idol. Um, and then I would say, um, my two Australian friends, Nick Jones and John Davey, uh, everyone in Australia knows them. Um, John Davey did the Olympia in 03. He was a great bodybuilder.

Nick won the worlds, the Naba worlds, great bodybuilder. Um, I was training with those two guys when I was down there for a couple of years. bodybuilder um i was training with those two guys when i was down there for a couple years and um those guys were really key because i was at that age that 19 to 22 where you sort of become a man you know what i mean i don't know everyone has a different window some guys grow up when they're 40 but there's like that just period of time like they were both you know very entrepreneurial they were both very like hustle hustle hustle they both were like never miss a workout always like they were just like they were i learned a lot from them and i carried a lot of that through the rest of of my life but as far as like um also jay cutler like you know i

just remember i'll tell you a story it's, uh, it was like two weeks out from the Olympia. And I was about five weeks out from my show. So I was doing the Canadian nationals and I had like five or six weeks, but it was like two weeks before the Olympia. And I emailed Jay cause I somehow got his old email, his old cuts to 60 email. I i still remember it so i emailed him it cuts 260 you know i don't even know where i got it and i asked him a question about carbs like staggering carbs like hey would you all would you make sure a high day was on a leg day or would you just have it like on another workout day or so i remember what i asked him and it was about 20 minutes later he responded and i was like and he gave me like this big response

and then he asked me a couple questions in the response so i asked a lot of questions so i replied like holy shit he asked me questions so i answered his questions and then about an hour later he responded again and i was like holy shit he's two weeks out from the olympia and he's responding to my emails just to be a good guy. You know what, you know, just like, oh, it's a real fan, you know, good guy. Sounds like he's really serious and just going to respond to him. And that, that is something that, you know, I didn't realize obviously social media was going to go where it does, but I try to do that now on my Instagram.

I try to get back to everyone. I mean, you know, sometimes you just get, get overwhelmed and you just like, you can't, or you just, you just like the response or something, but just that sort of like trying to respond. And then sometimes I go in that other folder, you know, the people that you don't see their

messages and you're like, oh shit, I missed a bunch of these. And that's going to be overwhelming. But I just, I don't know, Jay just had an effect on me like that. And I remember the thing with Jay was he was the first one to show up and the last one to leave. That was like a rule.

He would meet every single fan. He would never leave until they were all gone. And I actually saw him do that at a couple seminars where he showed up like two hours before the seminar started and he just had a meal and relaxed. And then he'd stay until the last person was literally out of the building. Like he's not even walking past fans to leave. He's like waiting for them to go home and then

leaves. And I seen that. So I was like, ah, fuck. Like, you know, that's, that's how you build not a fan base because it's more than that. Like. They're fanatical. Yeah.

Like they're not just fans. They had a real conversation with Jay. Almost like a mentorship in some way. Yeah. And then another thing, Jay is spectacular at remembering, you know, I'm not, you know, obviously he doesn't have to remember everyone's name and everything, but he does a pretty

goddamn good job. Have you ever seen Jay in action? Yeah. He's pretty good. He's like, oh oh you own the store in toronto that i did an appearance at good to see you again like you know that sort of stuff i've seen jay work like that before so it's it's a pretty awesome amazing person he's one of our amazing favorite guests and yeah he asks us a lot of questions and we're like you won the olympia a

bunch of times why are you asking us shit like why do you care how we work out well just little things like last time i saw jay's like how's your gym how's your girl he knows what's important it's not like you know how's mutant right how's your gym how's your girl you know the industry stuff is what we're doing but he knows what i really care about yeah you know like as far as my things you know so it goes he goes personal on on people you know so um you know mutant treating it goes, he goes personal on, on people, you know? So, um, you know, mutant treating you good, good, good to hear. Don't let anyone step, you know, don't let anyone get you for, you know what I mean? Like he's, he's a businessman. Yeah, you're providing more value for them that, right.

He's kind of like that kind of person. I remember we were looking at, we were looking at possibly sponsoring this one athlete and, um, I knew Jay, like knew a little bit about him cause they overlapped at a company once or something. And I called him up, and I was like, hey, what do you think of this guy? And he goes, hmm. He goes, ah, I don't think he trains hard enough, man, for your brand.

And I was like, thanks. That's what I was wondering about. And he's like, yeah. So he's just honest, man. Yeah. He's like, the guy's a great guy. I just don't think he trains hard enough for your brand. You know, you guys are hardcore.

You know, you got Johnny Jackson. Wow. You got Dusty Hanshaw. You know, like, you got lifers that are, like, serious fucking, you know. I mean, do you know Johnny Jackson? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't know if you knew him very well. I mean, I know him personally.

But, I mean, you know. We've crossed paths. I've met him before. You know, that's a guy who's just he fucking just loves it you know 13 olympia appearances and you know just the thing about him like his back is just yeah his crazy back and you know him and branch pounding away in that gym and stuff but but yeah you know jay knows he's like uh you know he's he's straight shooter you know what i mean yeah jay is freaking incredible um i can't remember exactly where we were but it was a crowd of people that when i'm hanging out with mark you know

they're like oh hey what's up what's up uh i wasn't with mark it was san jose fit expo so mark wasn't there and these people don't even acknowledge me they don't see me unless i'm with mark right so just imagine that type of person and And then here's Jay Cutler waving me down amongst the whole crowd of a shit ton of people. He's like, oh, come here, come here. And this was when Mark was doing his bodybuilding show. And he's just like, so how's our guy doing? And I was like, oh, he's doing great. He's like, how are you doing?

I was like, fuck, dude. Like, dude, you're Jay Cutler. Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you waving me down? He's just a genuinely honest, like, amazing guy. Yeah. And like I said, you know, and this is like a big, you know, crowd of fitness people just a genuinely honest, amazing guy. Yeah. And like I said, this is a big crowd of fitness people, and nobody gave a fuck who I was. I totally get what you mean.

Yeah. I get what you're saying. And then here's the most important guy around, and he's like, no, come here. I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. Love that guy. Seemed like he had a similar upbringing to what you had. Yeah, he sort of did. Yeah, it was hard work.

Wasn't it like farming and cement cement or something like that concrete and farming was it two businesses yeah we talked about it and and when he was on the show i thought it was really amazing is he he thought he felt that that was like being in prison and i was like how weird though you put yourself in your own prison you know you made your own prison with bodybuilding he's like yeah i don't know why the fuck i did that you know well it's that so i love that shit yeah i love that psycho psychological sort of breakdown of how we purposely put ourselves in a situation that i better lock myself up it's gonna be safer for everybody else everyone else yeah it's like some people just operate on a level where they know

they have to separate themselves from from this the, the rest of the herd. You know what I mean? Right. And, uh, and, and, you know, also too, like, just think about that. Like he did it because he wanted to be greater than, like, he couldn't put himself in the surroundings because the surroundings aren't great enough. Like he needed to create his own little bubble so he can be like ultra great. You know what I mean? It's, uh, it's fascinating stuff, but you see it in all sorts of extremely successful people, you know, that just not thinking twice about sacrificing, you know, I love that quote where Jay's like, I lived in a fucking box.

I just love that one line. You know, he just, I lived in a fucking box, you know, I'm like, ah, dude, it's why you were, you know, the guy, your guy chased down Ronnie Coleman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, um, how can it's why you were, you know, the guy, your guy chased down Ronnie Coleman. Yeah. Yeah. You know? How can people follow along with some of your journey?

Where is, where's some of this mutant stuff living? So, yeah. So I'll give you the breakdown. So mutant on a mission, you find that on the official mutant TV YouTube channel. Just search mutant on a mission. You'll find it right away. And you've talked to like every top bodybuilder people can think of almost yeah i've been a lot been well i've got 42 episodes of mutant on a mission are up on that channel so uh five full seasons and uh we're just

starting season six now you're going to be episode two awesome of season six we do 10 episodes a season we used to do eight but now we do i don't know if it was part of mutant on a mission but you and i have talked before. I ended up appearing on something of Mutant a while back. Oh, you were on Mutant Live. Yeah. Mutant Live. There we go.

So that was funny. We were ahead of our time there. That was a long time ago. That was 2013. We had a live podcast style show like this from the booth at FIBO, the Arnold Body Power. We were hauling a big telecaster around with all these cameras we'd have to hire a crew everywhere we went to come in and run the cameras it was it was like a production talk show and then like we did it for a whole year and then periscope came

out yeah and we're like holy fuck what our it's just you know in like you know yeah so yeah it was it was a really cool experience but i had had Dorian on the show, Branch Warren, Chris Cormier, Kevin Lavrone. I had like, awesome. You were on my show. Like it was awesome. I managed to talk a lot of people into kind of stepping across that brand wall.

Cause you know, there's like that brand wall that it's hard to get some people to step across it. But some people were cool with it. Like they didn't care. Like, you know, Dorian's wearing his brand shirt, you know,

branches wearing his fucking, you know, a Gaspari shirt on my show. Like he didn't care, you know, like it's, it was fine. So that was great.

It's not going to negatively impact. No, no, it was great. So yeah. So mutant on emissions, the gym show, that's my gig for mutant.

I'll also be at some of the trade shows this year, body power, FIBO, the Olympia, stuff like that. And then the gym that I, I own with some of my partners, um, that's called West coast iron. It's in Port Coquitlam, BC, which is just outside Vancouver. So anybody who's coming to Vancouver, which is just one of the most beautiful places in the world, they're welcome to come by West coast iron. And, uh, and then I've got my clients, you know, I,

I prep people for shows and help some gen pop and, um, that's really rewarding. And, uh, I just look for people to work with that want to bust ass. And then I've got a podcast with Dusty Hanshaw called it's just bodybuilding. You know, we've done 24 episodes so far and we're a weekly podcast and we're on the think big bodybuilding channel and advices radio for the audio and um yeah we've had some great guests you know we had fuad on we had dana lynn bailey you know we've had ian valer and you know joe bennett the hypertrophy coach came on and sean um sean korea and uh and um who else we have on just lately oh we just had on had on Brandon Beckridge and yeah. So it's,

it's awesome, you know? Uh, so we really love doing the podcast and, uh, yeah, we'll have to have you on one day. We'd love to.

Yeah, I would, that'd be great. And, what's your social media? Oh, rep 300. So just at rep 300,

it's my initials, Ronald Earl Partlow. Oh, there you go. There you go. Where can people find you, Andrew? Uh, you guys can hit me up on Instagram at IamAndrewZ.

And please make sure you're following the podcast at MarkBell'sPowerProject. That's also on Instagram at MBPowerProject, TikTok, Twitter, Byte. And just real, real quick, if you guys are digging, if you found this episode because you're probably into bodybuilding, you guys cannot sleep on Piedmontese beef. Really, really high quality beef, low fat, high protein, obviously. Super awesome deal for you guys.

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And Seema, where you at? I'm at Seema Inyang on Instagram, YouTube, and Byte. NsemaYinYang on TikTok and Twitter. MarkBell.com is live. Today is day number one, so go check out. We have to offer over there. Get some sound effects in there.

How long did we go? Right now we're at 2 hours and 30. Yeah. No way. Yeah, we're about to break 240 almost. That's crazy. That's like full Rogan. Told you. We went 30. Yeah. Yeah. No way. Yeah. We're about to break 240 almost. That's crazy. That's like full Rogan. Yeah.

Told you. We went full Rogan, man. We did. I did. Not many people. I still feel like there's a lot more to talk about. Say never go full Rogan. That's what I was going to say.

I'm at Mark Smelly Bell on Instagram, Twitter, all over the place, YouTube. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later. Weak things break. Hey, Power Project family. Sneaking at the end here of this episode that we have with Ron Partlow. It was a hilarious episode and I hope you guys enjoyed it.

I know you enjoyed it. But I want to sneak in and tell you a review that our guy Dan Fyfe left on iTunes for us recently. He mentioned that he loves the podcast. We have great topics and loads of good information. And Dan, thank you for us recently. He mentioned that he loves the podcast. We have great topics and loads of good information. And Dan, thank you for dropping that. And if you guys want to get your review or your rating and review left at the end of this podcast, go ahead and head to iTunes and leave us a review.

Let us know how you feel. Let us know what you're liking because it actually does really help the podcast out. And honestly, we really enjoy seeing how much you guys love this stuff. So, like I said, if you guys want us to read your review, go ahead and go to iTunes, rate and review the podcast. Let us know how you feel. Let us know how you love it.

Anyway, thanks again, Power Project family. This is Nseema. I'll talk to you all soon.