Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 464 - Bodybuilding Through A Lockdown ft. Doug Fruchey

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

Doug Fruchey is a super heavyweight bodybuilder and personal trainer. He is known for his unique approach of combining classic powerbuilding training principles with unique never before seen exercises from his mentor and legendary bodybuilding training, Charles Glass. He is Gold’s Gym Venice alum and currently trains at Dave Fisher’s Powerhouse Gym. Follow Doug on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DEyFeeepKt6AUTROZP9bA Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢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 ➢Sling Shot: 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 ➢ https://www.facebook.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 FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by Piedmontese Beef. Dude, okay, Piedmontese is awesome because I've been seeing a lot of people comment of like how, I want fat in my steak. I need more fat in my steak. I don't like these lean steaks. Those people sound funny. They sound funny, but that's the thing. When you go on Piedmontese's website and you look at the macros on a lot of their steaks, they have a lot of steaks that are low on fat, right? Which is if you're trying to get leaner if you're trying to cut you can get these steaks that are amazing they're tender um and they're low on fat so you're not intaking hella calories but then they also have steaks that have a good amount of fat nothing insane that's gonna just

make you fat just a good amount of fat um so if you're not dieting it's easier like andrew yourself didn't you you just use lower fat steaks uh or cuts of steak when you were dieting? Yeah. So like, um, instead of like taking something out of my diet, all I did was went from like a ribeye to like a Bovet steak. So just, I have some notes down here just that way. I'm not like totally BS and you guys, but like a ribeye has 10 grams of fat and 24 grams of protein per serving. A Bavette has four grams of fat and 25 grams of protein. Of course, you guys know that I absolutely love the flat iron steak. Sorry, let me change the camera. Do that again.

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That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. At checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. Again, check out the higher, fatter cuts of beef. Check out the leaner cuts. Or you can do what we do, which is get the Power Project Deluxe Bundle. Again, that's Piedmontese.com. P-I-E-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 off your order and if your order is 99 more you get free two-day shipping arnold with uh like andre the giant ever see that i think i have yeah he's like between andre the giant like

wilt chamberlain or something like that it's's just the weirdest photo ever. And he was a big guy. He looks tiny. Yeah. Yeah. I like the, the meme that's been going around where it's a check. Yao Ming and Kevin Hart. Oh shit. And it's,

you know what, how it's rent bills. And then Kevin Hart is the stimulus check. That's great. It's been awesome. Yeah. How are you guys doing today though? Doing awesome. That's great. It's been awesome. Yeah. How are you guys doing today though? Doing awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Excited to have our boy Doug Foucher on the podcast today and, uh, get to the bottom of some of this bodybuilding stuff. Doug's been, um, on a mission as of late and he's been getting in just ridiculous shape.

Holy shit. That's a picture. Wow. Kevin Hart might be photoshopped in with his like uh at his height though but that's how he would look man yeah before we got on air we were talking about bodybuilders standing next to a taller bodybuilder chris bumstead was our example in the last classic olympia and the the other two guys next to Chris looked freaking amazing. Like they looked sharp and lean, but Chris just looked like dad. He just looked like dad.

He did. He totally did. That's so funny. Oh my God. It's distracting. Yeah. oh my god yeah it's distracting oh yeah i've taken some uh pictures before where i'm next to like hapthor and stuff like that and it's just like you just don't stand a chance you're just like i'm just gonna look like nothing well when uh when you trained with phil heath when i was taking those pictures you know usually

wherever we are mark's gonna be the the biggest dude the room. And then all of a sudden he was, I mean, we're talking about Phil Heath here. So yeah, it's like, Whoa, like it's, he's so,

what the hell? Like, it just didn't make sense. You know, he was just that 3d look that people talk about. The worst I've ever gotten. It was from, uh,

Eric Spoto. You know, I like posed for like an arm wrestling picture and it just was bad. It was bad. I was like, oh my God, he's so fucking big. I look like nothing. The hands, the wrists, the forearms. Hey, you know what? At least he's an all-time great.

You know what I mean? He's got the biggest bench of all time. But yeah, Phil Heath, his shoulders, I mean, his arms, his forearm. I mean, you're just, you're not going to, that's when you pull your sleeves down a little bit. You're like, I'm going to tuck my shit in and you do that. You do that little thing, but you still get your ass kicked.

Yeah, you might as well not try. It just puts you in your place immediately. And just stand there with your hands behind your back or something. I don't know. I don't even know what to do in those situations yeah and sema have you been world carnivore monthing oh gosh yes i have how's it going i gotta admit i ate some rice yesterday i'm sorry um but it was just it was just one of those bibigo white rice things uh controlled other than that controlled but other than that it's been pretty good one thing i'll say is yes that was an excuse but on the other side of things i feel like when i'm only

eating meat i start to feel like i need not that i need carbs but i start to feel like i'm getting this is gonna sound bad i feel like i'm getting like leaner fast yeah it's like do you know what i'm talking about you start to feel like really light yeah you start to feel like I'm getting like leaner fast. Yeah. It's like, do you know what I'm talking about? You start to feel like really light. Yeah. You start to feel like you're losing weight too quick. And I'm just like, I need to, I need to, I need to slow this down a little bit, but that's what it does. It's like after you eat meat for a while, you just like, you actually do start losing

body fat pretty quickly. So no, I, I, I feel the same way. And, uh, I've been having a little bit of vegetables here and there. I've had small amounts of rice. I had small amounts of potato. Just like, I don't know, trying to give myself some substance. Because remember, you know, the whole point in issuing this carnivore challenge, yeah, it'd be great. Like if a lot of you could follow along and only eat meat for the whole month, that would be cool.

But there's not really a point in that. We're trying to help you be better than you were yesterday. And so if you need to mix something in to stabilize your stomach or to make sure you're not feeling like you're losing weight too fast or you're just way too hungry, if eating an apple in the middle of the day prevents you from eating a candy bar, that's a victory, in my opinion. So let's not be too crazy about, like, ah, you're off the team.

You know, you're not, you're no longer carnivore. Like I saw you eat that fucking orange. You're done. Yeah. You'll never, you'll never work in this town again. So I think there's no reason to be like too dogmatic about it. Let's just try to nail it the best we can. Yeah.

I was curious because Chris Bell had posted some some some chaffles and I seen that he had syrup on it. And he's the same probably the same syrup that I use was sugar free syrup or low calorie syrup. And I'm like, I'm just going to take a little trip down the comment section just to see what people say. And oh, gosh, nothing too bad, at least at that time. But the one that stood out was like, this is where you carnivore people lose me. Where did our ancestors get syrup from or something like that? And I was just like, no, like, it's not the point. So that motivated me to put out that video that you had talked about, Mark, on the previous episode about being more in control of your diet.

Like if it takes some easy sugar free, you know know artificially sweetened something to help keep you in control of your diet so be it i know a really old school way that people would prevent themselves from eating would be to chew gum right you know some sugar-free gum in between in between meals you know and look you know it's like i don't know how healthy is like a you know gum for us i don't i don't know is it healthy is it unhealthy i have i got no idea but like if it prevents you from eating more food and being off track then i would say it's probably a benefit even you could even argue uh somebody even doing like something like uh tobacco or something like it it might it the the single greatest thing that you can do in my opinion is to not be How do you, how can you figure that out?

Like smoking is a terrible, it's a terrible habit and it has its own drawbacks, but anything that can prevent you from eating, I think is a step in the right direction and developing, uh, you know, bad habits is, is,

is a, is a hard thing to try to pull yourself from. Yeah. Oh, we have us on the show today. Hey, Natty professor down. That's kind of funny. You were in the white sweater. Yeah, we got. Oh, we have us on the show today. Hey, Natty, Professor down. That's kind of funny. You were in the white sweater.

I'm all in black. Oh, look at this guy, Doug. Oh, my God. Is he on the toilet? No, no, I'm not on a toilet, but I could be if that's the way this is going to go. Dude, what is going on? Why are these shoulders not fitting into the frame? What the hell is going on over there?

I don't know. It's a normal-sized laptop, Mark, I promise. I don't know. Should I scoot back? I don't know. How's that? Oh, there you go. There you go.

Look at that. Okay. What's been going on, buddy? Give us some updates. I know that 2020 was a weird year for a lot of people, but one of the reasons why I want to talk to you, it seems like you're chugging right along. It seems like you're excelling,

and you're excelling in a field that's very, very difficult. Bodybuilding is some tough business. We can't even tell who's doing better than who because everyone looks amazing. So how has the last year and a half or so been for you since we had you on the show? I would assume I think it's been just the same as everybody. It's been crazy.

It's been wild. You know, we we have no choice but to continue moving forward. And, you know, I don't know how to do really much else besides bodybuilding, help other people bodybuild. So I just kept going, you know, kept figuring it out. But, yeah, of course, it been, it's been crazy wild time. As I'm sure it has been for you guys. And you're in Los Angeles, right? So the shutdown type stuff has been even more severe. Is that right?

Oh yeah. It's been wild. It has been pretty wild. Luckily at Dave Fisher's I'm training, you know, gold has been shut down since, well, since the beginning, they tried to open up and then that didn't work out. But so I moved over to Dave Fishers' powerhouse, Jim and Torrance. And they, you know, Dave, I have so much respect for him for his, just his courage to stay open in the face of all this. And so luckily, business has been able to continue you know pretty much the same as it as it was as far as my training clients and stuff but uh total blessing

there and a lot of people haven't had that kind of fortunate um situation but uh work has been good and then i didn't think i was going to compete last year until like the end of the i guess october the show started happening again and so i was like wow man i guess i better jump on this train and get something done. So we did the two shows in December. About four days apart, actually. It was wild, right? That was cool.

Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. What's been the biggest difference for you over the last several months? Because I know that you've rubbed elbows with a lot of great people being down there in Los Angeles, but you've made a commitment, I think, to work with Charles Glass a little bit more and Chris Aceto being your nutrition coach and stuff like that.

How has that played in? Because you look unbelievable. You looked unbelievable when we had you on the show before. You've always been big. You've always been jacked. You came up here and you were moving around some weight like a madman on the squat. And you're a very, very strong athlete as well.

But it seemed like you have refined and gone even a lot further since the last time we talked. Well, you know, yeah, I mean, that's, that's the kind of the evolution of, of the game for me is, is, you know, I started with, you know, basic bodybuilding and love and being strong. And then as, as I've kind of gotten to know charles more and worked more with charles i kind of i developed a big respect for the bodybuilding of the 80s and 90s and the way it was done then and just followed that and of course charles being my mentor he's almost more

of my mentor as a trainer than he is as a bodybuilder and coach mentality. I mean, he, I, I just attached myself to him at the very beginning and just was like, no, you're going to teach me what you know. I, you know, I hope that's okay with you, but if it's not, I'm going to follow you and watch you and do it anyway. But you know, as far as that goes, obviously the experience that I've gained, there's, you know, it's immeasurable, just the things that I've learned and the ways that I've been able to take what Charles does

and then add some of that power bodybuilding stuff like Mike O'Hearn does and the stuff I learned from you and coming up there and squatting. And honestly, yeah, taking a lot of stuff from powerlifting and trying to apply it to bodybuilding, you know, my golf bag is deep now. That's how I like to put it. You know, I have a lot of different experience. And then I hired Chris Aceto at the beginning of 2020, right about January, I hired him for the year. And then of course, everything just stopped for six or seven months.

And then I got back with Chris, we started working. I think we started working in about October. We really started working again towards looking at doing some shows and that, I mean, that was amazing. Just to see the level of proficiency he has at manipulating nutritional factors on the fly was really interesting to me so much that I couldn't even learn from him because he does it so fast, you know,

he does it. He'll look at like a picture of you. Right. And then he'll like, probably advise you to switch to a different type of food or something. Is that, is that kind of what was happening? Like he'll say,

Oh, you need to switch from, you know, red potatoes to sweet potatoes or something like that. And you're like, what the fuck? Why? But you just do it probably.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And he'll just be like, you need to eat a little bit more here and a little bit less in this meal. And it's just like, and then the next day you do that. And by the time you're in the gym training, you look better than you expected the improvement to be in the first place. And you're like, wow, all I did was eat an apple. You know,

I would've never thought an apple would do that, but sure enough, it did. Pretty cool. Mom, that, that was an amazing apple. You know, I would have never thought an apple would do that. But sure enough, it did. Pretty cool. Well, that that was an amazing experience. Let me tell you through the year, man, like because you said you got with Chris in October. So you switched gyms and you did get bigger. But how did your did your training take any type of hit with like less equipment than what you're using at Gold's? How did you have to adjust as far as your training is concerned to still make progress through 2020? Oh, there was a lot of that. You know, it actually, I switched gyms twice. So, you know, the shutdown, they shut it down in February,

Gold's closed. And then I found a little tiny 1500 square foot private gym that I could work out in only from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. So for the beginning of the coronavirus shutdown, I was able to do three clients and then my own workout starting at 3 a.m., finished by 7 a.m. There's my day. It was finished. And the gym has, you know, one squat rack, one bench press, one incline press, dumbbells up to, I don't know, like 60 or something.

So it's basically like you can squat, barbell row, and you can't deadlift because there's not enough weight. And honestly, you couldn't even really squat because there wasn't enough weight. And then that was just about it. So that was my first gym. And at that point, for those four to six months, or however long it is, I basically just did that squat, bench, and deadlift. And I did that consistently four days a week for probably two or three months.

And I would just come in and destroy myself. It was me and one training partner. And we just put 405 on the bar and say, okay, it moves until you can't move it anymore. And we would do that for, you know, an hour and a half, two hours. So we had to leave the gym. Honestly, that works pretty well for a little while. If you keep the food up and you just, I mean, literally we come in there on back day.

It's like, okay, we're going to barbell row until we can't. And then when we can't row anymore, we'll just start deadlifting, you know? And then on squat day, it was basically like, well, just squat until you can't. That was what we did. That was actually a lot of fun. Mark, you know how much I like to squat. You can imagine. That was, that was fun. We had some fun. And then at powerhouse, Powerhouse is a great gym. Dave has all the old school equipment in there you can imagine. Doesn't have any hammer strength.

So that's been like the biggest thing. As a bodybuilder, especially of Charles Glass' tutelage, you know, hammer strength is big. And I haven't, I literally haven't touched hammer strength since September. I miss it dearly. But at the same time, I've learned, you know, like you said, you just adapt and you just figure out different ways to stimulate the muscle with dumbbells, barbells. And I feel like it's just made me better at what I do. Honestly, it made me,

it's made me better. It's made me more versatile. And it really will help you. Ah, here's a good way to put it. You know, those times where it's like, you go it really will help you ah here's a good way to put it you know those times where it's like you go to do something like no this doesn't feel good let's go do something else you know well if you don't have that option it's like no this is going to feel good you know and so you just work at it until it feels good because you've seen o'hearn do it so if he can do it well you better be able to do it too you know that kind of stuff and and so it really kind of helps with that steadfastness to push yourself through it through a workout that doesn't necessarily feel as good isn't you know perfect the machine squeaks the handle sucks crap like that yeah having uh

less equipment in in some way was probably maybe a blessing uh to where you can maybe focus and hone in on uh your craft a little bit more. Because I know here at Super Training, like we've been able to afford, you know, getting more stuff over the years and having more space. But I think back to when the gym was the strongest is when we had the least. And a lot of it just had to do with just what you just said. Like, hey, we're just going to our only option here is the bench. Our other option is the squat and our other option is the deadlift. So when's time to bench squat and deadlift we're going to spend a lot of time doing

that because that's kind of all we have and so for that reason you probably uh ended up you know really smashing certain exercises over and over again because you just didn't have a lot of variety well then i kind of went back a little bit to my basketball and football days where it's just like you know it gives you an opportunity to really refine the movement almost more like you would in powerlifting because it's bodybuilding. We're really just aiming it at, at stimulating the muscles. So, you know, everybody's squat looks a little bit different. Depth isn't necessarily as important, you know, all this stuff like that. But when, when it's all you have, and when you have to do it repetitively for one you start to see the

injuries and the inflammation start to come in from doing it so much that you really need to know how to do it exactly correctly the way your body is designed to do it otherwise you're going to blow yourself out and so i i was able to kind of take you know the squat is a good example as i could talk about squat for 15 years but um you know you're able to kind of break it down and treat it more like an athletic event or i was i kind of was like all right no let's practice the squat until it feels so good every time that that it's you know effective and doesn't have as many of the negatives and i really found that to be beneficial i use that across the board i feel like i'm a better weightlifter um you know bodybuildingbuilding, weightlifting, two separate things to me. I use those words for

completely different things, but I'm a better weightlifter and probably also a little bit better of a bodybuilder because of it. And, you know, you said you trained four days a week at that point. Did you, and before that, were you training more each week at golds before everything happened? Or is your training structure usually four days a week, but you usually have more access to other things. No, I'm pretty much a six to seven to eight days a week on a guy. You know, I just train until I'm, I train until my body says you don't want to eat anymore.

And then when that happens, I'll take a day off and then I can eat again and then I'll start. Yeah. If my appetite will go away, you know, like I'll just train until my appetite goes away. And then I know that it's been too long since the rest day. There's a little, there's a little bit more, a little bit more regiment to it than that, but really it's hard to keep me out of the gym. It really is. Okay. And then also when you started your prep in October, did you, cause you didn't know that

there were going to be shows in December. So when you heard that there were going to be shows in December, October of number seven, you literally just prepped for 12 weeks on the fly and then got on stage pretty much yeah what what it came to was i was looking at some of the other shows in october that happened and so then i just started thinking about okay well what show is there and then one thing that really started it was the nationals were in october november and i saw that show and was pretty disappointed. I didn't go like, I was like, man, that's awesome. And so I just, I talked to Sean Roden and Charles couple people. And I just, I had the idea. I was like, well,

I already am going to go to the Olympia in December in Vegas. So maybe I'll just do the amateur. And so I kind of kicked that idea around, said it to Chris and he was like, yeah, why not? And so we just decided it's the last show. It was December 16th. We'll do that show. And so we picked that show, started prep for that show. And at that point, it was in Vegas still.

It was sketched to be in Vegas still. So I was just playing it cool. I'll hop in the truck. I'll drive from LA to Vegas. I'll do the show. It'll be nice. It'll be fun. And then as I started getting in shape for that show, Chris kind of started to urge me and said, you should probably think'll do the show. It'll be nice. It'll be fun. And then as I started getting in

shape for that show, Chris kind of started to urge me and say, you should probably think about doing the USA, which was like four days before the 12th of December, also scheduled to be in Vegas. And so I started thinking, I was like, well, do you think I could do it? He said, yeah, you're in really good shape. You could probably do it. You should. And so i was like okay and so i went and i signed up for the for the usa in vegas the same day i signed up for the usa in vegas they moved the olympia to orlando literally it was like two hours after i clicked submit on the um on the muscle contest website i see that they moved that show to orlando so i was like okay well i guess we'll go to vegas and then orlando and then they moved that show to phoenix and so like, okay, well, I guess we'll go to Vegas and then Orlando.

And then they moved that show to Phoenix. And so then we went from Phoenix back to LA to Orlando. So it was just, it was crazy. It really was, but I just trusted God and really prayed a lot about it and was like, look, we've already done the work to be in shape. We might as well just go do it. You know? And so, yeah, that's, that's how it went. It was a wild time. Has Charles Glass or Chris Asito has either one of them shared with you um like how far they think you can go since they've seen a lot of other you know high level bodybuilders they've seen you know

world champions and stuff have they ever shared with you like hey i think you know we can get you to the olympia stage or i think we can get you beyond that or anything like that? No, actually, it's funny you asked me that question. I haven't asked either of them that question. I guess I'm probably kind of afraid of the answer, or I don't want to know the answer. You know, it's like, you know, if somebody, if he tells me... Like you're the worst bodybuilder we ever worked with. Yeah, or something like that. You know, I'm amazed you made it this far, dude. You might want to think about Strongman or something like that. I don't know. But, no, I haven't asked.

I mean, one thing, I will say one thing that pretty much I almost put my shirt on and left in Orlando because the day of the show, I'm in the hotel room, and Chris is with me, and my girlfriend Danielle is there, and I go and hit my Christmas tree shot, kind of like I posted a picture on my Instagram with that one. And I hit my Christmas tree shot and Chris goes, Oh my God, that looks like Samir's back. And I almost, I just turned around and said, you know exactly what to say. I almost put on my shirt and was like, I don't even need to compete. Like I've done it. That's awesome. That's, that's really about it.

Yeah. I got everything I need from this, from this, from this travel. I'm just going to head home now. I don't need a Chelsea or a place. That's awesome. I'm in shape. But no, I really haven't asked that question. I don't think I want to know either. I don't want somebody to tell me what they think I can do.

I'm going to go figure it out. What have you learned from these guys in terms of being able to coach people and inspire people? of, you know, being able to coach people and inspire people, because I know it's got to be it's got to be really interesting with these guys helping people get ready for the stage, the emotion, the hormones, there's all kinds of things going on. People are in a caloric deficit and they could, you know, they could really stifle you if they say the wrong thing at the wrong time because people's egos are getting super sensitive at certain times during prep and things like that. So what have you kind of learned from them that has assisted you with being able to personally train people and help people with bodybuilding? I have learned a lot from Charles about how to be a really technically proficient trainer.

I mean, one thing that Charles and I both have in common is an engineering background. I mean, Charles was an engineer. I studied engineering in college. And I feel like that's why I really mold with his training style in the first place. But, I mean, Charles can look at you and just be like, you need to lift your elbows this much, and you'll feel it. And, you know, he'll just walk up to you in one little tiny change and the exercise is amazing. And I guess that's probably the thing I've taken from Charles the most is really understanding the structural confines of the body

and how it needs to be positioned to activate certain muscles, et cetera, et cetera. Chris is I mean, it was our first year working together. And the best way I can put it is we didn't have very much conversation at all, but we got the job done. And it was amazing. So I think, you know, like, I don't think Chris really cares about what he says and whether or not it's going to stifle your emotions or anything like that. I don't think he cares one way or the other. He's going to tell you exactly how he wants it. But in that, you can really kind of see that that's what's really important. You know, you just get the job done. And a lot of times I was more calm this prep with Chris simply because he was calm. You know,

I send him pictures and he wouldn't say, wow, you look great. Awesome. Or, oh shit, you look terrible. He'd just send back, eat this. These are the changes. And that was it. That was all the conversation we had. But because he's Chris Asito, and I know that, well, he's had these same conversations with Jay Cutler, Sean Roden, anybody else I respect, you know, it's like, okay, well, if he's telling me that, I'll just go ahead and do it. I'd never thought twice about it.

And that was really awesome, you know, to not think twice about anything and just kind of do exactly what was needed to be done. Did you ever email him about a cheat meal? He told us on the show, like, if anybody ever asked him about a cheat meal, he just doesn't answer it. He doesn't reply. Has there been? About nine.

It was like eight or nine weeks into the prep when, you know, you can kind of tell when it's like, okay, we're going to get serious now. Cardio is up to an hour a day. Food's can kind of tell when it's like okay we're gonna get serious now cardio is up to an hour a day food's getting kind of low and i i think i emailed him and i told him i you know my energy level is getting a little low i'm kind of tired you know and he literally verbatim as we wrote back i wake up like that every day i got four kids that was the email and i was just like okay i'll never ever mention that again. Has there been any, like, uh, any overlap in as in regards to like what, you know, each coach is telling you to do, whether it be like a mindset thing,

or I don't know, maybe, cause I know when we had, uh, Chris Aceto on, he kind of said that he hated the hammer strength machines. He felt like they were kind of useless, but you know, you said earlier that, you know, you miss them so much, but I was just curious, is there anything that him and Charles have said to where you're like, Oh, Hey, he just told me the same thing or, you know, something that kind of has crossed over. No, there really hasn't been any of that. One thing, Chris and I really didn't talk much about training.

Like I said, being that our relationship is so new, maybe that's it or whatever, but Chris and I really didn't talk much about training and Charles has never really talked much about diet with me. And so they were pretty separate completely. And they, you know, traditionally across the board, they've been pretty, pretty removed. I haven't had any experiences like that. I didn't know that Chris didn't like hammer strength. That's interesting. And I would love to know more about, you know, Chris's trainer. That'll be, you know, we'll learn more about that going forward,

but that's where I'm at there. Yeah. I just love barbells. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send you the clip from it. That'd be awesome. I have really grown to love training like that too.

Like now I won't do anything without a straight bar barbell day, you know, in my day, pretty much across the board. And as I, it's funny, I said earlier that I miss hammer strength, but I don't even know what I'd use it for now. You know what, Doug, I'm curious about how long you've, how long you've been doing bodybuilding and competing in bodybuilding. Because like one thing I was surprised about when I looked into like a lot of the guys that have hit the Olympia stage over the years is that a lot of them don't get to that stage until like 12 to

15 years into their career. Then they hit, then they finally hit the Olympia stage, right? And you don't realize, wow, it actually takes guys that long. So, so far, like, like you are massive, you're heavy. You've, you've, I just don't know how long you've been doing it. And also like how you feel about where you are and getting there. Like, how's that process going for you right now? How do you feel like your progress is going? Man, it's an amazing journey. And it seems like for me, for one, I'll answer your question. I've done six national shows and then the amateur Olympia, I guess is it's a pro qualifier, but I wouldn't necessarily call it one of the traditional national shows, but we'll that in so i've done seven of those over the past five years and then i had about four years leading up to my first

national show so what's that let's 10 years yeah just about 10 12 years um 10 or 11 years and as far as where i stand the best way for me to put it is I literally become less interested in the result every time I do it. I mean, of course, I still want to win, but I have become so obsessed with the art and lifestyle of bodybuilding and the purity of that game, I guess, that I, you know, winning, it becomes less and less of the objective. And I mean, yeah, of course, I like to compare myself. I think about where I stack up. I know there's guys that are younger than me that are already pros and guys that are younger than me that are being successful in the pro ranks already and stuff. But like you said, I'm a large man. And I feel like that's one thing is the larger you are structurally,

the longer it's going to take for you to get there. But it's just such an individual thing. I mean, really, as I get better and better at it and deeper and deeper into it, it's more about seeing how much you can manipulate your body to do what you want it to do. And that becomes more the main goal is, well, let's see what I, you know, let's see where I can end up. And so that I've stopped questioning it as much as just being excited to discover it. Yeah. I mean, you're way further along than you were five years ago. Right. And isn't that the point you're just trying to get? Yeah, exactly. I'd hope so. Yeah. You're just trying to continue to, you know, figure out ways to continue to get better.

What are some weaknesses that you've had to work on that you feel like you addressed that you may have brought up and how'd you do that you know sometimes somebody's like hey look you got to bring up your shoulders or you got to bring up this or that what's something that you had to address over the last maybe two three years that you've been able to knock out pretty well oh gosh legs was probably legs was my biggest triumph this year we really kept them big and round and full like i feel like my legs really matured all the way over the past like 18 to 24 months and that was um a lot of stuff with charles and i charles you know he really told me that he had to go back into his notes to look at like what

made chris cormier's legs grow and he used chris cormier because he compared our our strength and power a little bit. And he said, you know, Chris is the kind of guy to go in the gym, and no matter what I tell him to do, he's going to do it. It doesn't matter if it's going to kill him or not. And I pride myself on, especially if Charles tells me, that's how I am. I'm just going to do it. And so we did, I mean, some crazy volume on legs,

things I never really thought were even possible to do. And we just knocked them out week even possible to do. And we just knocked them out week in and week out. And that really, that really worked. Another thing that I, that I really think I did great this year was, was posing. Um, it's not my favorite thing to do. I'm not the, I'm not the bodybuilder that really looks forward to compete like show day and, you know, shaving my body and getting painted and then dancing around on stage you know it's not really my thing um but obviously it's part of the game and we got to be good at it if you're going to have a product you have to be able to present it

and so um and i think a lot of that was just practice and studying the older guys and watching the way they did it and then just a lot of practice i mean when they when bodybuilders say that they practice posing two to three hours a day i i kind of always thought they were bullshit but they're not you know it's it takes that much work to really be comfortable enough to inherently display that without looking like you're trying too hard and that's something that i've never felt so comfortable on stages i did this year. So that was awesome. It's crazy that you mentioned your legs because your legs always seem to be like your strong point, like you're a strong squatter and you're super big. So like, how were your legs a weak point? They just weren't as round and full as they need to be like, yeah, they've always been strong and they had OK mass.

But, you know, six foot two and they just need to be bigger. You know, they need to be bigger. They need to be like... Again, I kind of feel like it's a disadvantage. It's both an advantage and a disadvantage for me to be where I am and see the guys that I see because I end up just comparing

myself with Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, Sean Roden, and Chris Correa and Flex Wheeler because those are the guys on the wall in the gym. It's like I don't see many of my peers that much. And so when I'm looking up there, I'm like, oh, my legs look like shit. I'm looking up at the wall. Well, okay.

So that's just what I compare myself to. But that's the goal overall after all. So here we go. But they just needed to be rounder, especially the outer sweep. The outer sweep really needed a lot more of the Rami hook than we're still chasing. Was there anything in particular that you did like a, you know,

walking lunges or step ups, or was there, you know, specific exercise where you're like, Oh, here we go again. Like we are really smashing this kind of one movement. Yeah.

We would do reverse hack squats super set with regular hack squats for sets of 20 that was that was a good one man that sounds yeah my stomach hurts the first time we did it charles literally was like all right so you're gonna do the reverse hack squat for 20 and then you're're going to put a plate on, turn around, and do the regular hack squat for 20. And then he goes, okay, do 15 sets. And then he walked away. Yeah, that was the workout.

And he had me do that for like two months, twice a week. It was wild. And by the, you know, the first time I didn't think I was going to survive it. By the end, it was kind of just like, all right, here we go. Let's do legs. And so now, you know, and they never really came back down from there with the exception of like the four weeks before the shows. But yeah, I'm not joking. That's literally what he said to me.

And then he just would come back like I'd be on like set number seven dying. And he's like, how are you doing? Where are you at? You're at seven? Yeah. Okay, dying. And he's like, how are you doing? Where are you at? You're at seven. Yeah. Okay, good. And he'd walk away. Are you kind of surprised at the impact that that had on your legs?

Like these are like 40 rep sets. I mean, we don't, I, you know, I, I'm trying to think of like books that I've seen or even information that I've heard in passing where somebody's like yeah man the real key is 40 rep sets you know i never heard anybody mention that i have heard people talk about super sets and drop sets but 40 rep sets i haven't really you know so 450 reps per workout yeah are you are you kind of are you shocked at the impact that that had i'd imagine the pump is still there right now i mean the, the pump literally, if you know, the pump would never go away. I felt like they grew every time I was consistently surprised.

I will say for that, that for like the first three weeks to a month, I was never recovered. Like, I don't care how much food I ate. And I think that first week after that first one, I didn't train for three days and I already said how hard it was for me to get out, you know, to keep me out of the gym. And I think that first week after that first one, I didn't train for three days. And I already said how hard it was for me to get out, you know, to keep me out of the gym. Like I did, I couldn't. That worked. Yeah, that worked pretty well. But after it started working and again, you know, it's such a blessing to have it be Charles Glass. It told me because if it was some other trainer, I'd probably be like, dude, you're stupid. There's no freaking way I'm going

to do that. But it's Charlesles so you have to otherwise you'll feel like a bitch the rest of your life you know he told charles told me to do something face to face i'm gonna do it you know you know that's the kind of stuff that you just don't when you hear people talk about bodybuilding on like youtube and textbooks that's kind of shit you just like you don't hear that's kind of stuff that people like oh you know that you're gonna injure yourself people are like bodybuilders are weak or bodybuilders are pussies they don't push all the you know it's like uh it was i want to rethink that yeah was there any other workout stuff that was kind of like that because that man that that that's that sounds wild like did you do yeah was there anything else

that compared to that or was that like was that the first time that you've done something like that or have you done things like that before where it's just like wow oh no i feel like charles has shown me things like that consistently through my time getting a chance to work with him like another example is he likes to do these pause reps on the leg press where he'll, he'll load you up all the way on the leg press. And he'll be like, okay, do 10 reps. And he'll stand next to you. And on the, on the 10th row, I'll be like, okay, now stay at the bottom.

And so you'll stay at the bottom with the weight loaded on you. And I'll be like, okay, now open your knees and come up a little bit. And so then you'll come up about two inches and say, stop, wait, wait. OK, a little bit more. Wait, wait. OK, a little bit more. And open your knees more. OK, finish. And then we'll do that like three times. And then we'll say, OK, 10 more reps. Oh, and then you rack it. And then we'll put on another plate and say, OK, we'll do that again. And it's tell it to you like stone-faced just not he seems like a nice he

seems like a really nice guy exactly and that's how i mean his voice doesn't change nothing and then it's just you know you do four sets of that and by the end when he finally says up on the last i mean i remember there was one time on the leg press he was like up and i was like oh i sure hope you're gonna pull man because i'm it's not going anywhere it's not coming up and then was like, oh, I sure hope you're going to pull man, because it's not going anywhere. It's not coming up. And then we get it up and I rack it. And I'm like, man, I'm so glad that's over. But yeah, I mean, and he's done that consistently. I can go on for days, just different little things to really keep the tension on with those pause reps. What he'll do is he finds the weakest point in your range of

motion and he'll stop you just before that weakest point and then wait long enough until the strong point below that point is fatiguing. And then he'll have you push right through that weakest point. And so it's like, you just really exacerbate the point in your range of motion that you're struggling with and just hammer it until there's no longer a weak point. And I swear you can see the difference within a couple of sets. Like you can watch yourself literally become mentally strong enough to get through that sticking point in a couple of sets. It's pretty amazing. When you're, when you're working with people and, you know, uh, being a personal trainer, are you taking a little bit of this, you know, into account and, and utilizing some of this?

I mean, obviously you want to try to keep your clientele around. So you, you don't want to, uh, you know, have people, have people be so messed up that they don't come back for two weeks or

whatever. But are you utilizing some of these techniques? Cause they sound unconventional, like to do a set that lasts like, I don't know, longer than like two minutes. Like it doesn't even sit. Like it sounds like it shouldn't work, you know,

in accordance to what we hear like, Hey, 30 seconds to like a minute. That's a really brutal set. That's a really good set. That's great for hypertrophy, but you never really hear anybody talk about anything further than that. And so are you utilizing some of this with some of your clients and having success as well? Yeah, definitely. One thing I think the way I started to look at it, because I had a couple of those experiences with some of the, some of the guys that I trained that are other bodybuilders, you know, and I would put them through a workout and like, you know, we'd finished the leg press

the first four sets of the workout. And they're like, dude, I'm finished. Like I'm finished. They're throwing up, they're done. And I finished like i'm finished they're throwing up they're done and i'm like okay and so i started to understand that there's a certain level of fitness one has to achieve before they're able to even attempt those things but the fundamentals are the same and so you can use the techniques of those pause reps and those two-part reps to kind of it really helps for muscle activation. And it really helps for, like I said, getting through those sticking points. And so, you know, kind of back to what I said earlier about what I've taken from Charles as far as a trainer is understanding those concepts on a firsthand basis in the trenches of, you know, what I, you know, the world is burning down around you as I'm learning

this stuff. When I bring that to my clients, I'm able to like, Hey, so when we stopped there and then push through that, did you feel the difference? Like, were you able to feel the activation in the outside of your quad the way I want it to, when you open those knees while you're waiting and then push through and they, yes, it's a positive response. I'm like, okay, this is why, because we stopped here, activated that muscle and then pushed. And so being able to take those concepts and just kind of pare them down a little bit and give them a taste of it has been extremely successful

and extremely valuable to me as a trainer. You know, I think a lot of what I've done with Charles in the bodybuilding, you know, in my personal bodybuilding has helped me to better teach what I need to to my clients. I'm really curious, really curious to hear what you do for recovery. Cause after, you know, a crazy leg workout like that, I'd imagine you're, you're, you're pretty run down. So have you learned anything from them or maybe just in your own like

experience of dealing with all this? Have you done anything new with your recovery? Yeah. The first thing is you don't get to not diet. And of course, when you say that, the whole world thinks that I'm on a calorie restrictive diet every day and trying to get lean, which is absolutely not the case. But you just don't get to eat shit food anymore if you want to perform like that. You must nourish yourself with the correct nutrients, and they have to be consistent just year-round. You know, if you want to go in the gym and train like that, you have to fuel yourself to train like that. And it is still pretty strict and regimented because you can't buy anything at a restaurant or at a fast food, obviously not a fast food place.

anything at a restaurant or at a fast food obviously not a fast food place but really i've found at even the nicest of restaurants you can't buy anything that is devoid of shit you know they have oil and fats and things that don't digest right and things that are going to make your stomach hurt and it just it just doesn't work so if you you know if you want to train like that and recover effectively you just have to commit to like this is what i do now and this is how i eat now and that has really been number one number two is uh and actually 2020 really helped with this you sleep you know you go to bed on time you wake up on time you don't go out you don't get distracted you don't stay out late things like that you just you just don't and actually i i take a lot of it from fromian Yates. He used to say that if his wife was going to a movie and it got out after 11 o'clock and his bedtime was always 11 o'clock, he said, if his wife was going to a movie

and it got out after 11, well, no, I'm not going. I'm training. Sorry. And it's like that's how I live my life. And that's pretty much been the best things I've used for recovery. I haven't done anything else. I will say that massage, you kind of have to accept that you should probably get massage work done like twice a month, probably. Stuff like that really helped keep the ball rolling. When you ask me about

recovery, the way I see my recovery fail is it's almost like your body, it can handle it for so long. And then before you know it, you know, like your tendons are tied in knots or something happens because you failed to maintain your recovery game. You failed to stretch, you failed to eat correctly. You failed to get massage work done. You failed to, you know, go do cry or something like that. I mean, if you're going to perform at a level higher than the body is really used to performing, you have to recover better. So it's,

it's a full gamut of everything. But it really is just consistency and commitment to the game. You mentioned massage work, and it's interesting that you mentioned that because the main people that I hear talk about massage work quite a bit are bodybuilders. So why is that something that you think is so beneficial for people that do that sport? I think I'm surprised to hear you say that I would figure power lifters would use it more, to be honest, because I see it as I can feel the tendons and hear, you know, the adhesions in my forearms and knees and stuff like I feel like you can feel those adhesions start to develop. And then you're you start having popping joints. Like for example, my ankles always, they pop really bad when I know that I need massage

work done because the tendons are all tied up, up your calf, through your knee, into your hip. And, you know, it's like, you can feel it. And then when you go get the massage work done, well, there's no more popping in my ankles. And it's like, they just straighten out all those tendons. So, I mean, I know bodybuilders think it's really good for your muscle health and to keep round full muscles but i'm pretty sure that that's more genetic than anything like some guys muscles are just rounder

than others but the tendons always need to be put back in the right place and that's that's really why i think massage work and i the guy i use uses does mostly grassed and work which is like scraping and stuff like that i just feel like they put everything back where it's supposed to be and you can do a lot of it yourself but there's also a lot of it you can't do yourself um but yeah that's why it's so valuable they just kind of make sure everything gets put back where it's supposed to be you mentioned uh stretching briefly do you stretch oh yeah every day every day is that before a workout after workout static stretching what kind of workout, after a workout, static stretching? What kind of stretching are you doing?

I do static stretching, and I do it in the morning. I still – I've kept my fasted cardio going pretty consistently since I competed in 2019. I just really didn't stop. So I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is get on the treadmill and walk. I know you walk outside. I just, for some reason, like to walk on the treadmill. It's just kind of my environment. I do my thinking there.

But before I do that, I have a 20-minute really pretty lazy stretching routine. I call it lazy because it's not conventional. And I really just use an apparatus to pull myself apart. You know, like I'll put my hamstring up on a table and just pull and lean. And, you know, that's how I developed my stretching. I took one or two yoga classes, was extremely self-conscious because I was so sweaty and dying,

you know, with all these pretty women folding themselves in half all around me and I can't even do anything. But I took those concepts and just kind of made it into a bodybuilding thing you can do while you're standing there talking to somebody, hanging out, and it's really helped me. yeah i stretch every day um i actually put up

a youtube video with some stretching stuff on there that's really helped a lot um but it's just real basic stuff all static well i shouldn't say all static because i do some dynamic stuff with the band but you know just real basic stuff it's nothing special just stretch your lats stretch your chest make sure your shoulders can move, stretch your hamstrings, stretch your hips, stretch your quads and your calves. You know, so it doesn't hurt so bad when you get on the treadmill and walk, you know, stuff like that. How long have you been doing that?

Probably about two years, three years now. Okay. Something like that. Oh, okay. That's cool. Man, I noticed a huge difference. I have terrible hamstrings. Like okay that's cool um man i noticed a huge difference i have terrible hamstrings like that's that's really the one thing my hamstrings i think god just made them two inches shorter than they were supposed to be because they are so tight

all the time you know and uh that's really where it started was i was like man my hamstrings are so tight there's and so i try to stretch my hamstrings then of course the hamstrings couldn't stretch so i had to figure out why don't my hamstrings stretch well because my adductors are tight well you know you can see how it went but uh that's that's that's really helped so much with just kind of and and also it helps with the awareness of your body like if you start waking up every morning and pulling yourself apart, you start to notice the trends of where you're tight and why. And well, this is tight because this is tight. And then this is tight because this is out of place. And it really kind of,

it's providing me a relationship with my body that I don't feel like I had before I started stretching. I'm curious to know why do you choose to do cardio fasted in the mornings? It's, you know, I read somewhere that it was, it's the most effective when our body's lowest point, because then you're going to immediately go into the fat burning mode. I'm not going to say that I know 100% scientifically that that's true, but it's always worked.

Oh, I, I, I feel like it is effective faster as far as, as far as just starting a process of sweating. Like when I have food in my stomach, it seems like it always takes a while for me to really get going. And also I like fasting cardio because it's a time in which I'm not bothered by anything else. And my schedule can't be affected by like, you know, my clients running longer or a client needing to come in earlier, my workout running longer. You know, it's, it's like, look, if you just aren't a bitch and get your ass out of bed, you won't, you'll have an uninterrupted hour of time to do what you need to do. And so it's just worked the best for me.

But I do believe that there is some volition to the fact that it is more effective early in the morning than any other time. When does your day usually start? Oh, you're going to laugh when I say this. My day starts at 2.30 a.m. When do you sleep? I go to bed, like literally it's a race to bed. People laugh at me because they ask me, when do you go to bed? As soon as I can, you know, it's basically as soon as dinner's done, go to bed.

And so usually it's about 630 or seven that I'll start winding down and then I'll fall asleep about 730 ish, maybe eight if it's a rough night, you know. Have you always started your day at 2 30 or was that something that not so yeah that yeah that really started because of covid um because i i had to get to the gym to have enough time to take care of the three clients that i had which i mean i was so blessed to have i mean i was blessed beyond measure for many reasons but to think that i had three clients that were willing to work out at five, six and seven consistently six days a week was so amazing. But because of that, I had to get in and train at three so that I had time to train. And so it just kind of became a habit. And honestly, as I did it, I just realized, hey, I kind of like that.

And so after a while, I was like, even Sundays, I mean, now it's even Sundays. I wake up, go do that and and then come home. And I'm home by five and feel great and I have the whole day ahead of me. It's just become kind of my preferred way to live. I don't think Danielle really likes it all that much, but she's used to it. Do you think there's something special

about being awake at that hour? And like Los Angeles in particular is a completely different city when everyone's sleeping like uh no and there's something special about being before 10 a.m yeah there's something special about being at gold's gym um at those we at those weird hours i don't know how to it's hard to like explain it to somebody you know because people like fuck that i'm not getting up that early yeah but there is something really that feels great about it

i love it i really do and you're right mark Mark. It is. It's just, there's just something really good about being at work, not necessarily at your job, but just working and being functioning before everybody else. It gives you a chance to, to have some quiet time, especially in a city like LA, where there really isn't a quiet time during the day. You know, I just, I've really grown to love it. I really have. And the people that you meet who also do it are amazing. Like when gold, when gold would open at 4am, that 4am group of guys that show up are men and women, not just men, but the group of people that show up. I mean, there's, there was like 30, 35 of us that would show up every day at 3 45 and stand

around outside waiting to go in i mean that's fascinating to me i miss them every day i miss those people every day you know it's just so awesome yeah um how have you guys as a couple because i don't remember exactly what danielle did but i remember she's in the medical field so how has the whole experience been for you guys during COVID, the lockdown and everything? It has been a wild ride. Danielle is a warrior beyond. She's been a nurse at a public state hospital in the ICU and the COVID unit the entire time. And not to mention, but that's her first job as a nurse, what luck she had. Um, but it's been, it's been so crazy. It's been so, I don't even know the word to use it to watch

her struggle, grow, learn, and overcome the adversity that she's overcome, not only from the patients and the actual, you know, pandemic that's going on, but the mismanagement of the hospital, the chaos in the hospital and just the firsthand experience of the inconsistencies that she's seen. It's wild. It's really wild. It's been there. That's about all I can say about it. You know, yeah, it's been crazy. that's about all I can say about it. You know, yeah, it's been crazy. Was there anything with the diet that surprised you, you know, with Chris's diet? Yeah, with Chris's diet.

I mean, I'm sure you kind of heard some things about it before. My understanding of the way that you were eating previously was you're eating, you know, really large amounts of protein. Did anything really change or did it stay a little similar? What was the big, was there anything really different? Yeah, it was really weird because the food that I was eating really didn't change all that much. And there wasn't there.

I mean, I had done reading and just like you have, we all know, you know, Chris Asito, you get the muffin pump and et cetera, et cetera. I mean, there was a couple of times he told me to have muffins, but it was really individual. And even the people I've talked to who are working with him now, they say that it's extremely individual. It's catered to me. And even so much that he asked me when we first started, he said, well, what's your food look like usually? So I told him and he just adjusted the macros to where he needed them with the food I was eating. And then every now and then he might suggest that I changed something, but, but no, it was,

the thing that surprised me the most was how simple and basic he made it and how effective it was being so simple and basic. That was probably the most surprising thing. Yeah. When we had him on the podcast and we were talking to him, it felt that way. Like I try to like dig deep and we're hoping to get like this real banger of a clip from him you know but we just it was so frustrating yeah it was like it's the same thing it's always going to be the same thing that it's always forever been like it's never

going to change like all right lean meat meat complex carbohydrates all right see you guys later we're like i mean i'll tell you this there was there was one point in the prep where I just couldn't handle chicken anymore, which, I mean, every bodybuilder will tell you that. You know, like, no, man, I'm just fucking tired of chicken. I can't handle it anymore. And so I was like, well, you can eat ground turkey. It doesn't even have to be that lean. And I was like, what?

Okay, sure. I mean, we're like six weeks out. I'm thinking, you know, I've got to be real careful, can't have too much fatty meat. And then, you know, after a while, I was like, well, this ground ground turkey is great you mind if i just keep going that's like yeah i don't care whatever protein you want just make sure it's 50 grams or something like that and so then i really had to ask him i was like so wait you don't care what type of protein i eat he's like no if i tell you salmon and you want steak have steak it doesn't matter if i tell you chicken and you want ground turkey have that and it's like so they were completely interchangeable and it was so simple

but yet effective like you'd think that you'd notice even a slight difference in the way your physique looked from changing your protein source but i kid you not i didn't really notice one at all and it changed my thinking completely it's like i've been stressing so much about all these little tiny things that you think matter, but they don't. You just do the work, eat the food, and continue the next day with that same process. You know, that was a real eye-opening thing. I mean, even the amount of meals.

I used to think you had to eat, if you were going to be a bodybuilder and you were on a contest prep, you had to eat a meal every two hours, minimum, right? Well, of course, that's just not the case. I mean, now I switch, sometimes it'll be an hour and a half, sometimes it'll be three hours. It's I mean, it's still pretty consistent, but it can ebb and flow with the way your body feels a little bit more and still be just as effective. You know, and I've always kind of had a sneaking suspicion that the body was like that. But I would never admit that to myself.

Well, because I have to be regimented. I have to eat every hour on the hour. You got to be disciplined. You got to be this and you got to be that. Otherwise, you're going to fail at everything. That's not true. Thank God. I'm curious.

Like, do you know how many like when you were getting close to stage? How do you know how much fat you might have been having per day around where it was? I'm just curious if it was like really low or minimal minimal um and that's one thing that i agree with acetyl on quite a bit is that the only dietary fat you're really going to eat is the fat that comes from your protein you know like so we never had like almond butter or avocado or anything like that i mean with the exception of my fish oil capsules the only fat i was really getting was from my eggs, my salmon and my beef if I ate it. But I wasn't eating much beef this year. So we didn't really add any fat at all.

Gotcha. And then you also I was curious about this because when you're talking about the type of training that Charles Glass had you do, you did mention Mike O'Hearn. And I remember when we did train with Mike, when we were on like the lake press, it wasn't, he was probably going easy on us, but like we were doing like, you come down, you pause for a while, you go up halfway, you pause and then you push through. And it was very similar. So I was curious since you've seen these guys train for years, do Mike and Charles have like very similar ideas on training? Because the

way they do that, I don't see that from a lot of other type of people that train, even bodybuilders. I don't see that type of use of pauses and tempo and stripping of weight as you're doing it. I don't see that often. So is that something that is kind of something that goes around there at Gold's or where do you see that mainly? I would bet that that that part came mainly from Charles. Probably. I wouldn't say that that Mike and Charles train very similar at all. I think that they have, you know, like some mechanical similarities in the fact that they understand the body the same and they know how to isolate muscles the same, but their philosophies are completely different in my opinion. But that I like, I didn't, I didn't know older Mike did that.

That's pretty interesting. But with the, with the leg press, but, but no, I wouldn't, I, I, I don't see that very much either except for from Charles. And I know that Dennis James used to do some time under tension stuff that was really cool where you do like really slow positive reps and then a pretty quick negative. Charles likes to do stuff like that. So I think it's more of a bodybuilder thing from the 80s or the 90s.

I think it was probably a little bit more common back then. You've trained with O'Hearn before, right? Yeah, we trained a lot love miss him too he came to powerhouse but dave keeps the music too loud he couldn't handle it he is getting old understandable dave keeps the music pretty loud yeah mike you know mike is uh you know unbelievably strong but you're unbelievably strong yourself how did how did that matchup go oh man i love training with training with Mike. It's just so much fun. Um, I remember the first time I filmed, I, we filmed a video together,

we did chest and I was going to warm up with, you know, just a little bit more volume. And then I watched Mike do is one to two reps go up one to two reps. You warm up wherever you want. And I was like, no, I think I'll warm up the way you warm up. He always pulls you in. Yeah. To doing what he's doing. But no, Mike, I learned, I learned so much every time I trained with Mike,

just because you get to see a guy who you don't think can stretch as much as he does do it. And that almost just gives you the confidence to do that yourself. Like, well, if he can do it and he's two inches taller than me with longer legs and I can put my knees in my mouth too, you know, stuff like that. And so that kind of stuff really, it's been so much fun. And it is so fun to train with somebody strong like that. You know, it's just so much fun.

At the moment, do you have a training partner? Yeah, I do. I trained with a guy, his name's will uh will smith actually ironically but i call him thick willie because we have big will run around at powerhouse um so you can't call him big will he's crazy dude lives he's from inglewood he's like five foot eight 260 pounds dick to buddies thicker than he is tall, and just big, strong. We've been training together for about two years. As a matter of fact, I met Will because I asked him for a spot at Gold's doing some lateral raises or something, and that was where we met.

And I didn't even know – like, I didn't know the guy's phone number until he came to Orlando to watch the Olympia. Like, we flew to Orlando, and then I finally got his phone. We just communicated in the gym only. We flew to Orlando, and then I finally got his phone. We just communicated in the gym only. But he asked me after that spot, he said, what are you doing tomorrow? And I said, legs. And he was like, oh, okay.

I didn't tell him that it was the leg workout that I had been talking about with the hack squats reverse and forward. And he showed up, and he did the whole thing. And then he never left again. That was was it he's been there every day since he's been hooked from that ridiculous workout from that time and every time we do legs he's like man this is hard but it wasn't as hard as that first one man damn that was

hard we've never forgotten that workout with these kind of workouts uh i'd imagine you sweat a lot and all that kind of stuff do you have have any issues with electrolytes and staying hydrated? Or do you just pound tons of water? Or do you add salt to your food or anything like that? I drink tons of water. I have been a guy for my entire weightlifting career. I have been a guy that cramps all the time. And especially after leg day, I would get violent leg cramps, paralyzing leg cramps.

Oh, it's miserable. But admittedly, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, I was also the kind of bodybuilder that never really used vitamins or nutritional supplements at all. I just, it was food or nothing. And so I figured, well, I don't need vitamins. I just need some vegetables. That'll give me all the micronutrients I need. Or was that a mistake?

Because this year I started taking a, you know, I had a nutritionist kind of give me some vitamin knowledge, did some research and got a good vitamin regimen down. And the muscle cramps have all but gone away. Honestly, they have. So, you know, calcium citrate, magnesium, calmagazine, kidney, stuff like that has made the leg cramps go away. I mean, they're still there sometimes.

And actually I've noticed that those little kinds of cramps, like if you get a cramp in your adductor or a lot of times it'll be my hamstring. It will show me where my body's out of alignment because I feel like the body will cramp when the muscles aren't able to fire the correct way, especially when they're fatigued. And so then it'll tell me, Oh, you need to go stretch and put your hips back in the right place.

And then you probably won't cramp anymore. And so that's been kind of nice. Yeah, we've been digging. We've been digging a product over here called Element, which we really like a lot. We'll send you a bunch. Then you can let us know what you think of it. But I think it would help a lot. Just, you know, sodium, magnesium, calcium.

It tastes pretty damn good. You throw it in your, you know, throw it in your gallon jug when you're on your way to the gym and i think you'd like it a lot you drink it while you're training you can drink it whenever you'd like really but yeah and sema uses it for jujitsu i use it quite a bit and i'm somebody that used to get cramps all the time and be fatigued because i don't eat a lot of carbohydrates and stuff too so helps keep you hydrated i always wondered why i would get such bad cramps in my, in my legs after leg day, but I guess, well, it was just science. I think you just trained like a maniac. I think that's probably, probably. Was there anything else that you had to bring up?

You know, people always have question about like arms. You got some pretty good arms. So like, uh, what's, what's some things that you do for your, you know, people probably ask you all the time when they see you walking down the street, Hey man, what do you do for your, you know, people probably ask you all the time when they see you walking down the street. Hey, man, what do you do for your arms? What advice you got to build up some good guns? Follow Charles Glass. No, the one, you know, with arms, it's for me, it's been more volume than anything, because as I've been, you know, as I am a pretty strong guy, thing because as I've been, you know, as I am a pretty strong guy, I always thought I should probably try to curl weight that is commensurate with what I bench press and what I squat. And you want to treat it kind of the same way. You know, you go in there, you get all fired up, you do

heavy curls. Every time I did that, my forearms would just get tied into knots and I'd get elbow tendonitis and my biceps really wouldn't get anything. So with arms, they really came to slowing down what I was doing paying a little bit more attention to the mechanics of how to actually activate your bicep and then taking the weight down and just going high volume i mean i know training arms is boring i get it like it sucks i you have to do it though especially if you're a bodybuilder so i just slow down don't listen to such heavy metal while you're training, maybe something a little slower and just kind of focus on it.

And once you get the pump, I mean, then, you know, you're doing it right. If it hurts really bad in the muscle, not the joint, you know,

we gotta be careful to say that if it hurts really bad, the right way, then you're probably doing it right. And you should do another set. It's so funny to, to, to hear you say, Oh,

trading arms sucks. And then you love trading legs because there are probably so many listeners that are like what the fuck is this guy talking about training legs sucks and training arms is so fun it's like you totally flip those two yeah always felt the way that's how i i mean that's one thing that kind of told me as i got into this game that i'm supposed to be here because you know like yeah that's what I love is that nitty gritty go crazy, you know, bite through your t-shirt, bring it out when you're done, you know, that kind of stuff. Arms is just like, well, that's,

that's what the pretty guys do. Earlier you had mentioned about something about uploading something to YouTube. Is that new for you? I don't remember you having a YouTube channel the last time you were here. I don't remember. I set a YouTube channel up. I think I did it like probably close to two years ago. I really, you know, COVID screwed up everything for everybody I know, but when the end of last year, I was really looking forward to a huge 2020.

And so I started a YouTube video or started YouTube channel, filmed a few videos, put them up there. And so I started a YouTube video or started YouTube channel, filmed a few videos, put them up there and then COVID happened. I was like, well, even if I could film in the gym, I'd get the gym in trouble if I put it up in the world. So I can't anyway. So it just kind of fell off and now we're starting to ramp it up again. But I think, you know, it's a fairly new thing. And it's, again, it's something that I don't necessarily, I mean, I don't push it because I don't feel that it is professional enough for me to put it out there necessarily yet. I mean, I really, you know, I want a good product. And so until I feel like it's really a great product, then it's just kind of there.

And I'm working on my skills as a, I don't want to use the word influencer, but teacher, online teacher or whatever you want to call it. I'm working on developing that. And so it's in the process, but yeah, there's a YouTube channel up there. There are like six videos up there. What are the goals in 2021? What do you got your sights on? It's whatever God has for me, man. Well, you know, I just, I, I, I really just wake up every day and see what the world has for me and, and go for it. Number one goal is to just help people. I've adopted a quote that I really have tried to live by a lot this year. JFK said once, a rising tide floats all boats. And I just kind of have adopted that and just try to be the tide no matter where I go.

And just, you know, just my job as a trainer and in powerhouse gym is just to kind of just be the thermostat of energy anywhere that I am. And so that's what my goal is. Wherever that takes me, I'm excited for it. Obviously, I would like to have my IFBB Pro card. Yes, please. You know, I'm going to do that and endeavor towards that again. But it's wherever I can be used and whatever I can do good, I hope to have the opportunity to do it.

How about this year as far as shows are concerned? Do you have your eye on any shows in certain months? I'm going to do the big three. I don't know when they're going to be yet because I don't know how the schedule is going to look. But the big three is the USAs in Vegas, the North Americans in August in Pittsburgh, USA's are in July in Vegas, traditionally, the North Americans of Pittsburgh and the NPC Nationals of Miami in November. But I'll talk to Chris again and kind of figure out

where he's going to be as far as the big shows are concerned and making a point to be there. I mean, I didn't really stop dieting, so I'm still ready to compete. If there is a hidden show somewhere in February or something, I'll probably do that. I mean, I got second place in Orlando. It was so close. It was such a cool battle to have. It was so close to getting it. So I'm, I'm really itching to do it again. Yep. Now I'm real curious because you're really big, right? So I've never, I don't know. I've never seen pictures of you like looking kind of out of shape or bulking, right?

When you're, when you're trying to put on muscle and you're, and you're gaining weight, what body fat percentage do you usually end up and how much do you usually weigh compared to like your stage weight? So what's your stage weight at and what's your peak off season weight at along with like what that body fat percentage you think it might it might be sure um on stage i landed this year right about 270 i think in in phoenix at the usa's i was like 264 and then i was a little bit tighter so like two okay yeah so yeah about 260 probably in uh in orlando um i always run it when trying to get big or get bigger build muscle i always run into the problem of or i have in the past run is the problem i just can't eat anymore

it's like i feel like my stomach really is my limiter my digestive system seems to be my limiter so i don't really ever get fat or heavy like i've gotten up in the in the recent years i think the heaviest i've gotten was like 305 um i know that i probably need to get heavier than that but it's going to be a slow process because it's got it's got to stay pretty clean i mean i can't really eat enough food to turn myself into what lee priest used to look like when he was in his off season like i i'm curious to know what that would look like or you know sometimes i think if i tried to eat like any hall or something maybe that would work but i don't think i'd survive that honestly has chris helped you with a bulk yet he would do it no not yet not yet we haven't done that together yet i would imagine actually an

itch to see what he says yeah i would imagine if he had to eat less protein you might be able to get there because protein is going to really slow you down in your track so if you uh were to eat more carbohydrates and fats you might be able to get a good amount of overeating to where you get to 315 or 320 or something like that without maybe without being too fat you know well too too bloated yeah um digestion has always been a thing for me yeah it's it's you know it's i know that's probably struggle for a lot of us but yeah so 305 310 but i'm i'm honestly my strongest at 275, 280. That's what I found. Like, that's when I squatted the 765. I was 280.

And that was when I felt the best. Awesome, man. Well, we wish you the best of luck. And we want to see you get that pro card in 2021. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? What's your social media? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Douglas Fruchet.

Keep it pretty simple. It's just my name. YouTube on Instagram at Douglas Fruchet. Keep it pretty simple. It's just my name. YouTube is YouTube slash Douglas Fruchet. And you can always email me at Doug Fruchet at Gmail. Last thing before we jump off here, I know that you have been sober for quite some time. So, you know, somebody that's listening to this, that's trying to get over whatever drugs or alcohol or whatever thing they're addicted to, what message do you have for them? Because it seems like you're just doing so well,

I'm really proud of you and excited for you. And so, you know, how can we support some people that are maybe having trouble or struggling with addiction? Man, especially right now at times like this, the first thing I can say is tell somebody,

humble yourself and tell somebody close to you that you're struggling. And when you tell them that, just know that they're probably going to do something to help you and just stick to it and find a positive outlet, find a clean outlet. Obviously, I will probably recommend lifting weights. But I mean, in all seriousness, it saved my life. Finding an outlet that provided a dopamine release to kind of mimic the stimulation you get from the substance you're stuck on can help, but also owning it and admitting that you're struggling is the first step. So trust in your community and trust in Standard Barbell company. Cause he'll help you out a lot. Awesome.

Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks for having me. All right. Take care. All right. Bye-bye. And he's looking huge over there,

dude. 305, three 10. It's a big boy gets on stage at like two 62 lean. That's insane. Stride to glutes, stride, glided glutes strided glutes.com yeah like nah he's not on the long track that's probably i want to check that out real quick and you see if it's a thing i'm a little curious do you guys have a weird blocker at this at super training we should we should we definitely don't oh god raspberry care about these floors it's a little slippery yeah but man nah that that that 15 rep half squat thing man

15 reps switch other side 15 reps add a plate on do that 30 sets fuck Fuck the hell. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's really not that. And twice a week, that is really something that a lot of people would be like, Oh, that's too much volume.

Yeah. You're doing way too much work. Yeah. You can't do that. You're going to hurt yourself. What about your knee tendonitis or whatever, you know, but sometimes you got to go all in,

all in. I'm not seeing anything on striatedglutes.com no we gotta buy it okay so either either buy that domain yeah we gotta buy it takes you right to mark bell slingshot that's sick oh my god but no i think that that is one somebody owns it i don't know let me see but i think that is one thing because um when we hear like people talk about training on like youtube and stuff right uh like we can buy it do you guys are you guys gonna purchase this eight dollars and 88 cents a year run the card let me make sure i

spelled it right company card just have pictures of our butts on there. Just random pictures of our butts, you know? Could be in shorts, pants, whatever. A new daily photo of our butts. The first photo should be you and the rainbow flag speedo that you got. Just you standing there. Maybe daisies in your hand or something. That'd be perfect. Paint her a little rainbow color too oh my god that would be so fun we're gonna make so much money i would imagine like

oh god what what if now that website just like when i go back to check one day it's no listeners definitely like ten thousand dollars for it yeah a listener is definitely gonna take that money at this point i mean free advertisement if you buy it yeah that's true yeah but okay i was gonna say a lot like yeah so when it comes to a lot of these massive bodybuilders yeah there's a genetic component to it and yes they're they're some yeah they do stuff, but at the same time, it's like they do some pretty crazy workouts that I'm not willing or no, like most people are not willing to do. Like,

I'm not, I'm not going to do that. Let that hack squat workout. No, I have no need, but like, I would not even want to do five sets of, you know,

this, but I know that that would make me really sore just do you know a couple sets of it would be brutal but 30 sets it's wild like that's what these guys are doing you know yeah but like i remember like honey would take you through some pretty intense stuff and i think like if we had that written down somewhere where it's like hey you're gonna do this we'd probably have the same reaction but you know because mark was being coached he he did it so hearing doug talk about it and be like dude no way like you're fired but i mean it is charles glass yeah you

figure out a way to get it done yeah that's some brutal shit most people yeah most people don't want to go through any of that they just want to talk about how they want to be a pro, but they don't want to have to go, go through all the, uh, all the hard shit. What I always wonder is like, is it important to go through that stuff?

You know? And I, I know what the answer is for me. I think it is important to do it. Um, I think you do have to like go too far. I think it's important to go too far just so you can learn, you know, what's optimal for you, you know, and maybe Doug finds his way, maybe through working with Charles, he

does these 15 sets and as he matures and as his legs continue to grow and get better shape, he's like, you know, I don't need 15 or 30 sets or whatever it was. I can do maybe half and still get away with just doing half. And that's how you learn for yourself ultimately what's optimal. And that's why people start to chop stuff out as they get older. They're like, well, I just didn't need to do that anymore. But maybe you needed to do it in the beginning because maybe you need the mindset to be tough enough and strong enough to push through that shit so that you can endure and so that you

can hang in there and that you can get through all these other things that you have to get through in order to be a success in the first place. Yeah. And you're right. It's 15 sets, not 30 sets, 15 sets of 30. But it's,

yeah, it's 15 sets of two different things. Yeah. But yeah, no, definitely something like that will help like for most people, if they do attempt that will really help them see what level they can reach. Cause most people have probably never pushed themselves even close to that. Right?

So let's say you do choose to do a workout like that. Let's say you manage 10 sets. You've probably never done something like that before. And you're like, Holy shit, I can push myself this hard. Like this is how much more I have in the tank. Right. Right. And then you can, you can actually see where that point is. But how, how, how often do we really think that we get ourselves to even close to that point? Probably not often, if ever. And next time you go and train, you know, and you're scheduled to do three or four sets of something, just try three or four more sets, you know, rather than trying this 15

set ordeal of two different things, which is, you know, rather than trying this 15 set ordeal of two different things, which is, you know, tremendous amount of work. Maybe just try to add a few more sets. Like I did it the other day, just doing a seated row. I was like, I'll just finish with three sets of this. And I was like, well, let me just do like six sets. Cause why not? Like just add a little extra to it and make it a little tougher.

And it was great. I mean, it made for a great workout. It made for a good challenge. I tried to keep the rest interval short and just kind of went all in on it. But that's something to try to do in your workout. And you can kind of, you can, you can feel it out and you can see where your mind's at. You can see like how, you know, how bad do you want this?

And you'll, for me, when I'm in the middle of those sets, I'm, I usually get encouraged to do more. I'm like, this is, this is like right where I like to be. This is kind of fun. And we're coming down to the last set and, uh, you could learn to love it. You can learn to kind of fall in love with the pain. Yeah. Sometimes I'll, I'll just pretend that like, it's, I don't know, like you and I are training

together where it's like, you're saying, all right, you're going to go for 15 reps. All right, cool. And then I get to 15 and then you, you know, like, you're saying, all right, you're going to go for 15 reps. All right, cool. And then I get to 15 and then you, you know, you'll say something like, all right, five more, five more, five more, you know, and then like until I'm purple in the face, but like, I'll do that to myself when, you know, no one's around too. You know, I'll be like, I got a little bit of the extra gas in the tank. Like, let's go. And then I'm like, all right, let's go. Like, it just, it kind of,

it builds on itself and it really does like, like, oh man, I thought I only had, you know, a couple of reps left. And it's like, I literally did the whole set again. Some people who listen to today's show might wonder like, oh man, I, I thought they were going to talk a lot about steroids or something like that. It's just, it's just a topic when you're talking about this level of bodybuilding that it's just, It's just a topic when you're talking about this level of bodybuilding that it's just it's part of it. It's just. Every every bodybuilder at this level does it.

And so to me, there's not really a lot of reason to talk about it. And it doesn't really do us any good to like get into like, hey, I take, you know, I took this stack or I took this combination of things like leave that to the forums and leave that to the you know if you want to search for it and find find out more information you know go ahead and you know try to dig around for that kind of stuff but I don't think it has a good place on a lot of these uh formats just because like people don't understand it a lot but it is a huge part of bodybuilding just as it is a huge part of strongman just as it is a huge part of uh power lifting in a lot of ways so i don't think it like really is a an advantage to talk about it a lot you know yeah it might be a section on striatedglutes.com yep striatedglutes.tv is also available guys you know real quick though um doug when he was talking about the way he was training it reminded me a

lot about of mike too because um both those dudes are really really strong right but probably when you see them doing certain things so when he was talking about bicep curls right he could probably bicep curl an insane amount of weight but he was talking about how like he'd feel it in his joints and he wasn't actually feeling the activation of his biceps so he lowered the load and i think a lot of people can get a lot from that because he is insanely strong like he can squat seven something and you know whatever but maybe he's not feeling the activation of his quads that he needs to feel so he lowers it down to 405 or whatever and does a lot of reps to feel it in the quads we could take a lot from that because for muscle growth like yeah there's a strength component but you're not always trying most of the time you're not trying to move the most weight

possible trying to feel it where you want to you're trying to feel in the biceps or specifically the triceps or the quad sweep right so take that lower the load feel it where you want to feel it and keep moving i loved how he's talking about that gym and he's like all he had is like 405 we just put it on there and lift it for two or three hours. The mindset for, you know, obviously he's a pro bodybuilder, but like, do you imagine like, oh my gosh. Yeah. We just squat till we couldn't squat anymore.

Yeah. Pretty simple. Till we ran out of food and then we went home. The funniest part to me was like, he was like, I would, you know, my, my test for, you know, when I've done too much is when, when do I lose my appetite? Yeah. He just doesn't want to eat anymore. Just keep lifting until he doesn't want to eat.

Like I just, and you're like, wait, hold on. What? That was so good. This man is so crazy. It's great. Crazy in a good way, Doug. Crazy in a good way. Wow.

Take us on out of here, Andrew. I will. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. While we're at it, I'll probably put a link down in the description for Doug's YouTube channel. It'd be really cool for him to get out there and get more information. So go ahead and give him a sub right here on YouTube just because he's such a cool dude. He's a friend. Dope.

Yeah, he's a friend of Super Training, friend of the podcast. So let's go ahead and support him. Please make sure you follow the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Twitter. And if you have not done so already, please subscribe to the new power project newsletter links down in the description, as well as the podcast podcast show notes.

My Instagram is at I am Andrew Z and on Twitter at the same handle at I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at? I didn't see me on Instagram, YouTube, and it's me on Tik Tok and Tik Tok. I can speak Mark at? At Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube. At Seema Inyang on TikTok and TikTok. TikTok. TikTok.

I can speak. Mark. At Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later.