Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 502 - Natty GOAT Bodybuilder Doug Miller

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Doug Miller is a 2x Natural Pro-Bodybuilding World Champion, the CEO of Core Nutritionals. Core Nutritionals is a supplement company that was founded and still currently run by Doug and his wife Stephanie, who is also a drug-free pro figure competitor. Using his background in biochemistry, Doug focuses on producing superior products that are proven to help elite athletes and weekend warriors with their athletic goals. 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: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢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

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Highly, highly, highly recommend you check out the Flatiron Steak because what Nseema just said, it's ridiculously high in protein and insanely low in fat. Go check that out right now. What up, Power Project crew? This is Josh Setledge, aka SettleGate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Doug Miller. Doug Miller is a two-time natural pro bodybuilding world champion and the CEO of Core Nutritionals. Core Nutritionals is a supplement company that was founded and is still currently run by Doug and his wife, Stephanie, who is also a drug-free

pro figure competitor. Using his background in biochemistry, Doug focuses on producing superior products that are proven to help elite athletes and weekend warriors with their athletic goals. No proprietary blends, fillers, placebo powders, or trace ingredients, Doug's company, Core Nutritionals, strives for transparency and excellence within their community and with their consumers. and with their consumers. Doug is also the host of his own podcast called Ask the Boss, and he has also been credited with the freakiest all-natural arms of all time. But nobody wants to hear about arm training and getting big biceps, because that's a different story. Please enjoy this conversation with Doug Miller.

His upper body seems to be the thing. His legs don't seem like... I feel like they should be bigger. It's like O upper body seems to be like the thing. Like his legs don't seem like... I feel like they should be bigger. It's like O'Hearn. Like he's like, you know, like he's just fucking jacked. Yeah, he's jacked and huge. He's a lot of muscle. Who are you guys talking about, though?

The Rock. Okay, The Rock. Yeah, The Rock is huge. Yeah. He's a massive individual. 6'5". I think someone was like asking about his body weight not too long ago, and he was like, yeah, I'm 283 pounds.

Yeah. It is what it is. When you're Samoan, man, it's Samoan and black. Yeah. Mind you. It's got that combination. He's got the... He's like, that's the combo.

I think it's the same combination of Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. Oh, really? Samoan and black. Oh, shit. Huge. Huge. Huge with good genetics. I mean, look at our boy, Michael Trent. You know, he's been, I talked to him this morning, and I think he said he's a pound

heavier today than he was when he was 16. He posted a video. And I'm like, I'm about five pounds lighter than I was when I was 16. Yeah. No way. Yeah, he was like 240 i'm like i'm about five pounds lighter than i was when i was 16 yeah no way yeah he was like 240 something like that that's crazy i'm about the same he's taller than i am and just he has a bigger structure than i have yeah i was 220 at 16 and handsome no you're handsome now i'm okay. I think you're kind of handsome. I was probably like a buck 25. You serious? Yeah.

Oh, shit. Yeah. All right. You're a tall, stringy little guy. Well, so was Stan Efferding. I know. Look at him now. Our boy Rhino?

Yeah. No, he was never skinny. Rhino, there's no way. There's no way. Rhino is hanging out with Bones Jones. Wait, really? Yeah yeah you're not supposed to tell anybody he's oh oh god uh we can bleep that whole thing out no i think he had it on his uh i think bones even had it on his social media that he was hanging out with uh efforting that's sick

yeah i uh i set that up through our uh our buddy jordan that uh has been training bones and who's been a fan of the podcast and a fan of Super Training Jim for a long time. So we'll have to have Jordan on the show, too, and have him. He was mentioning wanting to come up here to Super Training. So that would be great to have him come up from New Mexico. But Jordan is the guy that's training bones. You know, you see bones doing those like rack deadlifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, today we're going to talk a lot about genetics and just what we think is possible and you don't have to look for freakier genetics any further than the jones family right like he bones jones and i think two of his brothers in the nfl pro athletes all around and i think like at least one of them like just like he's been all pro like he might even be in line to be uh maybe a future hall of famer and then here's uh bones himself being perhaps the greatest fighter that anyone's ever seen i mean some wild genetics in that family it's absolutely insane i was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day about like why i would never do mma or you like even try to do that because like those guys and those weight classes are like bones

is six four his reach is immense right and he he's coming from light heavyweight I think yeah right so like I'd be over here and he would be able to like fucking reach me and he'd be towering over me now the heavyweights Brock Lesnar oh yeah I those, men. I don't need that shit. I ain't going to fight that. Yeah, that's some wild. You know, when I was a kid, I remember going through, like, elementary school and middle school and high school. And I remember, like, in elementary school, I remember, like, you know, running on the playground and playing sports and stuff. And I remember arm wrestling some of my friends. And and like, I was better than most of them. Every once in a while, someone would catch me on something and I'd be frustrated.

I'd be like, what's this about? And that's actually when I started looking to training, like not too long after like fifth grade, it was like sixth, seventh grade is when I started to like train and train more often and start to like lift. I started to like train and train more often and, and start to like lift. But even like once I started lifting, then the separation got greater. Like there was nobody in my middle school that was anywhere near the strength I was. Cause I trained,

I actually lifted. I remember at a very young age, like bench and three 15, I think I was like 14 or 15 years old. Like, so, and my brother Chris squatted, I think he squatted high sixes before he got out of high school. He's squatting like 660,

670 in high school in a squat suit with knee wraps on, but also drug tested and like we didn't know anything about steroids or anything like that then. My brother Mike was always strong. He didn't was always strong he didn't really even uh he didn't train with the same consistency but he could walk into the gym and squat 500 pounds for some reps fairly easy with good form and he had just whatever reason he had like good mobility he could move really well or me and kristen didn't have any of that um yeah the family's just like when it came to strength we we're pretty good. Um, but if you look at my genetics or if you look at my family and you look at like, my

dad is like five, five, you know, he's very, he's very short. Uh, my dad is also a guy that uses his brain. He's an accountant. He's an, he's kind of a nerd, right? Um, my uncles and aunts and stuff, they have kind of a thicker like structure even, you know, minus, uh, you know what they look like in their body fatts and stuff, they have kind of a thicker like structure, even, you know, minus, you know, what they look like in their body fat levels and stuff. But I don't think that I come from some sort of amazing stock, but my stock was good enough to be stronger than most. And then so it's easy for me to extrapolate and say, oh, I understand how some of these outliers exist. I

understand how people can have genetics that could be much further along than whatever it was that I got. Like our guest. What's up? What's up? What's up? How's it going, guys? What's up, Doug? Going well. It's going well. Great to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for your time. We're super excited to kind of dive into some of this. Why don't we kind of start here? Why don't we start out with what got you into lifting weights? What got you into bodybuilding? Somebody

beat you up? What happened? No, man, I was always a really skinny kid. I was a good athlete as a kid. But when I went off to school, I just didn't have the size to play at the level that I wanted to play at. So I decided to just pursue, you know, academics over athletics. And then when I got to school, I was used to, you know, um, you know, I was a swimmer. I played baseball and I played soccer. So I was used to training for long periods of time. And so when I got to school and I wasn't training for any like event or anything, um, I missed it. I missed it. And I had, you know, one of my buddies freshman year in the dorms was just he was big into, you know, muscle mags and stuff like that. And he's like, come on, let's just go to the gym. So, you know, he brought me to GNC, got me a big tub of, you know, some type of shitty protein. And, you know, the rest is history. I was pretty much hooked. where did you start in terms of like your weight when you started lifting because i'm curious about that and then also when it comes to like off-season weight and competition weight nowadays what does that look like how much muscle did you gain after you started lifting yeah so i started man i was

probably a buck 30 soaking wet you know i'm five nine so i was skin i was shredded like i had i had a good six pack but that you know you know, that, that doesn't count when you're 130 pounds. Right. Um, you were shredded before you started lifting, you were shredded. Yeah. I mean, I was always lean. I mean, cause I did, uh, like I said, I was a swimmer. I was a competitive swimmer. And so like, um, yeah, I was lean. I was lean. You know, I had good muscle like shape. Um, but I just, I didn't know enough about nutrition or anything. Like I just didn't eat, you know, like it was just an afterthought, you know, back then it was 20 some years ago. So, um,

it just never dawned on me. And like, I didn't have anyone around me telling me I needed to eat more, you know? So when I went to school, um, I was probably 130 pounds, uh, when I went to college and, um, you know, after I got hooked, um, it really, it wasn't until like halfway through my freshman year, I really got into training, but I still didn't really figure things out that summer. I was like, screw it. I'm going to put on some size. And I literally started eating boxes of cereal at night. And I gained that summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college, I gained about 30 pounds and stayed lean. So I went from like 130 to 160 in a summer. And then, you know, just slowly gaining from there, you know, my first competition,

I was probably on stage in the 160s. Then I started competing in the, you know, 10 pounds heavier pretty much every time I competed, um, initially. And then the last time I competed, which, you know, I haven't competed since 14. Um, the last time I competed, I was, uh, got up to probably two 17 first thing in the morning. And I ended up dieting down to probably right around one 91 91, and then carved up to probably 200. Like I do a, like a rapid backload. So a ton of carbs, uh, you know, 1200 grams of carbs, 10 grams of sodium, just, you know, three gallons of water the day before show. So I really fill out. Um, but I get down, I probably say like my stage ready weight was

probably like low one nineties. Wow. Yeah. That's still holding on some pretty good size, especially in consideration of how, uh, how lean you get, you know? And I think, you know, what I've seen from a lot of bodybuilders is, uh, it, it appears that a lot of the high level bodybuilders start out on the thinner side and they maybe have a metabolism that can handle, like you said, you ate a bunch of cereal. When I was a kid, because I wasn't lean, when I did eat a bunch of cereal, I got bigger and I got stronger. But that also accompanied a good amount of body fat as well. Yeah. I mean, I always, I'm probably like an ecto-mezo, you know, like those terms that, you know, I could put on muscle pretty quickly.

But I honestly don't, you know, my parents are going to kill me if they ever watch this. You know, I could put on muscle pretty quickly, but I honestly don't, you know, my parents are going to kill me if they ever watch this, you know, I don't have the best genetics, you know, like they, you know, they just, I mean, they're not bodybuilders or anything like that. My dad's got good calves, you know, but, but, uh, yeah, I mean, uh, what about other family members, other family members that maybe lift that are blood related nope no i don't have anybody i'm the i'm like the freak in the family like i i'm the only one that is like a gym bro you know like yeah my brother's three years older than me he's you know total dad bod rocking it out um does he work out though does he try uh meh you know like he'll ride a recumbent, but he'll ride his, what's it, what is that?

The recumbent bike that everyone's on. You know, like that, that's about it. You know, like he was into rowing in college, which probably the, he was a swimmer in high school, but other than that, now he's just rocking the dad bod. And your parents, did they ever do any training? Like, cause like, okay, it feels like, or like from what you're telling me man you know like you weren't that big then you just discovered lifting and it's like something within your genes fucking clicked and you put on all this muscle so maybe your parents if they just trained they'd gain 80 pounds i mean possibly you know my mom's side man if she ever watches like a little thicker in the the legs area you know my mom's side man if she ever watches like a little thicker in the the leg area you know my dad's got good calves and he he was a he was always a skinny like i get the skinny side

from my my dad's side he was always ecto but like um you know he was a good athlete you know played a lot of sports i mean he's 73 years old now he's still crushing tennis you know two hour matches every day so like um you know an athlete but who knows what would happen you know, two hour matches every day. So like, um, you know, an athlete, but who knows what would happen, you know, if he actually trained, he got into like lifting after, you know, probably about 10 years ago when he saw me competing and stuff, you know, he started going to the gym and I think it was really just to kind of brag on his son, you know, so he could go to the gym and, you know, do that whole thing. But, um, yeah, no, they would never have a history of lifting or anything. Was it hard for you to put on muscle?

I mean, you said you ended up putting on approximately 30 pounds and maybe like a summer. Um, and then it seems like from that point you put on like another 30 pounds over like a decade or whatever it was. Um, is it, was it tough for you to put on muscle or did you find it to be fairly easy as maybe in the beginning? Oh man, it was, I mean, that's, I think why it was so addicting in the beginning and why I became so obsessed. I mean, man, if you gain 30 pounds and I was still lean, like I gained 30 pounds, but I could still, you know, my abs were showing and like, you know,

I mean, this is 18 or 19. You want the ladies to be looking at you the right way. And you know, like I'm doing it for other reasons. Right. I didn't want to be just that skinny little kid. Right. Um, but no, I, I gained pretty fast and I think that's one of the reasons why I became so obsessed with it. And, you know, I love seeing progression. So like I, I documented my training. So like I have all my training journals. I still do it when I work out. Um, you know, like I have every workout written down. So, so you know i can go back to when i was 18 years old 20 you know three years ago and i have no i know what those workouts are so seeing that progression you know weighing myself and seeing that weight go up and making gains i think that's why i became so you know obsessed with it um you know it definitely tailed off you know probably

um you know when i in my late 20s you know obviously probably, um, you know, when I, in my late twenties, you know, obviously the gains you're, once you start approaching your, you know, really your genetic limits, it's much harder to, you know, put on weight as fast, but I definitely in the beginning, um, you know, I mean, I worked hard, you know, I worked hard at it, but like it, it did come pretty easy. If we were to take like a hundred people and we were to have them, let's say, play the piano. Right. And, you know, out of those hundred people, it's agreeable that 10 of them are pretty good. And then those 10 people like studied a little bit more and they actually learned how to play the piano. They got like lessons.

You'd see that like five or six or a couple of them would make some pretty good progress. Why is it so hard for someone to believe that when it comes to lifting weights, that someone could have some of this already inside of them and that just the lifting of weights could maybe express some of the genes and genetics that are already within us rather than us having something outside of our body, steroids or some sort of performance enhancement. In the case of the piano, we're not thinking like, oh, this kid clearly took something because look at the progress he made on the piano. I mean, it's a little ridiculous if we're being honest, right?

So why do you think there's such fascination when it comes to the human body? We see it in other sports like basketball. It's kind of easy to like line up some guys that are fairly tall and, and there's a couple of dudes that can dunk and there's some that just can't. And there's one guy that like practices every day. He does so much. He works on his vertical. He does all this stuff that he's kind of supposed to do and he just can't ever do it. And the other guys there, you know, uh, doing 360 dunks and just hanging off the rim and able to do all kinds of stuff. Why do you think when it comes to the, you know, building up the human body,

why there's such a fascination on whether in particular your case, whether you're natty or not? Yeah, man, that's a, that's a tough question. I mean, that's, that's the million dollar question, right? Like why, why do people, you know, act like this, you know, because they, I think, you know, part of it is they just want to feel better about themselves. Right. Like, um, I think that's really the key, but I mean, the good point is though, that it's like, they don't do it for like basketball players. They don't, they're not claiming all these, you know, freak basketball players are

on drugs. Um, you know, I don't know, man, it really does come down honestly to insecurity, uh, in really honestly at social media these days, right? Like it's, it's all that insecurity. And a lot of people just don't want to believe that you can get there with hard work because honestly they don't want to do it. You know, like a lot of people just don't want to put in the work. I mean, to be excellent, to be like a champion at everything, to be one of like a grand master at chess or whatever. I mean, all this, all the research shows it's over like 10,000 hours of perfect practice. Not many people want to, not many people have that grit. Everybody wants the end result, but a lot of people just don't want to put in that work. So it's a lot easier to say,

oh man, he's on drugs. You know, like what's, you know, that's why I'm never going to look like that. I don't need, you know, what's the point, you know? Um, so I think a lot of it comes down to just their own insecurities. The crazy thing though, especially about yourself is that, okay, I don't know what you're like, you said you had your training logs since you started, but I remember back in like 2014 when I saw you like competing and stuff, I'm like wait how the hell does this guy train what's his training look like and then when I saw some like when I saw you post and talk about your training I'm like this volume is demonic like this shit doesn't make any

sense and and the thing is is like you built up to that type of volume over decades but I remember trying that type of shit one day and I was like, I can't get through half of this training volume. Right. So, so it's like, it makes everything you've done up until this point, even if somebody did manage to train that way,

it doesn't mean that they're going to be as big as you, obviously. Like we all have our different genetics, but the fact that you built yourself up to be able to train with that type of volume. And if you could talk to us about that, that'd that'd be so helpful so people know what i'm talking about here um without getting injured really like if i when i attempted that shit i'm like my back's gonna blow out seriously like the 20 deadlifts and shit like what makes no sense so i mean i

when i set my mind on something like it's's like, I'm like completely committed all in. And so in bodybuilding, being fully committed is not just lifting the weights day in and day out. Right. Like it's, you know, it's a lot of it, you know, it's diet, right. Diet outside of it, eating the right things. But a lot of people know how to diet. Diet's not really rocket science. People try to come up with fat, but that's, it rocket science. But I go all in and I want to just really push myself. I don't want to leave anything on the table. So when I started training, I was pulling in sources from everywhere. And this is like when the internet was just starting. I mean, shoot, we're talking AOL days,, dial up modem days. Right. And so like,

I would just gobble, I studied biochemistry and so I was kind of into the science of it too. So I started just researching everything I could on the internet and I tried everything, you know, I tried all the training, you know, following skip LaCour and like the max OT and like the dog crap training and like, you name it, I, I, I did it. And,. And what I found is I felt the best and made the most gains when I was just completely like taxing myself to like the limit in terms of volume intensity. And I didn't really constrain myself from the fact of the, I don't want to say myth because there is, it is a thing, but like overtraining, right? Like I think a lot of the, I don't want to say myth because there is, uh, it is a thing, but like, uh, overtraining, right? Like I think a lot of people, a lot of naturals, uh, to be honest with

you are concerned with, I'm going to overtrain. So they go in there and they do three sets. Oh, no. If you do a four set of 20 reps, man, you're done. You know, like you might as well take a week off, you know, to make sure you, so I didn't listen to any of that shit. Um, and so I just wanted to see, you know, I pushed myself to a point where there were diminishing returns. And then, then I found my sweet spot. So for me, um, you know, I can do a heavy weight for a lot of reps, but I'm not a power lifter. Like if you tell me to pull 800 pounds, there's no way in hell I'm going to get close to pulling 800 pounds. You tell me to rep, you know, four 95 for 20 reps or, you know, four or five for 30 reps, you know, I can do that. And so I, that was just the way my training kind of pushed me to go. Cause I was making a lot of gains with like, you know, higher rep training, but still pushing the

weight. Um, and it just turned it, my training right now is, and just generally over the last 10 or 12 years has changed to, I do a lot of high rep sets. So I'll post my workout sometimes on Instagram and people are like, you're not really doing this. Um, and like a lot of sets are 20, my back days, just about all 20 reps. So now it's not lightweight. Like I'm going to failure. I'm going pushing a lot of heavy weight. A lot of those are acclimation sets too, but I do train in the higher rep range. Um, and I love volume. You know, my workouts probably take, you know, upper body an hour and a half lower body for sure. Two hours. That's just,

it's just, is what it is. Like, I just couldn't get it done. Cause I don't really like wash the clock and make sure I'm getting 90 seconds rest. I think all that's kind of bullshit. Um, so yeah, I mean, I've just kind of transformed to a style of training that is higher rep, higher volume, um, you know, supersets, quad sets, you know, all the, all the different intensity techniques, drop sets. I'll throw all that in. Um, not every workout, not all the time. Um, but I, when I'm working out, like I, I'm not working out, like I'm training, like I'm

not really training for anything now, but like, I think there is a difference between training for a purpose and then just, I'm going to go get my workout in. Right. Um, so I really try to make progress, uh, even at 41 years old now, like I try to make progress in some aspect, every workout. I think it's almost like unknown, you know, like, uh, what's the difference between like, like, what does it do for your body? I mean, obviously like we have some evidence when we see people that are in great shape like you and we hear these consistent things over a period of time. But like, it's really interesting. Like, what does it do to the human body when you go from being able to do a five by five

with 405, which would be 25 reps, or you're able just to do 25 straight reps? You know, what does that do for the metabolism? Or you're able just to do 25 straight reps. You know, what does that do for the metabolism? I mean, it only makes sense that that would lead to you being like more efficient in terms of recovering from set to set and sometimes even from rep to rep and from workout to workout. It just kind of it makes sense that you would that you would be in great shape. I mean, look at a lot of the CrossFitters. You know, they kind of possess some of the same abilities that you're talking about. They can deadlift 600 pounds, but it's at the end of a 5K trail run.

And it's like no one's ever really done that before. Like no one knows what that looks like. But now that we're starting to see people do that, look at the great shape that they're in. And they're about 200 pounds, and they hold a pretty good amount of muscle. I mean, they're nowhere near, you know, an onstage like professional bodybuilder or anything like that, but I don't think anyone would expect them to be because they're responsible for so many other, uh, aspects of training. What have you noticed for yourself being able to like increase, uh, you know,

being able to go from like four or five for a set of five or six. And then now I think I've seen you do like five 85, I think for like 10. Yeah, that was, I'm not doing 585 now for 10. Cause I, I still want longevity here. Like I'm probably not that strong. Uh, I probably won't deadlift like that anymore, but like I'll still do, you know, 15 reps with, you know, four 95, 500 pounds, something like that. Um, you know, when I first started training, it was because I was obsessed with beating the log book. So I would put four Oh five on there. And that was my thing. Every back, every Tuesday was back day. You know, I trained like a bro. Like I love a bro split body part per day type of thing. People bust my balls about it all the time, but you know, whatever. Um, so yeah, I trained like

a bro every Tuesday was back day. And you know, I remember going in there and it was just like, all right, I'm getting 13 reps this day. And then next week all right i'm gonna get 14 i don't get 14 reps i'm gonna get it next week and it was just i became an obsession and it just was this thing like i'm kind of known for my high rep deadlifts but i just love the feeling after doing that and when you train like that man there, there's no other feeling of being completely exhausted and walking out of that gym. And man, I think it definitely helped rev my metabolism because I could put down some food. So it definitely allowed me to eat more than I normally would have just because I'm naturally skinny. If I'm not working out and forcing food, like I'm going to, you know, become just skinny guy again. Um, so like, it definitely made me, um, conscious about my food and putting, you know, getting my calories up and that, you know, obviously that's

going to translate, you know, hard training and a lot of food is definitely going to translate to gain. So, um, you know, it's funny you mentioned CrossFit because I always joke that, you know, if CrossFit was around when I first started getting into training, we're talking like this is 98, 97, 98 now. Man, I would totally be a CrossFitter because when I was coming out of, you know, I could run a five minute mile. You know, I could swim for miles on end. Yeah. I haven't run in 10 years now. Like literally, I haven't run in 10 years.

You should still maybe consider it. Maybe you'd have fun with it. Yeah. You know, maybe. like literally i haven't run in 10 years still maybe consider it maybe you'd have fun with it yeah i'm you know maybe but you know the risk of injury and some of the stuff that they're doing now you know is just uh is a little nuts some of those olympic lifts but um yeah i always thought man i would be i would totally have gotten into crossfitting um if it was you know 10 years later i don't think people really like pay attention to like your athletic background. Like when we exactly, when you talk about the type of stuff you used to do, you were probably putting down a crazy amount of food at that point too. I think this just ended up helping you

translate everything really well in terms of the way you lift because you did high volumes of cardio type work when you were a swimmer, a soccer player, et cetera. And you kind of do the same stuff now, but it's just translated into the way you lift so yeah that's a big deal i mean for me it's definitely you know it's funny i see so i got a i have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old and uh my seven-year-old boy they're both boys um my seven-year-old is i swear he's mini me like he is just he's a natural he's a natural at everything like in terms of sports like hand-eye coordination like he was throwing and catching a football at like three years old like he's just a little you know he's got great coordination and um you know he's gonna know a lot more with him growing up in school than i did right like that boy is gonna eat like i'm already putting good principles in his you know

in his head you know not push him he can do whatever he wants i don't care what he does but like if he wants to do something i'm gonna help him um and you know the one his head, you know, not push them. He can do whatever he wants. I don't care what he does, but like, if he wants to do something, I'm going to help him. Um, and you know, the one thing I was lacking was food and it was always, um, I just didn't eat when I figured out how to eat and like how much food I actually needed to eat to gain. That's when my life was changed pretty much. Um, and so I, I see it in my son now, like he's skinny, you know, he's pretty, he's pretty jacked as a little seven-year-old, like he's skinny, you know, he's pretty, he's pretty jacked as a little seven year old. Um, but like, you know, he's naturally skinny and a great athlete. So, uh, you know, it's going to be fun to watch him as he comes up, you know, through high school

and, you know, has the, uh, the right knowledge that, you know, that I just lacked when I was his age. Do any of these, uh, videos bother you, you know, Natty, you're not people trying to expose you and people trying to, you know, line not people trying to expose you and people trying to, you know, line you up with your old pictures and then trying to line you up with other people that claim they're natural and things like that. Like, does that,

do you ever end up watching any of these things or do they ever land on you the wrong way? I have people sending them to me all the time. Like, so I was just on a podcast not too long ago. long ago and after that all man there was a shit storm of uh what was the guy's name you know more plates more dates or something like that and like you know like all these like ridiculous things people are sending to me i was like dude first of all i don't have time to watch that shit i don't have 20 minutes to watch some guy i'm too busy training

about whether i'm at nash yeah right right. Exactly. Um, you know, and sometimes I'll read through the comments and then if I just like hung on those comments, I'd be in a pretty dark, pretty dark place. So to be honest with you, it really, honestly, um, just because I don't absorb that, like it doesn't bother me. And, you know, as I said before, like you are either a shitty natural bodybuilder or you're on drugs, according to the world of Instagram. Yeah. You can't be anything in between. Yeah, that's great.

It's the truth. Yeah. So, you know, I would rather be accused of being on drugs than being a shitty natural bodybuilder. I mean, that's just me. Like, you know, they're going accused of being on drugs than being a shitty natural bodybuilder i mean that's just me like i you know they're gonna believe what they're gonna i've posted my drug testing results i you know all that anybody can come and drug test but you're off cycle that's why you're just you were just off cycle when you got tested that's all yeah well anytime anytime well you know i kind of joked i was like man i should just go on a bunch of shit and prove them all wrong you know like come out at like 260 and be like, now I'm on drugs.

Right. Just to prove them wrong. But, but no, I mean, I, I don't let that stuff bother me. If, if I did, man, I would just be in, I'd be in a dark place. I mean, honestly, it's just a lot of insecurities that they have. They feel better about themselves because they know that, you know, they might not be able to to do that they might not be able to put in the hard work or don't have the genetics or whatever it is and so you know they're just keyboard warriors i'm not really worried about it that some of them have been pretty entertaining i had this one guy said i was a

part of the illuminati and he drew these lines from like my forehead to the spot on my shoulder which he swore was an injection mark so i guess growth hormone marks on my stomach and he connected all the dots into a triangle and my nipple was like the eye of the illuminati and it was this whole conspiracy i swear this is a real thing on it you need to make a shirt out of this stuff this sounds amazing yeah the illuminati i guess i'm the leader of the thatuminati. That's a better nickname than Drug Miller. Yeah. Drug Miller is pretty classic, though. Yeah.

It's all good. It's all good. So here's another question I think that will be interesting to learn about. Why have you – so you're obsessed with bodybuilding. You wrote down every workout from the time you were a kid. You've been fired up about it. You're into supplements. You're into the food.

You're into the whole process. How come you never got into steroids? Because they help make you bigger and they help make you more jacked. Yeah. I mean, honestly, you know, in my early 20s, I definitely thought about it. Like I knew people on steroids and, you know, it is appealing. Like you're training and you don't look like the Flex magazine. Like what the heck's going on here? You know, when I first started training, I didn't even really knew. And then, you know, I started, you know, researching and, you know, doing all that stuff. And honestly, at the end of the day, I was making really good gains as a natural. And then once I competed natural and I won my first novice show, and then the next show

that I did, I won my first, I won my pro card in my second show. Like, man, like, why do I need to go over into this organization when I'm like, I'm kicking ass right now. Right. So for me, I knew I wasn't going to make a living being a bodybuilder per se. It's funny cause I'm kind of a bodybuilder now for a living. But, um, you know, I really knew that I wasn't going to go down that route. And honestly, there's a couple other reasons. There's one is it's illegal. Like, you know, it's not, unless I have a prescription for it, it's illegal. Um, and I'm, I'm a too much of a puss for needles. And to be honest with you, I like looking good all the time.

Right. And so like, realistically, you know, I mean, I guess a lot of people do, uh, use year round now, but like, that's not healthy. Um, and so, you know, I wanted to look good all the time. And so if you're going on drugs and coming off and going on, like you can see the yo-yo, I mean, you see it all the time and like some people look good and then they're in their off season, they go to a guest posing and they look like a bag of shit, right? Like it just, it doesn't't it's not appealing to me in any way and to be honest with you like especially now as i you know i've always wanted to have a family now i have a family like man i want to be around as long as i possibly can i'm in this for the longevity of it so like you see all these stories like sure you can use drugs safely and if there's like trt and all of

that but you know i've seen the mental aspect of people going on drugs and they can't deal when they're not, you know, when they're off the drugs, you know, they're depressed and they're just all this, like, I have too much at stake to, you know, put myself through that. I just really do. So really it's a combination of all of those things. I was successful starting out in natural bodybuilding. So I kind of just went that route. I, you know, I really, I, I really, really disliked needles. Like I thought I was going to be a doctor when I, when I was going off to college at first. And that's why I started studying biochemistry. And then I had to give blood one time I shit,

like almost passed out. And I was like, you know, why not forget this so like i mean there's so many different reasons um but for me right now you know it's just i'm really thankful i went that route like and i'm not a holier than thou natty like i don't look down at people that have chosen to use like like i said i know a lot of people that use and it's all good just my thing is just if you're going to use don't compete with the naturals compete in your organization but you at the end of the if you want to be the best, you're going to have to work just as hard or harder. You're still going to have to put in the work. So I have respect for that, and I have respect for the freedom of choice. So if you want to use that, use, then go ahead.

I don't look down on people for using, that's for sure. I like all the stuff you're mentioning. I don't look down on people for using this for sure. I like all the stuff you're mentioning. There's a lot that goes into, you know, considering taking anabolics other than just like, I want to be bigger. Like that's, that may be the case. You want to be bigger, but at the same time, if you don't really learn a good amount about it, I think you're making a big mistake because they are like, they could, I guess you can make an argument that steroids could be taken in a reasonable

fashion to where it's not going to be like super harmful to you or whatever, but you are messing around with your hormones. And for every, for every like give there's a take, you know, for every direction that you force something to go in, there's another direction that something's going to go in, there's another direction that something's going to go in another direction. And when you do take steroids, when you do take performance enhancing drugs, you may have to consider that you have to donate blood.

You may want to get blood work done regularly. You're going to have to learn about the chemistry of all this stuff. You're going to have to learn about anti-estrogens. You're going to have to learn about, you know, what else do you need? Like if you're going to come off of these anti-estrogens you're going to have to learn about you know what else do you need like if you're going to come off of these things can you just come off cold turkey or is that disastrous if you're somebody that has ever suffered from any sort of depression because now you know you were taking this thing that made you feel like superman you love lifting weights now you pull the rug out from under yourself what's that going to do to you you know like there's a lot to consider and And I think that unfortunately, a lot of people don't really think a lot of these things through.

They're like, I just want to be fucking bigger and stronger. Like I have a powerlifting meet coming up or I want to do this or I want to do that for myself, even though for I've been in like the public eye for, I don't know, 10 years or so. This whole process started for me when I was 25, but I already started lifting when I was about 12. And at 25, I was like, I think I can still make progress, but I keep trying to get leaner. I keep trying to get bigger and I toggle back and forth between the two. And every time I try to get bigger, I kind of also just get fatter. And every time I get leaner, I pretty much just keep getting smaller. And so I was like, you know what?

It's probably just time for me to just give this a try, you know, and give this a shot. But it wasn't out of nowhere. I was thinking about it. That's a lot different than most people, right? Like most people are like, you know, 21. They're in college and they want to look good. And like they want some quick results. And then they just, next thing you know, like they just are like you know 21 they're in college and they want to look good and like they want some quick results and then they just next thing you know like they just look like shit like i was i was so ignorant to all this like the gym where i did

a lot of my training uh even in arlington a bunch of the bros there like i come to find out that a bunch of them were using they looked like they didn't look good at all right they just were kind of puffy and didn't know what they were doing. I was like, you guys even know what you're doing? You know, like, and, um, it was just, you know, it sounds like you at least did your research and knew what you were getting into. Whereas a lot of people, like a lot of people that I knew were just, you know, you know, injecting whatever that the guy at the gym gave him. I read up on it from the time I was young and I was always like, I'm going to do that at some point. Like, that sounds really cool to me. I, I was fascinated by it. Like I loved when I was a kid,

I loved professional wrestling. When I was a kid, I, when I, the first gym I ever went to, there was like power lifters and bodybuilders in there and people were huge. And I, I kind of, you know, after I trained there for a while and i started to kind of hear the way everyone talked and stuff and i was like okay i think these guys use you know these same performance enhancing drugs i heard the pro wrestlers use and stuff and so for me it was like i kind of always knew i was going to do it but i did research it i did look into it a lot i read a

lot of magazines i read a lot of articles on it and try to be as up to date as I could be. I also already had my first kid before I ever considered doing anything because I didn't know what the repercussions of any of that were going to be. But I think it is something like people really, it's not something that you're just like, I'm going to run a cycle and kind of see what happens. I think that's haphazard. I don't think that's a good way to go about doing it. Yeah, man. I mean, it's just, I've seen it a lot and I'm, you know, the gyms around here, it isn't really that widespread, but like, I definitely can tell somebody goes on it and like you talk to them and they don't even, they clearly don't even know how to diet. Like you just talk to them about diet and training. They don't even have that stuff in

place. And then they jump on stuff cause they think it's going to make it easier. But long-term effects has just, for me, it's just not worth it. Kind of on that note, when you did the, I think it was 14 or 15, you did the Yorton cup,

which is the top natural bodybuilding show. You won that. I don't know if you want any other top shows then, but you won the Yorton cup. And then you also went into an NPC show and you won that NPC show, right? So now you're competing against some guys that are on drugs and you you won the overall on that show right yep after winning that show i don't know if that was your first npc show ever though but

after winning that show were you just like huh did you ever wonder like i wonder if uh i just decided to just f some things up down here did that ever cross your mind or you were just like, I did, you did it for fun and then you were out. No. So that, that year I did, um, there was like a, I FPA natural Gaspari pro up in Cape Cod. I won that. That was like two weeks before the Jordan. Then I won the Jordan. And then there was the Jay Cutler classic in Baltimore was a, was a week later. And, um, you know, I really had a mixed thoughts about competing. I literally put

it out. I just got on Instagram. I put out like a poll or I just asked people, you know, do you think I should compete in this? Because for me, I was, you know, like, you know, I guess in the, I was a top of the natural world. And, you know, some, there's a lot of people in the natural world that, like I said said are holier than thou right like and um so like i just put it i was just kind of curious to see what people i had in my mind that i was probably going to do the show and i'll tell you what like 98 percent of the people said no you got to go do the show go represent you know and so so i did and it was funny because i had to sign a piece of paper i was was the only person, like they came up to me.

There was other natural competitors there, but they came up to me because they knew I won the Yorton. They made me sign a piece of paper that said, if I ever compete again as a pro, you know, and like collect money in a, you know, any other organization, I'll be banned from life from the NPC. So I was like, whatever, I'm just going to sign this. You know, I didn't, I, you know, I had no, I wasn't really thinking about the future. I just wanted to compete that day.

Um, so I signed it. Um, and I guess everything was cool then. Cause, um, I guess I was allowed to win the show or compete in the show or whatever. Um, so I competed in the show and, uh, yeah, I won. And, you know, it was funny because nationals was a couple of weeks away and everyone was pushing me to nationals, but it was at a period of time where I had like a six month old, I just quit my day job, like the corporate world. And I was starting, you know, running these businesses on my own. And like, I was just like, bodybuilding was just kind of a hobby and everyone's mind was blown. I was dude you're already in shape you could go down to nationals get your ifbb pro card i was like i don't really care if i get my ifbb pro card and that just pissed a lot of people off i think i

like people just didn't understand that and to me like i just didn't want to diet and i dieted for 26 weeks at that point and so i was just like you know? And, um, it was a great experience, you know, um, that I have great memories from that show, uh, from Jay's show. Um, and I'm glad I did it. Um, but I wasn't really thinking about the future. I wasn't thinking like, Hey man, you know, if I just get on a little stuff, you know, like I can go down there and, you know, do some business. Like I, that didn't even cross my mind, uh, at that point. What do you think some people are maybe missing, you know, do some business. Like, that didn't even cross my mind at that point. What do you think some people are maybe missing, you know, in their efforts to look good as a natural bodybuilder?

Like, where do you think some people are maybe making some mistakes? Because it looks like you've done an amazing job of putting together a body that looks like it could rival, you know, the guys that are on stage or even on stuff. So what do you think maybe some of the natural bodybuilders are maybe just maybe missing yeah i mean i think the biggest thing is and gosh this is going to sound so corny and cliched and all my like motivational speaking shit like i'm not trying to do i'm not trying to do that i'm really not and Andrew, cue the music up. Let's get everybody fired up. Here we go. Yeah.

Um, a lot of people put limits on themselves, right? They, they say that they're a natural, so I'm always going to be a shitty natural. I'm never going to look like this. And then they use that as an excuse and then it compounds and they don't get the results they want. And then they just, um, you know, then they keep using that as an excuse. Honestly, I never cared about that. I kept pushing regardless, you know, even though I was natural, I still wanted to look like the flex magazine. And, um, I think a lot of people are afraid to push like that. Um, and they use being natural as a crutch or an excuse to put in the work. And they use being natural as a crutch or an excuse to put in the work. And that means training hard. Like I talked about earlier, it means not worrying about overtraining.

Your body will tell you when you're overtraining and you'll pretty much shut down and you won't make gains. You won't be getting stronger. But if you're eating right and you prioritize sleep and recovery and the right supplements and all of that, you can push yourself pretty damn hard as a natural. And I think that's a mistake that a lot of naturals take or make. Other than that, there is real no secret. There is no secret. Diet, most people these days know how to diet. Most people know how to count a macro and you can figure out for the most part, um, you know, how to, how to nail a diet. Now there's, there's tweaks and tricks and stuff like that as you're getting closer to a show and stuff. But for the most part, diet is not rocket science. I think the

biggest thing that a lot of people are lacking is that, um, that balls of the wall effort all the time, you know, in, in the training aspect of it. I think if you look at all the great bodybuilders, whether they're natural or they're enhanced, you look at what separates them from the others. And most part is the training. You look at the way Ronnie Coleman trained, right? Like, um, you look at the way other great natural bodybuilders train, they train high volume, heavyweight, you know, kicking their, kicking some ass in the gym. Um, and so I think it's really the training that separates. Um, and, and really it's, it comes down to that mindset again, not to get too corny on you, but I really

think that that is, um, is the truth of what holds a lot of people back. Yeah. I totally agree with you there because like when you were saying, when you started training, you were kind of ignorant to everything around you. Like I started training early too, and I was able to make some early gains and I was kind of ignorant to what everyone was doing until like, I was like 20 something, like early twenties. And then like, I started seeing everyone like, I started learning about all these drugs and shit. But I was like, I was, I've been doing this for a minute.

I've, I've been fine. So what's the reason now? But now with social, it's so hard if you're starting off as a 14 year old wanting to train, but then you see all of this shit. It's hard to be ignorant. You can't just zone in and focus on yourself and focus on your own progress and training. You're now paying attention to everybody else who's making all of this progress in all of these different ways, along with everybody on YouTube who's saying that all of these natties aren't actually natural and it's not actually possible. And that shit's just polluting your mind.

It just makes things harder. And then you really do have the fake natties, right? Which also compound the product. There are, I mean, let's not deny it. There are fake natties out there, right? There are people that claim to be natural that aren't. And then that really is going to fuck with people's heads too, right? That's going to really mess up their mindset. So you add all getting bombarded with all this kind of false advertising from all over the place from one side or the other. And it does make it really difficult. It's,

I think that's a good point. You know, when I was starting up, you know, there's no way I'm getting all that on the internet, you know, with the slow dial up and AOL and all that stuff, it's just not happening.

So it is, if I do recognize that it is more difficult these days. Okay. And then you get people that will say like, Oh, as soon as I get on, that's when everything's going to turn around for me. Right. But you had said earlier that like you did go over the top and you kind of did get some diminishing returns on your training, but you eventually found your sweet spot. About how long did that take? Because like if, you know, I'm listening to the numbers that you're doing and the reps, I'm just like, holy shit. Like I would kill myself if I even tried to do

that with like, you know, a 135. Um, but it would be cool to figure out how to find that, that right sweet spot. But for yourself, uh, roughly, do you remember how long it actually took you to get there? Yeah. And I think, uh, just to be clear, I think that sweet spot changes through time, right? Like my sweet spot now is different at 41 is different than my sweet spot at 30. I think that the thing that I became good at doing is realizing what my sweet spot is at that given time. Right. And so, um, I was,

like I said, I was religious in with the, uh, the training logbook. And so when I was finding, like, I'm doing everything right. I'm, I'm hitting my macros. I'm eating good food. I'm getting eight hours of sleep. I'm doing all the things I should be doing. So there's no reason if I stay healthy that I shouldn't be making progress in the gym. And so I would actually just find that like, man, my bench is stuck at the same weight for three weeks in a row. Something's off. Like maybe, maybe at this point in time, I should back off a little bit. You know, sometimes I am, you know, pushing too much. And then I'd find that I give myself a little bit more rest, back off the volume slightly, and then I blast through a plateau. So it really, there was no,

there was no aha moment or any set time. I think it was just being kind of a student of bodybuilding and really understanding my own body and, um, you know, realizing it at any given time, you know, when to push and when to back off. Um, one of the things that I've learned now that, you know, I'm older is that it's, and I, people say this all the time. It's just like, what happens if I get injured? Do you stop training? I said, no, you, you don't train through it. I think training through something is like an injury is the dumbest thing in the world. You have to train around it. Um, and so, you know, I learned good ways that, you know, if I have little tweaks here and there, um, I'd find good

ways to, you know, train around it. And I think all of that's important. So I think it's really just being in tune with your own, your own body. And that took me probably a good, getting back to your question, that took me probably a good 10 years of training. So like in my late twenties, I really started to understand, um, you know, when to push and when to back off. And, you know, before that, a lot of it was just experimenting, doing every different training, you know, method under the, under the sun, doing ridiculous things and then figuring out what works. All right. We got to ask real quick, as far as your biceps are concerned,

is that just something that's just a strong point for you or, or did you have like, have you ever done anything special that not other people are really doing because your biceps, bro, come on now. Synthol. Synthol. Synthol. No, I show up on a test, right? syntho no i'll show up on a test right they don't they don't prick your bicep um biceps were always one of the i think obviously bicep shape is a lot genetic but when i first was really making gains in my early 20s that was the one man i'm telling you i'm like i was one of those freak guys who would get obsessed and carry around his Tupperware. You know, I was that nerd, that bodybuilding nerd. And, you know, I would train before work.

I would go. So my arm day was the only day that I have two a days. And I trained biceps on their own before work. No, sorry. It was triceps before work. That's right. Because I wanted to be more awake and have more food in me to train my bicep. So I trained like an hour, over an hour of just triceps in the morning. Then I come back and do an hour, hour and a half at night of just biceps. Um, so that's a true story. And I'm not super

proud of that because it's kind of stupid. Um, but I think, I honestly think that has something to do with having, uh, you know, big arms, big biceps. You put a lot of time into it, right? And then how long did you do that for? Do you think you did that for like three years, five years, 10 years? Uh, at least a couple of years I was doing that, you know, so this is probably, this is definitely before I was married. So like, this is like when I was single, um, obviously, um, like 23, 24, 25 in that time period. Yeah. I mean, I was, if I could get, you know, a two a day arm in, yeah, I would do it. Kind of hard to get a date when you have dumbbells in your hands, 24, seven.

Who needs a date when you got, you know, 20 inch arms, man. Um, do you think a lot of, uh, people that are pursuing a better body are, uh, maybe just not eating enough, you know, very often and maybe doing too much cardio and just not, just not allowing their body like a chance to grow. Cardio. I mean,

I'm, I try to, so I, before I got too busy with all these other businesses, things going on, I did a lot of coaching and I've coached hundreds and hundreds of people through competitions. And one of the things that I always try to do is get people to do as little cardio as possible.

And that's, um, that's both in the off season and, you know, in, in dieting, um, you know, with the way I like to see people training, you know, you probably don't need that much cardio on top of it. Not saying that my training is a cardio session because it's not, but you really shouldn't need that much cardio on top of it. So in the off season, I try to take away cardio from people and use as little cardio as possible when getting ready for a show. So I think people definitely overdo that. And the under eating part is certainly true. That was my problem. That was, that was my problem until I was, you know, 18, 19 years old. It was just under eating. Like, and the funniest thing is, is like, somebody will come to me and like, Hey man, I got, I eat so much, man. I eat so much. I eat all the time. I just can't get any weight. Um, you know, how much you eating, you know,

what are your calories? I don't just, just a lot. I'm just eating a lot. Like, you know, you, you really need to understand what you're putting in your body and how much you're putting in. And nine times out of 10, there are a lot is like 2,500 calories, right? When they should be eating probably 3,500 to gain. Um, so I think it's a huge problem. I think a lot of people under eat just because they don't know enough. They don't, they don't even know what they're putting in their body. So I think that's a baseline, you know, like people need to start with a baseline to really figure out where they're at. What do you recommend or what do you think is the,

the best approach to, um, you know, somebody's in prep, they get shredded, they do well, but they want to get bigger. Um, as far as like being off season, like to, to bulk or whatever, um, should they try to stay close to where they, you know, so that way they don't need to go too far. Um, you know, when it does come to show day or, you know, whatever it is that they're trying to lean out for, um, or do you recommend like, no, let's add some weight and then, you know, kind of try to take everything down. Like, what do you think is the best approach? So in my 25 years of doing this, I have never done a mini cut ever. Like the only times I've ever cut were for a specific reason. You know, like I said, going back to one of the reasons why

I didn't do drugs in the first place is because like, I want to look good all the time. So I believe that you really should stay in pretty decent shape. Now that being said, you know, you need to put on some weight. You know, I get 25 pounds over stage weight or, you know, 20, 25 pounds over, but that's like 10%, right? Like, so I think 10 to 15%, you know, is like a, you know, a good number over, but you should do it slowly. Like it takes me just as much time to put the weight on. I did for a show, um, as it, it did to take it off. So like, and sometimes it even takes me longer, you know, it could take me a year. And that's why I like, I never competed every season because man, if you diet for six months to be shredded, it takes you six months to put that way back on. Like if you start dieting again, you're not going to make any gains. You make all your gains when you're in your growth season,

your calories are up and your body fat's a little higher and you can train harder. So, um, I do recommend people. One is like gain slowly, you know, like if you gain a quarter pound a week, you know, shoot, that's, that's a pound a month. That's 12 pounds a year, right? Like if you can put on 12 lean pounds in a year, like that's solid. Um, so for me it's slow and steady, not like the aggressive ball. Um, I think that's always worked best. I think that's one interesting thing that I do see with a lot of like natural bodybuilders or bikini athletes is like, they're competing every year and it doesn't make sense because it's like, where's your, like, you're talking about the season where you're going to be making progress.

You're going to be putting on muscle. How, how does this happen? I mean, from, I think, I don't know what your competing schedule was, but didn't you compete in like 2008 and then the next time you competed was 2014? Was that how it was for you? off. And I, when I obviously like the difference between my 2009 physique and I won the Yonker Cup and my 2014 was crazy. And that's when I got the drug Miller name because clearly I was doing a ton of drugs during that time period. So at a five-year off season, geez. Uh, what are your, what are your, uh, you mentioned, uh, businesses earlier. Um, what are some businesses that you've, uh, gotten yourself into and, actually, what were you doing previously? Because bodybuilding for a lot of people is not a career. So what line of work did you have previously?

Yeah, so I did economic litigation consulting. So I was a big nerd. It was a lot of programming and working with attorneys and all sorts of stuff. So I worked downtown by the White House. I'm over in Northern Virginia right now. Oh, cool. And during that time period, this is kind of how I got into the white house. I'm, I'm over in Northern Virginia right now. Oh, cool. Um, and, uh, during that time period, this is kind of how I got into the supplement game is, um,

during that time period I was eating, remember those EAS myoplex packets? Absolutely. Old school with the maltodextrin and like the shitty protein in there. So like, that's what I lived on when I was like working in the corporate world, you know, between meetings and stuff like that. And I was like, man, there's gotta be a better way. So I took a $20,000 investment of my own. I took my own money and created a meal replacement, uh, based on oat and barley flour, um, slower digesting carbs, something that I wanted to take and, uh, created a supplement company called core nutritionals.

And, uh, really it was just a hobby, you know, it was just cause I just started designing products that I wanted to take, um, founded it around principles that these days are common, like no proprietary blends. But we're talking, this is 15 plus years ago now. So people weren't doing that back then. And it became more successful as I became more successful in natural bodybuilding, kind of grew through the natural bodybuilding world. And then it really took off in about 2013 when I went all in and kind of just quit my day job. I then it really took off in about 2013 when I went all in and kind of just quit my day job. I had the golden handcuffs for a while. I was in a great position. I was making a ton of money, had a lot of people working under me. I didn't have to work

crazy towards the end because I had so many good people under me, but it just wasn't my passion. So I went all in on corn nutritionals, started opening retail stores because again, just like I was not satisfied with the supplements on the market, I wasn't satisfied with the retail options. So we have a chain of retail stores now in Virginia called the nutrition corners. Uh, we have 10 stores out here. Um, and then we started other brands. So we have a GNC exclusive brand with Julian Smith, um, called arms race nutrition. So he's my partner in that. We have America labs, we have America energy, energy drinks. We just have a lot of different branches. So at the end of the day, you know,

we're tied up in the in the supplement industry and that's what takes all my time. And that's what I love to do now. Product development. So that means that you don't sleep. I don't sleep, but it's like a good thing. Like it's my mind. I do sleep, but it's like a good thing like it's my mind i do sleep but it's like a squirrel a lot you know like a squirrel spinning around on a feeder right like that's that's what happens here but uh i wouldn't have it any other way you know we have just an amazing team of people here and i really get to do what i yeah um i do what i love so um i'm very fortunate for that do you have any like big goals with core nutrition coming up with like the

next five years? So we are, we're getting the heck out of Dodge. I can't stand Northern Virginia to be honest with you. So we're going to North Carolina. One of our big manufacturers is North Carolina. So we bought a building that we're just totally gutting and building out our headquarters and we're building the crush of Coliseum, which is our gym. We've been collecting gym equipment during COVID like right out here in my warehouse, there's like, you know, 80 pieces

of like really cool handpicked gym equipment. So we're going to be moving down to North Carolina. We're relocating the whole business. You know, all the, you know, our, our, our core staff here are coming with us. They all bought homes down there and it's just, uh, I'm excited for the transition. You know, we live in Northern Virginia. We, this is Sterling, Virginia, which is the data center capital of the world. So, um, besides being just a little bit crazy here, it's, you know, the wealthiest County in the country. And so like, you know, I put my market, my house on the market today. Um, literally today. And my broker just called me the other day. Somebody just did, I forget how many percent over the amount we were offering within the first 10 minutes of it being on the market. It's insane here. And so we can relocate

down there for business reasons, the next door manufacturer. And, uh, like my employees can sell a $400,000 condo that they live in. That's like thousand square feet and go down there and they're buying brand new homes with two car garages and, you know, half an acre of land. Like it's just insane. Um, so we're excited just about the different way of life, you know, rather than being in the city, we get a little bit more country up in here. Um, you know, and so, yeah, we have a lot of things. We got to, you know, a bunch of different growth opportunities with the brands.

We're relaunching the energy drink this year. COVID kind of kicked that one in the nuts. So we're relaunching this Memorial Day. So, yeah, I mean, it's a constant development here. And that's what makes it fun. What do you think is most misunderstood about supplements? Because I'm just thinking, you know, back when I was taking like literally everything I could find at the stores or whatever, drinking creatine with grape juice because that's what I heard, you know, you're supposed to do on YouTube or whatever.

But at that time, see, told you. But at that time, I was probably like, yeah, in the worst shape ever. But, you know, they're all over the place and they have like these crazy claims, right? Like take this supplement and 10% bigger pumps or whatever, you know, they're all over the place and they have like these crazy claims, right? Like take this supplement and 10% bigger pumps or whatever, you know, bullshit they might spout. But what do you think is the most like misunderstood thing about supplements? There's a couple of things. One is like people think like the supplement industry is like the wild, wild west. And we take pride on doing things the right way.

Supplement industry is like the wild, wild west. And we take pride on doing things the right way. And so there is no real like, I mean, yes, there are a set of laws that govern this. And there's Dish A guidelines and all this different stuff. And but a lot, it's kind of the wild, wild west. When you create a supplement, you don't have to go get it approved by a certain board, right? You don't have to prove that it works. You don't have to do all this and that.

And so the barrier to entry is super low. Um, the barrier to entry to do a supplement company and do it right is actually much, much, much higher, but most people don't do that. Um, and to be honest with you, I didn't $20,000 back then, you know, it took me seven years or so before I started, you know, like, uh, doing everything right. Right. Um, and so I think a lot of people just assume that they have to have, Oh, the products are approved by the FDA and they're this and that, but they're, they're really not. So for me, it's, um, you know, I think knowing where you're getting your supplements from and trusting the people that are making your supplements is a huge thing that a lot of people just kind of take for granted. I think one of the other things which is changing in this industry is that, you know, back in the day when I first started, proprietary blends were huge, right?

So they could put a ton of caffeine in there, put it in a proprietary blend with some other fancy expensive ingredients and use the marketing for those fancy expensive ingredients. But they're not at the efficacious doses, um, you know, in the literature and, uh, in the studies. And so they would market those and they would mismarket them really. Um, I think these days companies are starting to get away from that because the consumer is getting a little, you know, a little smarter. Um, but there's a, there's a lot of misconceptions there. So like one of the big things that I tell people is know where you're getting your supplements, know the people that are making your supplements.

Um, and that's why I think a good supplement companies create a, you know, a community and a culture. Um, because people now want to know where they're getting their stuff from. How about supplements that you think are like the most useful? Because there are, there are a lot of different supplements out there.

There's a lot of things to choose from. And you could find a study to give you a reason to take a certain supplement, even though when it actually comes to applying it, it's not that, you know, it's not that useful. So I don't know. It's like, you know, a guy who owns a supplement company. What would you say are, I guess, top five supplements that are actually beneficial and then top maybe three to five supplements that are hyped up, but really aren't that necessary or as useful as people say they are? Yeah. So, um, I'm a supplement junkie, obviously. Like I, my passion is

supplements. I love the science behind it, man. I take, I can take a handful of pills. I love supplements, right? But starting with the basics, I mean, you really can't... You need a good protein. Right off the bat, somebody comes to me like, let's get started. So a good quality protein sticking... If you can handle whey and you're fine with it, a good solid whey protein or a blend of protein. Most people just don't eat enough, don't get their micros. So I am a believer in a multivitamin. I think a lot of people's diets are incomplete. So a multivitamin with a high dose of vitamin D, I think is important. I am a believer in fish oil. Those are some of the basics, a good quality fish oil. But beyond that, creatine monohydrate, it's boring to me because it's creatine monohydrate, it's, it's boring because

it's boring to me because it's creating monohydrate. It's the first supplement I ever took. I've been taking it for 20 years, but honestly, it's one of the safest, one of the most studied, one of the cheapest to get. Um, so any athletes starting out, you know, wanting to get into supplements, like you start taking creatine, um, just take five grams a day. You don't have to load it and you don't have to mix it into your grape juice or anything like that. Um, you will notice a difference. Um, and then I'm, I'm, I'm a fan of EAAs and BCAs. Um, there's a debate on whether or not, which is better BCAs, EAAs, and really, I think you're really splitting hairs, but I think a good quality amino acid product, um, will definitely make a difference. So I think those are like,

if you're just starting out, I think those are the basics of where I would, I would start you out. Um, there's more fun, you know, supplements like pre-workouts who doesn't like to get all hyped up on pre-workouts and get a sick pump. I mean, like that's great and all, but like you want to have the basics down first. Um, yeah, I mean, in terms of the, the, the three supplements that are kind of like, um, overhyped, um, that that's a, that's a tough one because, you know, I'll, you know, I'll be honest as a supplement company owner, like a lot of supplements are hyped, right? Like that's what they, that's what marketing companies do is they hype them. Um, but I will say that, um, now, now this is where things get a little tricky is that, you know, like people promoting like pro hormones and things which

could potentially be like over the counter, right? Like, but they're really not, cause they're going to affect your endocrine system, you know, specifically. I think those are things that you really got to be careful of, right? Like, because you can mess yourself up just as bad using those and probably worse, right? Because you think you're just taking a supplement, you're not taking a drug, right? So you're a little bit more lackadaisical about it. And you see kids all the time taking pro-hormones and doing things that are marketed as a supplement, but have real effects on your endocrine system. I think that's one. And then I think fat burners, to be honest with you, we make, we make great fat burners. You know,

we make the fat burners that we believe in the science, but at the end of the day, you know, fat burners are known to be that miracle pill. And some people use that as a crutch, right? Like they, they take a fat burner and they're like, oh man, you know, like I'm not losing any weight. It was like, yeah, no shit. Like if your diet's not in place, you're not doing cardio, you're not eating less than you're burning. And of course you're not going to lose weight, right? Like these things are going to help. They're going to be, they're going to be supplements to the basics. So I think those two for sure are ones that, you know, obviously the pro hormones and,

you know, hormonal supplements that are sold as a dietary supplement, you got to just completely avoid the fat burners. You really got to have, when you do decide to use a fat burner, you got to look for a good one in a non-proprietary blend and you got to have your other stuff in a row, right? Like you got to have your diet and your training on point. It's, you know, fun to work on the things that are already, uh, that you're already good at, you know, so training your arms didn't seem like much of a problem. Seemed like you were really way, way into that. Was there a weak point that you had to work on that you were just kind of like, this is fucking annoying. I hate doing calf races or, you know, you have to really work

hard on bringing up your shoulders or your legs or something like that. you know, you have to really work hard on bringing up your shoulders or your legs or something like that. So, uh, actually it's funny cause I, just this morning, uh, um, I made a post, I put a picture up from 2014 and it was a good shot of my chest. My chest has always been a weaker body part for me. And when I say weaker, it's just never held like the, you know, some people just walk around and there's this giant barrel chest that was never me. And it was never like super symmetric. Like I was always critical of my own chest and so like when i was competing i always said to myself man like you're not going to have the biggest chest you're not going to have the most pretty chest you know what you can get the most shredded so um that was kind of the point

of the post i made today because i would get i would first of all i'd work on it like i'd work on it a ton um i'd work it on. Like I'd work on it a ton. Um, I'd work it on it to the point where like, it's funny, it was like my pound for pound, like my weakest body part, but like I had the most fun training it, which is kind of weird. Like I love training chest, even though like, um, um, you know, it was one of my weaker body parts, but like I really focused on it. And so that when I got shredded for that last show, like my goal was just to get as lean as possible so you could see every fiber in your chest. Um, and, um, that was definitely the body part that I kind of focused on in terms of, um, you know, just making sure I had the best that I could do. Uh, cause I was always kind of felt like it was lacking.

What, uh, what did you do to bring it up? Any, any specific exercise or just like do a shit ton of work for it? Hammered it like a bro, you know, like literally like, yeah. I mean like you named like those intensity techniques that I talked about, like that was after every exercise, there was always a drop set. There was always a triple drop set. There was always something. Um, and then, uh, I found actually training chest. Um, I made a lot of gains training body part once a week. Um, I also made gains when I trained it multiple times a week. And I think the science and the studies show that, you know, like hypertrophy

might be better if you're hitting them multiple times a week. Um, but when I started, you know, like throwing some chest in extra chest work in at the end of a shoulder day and kind of like doubling up and give it a second time during the week, um, you know, that definitely helped bring it up. You know, one thing that I will say when it comes to the way that you train and the volume that you trained with, right. A lot of people, including myself, have kind of bashed bro splits. But when someone's doing as much volume as you're doing on a single day on that body part, I can understand why you're not going to hit it again, freaking two or three days later, because that's, that's just not normal.

Like straight up, like the amount of volume that you hit in your back on a back day, why would you touch it again for like another week? Right? Yeah. I'm going to start a movement that let's make bros splits great again. I mean, I really think like, I mean, cause you don't have this conversation a lot with people.

And, um, you know, it's funny, like after I'll go on a podcast and I'll talk about like bro splits, I'll get a lot of people message me. Um, you know, Oh, what's the bros. I was like, bro, bro, you're overthinking. If you're overthinking it, it's not a bro split. One body part of the day is like day is actually really a lot of fun. It's not hard to just think, I'm just going to go train shoulders. It's one thing to focus on, yeah. Right, you don't have to worry about, oh, man, I still got to train arms after this or whatever, like you really, you can, you can kind of pick and choose and you can kind of a little bit, um, you know, have some more isolation work in there for certain, you know,

heads of the delts, for example, or something like that. So, uh, it is fun, you know, it's just, uh, and it's, I don't want to say easy, but like, it's, uh, it's mentally easy, right? Like you're going in there, like you said, and I'm just going to smash my shoulders. I think it's simple. It sounds to me like you just have leaned towards the things that you like to do. You like to do higher reps. So you fucking do higher reps. You like to do a bro split. So you do a bro split. You like supplements. So you made supplement, like, it's just, that's great. Do what you love to do, man. Like, yeah, it's like, if it's not fun and you don't enjoy doing it, you're not going to stick to it. You're not sure as shit, not going to stick to it for 25 years. Right? Like, so you got to find out what you

enjoy to do. But man, now that, that just makes me think to what you said in terms of earlier, where like natural is just like a lot of people in the natural bodybuilding community. Um, they just don't train hard or like, it's like, they'll look at somebody, they'll look at an NPC bodybuilder, Shane Spoon. They'll be like, all right, it's too much volume for our natural. Right. Or they'll look at somebody, they'll look at an NPC bodybuilder, Shane Spoon, they'll be like, it's too much volume for a natural. They'll look at you and be like, that's definitely how they talk. There's no way a natural can train that hard in that much volume recovery.

I'm like, shut the fuck up. My whoop tells me I'm not ready for that kind of a training session. But I mean, I get it. Like you got to train smart. You got to, over-training is a thing, but it's like, like you mentioned Like you got to train smart. You got to, they're over-training is a thing, but it's like, like you mentioned, you got to that place where you were and you, you, you kind of, you calibrated. I think it is a little bit necessary to like find where that breaking point

is as an individual. Maybe you can't do 20 rep sets like you. Um, but maybe you can handle something similar, something close to it. And maybe you can figure out where your breaking point is, brush up against it, maybe get there a little bit and then taper off a little bit. So you can find that place. But if you're never training hard enough where you've realized, or you felt what that feels like, or you understand where that is, then you're just leaving all of this shit on the table that you could potentially be making gains on. Yeah. It's a fine line, right? Like you need to go almost to the point of disaster, Yeah, it's a fine line, right? Like you need to go almost to the point of disaster, but not quite, you know, and that's something that you, Mark's smiling because he knows.

I love that. like deadlifting for four weeks, you know, like you do make stupid mistakes, but you make mistakes and hopefully you learn from them. So like, you got to get right to that point, uh, to make progress, but not go too far where you're going to hurt yourself. And that's the, that's the fine line. And I think honestly, some of that comes with every young guy is going to go across that line, you know, and probably cross that line more times than, you know, they wish they did. Um, but I think with age age which with training age not necessarily like just age but the years that you've been training like you learn to get better at that cool yeah we actually have um a quick question from somebody we all know it's going to take me a second to um set this up really quick what do we got what What you doing? Yeah, you'll see. Andrew, it's a surprise. Yeah, I know. Let me switch this to that.

I'm worried. This is going to be good, I promise. As soon as I find it. Here we go. It's not more plates, more dates, is it? Or something like that? No, he was too busy for me. What a beautiful way to start Thursday.

All right. Oh, hey. Michael Trent. All right. What a beautiful way to start. There we go. Hold on. I have to share my screen.

Where did Zoom go? Where is Zoom? Zoom disappeared zoom disappeared yeah did you hang up there it is no no hey how about let me do this he just got a lot of buttons yeah no sorry we've never done this like on the fly like this this is like a video request or something that somebody said i feel special then yeah where did it go it disappeared nope that's not the one i want who was that guy that pops up on the screen looks handsome looks shiny right nice beard great hair that can't be natural whoa look at those eyelashes there we go that's what happened okay sorry about this dude yeah now the suspense is killing me all right like you're just building this up i hope it's not a letdown no no no it is not we'll do this we'll do this all right hold on let me put this guy back here

so that way everyone can see okay and he's making that money today yeah uh this is stressful okay here we go what a beautiful way to start thursday All right. Representing. All right. Michael O'Hearn. Not the Titan today. Today I am Michael Trenn. And the question, and this is for the whole panel today. You got a great guest, but this is the thing. I grew up in the seventies and eighties in fitness centers where we supported each other. We motivate each other. Didn't matter if we're competing against each other. We want to compete against the best person that person could bring to the stage or to the platform or anything like that. And so my question for the whole panel is how do you guys deal with social media and the hate that

is so easily spread now and transformed into fitness centers where you get the nasty look if you pop the top, you lift heavy weights, you do anything like that that's out of the norm or special in a sense because you guys are all that one percenters that have, you're one percenters, man. You're a small percentage of society, so you're looked at differently. How do you guys deal with the hate? I would love to know how you do it. Well, deal with the haters doug yeah i'm so i'm so pumped that he said that i was a one percenter you know he just commented on my post this morning about chest he called me like a

barbarian or something and then he shows up on the podcast We have three fake natties on the podcast. Mike, Doug, and me. Three fake natties. All of y'all going to hell. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I guess that question is, we've kind of talked about that a little bit already.

Yeah. For me, it's just, I don't get caught up in that. And I'm, you know, when somebody accuses me of using drugs, bring it on, whatever. Like, I don't, you know, I don't care. Like I'll take it as a compliment. It's just my mindset at this point. Um, and I try not to get wrapped up in that. There are some pretty hateful comments in there. Um, but to be honest with you, I don't see it as much in person. Like he talked about it, like the local fitness clubs or something like that. But how many times nobody has ever caught up ever come up to my face

and literally just talk shit about me. Um, like ever, like ever, I'm not a big guy. I'm a lover, not a fighter either. Like you could come up and threaten me. I'd probably run away, you know, like, I don't care. Like, you know, but like no one has ever done that. And so like, I just think it's just a bunch of keyboard warriors and I don't, I don't put my energy, my stress or anything in, um, you know, into that. And it's just, I think the best thing to do is block it out, man. If you know, you got trolls up on your page, just delete them. It doesn't add value to anybody. It really doesn't. What about, uh, some of the, some of the people that are close to you? Like, what about like your wife or something like that? Does she like

get pretty pissed? Does she get pretty pissed about it? Like she, does she like people don't understand your dedication and she, maybe she gets all fired up about it. Right. And you're like, damn, I gotta know she's going to be defending me so hard over here.

That is definitely the case. She would get, she's way more defensive or, you know, she'll say that I'm way too nice or whatever. She's the, you know, she's the bulldog.

She'll be like, you should don't insult me in front of her. Right. don't assault me in front of her like that's just that doesn't go over well she's uh you know she's definitely more protective like that it's funny a friend of mine uh sent me a message this morning and she said she was so pissed because someone uh told her in the gym a guy walked up to her and was like what what cycle are you on? And she's just like a natty power lifter who's 52 kilograms, but she's kind of jacked. See, like that would be, that would be a compliment. I mean, I guess for women it might be a little different, right?

Cause like, Oh, did they think I'm bulky or something like that? Right. But yeah, that's, I just block all that out. And you know, I really don't see it. I don't, I don't surround myself with that. I'm not in an environment like that. You know, that's why we're creating our own gym anyways. You know, we're not a typical corporate gym. Um, so yeah, I just block all that shit out. Where can people get your supplements? Where can they find out more about your supplements? And is there like a particular new product that you have out that you're really excited about? So core nutritionals, um, core nutritionals.com, you know, that was the out that you're really excited about? So core nutritionals, um,

core nutritionals.com, you know, that was the brand that really started it all. Um, we're sold really all over the country, all over the world for that matter. We do really well in Australia and the UK. Um, and, uh, arms race nutrition, arms race nutrition, like I mentioned is, uh, my partnership with Julian Smith. And so we're sold in every GNC across the country, mentioned is my partnership with Julian Smith. And so we're sold in every GNC across the country, armsrace nutrition.com. Really you Google arms race nutrition, core nutritionals or America labs, and you'll, you'll see us pop up, you know, pretty much all over new products, man. Like that's been the fun thing. So core went through a big rebrand this past year. And in 2020, we brought out 104 SKUs, which is just insane. Where everyone was slowing down

because of COVID, we leaned into all that and just took advantage of the time. With all our businesses, we doubled down on everything, and it's paid off amazingly well. We have some really big releases across the board. I have on a whiteboard over here everything we have launched. releases across the board. Like I have on a whiteboard over here, like everything we have launched. And so it's like, it's too big to even, you know, talk about now, but I mean, both the lines, we pretty much have a complete line across the board, um, in terms of, you know, five different types of proteins pre-workout, we have something for everyone. And the key, I think the key message about everything that I do and everything that I put my name behind is that we don't have as anything just like, you know, Just like our slogan is Crush It, right? We live the Crush It lifestyle. Again, I'm not trying to

sound corny here. It's just what we do. It's everything we do, we go all in. And so our supplements, we use the best quality stuff. We use formulas that are very expensive to make, things that other people wouldn't make. We put a lot of time and energy and getting all the flavor systems, right? Like we, this is our passion. This is what we do. And so, um, you know, our consumer, you know, 99.9999% of the time has just an amazing experience. Um, and if you don't, we make it right. So, um, that's just what we do. Awesome. I hope at some point we get to cross paths and get some training in together. Yeah, absolutely. Can't wait.

All right. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. See you later. See you.

Damn, yo. Dude, man, his training. His training is something that just like it's insane. Well, it's not insane, but like, you know, like he mentioned, not many people first off have the patience to build up to something like that. And then when they see it, it's like, they don't realize the decades of work that have built up to what he was able to do, like back in 14, 15, before he competed. Like that's just been a lot of time.

Just even take the deadlift, for example, you you were just like, hey, want to go in the gym and just even deadlift 315 for a set of like 12, 15 reps, I'd be like, no, I'm good. Because I just know the cost of it. It's really brutal. But what I like about a lot of our guests is they take the time to build themselves into whatever they have become whether it be business whether it be uh that they're kicking ass in the gym or in bodybuilding or powerlifting we just kind of keep seeing it time and time again and it's hard for some reason it's a hard thing to to pick up on because you're just like oh that's really cool what that person's doing i want to do do that. See what they are now.

And it's like, yeah, it's like, I think Jordan Peterson says, don't compare yourself to who somebody else is today. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. You know, so just, if I could just be a little bit better than I was a year ago, like are you, it's a great thing to ask yourself, like are you in a better spot than you were a year ago? You know, and if it's a great thing to ask yourself, like, are you in a better spot

than you were a year ago? You know, and if you're not, then it's okay. But just review why. And you're not always going to make progress in all areas all the time. That's probably not really realistic. But, you know, are you content? Are you pumped? Are you excited about where you're at? Do you feel like you're moving forward? And if if you're not figure out a way to start moving forward but if you try to make these big jumps into thinking that you're gonna look like doug miller out of nowhere you're probably gonna get hurt yeah i was he was saying that like he was almost kind of embarrassed to admit that he would train before and after work and carrying around tupperware i'm'm like, dude, that's so cool, man. Like, God, that's dope.

I was, I mean, that shit got me pretty fired up. Walking around with this gallon of water, right? Yeah, yeah. With BCAs in it. Fanny pack. Wow. That's the best. That's why it's like, it's, you have to have a veil of ignorance right now when it comes to starting out with training.

Just because it's, we're in a great time where there is so much great information when it comes to training, but there's so much information that people end up with paralysis by analysis. They're like, they don't know what move to make. They don't know if they're doing too much. They don't know if they're doing too little. They don't know if they should be hopping on drugs because everyone's on drugs. It's like, like, and that was the last part was sarcasm, but like, there's so much to think about.

Whereas when I started training, I wasn't thinking about shit other than like there's so much to think about whereas when i started training i wasn't thinking about shit other than like i just want to be big and strong and this is what bodybuilding.com says right this is what a few youtubers say because there wasn't that many people on there so i'm gonna try it and it works and that's great i was ignorant but that ignorance was able to help me out right yeah no i i that and then also when he's talking about longevity like i personally i did not know he was 41 like he looks incredible for his age yeah like i mean it it yeah i was just like holy shit i did not know that it looks great yeah well and his competitive career looks like you know it looks like he doesn't have any desire to step on stage anytime soon.

Maybe I'm sure he'll compete again at some point, but that's kind of cool. Yeah. Like he's sort of done-ish, at least with that chapter of his life. And he's, if he's competing in anything now, I guess maybe it would be the business world, right? Yeah. And then here in, I think he had a, he said he had a six month old when he won that npc show or yeah one of the big shows and i'm just like whoa dude like god man that's gotta be really freaking hard that means he started his diet prep like right around the time he you know uh right around the time the kid was

born you know and then going through those beginning dang man i mean i'm struggling just to get into the gym you know like it's that's amazing yeah and then yeah like seriously like doug miller as far as natural bodybuilders concerned and like people probably caught on to this as we're doing this podcast like some people think it's either like he's the best natural bodybuilder ever just because of his competition record when you compare him to some of the top currently and the top in the past. Like he kind of is, he's like, he's the, he's the natty goat. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Um, but the natty goat. Yeah. Leader of the Illuminati. He's a leader of the Illuminati, man.

We all meet. I'm like down here. I'm like, I'm in the, I'm a middle tier in the Illuminati organization. Yeah. Um, Doug and Mike are up here.

They're two of our dragon heads we have six dragon heads the triangle was amazing that he said someone drew from his like shoulder that they thought that he took a shot in is but you don't understand that people are catching on people think i'm being sarcastic right now which is why i can talk about the six dragon heads two of who's your doug miller and mike o'hearn you don't know who the other four dragon heads are though It's okay. It takes a little something to be an Illuminati, but... Illuminati. Some of you will get there.

It's like the Illuminati, like Mount Rushmore. Not to be confused with Illuminati, the Illuminati. Yeah. Amazing. That was hilarious. That needs to be a shirt if it's not already. Or is that against Illuminati rules? Like you can't like... Can't talk about it. You that against Illuminati rules? Like you can't like.

Can't talk about it. You can't talk about it, but also you can't like reprint it on something else. We do have sacrificial ducks. Yeah. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah. You gotta have the duck eggs.

We sacrifice ducks. We drink duck blood and we also eat duck eggs. There's a big thing of like duck worship in the Illuminati. Again, people think I'm being so sarcastic because it sounds ridiculous yet they don't realize it's the truth so i love it only sacrificing the ducks and then eating the eggs but do you guys actually eat the duck themselves no we don't eat the ducks we just eat the duck eggs drink the duck blood and sacrifice the duck to the dragon god that's where the rest of us have it wrong yeah we've been eating the duck because we thought protein you guys don't even worry about

protein huh none of us do yeah and see when you first started playing soccer were you were you any good at it did you play other sports before that uh soccer was my first sport i started playing at six i added basketball into the mix when i was a little bit older like seven so i played soccer basketball played do you recall whether you were slower than your friends or faster than your friends or a little bit more athletic than your friends as you yeah and like because it was like it was it was a rec league it was mixed so it was like boys and girls for my first league so i was like i was one of the bigger kids on the field yeah right um, yeah, I was a little bit bigger. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think we just, we all just start out in different spots and when it comes to, you know, training, I think,

uh, just people are so fascinated by what someone can do, you know, naturally, or, you know, is this natural? Like, what does this person do? I mean, I've seen all kinds of different things in the gym. I've seen people deadlift like 315. And I don't know if I've seen much higher than that, but like with no training at all, you know, they just come in and they're just kind of stronger people. They just, they're like, oh, am I doing this right? And they do like a couple of reps and you're like, what? Like, how are you able to just to pick that up kind of out of nowhere? And, uh, for whatever reason, their body is kind of tapped into some of that. Um had jeremy avila was in here uh earlier today and he's taking some time off of training and he's like 235 pounds and he looks awesome i'm like oh how's training he's like

i don't really know i haven't really been training much but he looked awesome i was like holy shit yeah uh there's a guy who's a genetic mutant, deadlifting around 900 pounds. He also squats over 800 pounds. For whatever reason, he's able to tap into muscle fibers that most of us can't. There's not a steroid for that, by the way. So people will think, oh, yeah, it takes steroids to make you stronger. Steroids certainly can make you stronger, but they do so through the mechanism of just normally just making you bigger or and or and or just allowing you to train a little bit more, get more volume in any information on it, and maybe I could be wrong, but I don't think they do anything for your central nervous system. And the training of your central nervous system is how you actually get strong.

So it can be possible that because steroids help with your muscular system, it could be possible that they help to mitigate some of the damage that's incoming from all the training that you're doing. Therefore, it helps you adapt and adopt to the training that you're doing a little bit easier and maybe therefore it does assist your central nervous system but did jeremy play a sport when he was younger by the way i don't know what he did when he was younger but he's just crazy explosive because yeah that's what i'm curious about the explosive ability it's like you can't train that i mean you can train being more explosive yeah but it's explosive to you can't train that. I mean, you can train being more explosive, but it's explosive to the extent that Jeremy Avila is explosive. Right.

That, that like you, you see it in the deadlift when he gets himself into position that just like, it's insane. You can train someone's explosiveness to the point where they don't jump very well. And now they jump. Okay.

Right. Like we've seen that before. Like we know that exists but it's i've never really seen someone like go from like being a total slug to all of a sudden like being able to do like miraculous shit with their explosiveness yeah and so you're right like it can be manipulated a little bit and maybe he's manipulated by lifting you know and he's gotten used to it and so he's become more explosive but he already started out a lot, a lot further ahead. And, you know, in powerlifting, it's very common for people to use stuff, especially guys that deadlift 900 pounds.

But I would say that starting off, he started off more explosive than most. He's able to move a lot faster than most. And we've just seen a lot of really talented lifters and we've seen a lot of talented CrossFit men and women to the point where it's like, I'm just not going to believe that I'm not going to believe that everyone's on drugs. Like, I'm just not going to, I just don't buy it. I don't buy that everyone's on drugs. I do, I do believe a lot of people can be on drugs a lot of people probably are on drugs i do understand that people can lie about it um but i also like just in thinking about my own genetics

like they're i think they're okay but they're i i don't think they're extraordinary and so can someone have better genetics than me like yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, thinking of like John Cena, like he, John Cena is like, I've said before, he's got the massive like wrists, big old forearms, got like 20 inch arms. He's pretty damn well rounded when it comes to his strength. But he also has like a couple, also has a couple holes in his game in terms of his strength where you're like, well, he's not like, it's not insanely strong.

You know, he could squat like mid sixes, which that's fucking phenomenal. He could deadlift mid sixes, which that's fucking phenomenal. Uh, this is also while traveling with the WWE. So that's even,

that even makes it more phenomenal because he's on the road and he's getting the shit beat out of him all the time. He is, he is a freak of all freaks um his bench press is somewhere like in the 400 something range this very strong guy but that's not that's not 800 600 and 800 you know but he focused on it you wonder right yeah that was like his sport that was his focus and he put everything towards that you gotta wonder what he could do right right but i just think what it represents is not necessarily uh i'm not gonna just throw it out there and say like this guy is on drugs i'm gonna chalk he's been a friend of mine for a long time i'm gonna

chalk it up to just being like it's he says he's natural it's a fucking possibility it is because he just might be on that high end of what's possible let's also think like i think doug made a very good point like a lot like i know people are like oh it's wwe they don't drug test it doesn't really matter but john cena's never looked bad and he like you got it like that that is a big deal when you see someone they swing from one looking one way it's looking another back to looking another way like okay there's something but some people they just look good all the time right mike looks good all the time like there's there's never been a moment even when he bulks and cuts and he always stays within the same weight range he's not we've never seen him go up it's like 300 and something pounds and

back down or whatever but then what's the uh the counter argument to fake natty or whatever is like oh but they stay lean year round so that means they're on something i think doug said something really interesting first off like doug said that he was like an ecto mesomorph right but even when he gets like when even when he's bulking and he's at his biggest he's around 11 percent maybe 11 12 percent it's like he's not getting he stays pretty lean yeah he always stays pretty lean and this isn't something for everybody because some people maybe they do better and yeah you shouldn't take that as blanket because some people do better at like 15 and they're in their peak off season but you shouldn't really be getting sloppy there's no reason to be getting

sloppy yeah look at the strength of uh of jesse norris you know, and Jesse Norris competed in the USAPL for a long time. IPF for, for, you know, he did that stuff for a while. And then maybe at some point he made a different decision, but that kid was like unstoppable. He was lifting some crazy weights.

And I just, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying that I know for sure that he's natural, but again, I'm also not going to believe they say the same thing about NFL athletes and and stuff it's like i don't just don't think everyone does it i think there's some people that genetically they kind of recognize like this would probably be in my best interest to do this there's other people who are like i just don't think i really need it if you're

already moving around like bo jackson like do you really need it? I mean, it would be like, uh, it would be like Einstein, like searching around for nootropics. It's like, it's like motherfucker. You don't need it.

You are the limitless. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You're already there, dude. Like, you don't,

you know, you're good. Anybody have any addies? I got to figure out this fucking equation. It's driving me crazy. That's the thing, guys. It's like,

just don't, it's, it's tough watching crazy but that's the thing guys it's like just don't it's it's tough watching youtube fitness nowadays um don't discount your ability because of like what somebody is saying like i i do appreciate the information that like derrick from more plates puts out because he's super smart with what he does or or greg doucette with his all his natty or not videos but he does put out great information. But you know, I just know that if I was watching some of that shit when I was 13, 14,

15, I'd be so warped. Even if I was doing pretty well, I'd always be like, ah, but this and, but that I know that it would just be as a kid, it would be a matter of time,

not like matter of if it'd be a matter of time. It's right. Right. But I was like, you know, puts, I, I puts i you know i've already made some progress before then so just like i don't fucking need to so just just fucking give yourself a shot the the uh natty or not stuff you know it's like it's become really really popular but yeah it pops off if you think about some of the people that are in good shape i mean just pick somebody that you you know, and if it's not a professional bodybuilder, you most like, I mean, Doug's case is like an exceptional one, right? But if it's not like a high level pro bodybuilder, you can probably figure out a way to get pretty damn close to looking like that person.

You know, maybe thinking of someone like Bradley Martin, you can be like, oh my God, he's huge. He's got huge arms and right. And you can think like, Oh, maybe he, but maybe he takes stuff or whatever, whatever your thoughts are on that. Right. Uh, I think it would be possible for you to be fucking jacked and have big arms, you know, without, without, without it. Like you can, you know, we know a lot, we know plenty of people that, um, again,

I don't know who's fucking telling the truth. I don't know who's, you know, trying to lie or whatever, but, again, I don't know who's fucking telling the truth. I don't know who's, you know, trying to lie or whatever, but, uh, I'm not going to believe that everyone that, uh, says that they're natural or everyone that, um, you know, has claimed that they haven't ever taken PEDs. I'm not going to just think like, oh, it's impossible. There's no fucking way. You know, usually if it's somebody that i know then i'm just like well i just i know them they're a friend of mine i'm giving the benefit of the doubt i gotta chalk it up to they work hard they put the time in they got good genetics and things just worked out really well for them in that particular field or that particular thing they were working on yeah and

then in i know people are going to look up some of uh doug's you know on stage photos and be like no way yeah that's wild man it's wild but like what you said you know like if he is maybe the greatest natural like there is one doug miller so like you can't say like people like everybody that looks like that, you know, they're definitely not natural. It's like, we're not talking about everybody. We're talking about one person was able to do that. But again, like you got to point

to like LeBron James, just because like he might be the he might be the upper echelon of what we've ever seen, you know, for genetics. And I think when he was in high school, he played football and I think he was like a... He could have gone to the nfl yeah he was right like imagine that dude has like a receiver or something like that imagine him as a center fielder like he would cover the entire field like it would be impossible to get a you know a hit on the outfit guy out there i think

alan iverson came from the same high school that michael vick did and they were like you thought michael vick was a good football player. Isn't that crazy? You know, like, like people, people still talk about Allen Iverson in high school. They're like,

you, you just like, we can't even describe to you like how ridiculous it was when he played high school football. He was a quarterback, I guess. Yeah. No one could touch him.

You know, it was just like ridiculous. There's people just with, you know, again, I'm not going to sit here and say, Oh man, well, Allen Iverson, he's probably on a bunch of growth with, you know, again, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh man, well, Allen Iverson, he's probably on a bunch of growth hormone. You know, he was probably the first guy to take SARMs.

I'm not going to chalk it up to that. It just seems like a ridiculous thing to think about. Yeah. And AI is somebody that like everybody kind of make like he's one of the greatest basketball players ever. But people always talk about like how he practiced, but not that much. Like, he was extremely talented. What about practice? Talking about practice?

Oh, my God. But, like, that's the thing, man. He just had something that nobody else had. Tom Brady must be on tons of shit because he's playing for so long, right? It's not possible to play that long and to do what he's doing. It can't be diet. It can't be training.

It's a trend, man. It's got to be a trend. It's a trend. That or the shoes. Allen Iverson had the best shoes. He did. Damn. Iverson's were sick. The questions, I think, right? The answer i think right the answer he was the answer but i think his shoes like the oh his shoes was the question oh my god dude i had them in high school oh my god they were so dope then he came out with the other one that

had the zipper i didn't really like that one like the first one better i had the i think they were the shacks they looked like space shoes those are those shacks re Yeah, I know. Do they have like the half circle? They were these Adidas shoes. I'm not sure if they're shacks, but they're these Adidas shoes that look like space boots. And they had like three Adidas signs at the front. I wore those in elementary school. I thought they were so cool. I look back at it.

I'm just like, oh, I was right. They are cool. I guess. Take us out of here, Andrew. I will. What do you guys think of breakfast, though? Oh, us on out of here, Andrew. I will. What'd you guys think of breakfast though? Oh, that was great. Yo, man.

God, I wet myself a little bit. Nice. Yeah. The not so natural French toast. Yeah. I've been talking about French toast to these guys for so long and I'm sure they're probably just like, eh, it's bullshit. But I had to make it so that way they could experience it and understand why understand you know now you're required to cook that for us at least once a week

now that's like once a week you have to bring that in you know that right you set yourself up i'm down i mean the the ingredients and quality will definitely come down like uh i i didn't i i definitely you made us like a full stack. Yeah. It was so neatly done. Oh. Yeah. And the macros, Andrew. Tell the people the macros. So, like, roughly 50 grams of protein, about 45 grams of carbs, 2 grams of fat, 450 calories.

We're going to be so jacked. So jacked. But, yeah. Cool. I'm glad you guys dug it, though. I appreciate it, you know. It's, you never know. You're going to cook some food and it's like, if nobody likes it, like, oh. I'm glad you guys dug it. I appreciate it. You know, it's, you never know. You're going to cook some food and it's like, if nobody likes it, like, oh man, this is

going to suck. It's a way to a man's heart, Andrew. I know. You call him Chef Daddy? Is that what you call him now? That sounds pretty cool. All right. Anywho, thank you, Peter Monti's sponsor today's episode.

For more information on them, check out the show links down in the description and uh podcast show notes uh please make sure you follow the podcast at mark bow's power project on instagram at mb power project on twitter my instagram twitter and clubhouse is at i am andrew z and sima where you be and sima in yang on his youtube clubhouse and talk talk and see me any Twitter, Mark. Did you guys see Tim Dillon with Piedmontese? What? I didn't see that. Yeah, Chris Borbel re-shared it, I think. Yeah, he was decked out with Piedmontese.

Yeah, that's sick. I was like, damn, I need to get a re-up myself. I always get jelly when I see somebody else with Piedmontese. Hey, hey, hey, that's mine. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, I got it in the freezer. You know, fuck. But yeah, my first reaction is like, that motherfucker all the time. Wow.

Yeah, you got hooked up, right? There we go. How do we get hooked up? He's going to get jacked. You guys know anybody over there? We got to talk to these people. Somebody. Man.

Please. I'm at Mark's Millie Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later. Bye.