Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 549 - World Natural Bodybuilding Federation Vice President Bob Bell

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Bob Bell is a natural competitive bodybuilder, bodybuilding event promoter and one of the main leaders helping run the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation, The WNBF. An athlete since high school, Bob started bodybuilding in 1997, achieving WNBF Pro status in 2000. His degree in Exercise Physiology and leadership and event promotion skills lend professional experience in his role as WNBF Vice President in charge of the organization's stringent drug-testing policies. 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! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use ode "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢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

What up Power Project crew, this is Josh Settledge, aka SettleGate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Bob Bell. Bob Bell is a natural competitive bodybuilder, bodybuilding event promoter, and one of the main leaders helping run the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation, aka the WNBF. As an athlete in high school, Bob started bodybuilding in 1997, achieving WNBF Pro status in 2000. His degree in exercise physiology, leadership, and event promotion skills lend professional experience in his role as a WNBF Vice President in charge of the organization's stringent drug testing policies. In 2019, the WNBF established itself as the true world championships of natural bodybuilding, with over 70% of competitors being international athletes.

Bob Bell and the WNBF pride themselves as being one of the most stringent and consistent drug-tested organizations in the sport, as well as holding a true and consistent criteria to their judging. This is something that has not been seen across many other organizations within the sport. to their judging. This is something that has not been seen across many other organizations within the sport. Bob has been very clear that he and his wife helped run the WNBF out of their love for bodybuilding and their passion to create a safe and untainted space for bodybuilding athletes who wish to compete on a natural playing field. On a side note, when competing in his first natural bodybuilding show, Bob has stated that a member from the audience was pulled from the crowd to sit on the judges panel. But that is a different story for a different time. Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Bob Bell.

Here we go. We are rolling. All right. We're rolling. We're rolling. Here we go. And we're on. Three, two, one.

Is it live yet? Let me put the SD card back in. I got to reformat it. Andrew has a problem. He forgets to hit record and we get like 45 minutes into something and seaman and i are on fire we say like this amazing stuff and andrew's like hey hey hold up the the only bad time where i was like you know what i really it's a red button andrew but mark a was the meaning of life it was perfect it was like

he had an out-of-body experience and i look look over and I'm like, you can't remember it. I can't remember. And I wasn't recording. So that shit's gone. Yeah. Game over, bro. It's okay. Anyway, we're going to be talking some bodybuilding today.

And we got Bob here today who's going to fill us in on the federation and the organization that you've been running for quite some time in running a tested bodybuilding federation. So I'm really excited to dive all into that. But as we know, like as we're, you're trying to prepare for a bodybuilding show sometimes in your preparation to be like healthier and to get on stage, you can end up kind of like, I guess, being on such a quest for the leanest body possible, you could throw all your hormones off. Do you recommend to some folks that you maybe worked with or do you do maybe for yourself? Do you get some blood work done here and there just to kind of like see what's going on under the hood? Not myself.

I'm retired. But yeah, you're right. People can throw themselves into a physiological wrench, but, um, I, I, I mean,

if people have the access to it, I would say absolutely you should, it's, it's, you're going to get the results back. It's going to help you be your best because you can make those modifications. But, um,

yeah, we're always looking for the leanest, hardest, most shredded physique. And sometimes, um, that can send your metabolism backwards, get you in trouble and stuff.

So most definitely take advantage of those, uh, uh, lab opportunities if you can. And I ran into the same thing with powerlifting, you know, chasing after the numbers and powerlifting and getting those numbers on the platform. I ended up being extremely unhealthy. And so once I started getting my blood work done, I was like, uh, like I'm not going to be that strong if I'm not around anymore or if I end up in a hospital or worse.

Right. So it was starting to be more and more important for me to get my blood work done. What's getting your blood work done kind of done for you in the last couple? Because I know you've kind of got it done more recently, right? Yeah, yeah. So I found out everything was good, which I'm happy about. But I do remember back in 2015 when I got ready for Worlds, I always talk about this. It took me about four to five months to get my,

like get my everything back to normal because my fats were so low. Um, my libido was gone. I'm pretty sure I didn't get a test of mine. My test was probably super low. Are you blaming Bob? I'm not blaming Bob, but when I prep for like,

I got it. When I sent, did you sense that a little bit? Yeah. The last 12, like animosity there still. Yeah. No,

the last 12 to 16 weeks of prep, I was eating 35 to 40 grams of fat. Okay? That's pretty low. Yeah. And that's low for a guy. That's my world. Yeah. That's low for a guy that's like 225.

That's where it goes over there. That's the old school way, though. That's Tuesday. That's the bro mentality. And that gets people. Yeah. It doesn't have to be that way. Gets you shredded.

It doesn't. Because you're in trouble. Especially your weight. Yeah. You should be at 70 to you know something. I know I Was working with someone and he's still super smart and I trust him. I'm not gonna say it is Anyway, but yeah get your blood work done peeps guys like you can get away with stuff like that Average people now you're muscular you can you can get away with it He was able to hold on to that muscle mass, but he still didn't really get away with it because he didn't feel

good right i feel like crap and my wiener didn't work that's it well but i also like what in sema says like you know if you if you don't look under the hood you know you're kind of throwing darts out a wall like do i need more vitamin d do i need more sodium do it my you know test is it low like i don't know but with you know getting your work done, then you will know for sure. And then you can attack, you know, some of those issues and getting blood work is kind of a pain in the ass until now. You guys know, we've been working with Merrick health and we put together an awesome panel for you guys. Really like we went round and round, like, I don and round. It took us a couple of months. It took us a lot longer than we expected, but we wanted to nail down the absolute best panel for you guys

to get so that way you know the ins and outs and everything of what you guys need to optimize without jumping on a needle, nothing like that. Although, I guess those prescriptions do exist. So you'll at least know. But again, this is an awesome deal. And it's just, try to find a comparison, a competitive panel, and then check out the prices and you guys will see that ours is better. And it also includes a one-on-one meeting with an actual doctor. So that's at Merrick Health. That's M-A-R-R-E-K health.com slash power project. Load up that power project panel. It's a male or female panel. And at checkout, enter promo code power project for $101 off that panel. So for anybody else, it's $500. But for you guys that are listening right now,

it's $399. Again, MerrickHealth.com slash power project. All right. We got Bob Bell with us today. He's going to break everybody down on who's natural and who's not. So let's start with Nseema here. No, just kidding. We know several times he's been tested. He's just fine. Or did I just go off cycle?

No concerns. As people say. He's very suspicious in how he looks, right? Yeah, he is. So how did you get involved in bodybuilding just in general? Competed with a non-test organization in the 90s and got some great experiences that way. Had some friends that competed. Just finished playing football at Sacramento State and just needed something else to do.

So some friends that were not drug-free got us into bodybuilding, and we kind of learned the old school ways to a lot of things. So that kind of got us started. My wife, Tina, actually competed first, and then I decided to give it a shot at six foot, you know, 175 pounds. You're like, I'm going to blow everybody away. Yeah, exactly. It was tough. Bodybuilding is a super tough sport, you know, to put on that weight is hard. But yeah, so that's kind of where it started. And then got to a point where, you know, after you win a novice overall, you really can't compete with an untested organization. At six feet tall, you have to weigh 225 or more, 240. And kind of found natural bodybuilding that way.

And then competed a few times, earned WNBA Pro Card with our organization. We were also promoting shows at the time. So, yeah, it's been a great ride since the late 90s. And now we're given an opportunity to lead the organization. I can't recall the exact timing of, you know, when steroids became illegal. But maybe you can remember back a little bit. Was there a split in bodybuilding before steroids were illegal? Like, was there tested federations?

Like, I'm imagining that there maybe wasn't because maybe the fact that they're illegal is maybe part of the reason why we're testing in the first place. I don't even really know. You kind of make it sound like I'm older than you, which I think I am. Well, I think you're into bodybuilding

a lot longer than me. I've only been to one bodybuilding show, which was my own. And that was like three, four years ago. Well, I want you to, I want you to come to the,

the natural muscle mayhem in, in, in October. Can I oil some people up? If you'd like, we can set something up. All right. When is it?

It's in October. It's the October 30th. It's a, it's a really popular, um, very competitive show called The Natural Muscle Mayhem. It's IMBF, WMBF Pro-Am. But yeah, I mean, steroids have been banned by our organization since we started. So we really were the WMBF was the first organization to start polygraph testing and urine testing. So the polygraph test, you know, focuses around banned substances,

steroids, growth hormone, you know, diuretics, clenbuterol, you name it. And then the urine test on top of that is a water-compliant list that looks for basically everything that's illegal. So it's not like you got some kit at your house that you're testing this stuff with. It's a third party. You have nothing to do with the process. No, absolutely not. So when we test our athletes,

we go through a chain of custody like WADA would. WADA doesn't come in to take the test. That is very confusing to a lot of people. There's some organizations that claim that that happens, which is a total scam and it's not okay. And that's a whole nother podcast. But so we go through a chain of custody process that WADA would take you through if you were an athlete with them. We ship the urine specimens when we go through the chain of custody to either a lab in California or a lab in Utah. And both are WADA compliant.

One is a WADA accredited lab. So that one's the most extensive testing you can get. And it would be the same if any out of season or in season Olympic athlete, if they were tested, they would go through the same process. And y'all make it mad uncomfortable because y'all watch SP. Yeah. You're standing there like this. I've seen someone go into, not with the WNBF, but I've seen someone go into a restroom on their own, close the door, and they had a big old duffel bag with them. So, you know, there's a lot of crazy stuff.

I think there's something called a wizinator. There is, yeah. The Vikings will never live that one down. uh never live that one down but but yeah so yeah we definitely want to make sure that um you know our athletes once they uh win their overall awards they walk straight to the to the testing area they're usually in their suit so you can't really hide anything in there um if it's a physique guy yeah we're gonna watch him you know pull down their shorts and just do it from the side let me ask you this now i just remember the first time that i was tested it was like i think it was 14 and they came back with me i was like and then he walked in with me yeah he walked into the

bathroom with me i'm like he gave me the cup i'm like well you're gonna it's like nope i'm just gonna chill right here watch you pee i didn't like it it took me a while too because i was so uncomfortable it just wouldn't come out. Yeah. That's what happens when you totally pop test someone at their gym. It's really uncomfortable. Not that they have anything to hide, but they're like, holy cow, this is for real. Like, okay. I missed the cup. Yeah, yeah.

You did miss the pour. We'll launch that video soon. Nice. But was that Brian that tested you at our event? Is that what it was? It may have been. But you just like, you just stayed there.

News. We were looking at each other for like, you know, a solid four minutes. Cause I was like, bro, I got this. I'm like,

I really got this push. Nothing came out. I'm like, just, just give me a second, man. I'm a little nervous. Like I'm,

I'm, I'm stage fright. Like I have stage fright. Totally understandable. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be able to go under those conditions. It's, it's odd,

but it's, it keeps everybody in check. And I don't know if we're going to to go under those conditions. It's odd, but it keeps everybody in check. And I don't know if we're going to talk more about drug testing or not, but there are some organizations that will let anything go. And I've seen urine specimens on a table, no chain of custody involved. You don't know whose urine is whose. They grab the wrong slip. They grab the wrong cup. They process it.

Someone fails. You don't know if that's your urine. So we don don't do that we make sure that we keep it all right here i remember when i was a kid uh i saw a guy at uh this uh national power lifting meet it was uh done in white plains new york and the guy dead lifted like whatever the kilo number is it's really close to 800 pounds he's like 798 he weighed 181 and just veins just busting out of everywhere and then it was maybe like an hour later they gave him like a polygraph test and then like they just kept talking about like this guy being like drug free and uh even as a kid i was like uh you know i don't i don't think i'm i don't think i'm gonna

buy that you know uh so a lot of times, sometimes lie detector tests are even just only used, right? Yeah. For us, you have to do both. To earn WME a prostate issue, you have to do both. I can't comment on other people's drug testing utilization of the polygraph. All of our polygraphers are 30, you know, 35 years experience. Um, what happens if your blood seems to be okay, but your lie detector test is like a little wonky. Um, we'll figure out why it's wonky. So we don't just give you the test and say, okay, you had,

you know, you failed five questions. Go ahead. No, we trust you. We pin you down, figure out exactly what the issue is. Um, I'm not a polygrapher, but there's things called specific issue tests where you try to fully isolate what the problem is. You ask multiple questions. That's why I can see many lions at year 14. Fuck you! And it just becomes your truth at that time. It's my truth. If you believe it to be true.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if we're really going to go down all that stuff, I mean, yeah. I mean, if you have some, you know, cognitive or mental issues. Yeah. I mean, sometimes a polygraph, you know, in a law enforcement, you know, homicide, you know, child molestation case. That's totally different. We're just talking banned substances. We're talking, you know, 10 years drug-free, specific things.

And I really have pride in what we do, and I think our examiners do a super good job. And I always tell everybody, I'm happy to test you anytime. Have you personally ever used steroids, or have you ever been on the fence about it? Have you ever been like, ah, I think I should maybe think about it? No, never, never. What about being older? Any consideration? Like, ah, maybe when I lose some muscle mass, maybe I'll think about it. No, never, never. What about being older? Any consideration? Like, ah, maybe when I lose some muscle mass, maybe I'll think about it.

No. You know, it's just not my personality to be that way. You know, there's a lot of people that, you know, go down the road of DHEA or other. What if it wasn't illegal? I mean, if it's going to cause some health issues, I'm not going to do it. I don't have the greatest genes. going to cause some health issues, I'm not going to do it. I don't have the greatest genes. My dad has some health issues, so I would always want to be careful with the heart. I'm just really curious, so I'm going to fire a lot of questions,

and it's going to seem like I'm a dick face, but I'm just super curious. Where do you draw the line? Like something could enhance you, something could help you, but then where would where would you personally kind of draw the line uh so our rules are you know um if if wada essentially bans it it's banned by us um there's some things we don't you know ban caffeine in excess we don't you know um creatine yeah yes supplement yeah stuff yeah so if if it can be very confusing it's a super good question because there's a lot of stuff sold over the counter that people think are legal because they can buy it over the counter.

It's kind of a weird and confusing thing in some ways. It's like anything that doesn't work, you can utilize that. Anything that works, we're going to. And you're also looking for on stage the most muscular, the leanest person. muscular, the leanest person. And the way to be the leanest and most muscular person, as seen in the case of Mr. Olympia competitions, is to use steroids. However, there's a lot of drawbacks and it's a totally different, I would say it ends up maybe being a totally different sport. Yeah. So just getting back to that

first one, if water bans it, we ban it. We don't ban things like creatine and glutamine and all that stuff. That's if water bans it we we ban it um we don't ban things like creatine and glutamine and all that stuff that that's that's not what we're doing but um you know once uh you know there's a lot of guys that have some physiological stuff some testosterone issues some performance issues that we'll go get you know trt um and we we say no to that because it's just it's kind of you know there's a lot of guys like you you were just saying, that, you know, when you were competing your, you know, 4% body fat, your testosterone levels are not going to be average. They're not going to be normal at all. So if someone is standing next to you on stage that is using TRT and we allow it and their ranges are within normal or a little bit high, that's totally unfair.

That's an unfair level playing field. So we don't allow that. Some organizations do, but we do not. Even if it's consistent blood work, we're just still saying no to it. So anything, no testosterone, period, some hormones, HRT, some of that stuff is okay, insulin, diabetics, things of that nature. But anything that can be manipulated or can enhance your physique through, you know, bodybuilding, or if you're using it for bodybuilding purposes, it's a no. Isn't bodybuilding kind of unfair anyway?

Like the genetic mutants that pop into it and whoop your ass and you've been doing it for 12 years? Absolutely. You train your butt off. You do everything you can. You have the best trainer, the best coach. And someone gets up on stage and you go, you mother. Or you see guys like this backstage pumping up and you just go, he's in the heavyweight category, right? And I'm six feet tall, so I'm in the heavyweight category.

That sucks. So now I already took second. But that's why we do it you know we do it because you know first of all we we want to be competitive we want to do because we love it and and the chips fall where they fall um you don't need to throw trophies backstage i agree with you about what you mentioned about it being unfair because it's unfair with the given rules of your organization you know so i i agree with that in a lot of ways rules are rules.

And just like the girl that just got caught smoking, is it a big deal? Probably not. Could it give her an advantage to relax and stuff? Okay, maybe. But she broke the rules, she broke the rules. That Sha'Carri Richardson thing is very unfortunate. But the one thing about bodybuilding

that is so interesting is it is a sport, and in every single sport, the individuals at the top are going to be the individuals that you see competing at the highest levels in npc bodybuilding i mean you saw guys like phil ronnie whatever right they are also genetic mutants and people people think that if i just take something i can be like that when no you're not going to be like that and even when it comes to natural bodybuilding like you you got you you not going to be like that and even when it comes to natural bodybuilding like you you got you you're going to live for years but you're still going to see like

like we were giving andrew a list of some just freaky natural pros and it's it's the same thing there where there's going to be a difference but for some reason people think that when it comes to getting that big as some of the natural pros have, that that needs drugs to get there. And, oh, I could do that if I just took some stuff. It's not. It's still a sport where the individuals who work very hard but also have a propensity for the sport will somehow get towards the top level. Exactly. Isn't that what pro sports is all about?

NFL? Doesn't matter. You know, there's we have a lot of great. I coach football at Pleasant Grove and Elk Grove, and we have some amazing athletes. And they want to go play pro football, and I'm just like, you guys don't get it. If you're going to be a tight end, you've got to be about 6'4", 260. We would already, like everyone would already know. Yeah, exactly. Like everybody would already be talking about it.

And you would know because there would be coaches on the sideline looking at you. Right. But, um, but yeah, I mean, there's, there's genetic freaks. I mean, uh, Kai Green's a perfect example, you know, won multiple titles with us, won a world championship with us. Um, he was born to do this and always look different, huh? Yeah. And he just, he graduated. I mean, if actually Andrew could probably, uh, search, um, Kai Green WNBF and you, you'd be able to see what he used to look like before, you know, in his 20s. Unbelievable. Insane.

He'd still be up there, you know, winning world championships, but he had to move on. Let's just, oh, go ahead. Good. I think it would be good, like, when I was first, like, learning about, actually, let's look at this real quick. There he is right there. That's on the right side.

He was, he was, look at his face. He was 20 years old. That's 20. Yeah. You can also keep in mind, you know, Kai green can do all these like crazy, like he,

he moves his body around all crazy too. Like he's just like what you're talking about. He's an anomaly. He's just in a different category. Yeah. He's, he's a good guy. He still supports our shows.

Um, and then that one, one of his really good friends, uh, Ian Mercer is, is one of our backstage guys our backstage guys who's been in the Federation for a long time. They still communicate. Ian actually helped work with him on some of his posing routines. We kind of know a lot of the same people. What I think is so good is that when I was first

looking into bodybuilding, because I've been lifting since I was 13, but then a trainer that I worked with was like, you should do a bodybuilding because like i've been lifting since i was 13 but then um a trainer that i worked was like you should go you should do a bodybuilding right and the only thing i knew about at the time was npc and this trainer he told me oh there are natural federations i'm like what do you mean natural federate federations i didn't even know that the wmbf existed and i think that's a good thing because not that it's a good thing that i didn't know but it's a good thing that it exists because when you when an individual wants to be like, I want to get on stage, but let's say that they're new to lifting, they've only been lifting for two, three years, right? Right. And you can do that responsibly, but you probably should be lifting for a long time before you decide, hey, do I want to do this and go into this realm where I take some stuff or do I want to just continue being patient and seeing what my body can do and then make that decision later? And with the WNBF, you can compete in a federation and try to be competitive without having to take drugs.

You know what I mean? It's like you don't automatically have to go to the MPC and because everyone's like that, then you have to also hop on something. It's, you know, people have been cheating since sports started, right? I mean, even in the ancient Greece days, you know, there was, someone's always trying to get ahead somehow.

Yeah. But do you use steroids as cheating if you're competing in federations that aren't testing for it? You know, I don't like to say that word just because it's a choice. I don't, you know, we're still working hard. We're still bodybuilding, right? It's freaking hard to put on muscle mass, right?

Either way, it's hard. So I try not to use that word because it sounds, you know, negative and… Judgmental, maybe. Yeah, like we're better than everybody else. So I just say it. It's just enhanced or not enhanced. But if someone's coming into your organization and they're trying to get one over on everybody, then that's cheating. We failed two people on a polygraph last year in November, and it pissed me off.

How did you guys proceed with that? Both of them were women. Both of them were women. One was testosterone. One was growth hormone. And I'll tell you what. If I would have been there, I would have let these ladies have it in front of everybody. It was, you know, people talk about being offensive.

That's offensive to me. You freaking come to this show and try to pass this test. Right now, here's the issue. So some of you are totally aware of the rules. It's I agree. It's total bullshit. You're trying to get one over on everybody else. Now, you might justify it in your head and say, well, I think everyone's on it or whatever.

And I think they were progressing away anyway, but they just thought, I'll go ahead and compete. But the biggest piece is that if we, let's just say we didn't polygraph test, or let's just say we have some bogus people doing our testing, right? And they make it through the test. Maybe it's questionable. And the polygraph person says, okay well we'll urine test you anyway they're not going to fail urine testing and what they're doing with this stuff right they they know that if they're going to compete they're going to get urine tested so they knew to stop using all right so now they're now they're clean and then they have uh you know uh either pro status

with us or um you know have a a, have a title with us. So that's why we polygraph tests, because if you wouldn't have done that or if you would have done it by other means, you wouldn't have caught them. And the examiner that did the testing did an incredible job. And one of the girls admitted what she was using. The other one, they just totally kept focusing on one or two of the questions and then finally figured out what it was.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was about to ask you. I'm like, I, like, I know that we, I know that the WNBF does polygraph text testing, but I wasn't sure how do they continue narrowing down and it's a science. It's it is. They do a good job with it. Yeah. Even though I didn't know it was that deep, to be honest, like when I did my first polygraph, I was nervous just because I was about to do a polygraph. And I was like, am I about to fail this because I'm sweating and just nervous? Cause it's, it's nerve wracking. Even if you haven't done anything, you're like, nothing to hide and it's scary. Yeah. And you can't control, you can't control that stuff. You can't control how much perspiration comes out of your fingertip. You can't,

you know, people that start changing their breathing or they're nervous or whatever, they'll, you know, that's why it's a, it's a process that they take you through, figure out what your baseline reactions are ask some questions that are uncomfortable because if they ask you a bad substance questions that you're uncomfortable about it's going to be like that or it's going to be worse so they've got they've got this stuff figured out they've been doing a long time i actually failed the first polygraph i took because the examiner because it's a yes no situation it's either yes, no situation. It's either yes or no. Can't explain. He can't go, oh, well, let me explain this.

And he just said, is Bob Bell your legal name? And I said, yes, because I knew that it's not. But I couldn't tell him on my driver's license it's my legal name, but I'm just, I go by Bob. So he said, I need to see your ID. And he just said, okay, well, that explains it. But as simple as that was, non-threatening, I had nothing to hide, really. It was just, I thought about it,

my body sensed that I was not telling the truth, and so there you go. And that's just a simple, you know, just kind of a simple scenario. Yeah, that's interesting. A lot of it, a lot of this is interesting to me, you know, being a fan of like the NFL and the UFC and also being a fan of bodybuilding and a power lifting and CrossFit and stuff like that.

It's interesting though, with bodybuilding, there's drug tested and there's non drug tested with power lifting. There's drug tested. There's non drug tested with strong man. There's, there may be some drug tested organizations, but I'm not really all that aware of them.

It doesn't seem like people gravitate towards that much at all in that sport. And then in CrossFit, there's only one, and they test. But once you get into NFL, NBA, MLB, there's no non-tested. It's only tested. However, all these organizations make a lot of money off of advertisements from companies that sell drugs and alcohol. So I just find that I find it all just like not, I'm not placing any judgment on any of it. I just find it to be really fascinating that, you know, the UFC is like owned by Disney. You know, the UFC is like owned by Disney. And then one of the fighters that they had recently fight on this last card was I think he did a sentence for it. He like beat up his girlfriend or something. So I'm just like, I'm just thinking like not not that I have a solution to any of it, because I don't think that people should maybe be demonized forever or cast away because of some maybe choices that they made that weren't great. And who knows what that guy's circumstances are at the same time.

I'm like, that's really interesting. Like Disney owns this organization. ESPN itself used to not even, uh, they used to not even talk about the UFC. They wouldn't air it. They didn't consider it a legitimate sport.

They're like, this is barbaric, pretty gnarly. Now they can make money off of it. And there it is. And same thing with the drugs and stuff. They're like, this is barbaric. Pretty gnarly. Now they can make money off of it, and there it is. And same thing with the drugs and stuff. They're like, this person smoked pot, this person did this, this person did that, and so they're banned. But then all the commercials, not all the commercials, but many of the commercials are for Budweiser, many of the commercials are for pharmaceuticals.

And it's like, man, this is a little, so the people at home can take kind of whatever they want, but the people participating, maybe they have to play under some different rules. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think, uh, you know, MMA is, is a, is a, is a pretty strict, tightly drug tested organization. Now it wasn't at first, everybody knows that there were some freaks that everybody knew was not drug free, right? You know, the wrestling pro wrestling, you know, that's the fake stuff. They're using whatever they want. Who knows what their off-season testing program looks like? You know, that's why we do what we do. Did that with you.

So, a little tidbit there. What about, because, like, I remember when I would, you know, I was a fan of, like, you know, all sports. But I was, like, really, like, heavy heavy into it and somebody would get popped for something new. And then like recently SARMs and that sort of thing. Like you hear like, oh, the testing is now catching up to some of the science or some of the pharmacology. So is there really like a gap between like what's coming out that people can take to get enhanced versus what the testing is? like what's coming out that people can take to get enhanced versus what the testing is? Because, I mean, when you hear that, you're just like, oh, these guys are probably using like fax machines still and like all these old things.

But from what you're saying, it sounds like, I mean, you guys are way ahead of the game. I mean, I'm not a drug testing specialist or anything like that, but I mean, Balco is a prime example, you know. So will there be another one of those? Probably. But that's why, you know, that's why WADA is going to keep around, you know, thousands and thousands of urine tests in case you do fail in five years, you know,

and then the testing, you know, catches up to like what you just said. Yeah. And 15 years down the line, they come to your house and ask for your metal back. You were using this. That's interesting.

Yeah. But at that point, the sponsorship money will have come and gone. Yeah, well, that's true. Yeah, Lance Armstrong, prime example. That's what I'm, yeah. Yeah, but just on the whole Olympic part, I mean, yeah, the drug testing's the best, but the integrity? Come on, man. If you fail a test, ban someone forever.

This shit will stop. I mean, if you really want to be serious about it right you get one try you screw up one time and if you do a lot of off-season testing and and a lot of it you know in-season testing even if they're not placing at high levels you know you make a couple examples and people are going to be like i do agree with that but do you uh know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether someone like took something or not or sometimes it like a little bit of a gray area maybe you don't really truly know uh i mean you know there there are there are situations with urine where something comes back it looks like one thing but it's something else but they can figure that out they can figure that out through irms testing

deeper testing consistent testing uh we've had we've had athletes that have failed their urine test for te ratio because they're naturally high in testosterone. So we do a longitudinal study and look at their urine all the time and then test it to make sure that there's nothing exogenous in their body. So if you have a TE ratio test that is above what it should be, then testosterone to estrogen. Epitestosterone, yeah, TE ratio. you know what it should be then testosterone to estrogen yeah uh epi testosterone yeah te ratio so if it's if it's above you know uh four to one or five to one six to one then you can figure out what it was um and if there's nothing found in the urine then you just test them multiple times um uh test them at different times different times of the day different times of the year and then look and see you know because if's always high, that's a good thing.

If it's low and then it's high, it can be concerning. But we've never banned someone for having a high TE ratio like that. We just study it. And obviously there's never issues on polygraph tests because then we would fail them. But you can test. You can test further, right you can test for like the metabolites you can test to see if someone's taking things like uh something called an aromatase inhibitor which is something that is blocking the estrogen and it's like why would you be and those are probably banned as well right and they're tested for right yeah and so like but like why would you know a normal person wouldn't really take an aromatase inhibitor

unless you were taking something that aromatizes like testosterone. So can you detect or test for the exact like metabolite and like any idea how that's found? Like testosterone and anthate versus siponate versus proponate versus somebody taking Tren or whatever it might be. They can. I mean, there's a long list of what they're testing for. I mean, it's 100 items or more.

But again, I'm not a testing specialist. I don't run a lab. But yeah, they can isolate that stuff. Right. That's just important to know because I didn't have that understanding before talking to you. And I kind of thought it was kind of just off the ratios. And I was like, well, I don't have that understanding before talking to you and I kind of thought it was kind of just off the ratios. And I was like, well, I don't know. You know, if it's just off the ratios, you might have some people that are, you know, you're gonna have people that are out of the box right here and there.

Yeah, I could be wrong. You know, it could it could identify one substance, but then that could open up into that can mean that could be five different things. I'm not sure. Yeah. You know, one thing I'm curious about, cause you probably have insight into it. I know that natural bodybuilding is not as big as NPC bodybuilding. One reason,

because the bodies are bigger in the NPC and they just, not everybody's eligible. Oh, say again. Not everybody's eligible. That's why we're smaller. Yeah. Not everybody's eligible.

But, but the thing is that is interesting is like most people that train that are into bodybuilding don't take anything. You know what I mean? Most people that do, that are into bodybuilding, don't take anything. You know what I mean? Most people that do. Yet, it's like natural bodybuilding has been growing, but it just seems that it's continued to grow pretty slowly. Am I incorrect in that assessment? Or has it grown faster recently?

I think globally, it's definitely bigger. When we took over our organization at 14, we had five affiliates. Now we have almost 40. So that's huge. Oh, snap. So we're really proud about that. There's reasons. I mean, we are growing here.

The best thing for us is that we're seeing younger people get on board. That's what you want. You want them to continue down the right road. Make your choice down the road if you want you want them to you know continue down the right road um make your choice down the road if you want but um if we can get you guys young and teach you and and and you know you've done a good job you and many people in the sport have done a good job reaching young people and uh you know thanks for this opportunity too because i hope that people will listen to this and and um just kind of look at what we're doing. But it is growing. There's a variety of reasons why it's not growing as fast here because there's probably 20 natural organizations.

They all do something different. It's really pretty ridiculous. I'm not judging them. But if there was only one INBF, let's just say, then we would easily rival the NPC. I believe that. But there's so many organizations, especially in the Northeast, where they bounce around from one to the other rival the NPC. I believe that. But there's so many organizations, especially in the Northeast,

where they bounce around from one to the other to the other. And we have high-level pro-card standards, right? And some of the others have much lower pro-card standards. So everybody wants to be a pro, so they will go compete. That sounds arrogant. Maybe you're offended by that, and I'm sorry, but it's true.

The WNBF has always been the best and we're proud of that. We're going to continue that. But if there was only one, it would look a lot different. And I think there would be a lot of attractive things about the organization. And I will make a comment about that because when I first got in, the guy I was working with, Paul, he was like, oh, yeah, you can beat an INBA or this or this. So that was the first show I did. I did like like two shows with them i got a pro card with them i did an nga show because it was like i was warming up for another show and then i got a pro card with the nga and then wnbf i've seen a lot of competition so like there are differences in the level of

competition you'll see with the top athletes in different organizations and the wnbf is a really is is a very good like it's one of the top natural organizations but that is a very good, like it's one of the top-notch organizations, but that is a problem. It would be ideal if somehow these organizations could make one big organization. Although who knows if that's going to happen. Well, since you mentioned it, we've tried.

We've tried to work with other organizations and they don't want to have any integrity with drug testing. That's a big thing, the drug testing? That's it by far. Yeah. Is it because like maybe they can That's, that's it by far. Yeah. Is it because like maybe they can get away? Like,

is it because maybe you can get freakier people, freakier looking people on stage if you're not, you know, being as stringent with that? Like what's the reasoning? Well, I'll, I'll tell you that the big part,

uh, which, which my wife and Nancy will attest to, we, we all have full time jobs. We do not do this for the income. We all have regular jobs. So every other organization, they make choices depending on income. So why would you want to drug test someone a lot? Why would you want to polygraph

every single person when you know you could catch people and eliminate them from competing, and then they don't bring 30 of their family members to buy your tickets. There's stuff like that, that just, you know, there's, there's a variety of reasons, but,

but the big part that broke it for us and we sat down with three other, four other organizations and we try to agree to drug testing and they wouldn't do it. And we were up here and they're doing what they're doing. So, um, you've mentioned, uh,

you know, younger athletes and,, and I think it's unfortunate. The Internet brings about a lot of great things, and it brings about some crappy stuff too. It's great that there is more information circulating out there. People can find out more about a particular diet or a particular training regimen, and hopefully they don't mess themselves up the way that we did when we were young and they can learn more. And then kind of same thing even with drug protocols.

Like it's kind of great that people are talking about it openly. However, it's really enticing to these younger athletes, especially when they see somebody with a big following on Instagram or TikTok and they're thinking, oh, man, like I would love to do that. I've been lifting for a little TikTok and they're thinking, oh man, like I would love to do that. I've been lifting for a little bit and they're 15 and they're starting to kind of, you know, think about going this, uh, this other route. Um, what has your experience been with, with, uh, you know, these, these teenage kids that are coming into, uh, bodybuilding and what have you seen just bodybuilding in general? What have you seen it do for these kids?

I've seen it do really, really amazing things. I mean, there's, you know, again, you know, Nsema and many other, you know, young natty guys have been really great role models for them. And like, wow, you can look like that drug free. Absolutely, you can. So that's been super cool. You know, with a lot of these guys getting more popular on YouTube and TikTok and all that stuff, it's really brought more people into the sport because there's just more awareness of it. And then you can have this 15-year-old skinny kid that's been bullied for the last five years that gets into bodybuilding for a specific reason, to be bigger, right? So we've seen all kinds of really, really positive things.

Tina and I, when we didn't have kids and we were less busy, we would go into high schools, have seminars and stuff for sports teams and talk to parents and stuff to try to let people know kind of what we're doing and what it's all about. And you can do a lot of great things drug-free. Talked about supplements, things of that nature, what you should and shouldn't use. So I've seen a lot of really positive things and it's it will definitely help us grow. But it's it's good for, you know. It's good for weight training, you know, it's it's, you know, banging weights for 30 years has been awesome. And it's something we all do until we die. Right. It's just something we're always going to do.

So, yeah, it's probably pretty great for them to get into bodybuilding and then to see other people that have been doing it for five years ten years and they can know like oh shit like this is a whole because like it's first of all it's rare to see like people in really good shape just kind of in everyday life you might see a couple at the gym uh things like that but when you go to a bodybuilding show it's really eye-opening and if you're at a particular bodybuilding show like the ones you run um and these are you know competitors current competitors you could, and these are, you know, competitors, current competitors, you could say, well, shit, that guy, you know, you talk to somebody in the warm-up room and you find out they used to weigh 155 pounds. And now they're 210.

And you're like, shit, like, maybe that's, it just kind of opens up your mind of like, well, maybe it is possible. Because I think a lot of kids are thinking that it's not possible. Yeah. And, you know, like we talked about earlier, the fake natty thing, you know, to all you guys, stop doing it. Just stop. Stop the fake natty stuff. Just, you know.

It's fun. I know. It's fun. But it's so confusing because this is what happens is you have these guys that you know are using. They don't look like anybody in our organization, you know. And then you have these kids that go, I could never look like that. Or maybe they just give up and go, I'm just not even going to try. I could never look that way. Well, that's really not real. This is what's real. It's over here and it looks a little bit like this.

So that can be really detrimental and I think confusing to people. The slight thing that, that is, is really tough about this. It's really tough about bodybuilding is it's really focused on the body, right? So when I was younger, I was like,

Oh, big guys, I want to look like them. Right. So I trained a long time and you have to train a long time to get big, but you know, I would never be as, as dumb as to say,

if you train for 10 years, you will look like me. Cause that, that train for 10 years, you will look like me. Cause that, that you might not, you might not look like me, but the thing is you will look like an absolute better version of yourself. Absolutely. You will be absolutely stronger.

You'll be absolutely bigger. Um, and you'll probably be extremely impressed with what you've been able to do with 10 years. Right. Um, but that's, that's the tough thing when it comes to bodybuilding, because it's like people on this whole natty or not side

are saying like, oh, they're over here saying they've never taken drugs and if you train hard, you'll look like them. No one's saying you'll look like anybody. Everyone's just trying to put out the message that if you're just fucking smart about your training and nutrition, you will get bigger and better

to the extent of whatever you're able to do. And that's just a, it's, that's one, because it's so focused again on the body, it's not like a sport where it's basketball and it's skill-based. This that's just a, it's, that's one that, that because it's so focused again on the body, it's not like a sport where it's basketball and it's skill-based. This is skill-based, but it's very visual. And that's why it gets a lot of young guys and young women also kind of just messed up. And it just takes longer, you know, the, the, the, the magic pill is there. It will make you, you know, a more muscular person, but it, you know but it's going to have some issues eventually but

yeah I run our Instagram page I get lots of messages when I see these young kids that I follow whatever they think that's cool they'll send me a message and I'm just like they're like hey do you think I could compete this year and they'll send me pictures and I'm like you look freaking awesome already doesn't matter if you're 150 pounds

there's a Bantamweight class by the way way. So you look awesome. You have good structure, good shape so far. Don't stop. Just keep doing it. Train smart. Find a coach if you need one or if you can afford one, but don't stop. It's going to take a few years, but be patient and you're going to look awesome. And they're like, whoa, thanks a lot for the feedback and all that. So this is an interesting topic. Yeah, should people kind of just start? Like people ask me often, you know, how do I get involved in powerlifting? And I usually just say, I usually say go to a powerlifting meet. I usually don't start out by saying sign up for a powerlifting meet because I think it's good for people to kind of check it out, kind of see what's going on.

Maybe they'll run into a coach. They'll find out about a local gym that could provide more powerlifting information. What do you usually recommend to somebody when you see somebody who maybe is kind of, maybe they're kind of underdeveloped or they're not, they wouldn't be ready even if it was 12 weeks later, you know, where, where do you recommend someone to start? Yeah, I would do exactly what you said. I would give them free advice. Um, either come and check out an event. Um, but if, if someone sent photos and they were not going to do well on stage, especially if they came to Sacramento, it is a very competitive event, even in the novice divisions. So I wouldn't lead them astray. I wouldn't make a couple bucks off

their entry fees or their ticket purchases to lead them down the wrong road. I wouldn't do that. So I would just say, hey, why don't you keep focused on what you're doing? You know, maybe next year, um, get back in touch with me, you know, maybe come to an event or two and see what it's like, compare yourself, you know, to their physiques and then, uh, make the best decision for you. But it's, it's always good to check it out. It's, it's bodybuilding is such a, such a facade because everybody looks like they're on drugs when they're out there. Cause they're dark. They have all this tan on, there's bright lights, they're flexing, they're shredded,

they're striated lines in their butt, you know, separation in your hamstrings. It just looks crazy. And people just go, there's no way they're drug free. I admit it. I did the same thing.

So, so at, at, at 99 worlds in New York, this is before we just really got a mesh and it's before we promoted and my wife was competing and uh the the middleweight group was on there's probably there's probably 30 guys up there spanning the entire stage and i walked from my place where i sat and i walked up to the stage about from here to where mark's picture is and i I looked at everybody and I said, there's no way they're drug free.

Didn't know. They're all drug free. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. I was, I was telling Andrew to pull up this guy, David K. Cause I wanted to see if Mark could guess his weight.

I know people are going to be listening. So you won't be able to see this picture, but even I was wrong. Like I, let me just Mark, what would you say? Like if you looked at this guy, how much do you think he weighs?

Damn. How big do you think he is? The legs? Dave's super developed. Yeah, the legs and the arms. Do we get the height? Yeah, what's his height? What's his height?

God, Dave's going to kill me. I don't know. I would say he's 5. He could be 5'10". That may be a little bit too tall but yeah he just i mean he immediately starts to look like he's like 250 yeah you know he looks heavy because of how how thick the legs and the arms are yeah and i don't i don't want to i don't want to guess his weight because then i'd really get in trouble he'd be like come on bob i used to think he was like 220 nah nah he's he's not even 200 that's awesome i don't even think he's 190 yeah and and that's that's the crazy thing when

you like look at a lot of these physiques you're like oh that that guy's like no he's he's light yeah that's bodybuilding that's bodybuilding right there you know what i mean just to create these uh illusions right what the hell i mean he's probably he's probably one out of i don't know maybe 50 guys that i've seen get that lean he's probably three percent maybe lower yeah it's an interesting thing when somebody's uh for a couple days when somebody's 195 pounds and you just don't have it's so rare to see people like that so it's hard to fat bodybuilding is just extremely fascinating. You know, trying to strip down all the body fat, but keep the muscle mass and or even improve upon, well, the goal is to improve upon the muscle mass year in and year out. And it just is, it's really difficult. And when you try to do it naturally, people don't believe this, but I was natural at one point.

When you try to do it naturally, it is't believe this, but I was natural at one point. When you try to do it naturally, it is really, really difficult. Like just gaining a couple pounds or losing a couple pounds, any shifts one way or the other. I would say this, that something that maybe people don't recognize is that when you're in bodybuilding, it wouldn't matter if you're going into a drug tested federation or if you're in a non-drug-tested federation. If you're going to get on stage and you're going to look good on stage, it just takes a crazy amount of work either way. And the burning of body fat, although there are some things you can take to assist you with that process, there are some drugs. Steroids mainly can help someone to add some muscle mass to

their frame and then once that card is played things again they get to be exponentially harder it's like you're already you're already gone to the dark side and this and that usage is not going to necessarily help you continue to grow and grow and grow it's true and you see this you see some of these athletes start to get into like growth hormone and insulin, and then they might get like another boost from there. But again, like even Phil Heath or whoever, you know, kind of reaches that top of the Mr. Olympia, they only get, I mean, they get huge, but they don't have the ability to still, you know, just get bigger and bigger and bigger over time.

Like it still runs out. But burning body fat and trying to get all the body fat off of you, no matter how you slice it, is very, very difficult and just is a ton of work. Yeah. People are much smarter about it now than they were when I was competing. It was get as lean as you can, but then get up to 230. You know, and then you're carrying 15% body fat, and then you've got to lose it all. Right now the flexible dieting thing has been huge,

and people stay really close to the stage weight. How so? How has that changed things? I mean, people just don't have to diet as long. They don't lose muscle through the process. Their skin's tighter. You can get that really thin, grainy skin that you probably wouldn't if you just diet for 16 weeks and then all of a sudden you're ready to be on stage after 16 or 20 weeks.

So their physiques just look a lot tighter. You hold a level of fitness for a longer period of time and you think that flexible dieting because of the overarching theme of like, hey, the calories are going to matter. If you bulk, bulk, bulk, you're going to kind of end up just being a little fatter and a little flatter on stage probably yeah yeah and just the process of losing the weight it's just so hard with cardio and it's terrible it beats you up like yourself in a real hole yeah it'll jack your physiology up big time and you know one thing that that like i didn't even realize this when I was doing my, my first ever, I did my first ever prep, actually my first ever prep in 2013. Um, the individual I worked with, he, we, we got, we only did like a 12 week prep and I look decent.

It's literally the first picture on my Instagram. I looked okay, but I wasn't anywhere near like a pro level physique. pro level physique um when i did a few shows and i did my pro show in 2015 like that that prep was 40 weeks to get from 265 down to 228 it was a long prep and i think one thing that people don't realize is when a lot of people hear about contest prep they hear about it from the like npc side and those guys are doing preps in 10 12 weeks usually you see a standard of a 12-week prep right worth a lot of natural guys or natural woman they you kind of unless you're starting already pretty lean you usually need a much longer time to prep and lose that body fat and that's what a lot of people don't realize a

lot of people are doing 20 24 week preps that's not uncommon yeah that's a long time um and obviously you know when you're um competing elsewhere, the dieting and the food choices and all that stuff is way different. I've seen some things that some of these high-level, non-tested guys are suggesting for clients, and I'm just like, that does not work for us, man. How can you not separate what you're doing and what they have to do? What kind of differences do you notice? No extra fats, know vegetables only two forms of protein um don't eat fruit it'll make you fat you know stuff like that just you know just uh yeah i find that stuff to be really fascinating where people are like no fruit no dairy you know

you're like man you start to really run out of a lot of options on things you can eat you're like shit this is going to be difficult yeah although i had some really good tilapia last night but i know sometimes people use that as that's all i'm eating because it's lean and tilapia exists yeah it's pretty damn good yeah the way she made it was good let me ask you this because a lot of people do mention this um you've heard of like guys leaving federations and then they, you know, have a little bit of fun. They come back and they're like much bigger. How do you guys know? I mean,

other than I guess polygraph would be it, but is it, does that happen often? Cause I've heard of that happening. And like, you know, I've heard of guys getting like seven year bands for failing something. That's something you hear about.

So in the WNBF, is it just like your band for life or do you band for a certain amount of time and you can come back later? Yeah, it's a 10-year policy. So our rule is once you, in that situation we talked about off camera, once you know what our drug testing policies are, what our rules are, you can never break those. You break them, you're out. So if you decide to, let's say, go on DHEA, you're not eligible. So if you decide to, let's say, go on DHEA, you're not eligible. That's a really bad choice to make on something that's really not a major, major drug, but it's on the steroid panel.

It's on the list. It's got to be banned, right? But, you know, you go use SARMS products or you go use some other pro-hormone and then you want to come back in two years. That's a no. That's why we polygraph. Otherwise, you have no idea. Just think about who's on these other stages that you know of of those organization names. We don't need to say them. But just imagine who was on those stages and they never come to us. So that's why I always say if you compete with us, I believe you. I believe you're 100 percent drug free. If you don't, there's probably a reason. How long like what does the rules say? Like how long is someone supposed to be clean to compete in your organization? So it's 10 years for anything that's illegal or banned.

What is a whole other conversation? But if there is an athlete that just found out that DHEA was on the banned substance list because his doctor was providing it for low testosterone issues, we, we have an amnesty timeframe. So that's a three month timeframe. But once you, you know, once you stop, when I get that email saying, Hey, I was using this, I'm like, you stop it tomorrow. Cause it's going to be asked on the polygraph test. So don't, don't use that for the next six months before you compete with us. Cause you know the rule today.

Um, uh, and then there's a couple other things that we have, um, an amnesty timeframe because, you know, if the 17 year old kid takes, you know, two SARMs pills, we're going to ban him for 10 years. You know, let's try to be, you know, give the kid a chance to compete. So, um, you know, we take the drug testing, you know, one, basically one question at a time and determine, uh, you know, but, but like you said earlier, honestly, you know, this is something we've been doing since 99. Most people are not using anything.

Most people are just, they don't even know what is on the ban list. They don't even care to look at it because they just are so naive about it, right? They would never use anything. But yeah, all the hardcore stuff is 10 years. And how did you guys come to that number? Because I've seen it's kind of like almost like a slogan, like 10 years drug free. I mean, I know it's just 10 years is a long time, so that makes sense. But I was just curious, is there any other reason why it's 10 years?

In the 90s, we started with a five-year on those items um just because there was a lot of education to do right i mean people don't know what the rules are um then that moved um just some some history with the organizations um when imb was was um their inception was um in the in the late 90s or the early 2000s um we adopted a seven year uh seven year time frame and then when we took over in in uh 14 it was 16 that we started the 10-year list um but that was because i really felt really getting in touch with a lot of young people and they are way more conservative about not ever having to stand next to someone on that's ever used anything like one pill they're like i don't want to stand next to that guy kind of ridiculous anything, like one pill. They're like, I don't want to stand next to that guy.

Kind of ridiculous. But that kind of told me that people are going to be more conservative on the banned substances. So I thought, you know, I presented it to my partners and said, I really think that 10 years would be a big deal. It's different than what anybody else is doing. And I don't need your membership dollars if you're not eligible. And so a lot of people don't want to, don't want to move to what we're doing because it could maybe hurt them

financially. What are some of the things you've seen some of the athletes do? And maybe what are some things that you've done to have been like, have resulted in just kind of like messing up maybe your metabolism like your efforts to get as lean as possible on stage maybe you prep for a show and you're like shit man i just lost so much muscle i shouldn't have done that like and what have you maybe kind of seen some of your athletes uh that are competing what have you seen them do um i've seen a little bit of that you know we we run posing classes and, you know, we try to be free of advice for a lot of people.

So if someone sends us a photo and they're just emaciated, we just tell them, look, that's not going to look good on stage. Judges don't want to see it. It's unhealthy. You need to fix yourself. We've had athletes from other countries like way over diet. Their leaders have said, don't bring this to Worlds. It's not going to look good. So we've seen some people really kind of destroy their physiques, but less so in probably the last

five or six years because of all the flexible dieting and education and the fact that, you know, if you're, you don't have to 100% be dying for the process, although you get there eventually, percent be dying for the process although you get there eventually you do get there where it's just so freaking hard but um there's just better approaches to it now and um you know most people most people do this in a fairly healthy way you'll always get those people that that have some other issues that uh do it the wrong way um i've seen some really bad physiques on stage that i was just like whoa um if the wind blew it would knock them over. It just did not look good. So we usually through the judge's feedback process, tell them, Hey, that's not healthy. It doesn't look good. We really don't want to see on stage again, looking like this to health problem. Um, so yeah, we've, we've seen some craziness.

Some of what I've seen in just, you know, communicating with people about their nutrition and, you know, running this podcast and talking to other people is that it appears that like when you start to really consume low calorie, you get into like lower, lower calories, that it gets to be just more and more difficult to do much of anything. And the less that you take in, it seems like the less that you are, you know, the less hand movements you do, the less vocal you might be, less excited. Like it just really brings everything down a notch. And even like your non-exercise activity goes way down and things like that.

So for yourself, how would you prep somebody for a show? Do you kind of start with a reduction of calories? Do you start with cardio? Is it kind of a mixture of heavy weights, a little bit of cardio, and a mild deficit? How do you usually go about it? Yeah. I mean, mild deficit, I usually tell people, Hey, if you don't have to do cardio, don't do it. Like stay anabolic, keep your energy. There's a point where you're going to have to, most people do not always get this guy that walks around like he does. Um, so yeah, just a consistent one to two pounds a week, you know, that's, that's kind of healthy and you're not killing yourself.

And then once that stops, you just make some small modifications calorie-wise, carb-wise. And then just make those decisions when, I mean, I'm not a coach, so this is kind of the old school stuff. But keep everything as normal as you can. Make those adjustments when you need to. If you get behind, make bigger changes in your diet. And then obviously you can always add cardio in if needed. But yeah, coaching and training right now, there's a lot of you guys out there that have a lot of super good information. So yeah, just have fun in the process is what I would say.

Don't make it so crazy and monotonous that you're ending relationships and having family problems and stuff you made the choice so you make the sacrifice so do it research do it healthy do it in a good way that it doesn't ruin relationships because that's when it's not healthy and sema do you agree with this like from my own experience and just kind of seeing some other other folks getting ready for bodybuilding shows, it's almost like you have a little notch of improvement every single day. You think that is pretty common amongst people that are getting ready for a show? When you say a little notch of improvement, you mean like getting leaner? Yeah, you just notice like a little extra vein pop out or a little extra line somewhere. You're like, I didn't have that.

Like maybe it's not every day, but it's certainly once a week. Yeah. You see it like every week. You're like, oh, I didn't have a vein there or they didn't have a cut there before. Or they're like grain. Yeah. I didn't have like lines in certain areas. I noticed that a lot.

I think one big thing that's been a big change within the last decade as far as like people and bodybuilding. Obviously, there's been a lot of YouTube content. But in the past, when I've seen old bodybuilding content people would be like, you know As you're getting leaner lift like much lighter weights go for more of a pump, etc but I like The people that are trying to focus on holding on to performance not like you're gonna you're not gonna be as strong as you were At 20% when you are 7% No But when you're trying to focus on holding on to that performance and trying to still make progress in the gym, that's one of the big ways that you're going to be able to get

stronger, like not stronger, but be able to hold on to as much muscle as possible when you're getting leaner. But when you're trying to lighten up the weight and do a lot of cardio, you might lose weight, but you're also going to be losing a lot of muscle because you're not stimulating that muscle like you were in the past. And that's one of those misconceptions I had before I did my first show. I was like, oh, I'm going to lift a lot of light weights. I'm going to do a lot of cardio. And that is not the case.

You don't need to do that. Yeah, that's the whole bro science thing. Just because you're doing higher reps doesn't mean you're going to get leaner and shredded. But yeah, I agree. If you ever give up on hypertrophy training when you're getting ready for a show, big mistake. Always push that weight as much as you can, as long as you can, for as many reps as you can. Periodize it, change things up. I mean, maybe some of the smaller physique guys

or the bikini girls can kind of get away with that approach, because it's less muscle-oriented. But little changes here and there. How about when you see people, because I see this a lot and I know that bodybuilding, it's a sport that can be very engulfing. It can, it can, it's,

it's enjoyable, but when people come and compete every single year, right? When I look at that, I'm just like, why are you competing again? When you competed last year? Like you had to make some,

it's, it's, it's an interesting sport because unlike powerlifting where you can hit the platform three times, maybe like a lot of powerlifters sometimes hit it four times a year and they're making some progress. Bodybuilders or bikini athletes, if you hit the stage and then you give yourself, you have to first off get out of being that lean. And then when you're not that lean, then you have to make some progress. It's going to be really hard unless you're a newer athlete to have that time span to actually make visible progress in your physique before you have to get lean again and prep, right?

It's definitely changed. I mean, since the 90s, 2000s, you go to a WNBF pro show, everybody's the same. When it was only women's and men's bodybuilding, everybody was the same. So you got to see them on multiple stages and now it's just different. There's just more going on. It's more of a hobby now than I think it used to be. It used to just be a way of life, a dedication. It was just kind of maybe the older school mentality.

And now with other categories, people just kind of come and go all the time. And you can kind of get away with that, like with physique and bikini. Because bodybuilding, man, you got to have it all the time and and you can kind of get away with that you know like with physique and bikini because bodybuilding man you got to have it all the time you have to have that same amount of muscle or more every single time you compete it's just the way it is um and you know you know younger people are having families getting into fitness and stuff uh physique bikini so um but with all categories it's been a little bit more um you more less consistent in terms of how often they compete. But isn't that a good thing so they can give themselves time to grow? Yeah.

I mean, the sport is really short-lived. So I think that when people say, I don't want it, I'll get a message and they'll say, I'm not going to be ready for the mayhem for four years. And I'm like, don't have that attitude. You could be dead in four years. You could have two broken legs or whatever. So get on stage, compete, enjoy it because you're not going to do it forever. And that was Charlie Carolla, the former vice president of the WNBF, told me that. And, you know, at the time I was like, yeah, whatever, Charlie.

I'm going to be around forever. You know, sport's the greatest. But he's right. You can only do it so long. Um, and to be competitive at the highest level, it's so hard. Uh, you see in the transiency, there's just new people coming in, you know, new, new, right. When you see this guy, you know, pro world champion, you go, who's going to beat him. Someone's watching that guy and they're going to try it the next year. So we should have a good world this year. There's a few guys, a few big hitters coming in. You should come and check it out.

I would love to. It's in Las Vegas. Come and have some fun. But I think you'd be impressed. Maybe we could even set up some interviews. I don't know. I don't know if you'd be interested in that. But I think you'd be impressed.

You'd be like, holy cow, this is legit. What would your speech be to someone like our boy Andrew over there? Andrew's huge. He's good. I know. He's looking good. Appreciate that. Just like anybody who has never competed before.

I kind of think that people that get into lifting weights, if they're really trying to improve their physique, into lifting weights, if they're really trying to improve their physique, and they think they're anything within striking distance of being, I don't know, 10% body fat, I think they should really explore getting on a stage at some point, and or at least doing some pictures. At least doing a photo shoot or something. I really, really think it's important. What have you seen it do for people?

Like for me, it was really transformative and it helped me stay leaner since that time. And this is going back a couple of years now. So what would your speech be to like some of the listeners are listening right now or like, I don't really know, like bodybuilding is kind of weird. I don't know about the oil and the tanning and whatever. The small suit. But there's a lot of things to be gained from that small suit you know yeah the first time i put one of those on i was like something's coming out just saying but it never did but uh it's like a sock or something yeah and the younger guys the younger guys are so cute man they're awesome they always have these big thick suits on they're

like man they just don't want to have all that skin hanging out, right? And then they get smaller and smaller as they compete. So, yeah, I would agree. I would just say. You're getting nervous. Yeah, totally. Like, I guess I'll go for the G-string first. Yeah, they're worried about seeing these girls backstage in bikinis.

And they're like, oh, what am I getting myself into? I was mad worried about that, by the way, for the first time. I was like, wait up. I'm about to go backstage with a bunch of half-naked women. Am I gonna? It's weird, though. You didn't really look at it that way once you saw them, right? Yeah, I didn't.

Because when I was backstage, I mean, there's beautiful women everywhere. They're in great shape. But I was like, I kind of looked at them more like, holy fuck, they're in really good shape. I wasn't like, I kind of looked at them more like, holy fuck, they're in really good shape. I wasn't like, hey! The last thing you want to do is that. Because you're nervous and you're focused. But yeah, I would say definitely compete. I'm in the position that I'm in to own the organization because we actually did compete.

We've met people from all over the world. You'll find friends that you've never met before, especially with the WNBF, just being worldwide, which is really, really awesome. But you'll meet great friends. We have on our judges PowerPoint slideshow, I have one that's just all these guys around stage hugging each other, kind of flexing.

And it's just a really great camaraderie. I would definitely recommend competing. It doesn't matter where. Just get on stage, have a good time, enjoy the process. Like you said, see your body change. That's awesome. That's motivating. I mean, even my 15-year-old son is pounding weights in the gym, and he's seeing himself grow, and it's been such a, just a, you know, when someone gives you a compliment, it just feeds that fire and stuff, And so it's really, really pretty awesome. So that is an amazing thing. Once you get that first compliment from somebody and Seema talked about a girl checking out his biceps when he was a childress. What's up, Lissa? I remember you, girl. Those things can be, I mean, it's craziness, right? But it could be transformative for you. It could really propel you in a certain direction. Yeah. It makes you feel good. And then, you know, if someone asks for advice, you give them advice and that fuels them and they're

successful and then they pass that on to someone else. And so, um, there's been a, you know, there's been nothing negative about, uh, being involved in the sport or competing. Um, you're going to run across some of those crazy people in the world, but, um, it's usually a really great process and you'll meet great friends. You'll get some great photos, like you said. We always tell people when you're competing, even if you just get the stage package, but off the stage, go down to the state capitol, get some cool pictures, go down to the river and grab something on the bridge, and just have the stuff to look at, because eventually

when you're washed up, like me, you only have photos to look at. You carry those pictures around in your wallet. No, I don't. I actually don't. They're all done. Newspaper clipping, it's all messed up. They're on the internet. Yeah, the cool thing about all this.

Mark and SEMA have coached me to drop some body fat and do some photo shoots. And what I like about the whole experience is that I actually really loved the process. Um, the, the photo shoots themselves, like I was pretty nervous for them. And I remember both, both shoots recently, like I, I got shit sleep the night before. So I was like, Oh, I'm going to have a bad shoot. And, but I mean, mean it looked i came out looking great but the um the cool thing is like you know in sema will have my my macros down and then mark and him will be like all right well you're gonna start doing the step mill and i step mill like let's go like i get like i like that i like carrying around my tupperware and stuff so i'm already a dork for all of this cool but the um like the stage and doing all that and like i'm like oh fuck man that's a that's it's a lot of commitment you can do it man yeah you can do it for all of this. Cool. But the, like the stage and doing all that and like, I'm like, oh,

fuck, man, that's a, that's, it's a lot of commitment. You can do it, man. Yeah.

You can do it. I know I can. I'm just, you know, I'm using excuses and. No, just,

hey, just like I always tell people, do a direct test to show it. It's just going to be the most fair. I'm not, I'm not bagging on the others. I'm just saying it's going to be the most fair, right?

You're definitely failing that for the 10 years. Okay, well, then that's a whole other conversation. Yeah. Which I'm fine with. I don't, you know, I don for the 10 years. Okay. Well then that's, that's a whole nother conversation then. Yeah. Which I'm fine with. I don't,

I don't care, but yeah, you can still come and watch, but I would say compete though, because yeah, you're, you're going to get even further into your diet. You're going to get even leaner.

You're going to see things that in your physique that you won't see if you're just kind of going through what you're going through right now, that's going to change. You're going to get way more intense and yeah absolutely even just prepping for those photo shoots like i had never been that like zoned into my diet and training and everything it was like i said i loved that process like i love having a goal that like you know i i told the world about it right like i'd say hey this photo shoot's coming up and i filmed like a little mini document documentary about it and it was like yeah the pressure was on because i came out looking

like shit like i would just look silly but it was yeah it was incredible it was an awesome experience for me so go compete man go go do a novice event and um you know get in the best shape you can and go have fun with it and you mean, look, not everybody is using that's on non-test stages. I don't ever mean to imply that. But it doesn't mean you're not going to have a competitive class that maybe no one is in there using. But if there is, there is. But as long as you get in your best shape, you do the best that you can,

and you come out learning stuff and a positive experience then you know you'll never go backwards yeah i can't imagine anything like negative would come of it i i understand you know so like i have a newborn at home so like that's where i keep kind of saying like oh maybe once we figure things out and you know like next year and then it's like no well then the next like you know like once he's like 25 yeah yeah you know just that way he can handle himself you know i'll i'll find an excuse for something every year so yeah well then then commit to a show pay the entropy and then it's on yeah then you can't then you can't back out you have no escape i know i know i i'm telling him that i'm just making all this shit up to avoid it but

you know it's something that i've been wanting to do anytime you know mark had mentioned it i like yeah like which one do you think i should do and it's like we'll get him in one yeah it'll happen it's just i just don't know when bob you get around uh when you get around family members and i'm like oh shit you know here comes my uncle or my cousin or whatever that uh you know runs the bodybuilding show he's gonna give me shit about eating or my cousin or whatever that runs the bodybuilding show. He's going to give me shit about eating this cake or whatever. On a more positive note, how have you been able to impact some of the people around you? Because we talk about this often and not trying to forcefully impact anybody that's around you that doesn't want the help,

that's around you that doesn't want the help, but maybe some family members and some folks around you and your wife that you've been able to say, hey, here's a route you can go. You can go to the gym and you can do some of these things. How have you introduced nutrition, fitness, bodybuilding, maybe into some of the folks that are around you in your life? With my own family, zero results. It's just not there. They're just not built that way but but other people you know primarily i would say at work obviously people in the gym and posing classes and through the bodybuilding thing yeah we we do that all the time but um

you know people at work we've helped lose some weight it's really i mean all this stuff is not rocket science you know a strict diet something that's low in calories, that's enough, you know, carbs and fat and protein to keep your metabolism. OK, but to encourage you to lose weight, you know, we give sample diets all the time. It's just really not that hard to be successful with with this. But, yeah, I mean, we've we've helped people lose weight at work. We've had several friends that we've worked with that have actually competed as a result of talking to us. And they're like, yeah, you know, I really kind of thought about doing that one day. So that was kind of the next little poke at them to get them on stage. But yeah, we enjoy helping people of all walks of life on, you know, anytime we can, for sure. And it makes you feel good to be able to do that. makes you feel good to be able to do that i think like preps you know preps are interesting because it makes you it makes any individual no matter what type of which category they're doing you get your body to a place where you never really like you get in shape but then you take it even

to a crazier level and i don't think many people like when you do that um you when you gain some weight back your body is different for the rest of your life, it seems. Like getting that lean, when you gain body fat back, your distribution changes, but also the mental stress of getting that lean and what you notice when you are that low body fat. How you get annoyed and food and all that type of stuff. It really does give you a perspective. I think you got a lot of that too. And like, what,

what do you think is the biggest experience you had when you got that lean for your first show? There's a bunch of stuff, you know? So before the bad stuff hits a lot of good things hit, you smile a lot more. Uh, you are wearing a lot less clothes,

which may or may not be beneficial to the people around you, but you're super excited about your physique and your personality. Maybe even changes a little bit. Cause you're like, I feel better. I, I think I look better. So you're super excited about all that,

but there does get to be a point where it gets to be like monotonous. It gets to be like, I don't, I'm not really taking in that much fuel and I'm expending tons of energy every day. And, uh, that side of it starts to kind of really, uh, weigh on you and kind of almost gives you like a, it almost gives you like a stress, a stressor that it's like, you can't just overcome it mentally necessarily, or at least it was difficult for me.

Um, I didn't have too many issues around the competition itself. It was when the competition was over that it was really weird for me. I went to Bodega Bay with my wife, and I was like, oh, this is going to be cool. I get to eat whatever I want. I'm just going to chill, and we can go for some walks, and we can have a picnic on the beach beach and we can do all these things. And once we got there, even after I ate, you know, food and I got some fuel in me, I just had the blues really bad. You know, it was just like post-competition blues. And I did really well in the competition.

I was excited about how I did. I was excited with, you know, where I got my body to. Like I thought I pretty much gave it just about everything I got. I was pumped about all that. But, yeah, I just kind of had post-competition blues. And she's like, hey, you want to go for a walk? I was like, I don't care. She's like, hey, you want to, you know, go eat pancakes?

I was like, I don't care. You know, so it just, yeah, just kind of a lull. And it lasted for like two days and then it was gone. Yeah. Yeah, I think everybody goes through that. We talk about the psychological piece all the time because it, it, it can hit people differently.

Yours pretty normal. Some people hits it really, really hard. They start gaining weight, start having other issues, but that was the thing I was, I, that,

that was the thing I was really concerned about because everyone kind of told me about that and previous, you know, to getting, you know, that lean and that kind of shape. I used to be 330 pounds. So I was really concerned about because everyone kind of told me about that. And previous, you know, to getting, you know, that lean and that kind of shape, I used to be 330 pounds. So I was like, man, I do not want to like skyrocket my weight. So I kind of made a rule for myself not to gain more than about 12, 12 pounds or so. And I stayed within those parameters. But that was hard because right away I was so excited to start eating again.

Yeah. eminence but that was hard because right away i was so excited to start eating again yeah buddy mine jeff uh after his last competition he gained like 25 pounds in two days and he freaking ate it in and out like four to four four days in a row and i'm seeing that dude it's a good call though i did get a spike i did get 25 pounds in two days though that is i mean obviously a lot of it was sodium and water and stuff but still even, even if it's 15 pounds, that's. And you just look a lot different. You're like, what happened? You're all puffy.

Yeah. Cause it's all just like over top of everything you just worked for. That happened to me this weekend. I lost your mind. I went to Tahoe and I haven't had all you can eat sushi in a long time. I gained like 14 pounds. Yeah. It's finally coming off, but it is what it is.

Have you, Nseema, have you carried over some of the things from bodybuilding into jujitsu? Do you think maybe you had an advantage? Obviously, like lifting weights is a huge advantage, but like the bodybuilding mindset of doing some prep and going through something for 40 weeks, do you think maybe you had some advantages maybe going into jujitsu that maybe someone else might not have? I think the great thing with, uh, with what first off that prep,

it was a long prep and it would take a long time to get to that goal. It was 40 weeks, but I think the biggest thing that I took over to jujitsu was just like being patient with it. Uh, and by the way, you mentioned that I don't do cardio. I do jujitsu.

So it's a lot of cardio. That is cardio. It's cardio. Um, but the big thing is that like I started jujitsu being at the bottom of the pond. I was getting my ass beat every single day. And I knew just take years and years until I became proficient. And then years and years until I became decent and then good. I think that's the big thing that most people should realize when it comes to bodybuilding.

good. I think that's the big thing that most people should realize when it comes to bodybuilding. I think most people, when it comes to bodybuilding and fitness, it's what can I, how much gains can I get in a year? Not even that, but like, how, like what I'm going to get to my dream physique in two or three years. Like, nah, you're not going to, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not even, it shouldn't even be a rough thing to say, because when it comes to anything, you're trying to get good at a profession or whatever, you're going to be studying for years. So when it comes to bodybuilding and your body, you're going to be studying for years. Yeah. Bodybuilding, you'll never look like you want to look.

You just always, you just always have this mental picture of what you want to look like. And it's just so hard. It's chasing so hard. Chasing that forever. Yeah. And I think for a lot of the guys that unfortunately get into the heavy drug uses and stuff, you've got these guys with massive arms and they think they're small. And it's like, whoa. So the reverse anorexia. Body dysmorphia. Yeah.

Body dysmorphia can be insane even with young guys. I don't know. That makes sense. Yeah yeah you can have it like if you're if you're uh in a drug tested federation you can still suffer from that and think that you need to be leaner and totally totally shredded but if you're taking stuff uh it'd just be amplified that much more it's like dude your back is already massive like you don't need to do another set of pull-ups you're good just relax good point you know the cool thing um when i when i saw like my first bodybuilding show and i saw the first pro show i was like wait a lot of these pros are over 30 like there there were a few pros that were like

in their 20s right and you see that quite a bit but the ones that you the majority of really competitive ones are like 27 28 30 something mid 30s 40s like there are some there are some cats that are jacked and killing it and winning pro shows not not masters pro shows in their 40s and that's when you realize this isn't necessarily a sport where in the first few years i'm like your prime isn't in your 20s your prime is in your 30s and your early 40s right that just means it takes time yeah for sure don't disagree with that but i think um if you guys are watching the video andrew if you can pull up some of those pictures of some of those natural pro guys and there's anyone else you have in mind to pull up i think that'd be good just because i i want people to see like what these guys look like i'd say look up babakar

he's he's one of our former world champs in 2018 he's a beast oh my god i got a quick question here in sima about you mentioning that you went from 265 down to 228 was there like 265 is a huge huge number it's a massive person you know so uh was there a lot of time spent like getting up like because 40 weeks sounds like a long time but how many weeks and how many months and maybe possibly how many years were spent working on being 265 pounds so on my instagram i think my first show that i ever did in bodybuilding, first two shows were in 2013. I hear that guy. Yeah. And after I did that prep, I didn't compete again until 2015.

So my weight on stage in my first- Was that intentional to get bigger? Yes. Like I needed to put on a lot more size. I think the peak that I was ever at before that show, I think I was like maybe at two 45. Uh, so I spent like two, two years pretty much getting up that weight. Uh, and then it also took a while to lose that weight because I wasn't, I wasn't fat

at two 65, but I was definitely like 19, 20. Yeah. Like you're six, two, six, two. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're six to six to yeah. Yeah. I had quite a bit of fat on. So like if I ever did prep again, well, this would be my, it's my, I'd be probably just chilling around two 50, but that was a lot of unnecessary weight, which meant that I had to take a much longer time to lose it.

Right. So I think an average prep for people would be looking like 20 weeks. Mine was 40 weeks because I had a lot of weight to lose and i had to maintain a lot of muscle i see you might have had an extra 10 15 on you that wasn't needed i didn't have to be 265 i could have been i could have been lighter than 265 you still make your bone density too i mean african-americans just have thicker bones they do it's a total fact i mean we did a bone density study and you have way more than we do. Yeah. Have you gotten a DEXA scan too?

No, we did this nuclear medicine study freaking in early 2000s. It was at UC Davis. It was pretty cool. What did you guys see? It was just basically a bone density scan and they show you all the data and all that stuff afterwards. I mean, zero chance of ever developing osteoporosis once you have that bone density. But it was interesting. But they were basically showing that people that weight train, resistance train, high-level athletes have thicker bones than normal people that don't do anything. And so bodybuilding even more so because of all the resistance training, all the stress,

it would make it thicker. Yeah. Do you think, uh, having an extra weight on you, um, was important for you to lift more weight, which may have also been important for you to have like more hypertrophy to

end up with a better kind of cut, you know, physique at the end, or do you think it was still unnecessary to be that big? I think I could have been two 55 lifting the same weights right 255 um actually 250 to 255 lifting the same weights moving the same amount of volume so there there's a threshold to where you don't have to gain a certain amount of weight um but i do think like for myself when i was 265 i wasn't unhappy with the way i looked i didn't look out of like didn't look, people wouldn't look at me and be like, he's out of shape.

You know what I mean? I think it's when an athlete is bulking and they get to the point where people look at them and they're like, they're really out of shape. You got to bring it back a little bit. Look at his biceps insertions. I mean, he's got super short. His biceps are thick down at the bottom of the base of the bicep. Yeah, so super short,

put on more muscle as you can. Did you ever find Babacar? Yeah, he did. Oh, he did? Okay.

So, Babacar is originally from Nigeria, I believe, don't. Oh, he's Nigerian too? Baba,

sorry if I got that wrong, yeah. And then, lives in Switzerland, or from Switzerland. Is he like seven feet tall? I mean, he looks, his arms are all long looking. He's like 5'8".

He's super short. And there's guys like Jeff Alberts who we're going to be having here soon from 3DMJ. And Jeff Alberts is in his mid-40s. Look at this guy jump. After he won, he started jumping up and down. I've only seen something like that. I mean, he probably had a 40-inch weight. Oh, my gosh.

It was the coolest thing to see. He does it every time he wins, but he's quite the athlete. Every time. I was going to say, he's got a lot of practice jumping. I think he was a professional jiu-jitsu or MMA guy. He's a stud. He's a pro MMA guy? I think he was.

Oh, Jesus. Just go down his Instagram. You'll see some of his background. But anyway, I think we'll see him and Kendall and a couple others on stage. Oh, Kendall. That'll be an interesting overall, for sure. Kendall's local, too, right? Kendall's local, Sacramento.

That boy. He's trying to pull me back to stage, man. This guy. So this guy, he sent me a message. He's like, Simo, we got to get on stage at the mayhem for the natural community. I'm like, Kendall. No, you just want to put my ass. He probably has a hit list.

He has a hit list. But this guy, he's been focusing there and you've been, you've had your focus elsewhere. So it's really, really not a fair, uh, it's all good. But he, he's also like this dude, I think on stage, he's usually around two Oh three. Um, but, and of course having a two inch waist doesn't make you look any smaller. His freaking like his insertions, his waist, everything is just ridiculous. Like that dude is wild. That dude's wild.

And then there's like Sam also. Sam's another heavyweight who I know, but he's also like 205 on stage, but he's Wait till you see all the, the really shorter Asian guys that are qualifying in other countries. They're going to, they're going to shake up the lightweights a lot. I mean, there's some freaks and they're, they're all about five, three, five, four. It's crazy. Yeah. And they look, they look, and they have small waist. So it just looks, it looks really insane.

And this is Jeff. Yeah. Jeff has been, uh, you know, Jeff called us after he, um, had been competing, you know, with the untested group, um, and just was frustrated not being able to place about second place. You know, he just kind of got sick of it and, and, um, came over to the IMBF and, um, has competed with us ever since. Uh, he's been super influential for, you know, finding young people. and came over to the IMBF and has competed with us ever since.

He's been super influential for finding young people. He knows people all over the country. He's actually found some affiliates for us, which has been really, really great. But, yeah, there's just so many guys in the WMBF and SEMA included that have really helped us grow, so we really appreciate that. And, again, thanks, Mark, for having me on. This stuff is good, by the way. Oh, yeah. You're liking the element?

Yeah, that's good. But I want to say something. I admire Jeff so much because he's a person where you, like he has those pictures when he was bodybuilding in his 20s. And then you see him in his 40s. And there are all these people who are like, oh, you're not going to gain much muscle over the years. Or after five years, that's the most muscle you're going to gain.

You look at Jeff at 40, whatever he is now mid like probably late 40s to like his late 20s he is so much bigger right it's like it's night and day and like yeah you don't just stop gaining muscle you know even in your 40s you can keep that going for a long time yeah what do you do now with your uh nutrition your lifting? I still lift at least four days a week. My nutrition is not great, but I get my protein in and get my, some decent carbs in and a couple of M&Ms here and there. And yeah, but when you're running a show, are you sometimes like, man, I should probably cut back on the M&Ms a little bit. I got a show are you sometimes like man i should probably cut back on the m&ms a little bit i've got a show coming up and i gotta influence some people no i just

lift a lighter weight and more reps and i just get shredded yeah but when you every time you go to show you go man i need to get i need to get myself together here but i'll do it tomorrow yeah what about um protein sources um you know the uh because you said you mentioned a couple times like the old school bodybuilder whatever it's like chicken broccoli and rice right like that's that seems to be like the uh the staple or at least it used to be um you mentioned tilapia also but um what about red meat yeah i mean i we'll do red meat every you meat a couple times a week maybe. But just well-rounded, fish, chicken, some protein powders, some bars, snacks.

But yeah, I think just covering it all is fine unless you've got some cholesterol issues or whatever. Maybe eat the less fatty meats. I've got to mention something to you because, okay, so this is, this is a company we work with. They're called Piedmontese. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. Um, have you heard of Piedmontese?

If you haven't, it's a, no, no, if you haven't, it's fine. Um, but,

uh, they, all of their steak is like super, not all of their steak. They have some cups that are cuts that are higher fat, but they have like a, what's it, but the flat iron steak has like 98 grams of protein and seven or eight grams of fat yeah it's like i think like

80 something grams of protein but only like four grams of fat for like i think it's an eight ounce cut so it's not a gigantic one but it's it's freaking delicious that's unbelievable yeah and then um also the um they're they're they're to start calling it the Nebraska cut. It's a Nebraska ribeye. It's the center cut ribeye. So that whole thing, same thing. It's a thicker, amazing tasting steak. That one also only has like four grams of fat for a shit ton of protein.

I'll look up the actual numbers on it, but we're calling it the Nebraska ribeye. I'll look into it. It's insane, yeah. ship and everything oh absolutely cool and that's sick i feel like especially with the way bodybuilders prep that's going to change the like the the pleasure of a prep because usually when people prep when they get to those deepest stages they're like okay i have to cut out all fatty stuff or all fatty meat, right? But you can actually have steak while prepping, and it's good steak. Cut it into four ounces and see if it's half the fat. Exactly. That's awesome.

That is awesome. And while we're at it, if you want to know more about Piedmontese, head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout. Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And I think the shipping is now $150. I'm not sure exactly at what point it becomes free. So I'll just say that it's 25% off with promo code POWERPROJECT. Yeah, go check out these.

This steak is amazing because it is super high in protein but ridiculously low in fat. And it tastes bananas. It tastes so good. It doesn't taste bananas. It tastes steak. Are you still a coach? I think you mentioned earlier that you're a football coach. Yeah, I coach in football, high school football.

That's awesome. How long have you been doing that for? I coached youth football for several years, and then it just kind of transitioned into high school football. I got together with a good bunch of guys and just kind of continued working together. So I work with receivers and special teams and place kickers. Yeah, it's fun. You work with people in the weight room a little bit too? Yeah, we get to go in there and that's what's really awesome to see is, you know,

freshmen lifting weights for the first time and they're really getting after it. It's really, really cool. You know, we take them through a sound, sound you know educational piece where they get the movements down and work with lightweight or work with bars or you know pvc pipe or whatever and then graduate to the weight and it's pretty cool to see them really take after it um and want to be you know bigger and stronger and muscular like the seniors that are playing football yeah i think that's where it's at, man, is, you know, having an influence on our youth. You know, I think, you know, older folks, you know, anybody who's like even just in their 30s, you know,

it's hard to kind of shift their mind. It's hard to kind of get them towards new habits, although, you know, it's never too late to, to kind of shift gears and to shift over. But man, if you can gift somebody, uh, some, the, the gift of lifting, uh, it's pretty, pretty damn special. And you're doing such a great job with it, coaching football, and then also running these shows. Um, it's gotta feel really rewarding.

It's gotta feel really good. Appreciate it. Yeah, it is. It is fun. The worst part is I got to demo all this stuff at the high school and then i'm like coach how do i do these lifts again you're like uh let's take that weight off i'll show you yeah right it's gonna force you to stay in shape forever though you have mean calves man like like that's inspiration for me too shoot i get to see all these this is gonna sound mad weird okay when i see jack When I see jacked older individuals, I'm like, that's going to be me.

Because everyone keeps saying it goes downhill after 30, man. I hate that. I don't like it. It's harder to keep lower levels of body fat for sure. But I think it's harder for multiple reasons. I think it's harder for multiple reasons. People that are older normally have acquired, not even necessarily acquired better finances, but they just kind of know a little bit better.

They feel more secure about what they're doing and what they have done. And you kind of just get into routines. You hang out with your friends. When you're young like, when you're young, you might think of, like, partying here and there. But you're also kind of working towards your goals. But you're very unsure of what the fuck's coming up next. You don't know what's going on, you know, what's around the corner. And as you get a little older, you kind of calm down with a lot of that. You're not so worried about what other people think and shit like that, too.

Totally. And so you're just more comfortable in your own skin. And it's just like, not that you ever want to give up on how you look slash how you feel, but you're comfortable in your own skin. You're like, I just don't really care. It's easier to not care. Yeah, I'm 53. I don't have abs.

I'm never going to have abs again. I have pictures with abs, but, I mean, you know, my ankle hurts. I'm shifting my feet. My low back hurts today. But I feel like I'm 25 for sure. You have other goals, other things to focus on, and it's not part of what you're working on right now. Damn.

Yeah. There you go. Bob and Tina. Yeah. Legs are pretty big too. Yeah, dude. I did all right for being a six-footer. Yeah you go. Bob and Tina. Legs are pretty big too. Yeah, dude. I did all right for being a six footer. Yeah.

Awesome. That looks great. Did you get into lifting at a really young age? I started lifting probably when I was 18 when I went to play junior college football. And all these big freaking Hawaiian Simone dudes were banging all this weight. And it was super inspiring. So that was really when it started, just through football. And then after, you know, after Saks State football,

then it was all these guys were bodybuilding and stuff. So I was like, let's do that. Yeah, my brother and I were talking about that. We're like, I don't even know if we would have ever lifted if it wasn't for football. Yeah, exactly. Because, like, that was our excuse. But then we just, I kind of always knew in the back of my mind, I was like, I'm not going to be that great at anything else.

I'm pretty damn good at this and this will be a thing, I think. Exactly. Yeah, you stick with what you're good at, right? It's no different than a gymnast or, you know, a pole vault or whatever. What do you have coming up? A couple shows to run. Yeah, I mean, we're heading down to, I'm heading to the socal uproar down in san diego uh those we have some new promoters down there they do a great job um tina's heading to oregon

for the cecil phillips classic and then uh you know gearing up for the vegas show hopefully that'll go well internationally you know things are not going super well for some countries so we're really concerned about having an international presence because of the ongoing virus issues and lockdowns and all that stuff. But we'll have our event here in October, the Natural Muscle Mayhem. You can check out that website, naturalmusclemayhem.com. And then Worlds will be the big one in Vegas. I'd love for you guys to both come. It would be cool to see you there.

Yeah, congratulations on everything. And, again, I just think that's super admirable you know what you're doing and uh just inspiring people to you know get into bodybuilding and uh the kids you're working with for football and stuff it's just awesome so great to have you on the show and great to kind of catch up with you it's been a long time since i've seen you it's been a super long time probably like you've been busy or something you've been busy but you built a huge empire and you deserve every bit of it. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Andrew, take us on out of here. I will. If it's been 10 years, then I guess you could have stayed natty that whole time and you could have competed. I know, right? That would have been amazing. Now I got to wait until I'm like in my 50s, I guess. That's all right. Hey, any day now.

It'll be your time. Thanks again, guys. Thank you. So thank you to Merrick Health for sponsoring today's episode. That's M-A-R-E-K health.com slash power project. Again, check out that power project blood panel and make sure you use code power project at checkout for $101 off. Please make sure you find the podcast at Mark Wales power project on Instagram at MB power

project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZNsema. Where are you at? At NsemaYinYang on Instagram and YouTube. NsemaYinYang on TikTok and Twitter. Bob? WMBF official. There it is.

Cool. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.