Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 87 - Aaron Williamson

Episode Date: July 26, 2018

Aaron Williamson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, an American actor, and owner and trainer of Aaron Williamson Fitness who works with actors, athletes, and other film personnel to help them achieve their fitness goals for films, competitive seasons, or special events. He has worked with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sylvester Stallone, Zac Efron, and many more. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

So let's see where we can start this story out, but we're here today with Aaron Williamson. And tell me first off about your Marine Corps background. And first of all, before we even get into any of that, as many of the listeners would agree, appreciate your service. I'm sure you hear that all the time. But I think that it can't be overstated, can't be oversaid. I'm someone that I feel like I've lived a privileged life. I have two great parents. I feel like I live in a great country. I'm not the most, you know, I'm not going to be like waving an American flag around like a maniac

or anything, but I am proud of this country and I am proud of the freedoms that I have. And I, I don't take those things for granted. You know, I get to, uh, when I was, you know, I retired from powerlifting, but for a long time I got the opportunity to play powerlifting for like 10 years. And it's because I didn't have to worry about my house being blown up by somebody or not to worry about, uh, terrorism or anything to worry about some of these things. And a lot of that is because of guys like yourself. So I really appreciate that, that, that means the world to me. Cause I wouldn't have been able to develop any of the stuff I was able to develop. And I got friends, you know, that they make, you know, make some money and they do some things and all they complain about

is taxes. I'm like, Hey man, if the taxes are making our lives easy like this, then I'm okay. I'm okay with that payment, you know? So thank you. I appreciate that. The military means a lot to me. Growing up, my childhood was pretty rough. And when I was 18, I didn't have much direction. I got in a lot of trouble and the Marine Corps was kind of my salvation. And you said you grew up in Florida. Yeah, Daytona Beach, Florida. That was when Spring Break was a big deal down there. I was going to say, that's a good place to get in trouble.

Yeah, it was pretty chaotic. But when I joined the Marine Corps. A little closer with the mic. Yeah, there you go. When I joined the Marine Corps, I ended up finding a lot of stuff about myself that I didn't know existed. Leadership qualities and just mental fortitude. So I excelled.

I was a meritoriously promoted out of boot camp, again, out of school of infantry. Went to my first duty station. I was infantry 0311 rifleman. I wanted to be recon, but it didn't work out that way. But I had a unique Marine Corps career because my first duty station was a line company, infantry company. And then I ended up having special duties after that,

which was the Marine Corps body bearers. It's a 15-man section of the Marine Corps. Do funerals every year out of Arlington National Cemetery. Yeah. Five, six, 700. I visited before, and I actually went to. So when I was in Washington, D.C. with my family, as you see here, and we're here in Malibu, I always like to try to be inclusive with my family

and my business, and we try to mix a little business and pleasure together sometimes um but when we went to uh washington dc i recommend that for anybody anybody's listening to this podcast right now to try to get their ass out to washington dc you get to learn so much history yeah uh about the united states how it was built and it's um it's really remarkable but i put up a post on instagram and i was like, Hey, where should I train? You know, I got, I was just got an itch to train. I was there for five, six days. And, uh, all these different gyms were popping up. People like this has a good deadlift platform and this has this and this, how that, and then a bunch of Marines popped up and they said, no, you got to train at the Marines

barracks. And I'm like, Marines barracks. I'm like, that sounds, I was like, that sounds like where it's at. And I went, I went there and all these guys had slingshots and a bunch of super training shirts and stuff. And they were so pumped up. One of the coolest things about it was, so I trained with the body bears. All these guys were jacked. All these guys were strong. all these guys were jacked all these guys were strong uh they showed me some like quarters and stuff that other people aren't allowed in which i thought was really cool and uh you know on top of all that they showed me how they hold the caskets and stuff and i was like oh my god because i've unfortunately i've held a few caskets in my life and it ain't easy to hold the casket but you guys are holding them up much higher. That takes a shitload of strength, even though you got, what, six, seven guys on there? Yeah, we're a six-man detail, and we train as hard and heavy as possible. We load.

Did you go to the lower parking garage where it's dark? Yeah. Yeah. So you walk down there, and it's a little surreal because when you walk down, you just see caskets everywhere. And Black Death, the big one. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we train up to as much as these caskets a hole, we reinforce the handles. Our big thing is paying the final respects.

So after you get to the hole, we give it a raise as a last salute. Right. And our motto is the last to let you down. And it meant a lot to me in that section because you're the last image a family is going to have of that loved one. Right. So every funeral mattered, no matter who it was, a dependent, uh, I mean, just we, we, we did every funeral as if it was, you know, the president. And, uh, when I got to the section, I was maybe 190 pounds.

Yeah. I mean, I got toothpicks thrown at me, you know, cause I was, I was so skinny, but. Yeah. And you're like six, two, six, three. Six, three. Yeah. So we had special waivers for chow", 6'3"? 6'3". Yeah. So we had special waivers for chow to be able to go through and just keep eating. I would eat until I literally would throw up.

I'd have alarms set in the middle of the night. This was when Twin Lab was big, so I'd drink the 2,500-calorie Gainer shakes at like 2 o'clock in the morning. But I put on a bunch of weight and ended up becoming the section leader, which meant a lot because I was able to do a little more of what I wanted to try and get some visibility out of the section because we do so many great things and a lot of people don't know about us. And then from that duty, I was screened again to go to the Pentagon to be the personal security for General Peter Pace. Cool.

So it was six months of specialized training and a bunch of waivers to the Army. When I was there, a general walked in, and it was like – excuse me because I don't know the references, but it was like a three-star or something. Whatever it was, it was a huge deal. And everybody just jumped out of the way and saluted and stuff. And I was just caught like a deer in headlights. And I was like, sorry, sir. He's like, at ease. It doesn't matter.

He's like, you're all good. And he just patted me on the shoulder. But it was really funny. But everybody else scattered and got in position and everything. It was pretty cool. Anytime a colonel up to a general walks in you'll you'll see some people snap to pretty quick yeah i was like holy shit yeah it was pretty cool but the coolest experience out of all that you know going there and training with those guys and talking to them and stuff

was really cool um the weird a weird thing that happened was all these guys were like man you're such a savage we watch your videos i'm like man i'm just like i'm just lifting weights man like you you guys are doing something on a totally different level but what i thought was really cool was afterwards there was um and it wasn't even just marines but a lot predominantly marines all on instagram just kept sending me messages hey thanks for doing that they weren't even just Marines, but predominantly Marines, all on Instagram just kept sending me messages. Hey, thanks for doing that. They weren't even there. They're stationed somewhere completely different.

But they recognized how important that is to the guys that were there. I thought that was cool. I was like, man, that's some crazy camaraderie that's on a different level. That's what I miss about the Marine Corps the most is what you just mentioned right there. I mean, it's something you can't put into words, really. We're a close-knit group, man. I mean, we're all cut from the same cloth. Something crazy happens when you go through that kind of physicality with other people

um you could i'm sure this has probably happened to you yeah on day one just because circumstances of just growing up the way that you view certain people you look at a certain guy and you're like that guy's not my cup of tea that guy's a dick right month goes by two months goes by and that guy's still hanging there you're looking over your shoulder and he's still there after a while right now he's like your bud because he's able to survive and go through the same shit he probably hated you just as much as you hated him in the beginning right oh yeah man there's no doubt change your tone quick every every every section that i've been in the marine corps there's been some of that somewhere along the line there's this weird tension you don't know why always yep and then

that guy's able to survive and you're like man this guy's going through the same shit as i am maybe i should just stop being a dick yeah it takes a lot of that out of you when you were going so you said when you're younger you know you were you know getting into a lot of trouble uh you mind saying like what like what were you doing like what was um why do you feel like you were misdirected my my family fell apart right around the uh like my fifth sixth grade year and uh in in the middle school that i was going to in florida in daytona beach it was a wasn't the best school and I don't know man I was this group of guys wanted to kick my ass every day and I mean I just found myself

stressed constantly because I knew I was gonna have to face that face that defend myself like trying to save my money because I knew I knew they my money, man. As cliche as it sounds, you know, but I walked out of my English class one day to use the bathroom and these guys just happened to all be right out there. And I got my ass whooped and something snapped. And from that point on, I started fighting back. And when you fight back, you're ultimately going to end up in the wrong crowd so so i did and uh seventh grade i ended up pretty heavily into some some hard drugs right i mean i had overdosed wow that's early that's young yeah i mean i was in uh i had to get rushed to the hospital

how old my son is right now it's of scary. He's 14. Yeah. My mom still keeps in touch with the paramedic who saved my life. Wow. Yeah. That's super cool. So because you were going through that hard time in school and because you mentioned your home was kind of broken up, you probably felt like you couldn't really take that home, right? And then at 14, 15, you don't really want to chat with your parents about all these different things that are going on right no and i feel like what ended up

happening was i just disconnected from everything that had anything to do with uh authority i didn't want to have anything to do with it and i had no respect for it i didn't appreciate it i thought i knew best for me over whatever anyone else would say which is looking back on it now i just can't believe that's the way i was but uh yeah because the marine corps is so opposite of that yeah and people i've always been so scared to ever think about any sort of military things i'm like man they really you know not only they tell you what to do but you have to do it or you're out yeah right yeah yeah and's, that's the thing too. When, when you show up to Marine Corps recruit training and you get on those yellow

footprints, man, I didn't know what I was in. I didn't know what I was getting ready to experience. I mean, I kind of had an idea in my head, but, uh, drill instructor was talking, he come flying around and I just happened to look at him found out quick you don't you don't look at anybody like you keep your eyes locked straight ahead but yeah uh people who know me now they're shocked when they hear about my childhood right yeah they can't believe that you came you came from that it uh it's got to be a terrifying experience you know uh you know those first couple weeks probably full of uh all kinds of nerves and adrenaline what do you think the hardest part is is the hardest part like is it um is it just because it's constant like it's it's every you

know it's every day and this happens at 6 a.m and this happens at 7 and this happens at 9 and so on And this happens at 6 a.m. and this happens at 7 and this happens at 9 and so on. Is that the main reason why some of that is so difficult? Or is it just flat out the PT, the physical training? Honestly, I thought it was going to be the physical aspect of it, but it was more the mental. Because you're in a platoon full of recruits trying to become Marines and you're, you can be the strongest person in that room, but you're really only as strongest or the weakest person in there. And you're, you're constantly reminded of that every day. So the strongest guys try and always come around to bring up the weakest guys. So it becomes this, this team effort.

Right. But the, the, the issue is you can call it games or you can call it whatever. To me, it's creating mental toughness because if you have 30 seconds to get dressed, you better get dressed in 29 seconds. Yeah. Because if you don't, you're going to get undressed and you're going to do it again. It's little stuff like that that teaches you how to move quick, how to move under pressure. And so that type of stuff right there is what. That's why you were like 33 minutes early today.

If you're on time, you're late. Yeah. I try and be everywhere 15 minutes early, but you know here, traffic. You can't estimate. You can never predict. LA traffic, you just have no idea. My wife and I have been trying to like figure out.'re like oh it'll take like an hour and then she's like well it's this time so it might take and i'm like let's just not even try to predict it because we don't we don't have any idea until you get on the road yep and like why

are all the cars going this way like i i don't like i said i don't know this is the way just the way it is cars are piled up everywhere. Yeah, the day here revolves around traffic. I train at night because of that reason. Yeah, it really does. And the traffic here in Malibu in particular seems to stack up a little bit later than you'd think. You know, a lot of times, a lot of cities you see like anything past like 3.30, the traffic starts to get really thick. And I'm sure it depends on the day here.

It could stack up at any time. But I've been noticing it's more like from 5 to like 7. It's real, real thick. Over here. But I'm like, at the same time, I'm thinking, no one in L.A. even has 9 to 5, so I don't know what the problem is. When I lived here, I never knew one person that had a regular job. It's true man

it's interesting you live in Hollywood yeah I'm still trying to get used to that's tough to get around Hollywood

and all the surrounding areas are there yeah cause I mean you got you got the 101 two miles away you got 10

three miles away and either way you're looking at 20-30 minutes just to get to the highway yeah it's crazy yeah how long you lived in los angeles for i moved out here in september of 2015 okay so you've been here for a little bit yeah a couple years um so going through going through the marine corps or actually just tell me why did you even choose going to the

marines because you were mentioning that you had some trouble with authority yeah I I started to do a little bit better um the what I went through as a juvenile a lot of it is I mean there's just so many layers of it but my mom ended up getting cussed at me of me again because I was back and forth with different people. Different schools and stuff too? Yeah, my real father got custody of me, and I went out to Chattanooga to live with him. And it didn't work out. I ended up right in the same predicament I was in Florida.

predicament I was in Florida. And he ended up bringing me to this, this, uh, residential, uh, hospital, you know, kind of a psychiatric type deal in Panama city, Florida. So I was there for a while. And, um, you're like a teenager. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was suicidal. I was depressed. I mean, they had put me on medication. Uh, I was, I was pretty messed up. suicidal. I was depressed. I mean, they had put me on medication. I was pretty messed up. But my mom came and got me before they put me in a foster home, and I started to do a little bit better. And then when I really didn't have any direction as my senior year was creeping up, I started thinking about the military. And I figured, why not, in my mind, do the best, be the best. So that's what I do. Do the hardest thing.

Do the hardest thing. Yeah. And pretty much that's how I live my life now is if it's easy, I'm pretty much not going to do it because there's no reason to do it if it's easy. Right. And literally every single task I try and I just, on challenging myself and doing something that's impossible. You know, whenever you take the hard road, I think that people don't understand, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that you'll do in preparation to take the hard road,

which can make it a little easier. You know, like for example, you talked about doing some, some bodybuilding and bodybuilding is a great example because it the discipline that it takes at every corner and every turn of the day in terms of your food the cardiovascular training along with the lifting i don't think people always understand all the different things that go into that something as little as um you uh creating a lot more laundry for yourself right like it's just just there's these things right so um and it you know it sounds weird but you got to be tan you got to be shaved like these are all factors that run into all this right and they're all things that can be really time consuming but when you take that route and you're like this is the harder way and this is

the way that i like to go you start to plan ahead um we talked yesterday with a guy named peter itea who's a leading researcher in diet type stuff ketogenic diets longevity that kind of stuff he said he'll sit down with people that are really, really successful and he'll talk about, let me see like your day planner. The guy will show him the day planner and I'll say, okay, wow, your month is stacked. He's like, how many hours went into you planning out, you know, those days and those meetings? They're like, I don't know, maybe 15 hours or so. He's like, how many hours went into you planning the next couple of days of, of your food of like you're eating and stuff. And he goes, usually the number ranges anywhere

between like zero or like one hour of like, Oh yeah, I was thinking like Thursday, I might go to this place for lunch. Cause it has a healthy, whatever. Right. And that's, that's their consideration, but they don't put anything into it. So what you learn through being militant, through going to the military or through something like bodybuilding is the more on point I am, the better the result is going to be. And the more prepared I am, the road that's going to be hard and we'll have the most resistance, it's still going to be difficult but i can kind of make it easier if i simply plan ahead i get to sleep on time i wake up on time i do my laundry when i'm supposed to i shave i tan when i'm supposed to i prep my meals when i'm supposed to right that's yeah i mean you're right

you're on point man uh again with that it goes back to my military career and the structure i mean i've been getting up at 4 and 5 a.m since 1998 um but for me bodybuilding was uh something i wanted that was my when i got into fitness in okinawa 1999 first time i really got into weights fell in love with it body Bodybuilding's tough, man. I mean, a lot of people think you can just, you can, you can bodybuild, but to be a champion, like a champion level bodybuilder, there's a lot of genetics that are involved in that too. So, but for me, I'm a, I'm a tall guy and, and the amount of food I was eating, and it's hard, man.

Like, it devours your entire life. What kind of body weight did you get up to doing some bodybuilding? My highest weight was 275. Yeah, okay. And I still wasn't big enough. No, not nearly. I mean, I remember recently you had Jay Cutler on the podcast and, you know, he's four time Mr. Olympia.

And I got in conversation with him about my, one of my good friends, Stan Efferding. Stan Efferding is a monster. Yeah. And Stan nowadays probably is like 250 and he's shredded. Um. Strongest dude around. Yeah. He, he's probably like 225 pounds of muscle 230 you know he's got like

maybe five or ten pounds of body fat on his whole body if that right um but when he was competing as a bodybuilder you know he he would hit the stage and he would be he'd be pretty heavy he'd hold on to some good size and stuff uh you know he might hit the stage at 230 240 uh but jay cutler you know when i just in conversation asked him something about stan he's like yeah he's like that guy can never just stay big enough and i was just thinking like stan's huge stan's like the biggest guy that i know and he was cutler just just slicing them right down you know when i was uh when i was in the Marine Corps, getting into bodybuilding, I used to watch the Mitsuru videos, all the old school VHS videos, Jay Cutler, Flex Wheeler. Like I grew up, that was my get off work, watch my movies movies and yeah like the uh back in those days the guys were wearing those like hoodies that they would cut the neck out of or the boat neck like bum equipment

shirts and the baggy pants and jay cutler had a baby face he looked like he was like 19 years old and he would eat like i think you said on our podcast he said he'd eat like a thousand carbs a day or something. I'm like, that sounds like a fucking world record. It sounds like a great day. It's funny when you bring, when you show that to someone who's not in it. Like that, I enjoyed, I could watch that stuff all day long.

You get someone who's not in the sport or who doesn't understand bodybuilding, how do you sit there and watch someone eat and train? But yeah, you gotta be cut from that cloth to be able to do that i'm starting to like a lot of it you know i'm getting ready to do a show at the end of august and i've been doing you know cardio every morning and lifting every every day and um people keep asking you know about the cardio like how you know doesn that suck? And it's kind of nice to listen to music or listen to something I want to listen to, and I kind of zone out. And, yeah, I wish I wasn't on there for 45 minutes.

I wish it was like 20 or something. But you learn certain things, though, about yourself, too, going through some of these things physically. What did you learn about yourself going through the military? things physically. What'd you learn about yourself going through the military? The biggest thing I learned was I can literally do anything I set my mind to. Anything? Literally anything.

Didn't matter if it was like handstand walk on the beach or fucking running with somebody on your back up a hill, right? It didn't matter what it was. Didn't matter what it was. And it wouldn't always be easy and it wouldn't always happen fast, but I would literally obsess about it and work at it so hard that I would, I would end up doing it. Um, which is, it's led me to where I am now, which in a lot of the interviews I do, I talk about wanting to do something that's never been done before. I'm still trying to define that a little bit. Um, but that's the goal for me and and the marine corps instill that in me right you watch i mean even just like uh some training any any military training you watch somebody uh go over like a barrier right like and they they grab onto a

rope and they climb the rope like broken skull ranch like this thing that stone cold does right and how cool is that? There's a barrier in your way. There's something that's in your way. You feel like you can't get past it. You figure out a way to climb it and jump over the other side and you land. And sure enough, you were able to do it. It's really amazing what you can accomplish if you believe in yourself.

I mean, that's why I have a hard, for me, relating to a lot of people, I don't do it much. I'm kind of a recluse. I stay in my own world. I do my own thing. I don't pay attention to anyone else. And I just work on myself. But I mean, obviously, I'm around other people quite a bit during the day with work and stuff, but you just hear so much negative talk, so much self-doubt all day long, no matter where you are. And it just, it boggles my mind because people don't really understand how powerful the mind is. I mean, it's such a complex thing. I agree. I think it's a learned, it's a learned thing and it probably comes from like some of the environments that different people come from. Sometimes it's their upbringing

or their starting point that they're coming from. They might see the way that somebody eats and they might think, well, that's, you know, that's for them. I can't do that that's what they say i can't um you know i'm an attorney or i'm an accountant or i can't do that at work because i don't have a refrigerator i can't do that at work because i don't have a microwave like it's just always um let me throw out the blockade let me throw out what's blocking me from doing this so i can safeguard myself and i can just sweep things under the rug and i'll have ever have to look at them or examine them. Cause I'm not even going to do them. Cause I can't do them.

It's easier to say that it's easier to be like sad. It's easier to be like mopey. Be like, I can't do it, man. Can't, sorry. And what,

in my own experience, a lot of times those end up, those are the people who end up hating you for, for doing what you're doing. Right. Because they say they can't do it when, yeah, it's, man. But how amazing is it when you get someone to turn a corner and you say, and I think here's the biggest mistake I think that's not talked about enough.

The biggest mistake that's not talked about enough is you can do it. It's just going to look different. You can do it it's just going to look different you can do it it's gonna it's gonna look different if you and i are bench pressing we're having a workout together and somebody else joins in and they only weigh 150 pounds their version of what we're trying to do is going to look different than what we're doing but they can do the exact same fucking thing they could work just as hard they could outwork us they could actually kind of beat us in the workout everything that they do for that day could be on a on a level of 11 out of 10 every time and you and i could be like more than nine

thinking we're kicking ass yeah but this person could be plugging away set by set rep by rep i think that's the thing that people are not always seeing it's like it just when you go to do it it might look different if you run 100 meters and hussein bolt runs 100 meters you still ran 100 meters you still ran as fast as you possibly could there's absolutely no difference between the two he just ran a lot fucking faster and made it look a lot prettier yep man there's i could i could talk about that that part of it all day long uh going back to the the body bears for a second there was a there was a uh funeral we did that the casket was the bottom of the casket was solid marble damn and the handles were reinforced and uh

the bears always were always who the made this casket yeah well damn we've been working out this is getting to be ridiculous normally the uh the casualty rep will just the hearse will stop he'll open the door pull it out well he walked over to us and said hey just want to let you know this is probably the heaviest casket we've ever had uh and it took two reps to pull it out mind you it's still on rollers yeah and it took two people to pull it out and uh i remember i can i can still see it i remember the hearse driving by and it was just the ass end of it was just sagging you guys were like oh shit yeah well the uh going back to the the mental part of it you know you're about to have a a war but you have to make it look pretty you have to make it look respectful and and uh so we we grabbed it this uh

there's positions on the on the casket you have senior man junior man you have your tuggers and then your folders. Junior man is always the newest guy or the youngest guy, nine times out of ten. So we had a young guy on there, and, like, his eyes were just so big the whole time, and I was across from him. I'm like, I'm trying to give him the eyes to keep him calm, and he touched the weight of the casket and kind of spazzed out a little bit. As soon as you do that, you're done.

Right. You're done. So imagine this casket being pulled out. It's this even, you have to hold it evenly because if it goes this way or this way, someone's going to get more of the weight. Yeah, you can stumble. Yeah, so he yanked it towards him this way. And I felt something pop in my neck.

And then this tingling and numbness started going over my face. My tongue went numb. My right arm went numb. My right leg went numb. So I had to do the entire funeral, not being able to feel the right side of my body. Oh, my God. We got to the bus afterwards and i literally passed

out needless to say he didn't make it in the body bear section right um but he could have if he could have just kind of been a little stronger up here if he would have played it out a little differently in his head yeah but uh i don't know where i was going with that it was a cool story to share. Yeah, no, I mean, we were just talking about the mindset. Like if you believe in yourself, you can get it done, and that's a great example of somebody that just, you know, the moment came and he got a little scared and, you know,

it didn't work out great for him, right? Yeah, and I still deal with that injury to this day. I mean, it's got my body still. How heavy? I mean, obviously the weight of the person matters but typically when you're pulling a casket out the weight of the casket and the person in it you're looking at around a good guesstimate is between three to four hundred pounds uh the heavier ones are maybe on the 6, 700 range. I'd be willing to say this was closer to the 1,000-pound mark. Wow.

Now – Yeah, it's just awkward too. Dude. Yeah. It was one of the only caskets that we weren't able to get to the hole and raise. That's how heavy it was. Right. And we trained heavy, heavy, heavy in drill.

And then you get to that part, you're like, nope. Not happening. We gracefully got there and put it down, but that was it. Yeah. Where'd you go from the Marines? So the Marine Corps was, the Marine Corps, as much as I wanted to stay in, I just, I saw my, my goals becoming bigger than what I could do in the Marine Corps, you know, bound to a contract and deployments and things. So

I ended up getting out and I went, uh, went back overseas and did contract work. What I did over there was a part of the war you never hear about because it's all identity management, identity management being biometrics, fingerprints, iris scans, and things like that. So- Contract work. I was just thinking that you're like a contracted killer, like sniper. Well, it was very tempting to go work for DynCorp or Triple Canopy or Blackwater at the time because a lot of money, you know, most of them are former military. It'd be easy to fit right in. And I was coming from a personal security background, so it was easy. But I was trying to think of the long-term technology, biometrics, and identity management. So I was thinking more of that rather than just the immediate money.

Right. So we got over there, and my first program was base access. So there was a big bombing in Mosul at one of the dining facilities, the chow halls. Suicide bomber came in, blew the chow hall up, killed a bunch of soldiers. So SecDef said, we need to figure this out. So we came up with this base access program.

Anyone who was not coalition who wanted access would have to enroll in a biometrically, basically would get a biometrically enabled credential. So anytime you access the base, you put your fingerprint on, you confirm who you are. And it just slowly grew. And there's forensics teams all over Iraq lifting latent fingerprints from bombs. And anyway, so that was my life for the next four years. And I started working directly with the Iraqis on their central repository for biometric data. And that was a whole nother beast on its own because I was one of just a couple of Americans in charge of a lot of Iraqis

in a very dangerous part of Baghdad. Shit. Sounds crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. What was the transition from there? The transition from there was, you know what? I think I want to try and stay alive. So I'm going to go back to the States.

And that's when I moved to try and stay alive. So I'm going to go back to the States. And, uh, that's when I moved to new Orleans and there was, uh, uh, a contract position with Marine forces North. It's the component command for us. North com just happened to be in new Orleans. So I took that leap of faith, went there, didn't work out. Things went like the funding was pulled. It ended up being put back in place, but a little bit too late. So I went there to do that job. Didn't work, lost everything I had, was, was living out of my car. It was a, it was a, it was a fucking rough time, man. From a mental perspective, it's to be tough you know um before the podcast started andrew and i were talking a little bit about rambo you know and he talks about how he can't even get a job parking cars meanwhile he's you

know in in charge of all these people and he knows how to you know fucking drive a tank he knows how to command people he knows all these different weapons um that's got to be a hard thing to deal with you learn all these skills and all these trades uh they're so important to the military and they're so important to your day-to-day and then you get out and you're like just trying to figure out how do i make some dough but like you know going to work at like a starbucks or something while you could do it it it just seems like too weird of a next step, right? Yeah. There's no way I could have come back and went to a normal job.

I mean, I was literally ready to say the hell with it all. Because I mean, I struggled for about a year, burned through all the money. Mental health side of things. Just horrible, man. Not sleeping because I mean, I was in, uh,

I was in Iraq for four years, literally four years straight. I might've had a couple weeks off two, three weeks off a year where I was home. But even then, when I was home, I really wasn't home. Yeah.

And, uh And you just, it's, that becomes your reality. So trying to come back over here and then you see the entitlement, the selfishness of people and it eats at you. Creates a lot of resentment. So much. So as a last resort, you resort, some good friends said, you should start training. You're good at it.

You love fitness. Train people. So I did. And that's when the door opened into film and TV. When I got into it, I had no idea at the time, but there were more films and TV shows being made in louisiana than anywhere else in the world so it goes back to what i say is i just it's a destiny thing for me right people want to know how i got into it and it's i just ended up there when i was supposed

to be there and i'm on the path that i'm supposed to be on right now uh do you think you ended up with uh like ptsd like you know you just saw too many weird things and just yeah no no doubt i mean it when you're over there for an extended period of time you're inevitably gonna see some shit you don't want to see and then you'll never be able to forget it it's just it's something that never leaves your mind i mean every day at some point multiple times you're going to think about it you know you're going to smell something you're going to hear something you're going to remember something so does anything ever help with that like um obviously like you know having a drink is probably not the greatest thing but like having a drink or smoking a joint or just meditating or

anything fucking help with that or it just is what it is and that's it or treat therapy anything not the greatest thing, but like having a drink or smoking a joint or just meditating or anything fucking help with that or it just is what it is and that's it. Or therapy, anything? I mean, everyone's different. For me, the gym was my biggest one. And then later on down the line, I would get into acting, which was a therapy that I would have never expected that still is incredible therapy oh maybe

because it allowed you to act you can say somebody else yeah you can take these emotions that are just completely locked up somewhere yeah that's cool and then you get a character that you have to audition for you're like i'm not even me anymore you're not even you and you can just you can just lose yourself in it right and just stir these things up and end up having the best performance. That's cool. Yeah. And then, you know, you, uh, had some success with acting. You, you've gotten into some pretty good roles. Talk about that a little bit. Uh, I mean, so I'm still building right now. They're, they're relatively small, but, uh, probably one of the funnest ones I had was the refugee Terminator on Terminator Genisys. I mean, I die when the credits are still going at the beginning, but it was still a good time meeting Schwarzenegger.

We had Tate Fletcher on recently, and he dies very often. He'll come on camera. He's got a big old beard and tattoos, and you're like, oh, man gonna be trouble he's gonna kick some ass he just you know he lasts like 20 seconds but i was joking with him because he had he's had a pretty good uh he had a pretty good fight scene with the rock he had a pretty good fight scene with he had a really good fight scene with denzel washington i was like that one at least went back and forth i thought you were gonna win but he's still got which one was that in denzel uh i can't remember was that equalizer it might have been it might have been the first equalizer um that's

awesome but yeah he's he's been in some stuff and then we watched my wife and i watched um an hbo special that was about um i'm losing it waco oh yeah yeah that Waco series that was on and, uh, Tate Fletcher was on the, on the entire season. And I texted him after every show and I'm like, dude,

you didn't die. Like, I'm so proud of you. What's going on here? He's equalizer too. And he's like, he's like, yeah,

man. He's like, I made it the whole season. He's like, no one expected that. That's when you know you made a big step in your career. That's right. They don't kill you off in the first 20 seconds.

What's that been like, getting on these sets and seeing some of these lifetime heroes? It's interesting because sometimes the people who you would think are more than what they are, they're really not, and then vice versa. Right. But, I mean, it's really interesting and cool as an actor now to see the preparation these guys have for their roles,

the lengths that some of them go to get ready, and then just see the workup prior to the scene to get into the character. and then just see the workup prior to the scene to get into the character. And for me, training a lot of these guys, I've learned so much from them because I'm just like a sponge. I don't often talk about myself at all. They like to talk, and I just listen, and I've got this memory bank, and I just lock it all in because I've used a lot of it. Yeah. lock it all in because I've used, you know, I've used a lot of it. Um, yeah.

You mentioned Sylvester Stallone, you know, uh, communicating with you and, and, and being a big turning point. How did that come to be? I'm a, I'm a huge, uh, Rocky fan, huge first blood fan, a huge Stallone fan. How did that happen? You know, it happened, again, just going back to the destiny thing. I was living in my car, and out of the blue, got a phone call. And it was him. He was coming in for bullet to the head. So you already had a reputation of training and working with some celebrities? Yeah. I started with Zach on the Paperboy doing military advising. Zach Efron.

Zach Efron. And then we got into training on Paperboy. The next film, it came in New Orleans. I was training a couple directors. And I had just signed on to train the cast for G.I. Joe Retaliation, where I met The Rock. But, yeah, it was like just thinking about it it's still surreal we we didn't have much training together just a couple sessions and uh he he had tweaked his knee pretty early on in

filming because he's still doing his own stunts or he tries to do as many of them as as he can but thinking about it from being in my living room as a kid before my family life kind of went haywire, my brother and my dad and me, we'd sit in the back. You know, we'd watch Terminator. We'd watch Rocky. We'd watch Rambo. And then here I am, like, just thinking about it now still surreal. So walking into the gym for the first time with him, it just, it, it didn't really compute for a minute. And I never get starstruck, never,

but you're looking at someone who's, who you've seen your whole life on TV. And then he's trained with some of the best people in the world. So his knowledge of, of his body and what he has to do is on a, on a whole nother level. So it was very humbling for me. And it was, uh, it, it gave me, uh, a sense of pride because I worked so hard to get to where I was. And even though there were times where I didn't want to go on anymore, you know, they're like, I, I'm not going to lie. I was suicidal for the longest time, you know, cause you, you just go from these prestigious duties to losing everything and then you have to redefine yourself and figure out what you're doing and in film and tv as a trainer you're that's exactly what you are you're the trainer yeah that's it no one gives a shit about what you did before right yeah so you're pushing the reset button

and uh you know you got rent to pay and you got right and your uh code of honor or like you know you being disciplined or it really doesn't stack up to anything until you you you repeatedly do it for a long period of time and then it may it may or may not work out from a financial standpoint yep like just being dedicated doesn't really always put money in the bank nope i'm still i'm i mean even to this day i'm still not where i want to be i'm not even close right um but i've just been unwilling to compromise who i am and uh it makes when you when that's the case it makes it makes your journey a lot harder because a lot of people will give in to those temptations and do things that will compromise their values and who they are. There's been times where I've gotten a little bit off track, but I've pulled myself back very quickly because it just didn't feel right. Have you lived in different parts of Los Angeles or have you mainly been just Hollywood? When I first moved out here, I was in Encino for a while.

And then I was in Encino for about eight months And then I was in Encino for about eight months, and then I moved over to the West Hollywood side. Have you been over to the Gold's Gym that's here, the Gold's Venice? My home. I've seen you in there before, which when I saw you today, I was going to say you look incredible from the last time I saw you. Awesome. Thank you.

But I drive up there at night, usually around 8 or 9. Yeah. So I beat the traffic. I get in there. It's, it's, it's a lot more quiet, which is my vibe. I like to. LA is insane, man. It seems like a different town when there's not, when there's not that traffic.

Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm waking up at like two 30 in the morning to make sure that I eat to get to the gym at like four or whatever the hell it is when Michael Hearn trains. Mike. And that's been a, that's been a really fun experience, but it's, there, there's absolutely no traffic. There's nobody anywhere. And then even when I'm done with the training session, uh, after I lifted for two hours and did cardio, you know, it now might be like seven, seven 30. And even on the way back,

there's still nobody around. And I'm like, man, if I lived in this town, this is the way back there's still nobody around and i'm like man if i lived in this town this is the way i'd have to do it yeah you know i i did used to live here you know for 10 years but i didn't know the cheat code of just getting your ass out of bed you're gonna your ass out of bed early or you know like you said training a little bit later but training later for me has always been tough because i feel like it kind of riles me back up and then it's you know 11 12 o'clock and I just I'm not I don't want to go to bed 2 30 is early man I thought I was getting up early at four it is it is it's it's excessive and you know it it's not recommended it's something that like it'll shift your whole life and it's something that Mike you know he when he talks about it he first of all will share with people look I don't do this every day it's not every single day but it sometimes is the majority

of the days it might be three four or five times a week um but in addition to that he has a lifestyle to where he can just go home from the gym and sleep yeah and um i sometimes have that luxury and sometimes i don't but yeah for him it's like that's what he's doing he's you know he's putting everything i'm learning a lot from him really i'm learning a lot from him it's it sounds it sounds a little counterintuitive but i think for most people the more time they put in themselves the better off they're going to be. I agree with that. Take care of yourself like, and do it and do it a lot.

Like everything from fucking whacking off to eat good to whatever, like, you know, make sure you're happy. Make sure you're, make sure you're feeling good. Um, and make sure that,

uh, just, just all your needs are met because those things, they kind of eat at you. If you're like, man, I just wasn't that good with my diet today or I just wasn't that good with my training. We're such meatheads that it will just pull on you. And then the next day the same thing happens and the next day the same thing happens

and you're like, man, I'm just not doing what I wanted to do. Fuck. It gets to be frustrating, right? So much. And I deal with that a lot too because, I mean, I deal with it a lot because right now I'm traveling a lot. Yeah. So when you're traveling, it makes it really hard because you never know what your schedule is going to be when you end up where you're ending up and what your accommodations are going to be. But I thrive on routine so much. So

my, the fitness part of my life for me is really the only thing that I'm able to keep structured and manage for the most part each day. You know, I know when I'm going to train cause I make time to train at some point during the day based on my, my schedule, but I'm not even getting a lot of sleep. I definitely need more because i get up early and i go to bed late i'm not getting home until 11 yeah i got some friends that you know they execute really well in business and stuff and they'll kind of say like oh you know when someone's doing really well in business because they'll like get fat or they'll get out of shape and i understand what they mean by that but i think it's it's so cool when you are able to figure out how to do both yeah how to get

in like how are you getting involved and then somebody's just kind of look looking at you uh sure i'll take another cold brew coffee why not somebody's just kind of looking at you like um you know just trying to figure out how you did and that's that's something that i really uh i really like like with this bodybuilding show um Are you competing? Yeah, I'm competing at the end of August. And I want to get in shape to where it's not like, oh, like, you know, he did pretty good. I want people to go, holy fuck, like how did he do that? Like I know that I'm not going to look like, you know,

the greatest bodybuilder of all time. I understand that. I'm not going to jump into a sport and like whoop up on everybody. Like that's not the goal. But people have seen me big they've seen me strong and it'd be cool to come in just uh you know i guess the main thing for me is just try to get as lean as possible and just see what that looks like and have people go wow like that's i didn't wasn't expecting him to be able to get that lean that's that's kind of the goal you, to have people kind of go, holy shit. I mean, right now, you're looking pretty good, man.

I think the last time I saw you had been, I think it was maybe a few months ago. Okay. Because I would try and make it up there during the day sometimes, which is when I saw you in there. Do you know my brother? Do you know Chris a little bit? I don't know. I mean, I've seen him, but I don't.

When I'm in there, man, I just don't even, I'm just in my own little world doing my own thing. You should definitely come in there sometime on one of these early morning training sessions. They're not easy to get there that early in the morning, but it's a lot of fun. And my brother is just a great person for you to know. He's a good person, period. Obviously, person for you to know he's he's a good

person period obviously i'm gonna say he's my bro but he just knows everybody you know i always i always say he's like the mayor of uh of venice because he's he goes around and he knows he knows everybody but he'll know all kinds of people and he'll be like oh you should know this guy this oh you live in hollywood he'll he He'll know 20 people that live right next to you or something like that. So he's a good outlet. Because he's been here for 20-something years. He's been here for a long time.

Yeah, I would love to meet him. But I lived here for about 10 years. I met my wife at Sharky's in Hermosa Beach. You ever been to Sharky's before? No, she was telling me a little earlier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's Sharky's in Hermosa.

I think there's one in Manhattan. There, there's Sharky's in Hermosa. I think there's one in Manhattan. There's a couple of them all over the place. What's kind of your favorite thing that you've done so far? You've been on Bright with Will Smith. You've worked with Josh Brolin. You've worked with Zac Efron. You've been on a lot of movie sets.

You've worked with a lot of people. What what's kind of in your um you know outside the military career what's been kind of your favorite thing that's happened in the last couple years um i enjoyed bright a lot even though it was tough that was that was a great experience weren't you saying it took several hours to put the makeup on every day. Yeah, it's, I don't think people quite understand how extensive prosthetic work is. But I mean, for. The prosthetic penis took a long time, right? That's probably. That was four hours. Yeah, it was four hours.

Yeah. They got to make it look big and good, right? No, it's, I mean, you know, you're showing up to set in the morning. We were filming when it was still cold outside. So you're in a cold trailer at 6 o'clock in the morning getting cold glue. I love that. I love that show. I thought it was great.

Yeah, it was interesting. Cold glue all over your face, but three and a half hours to get on, three, three and a half hours to get on, another hour to get it off on top of a full filming day. So I walked away from that project with a whole new respect for prosthetics. I learned a lot on the acting side, just watching Will and Joel together because pretty much everything I did was with those guys. From an acting standpoint, that was great. Every time I'm on set with J.K. Simmons, I'm always amazed at his talent and the way he approaches his work in different scenes.

Yeah. Because he's very collaborative with the directors and the other actors that he's in the scenes with. From a fitness standpoint, something that I wish I could do again. Maybe someday I will. I hope I will. But training with Rock, with Dwayne on G.I. Joe was about one of the funnest things I've done because he's just such a genuine guy. The way you see him put himself out there

is exactly the way he is. Right. And he gave me a lot of good advice along the way, um, that I still. That's great. Think about, um, yeah, I mean, those are, those are the kind of. You get a chance to lift with him like on set type of deal or? Well, I was training the cast and then for, and then he ended up training at the same gym I trained at on the West bank, which is kind of this hole in the wall, a dirty dungeon. You walk in, it smells like an armpit.

There's nothing. You're going to walk out dirty. Yeah. That's when you know it's good. We walked into Gold's this morning, and I think it wasn't as early as the training session as normal, but it was still like 5 a.m., and my wife's like, man, it stinks in here. I was like, yeah, today's going to be a great day. She's like, it already smells like 5 a.m and my wife's like man she's like it stinks in here i was like

yeah today's gonna be a great day she's like it already smells like ass in here i was like i know it smells like someone literally has their butt held up to the fucking fan and it's just spraying everywhere it's disgusting that's so true man so you know you're in paradise right there yeah we uh we just we trained together was i wasn't his trainer it was just right two guys training together having fun um we were kicking each other's ass i gave him some new stuff like we did a lot of high volume stuff and yeah he loves like just he trains his ass off trains his ass off yeah he gets in there and works hard. And how long ago was that? This was 2011. Because now he's got his own setup, right?

It's crazy to see how far he's come. Because when we trained on G.I. Joe, he was already a mega superstar. It's on a whole other level right now. It's interesting. I mean, obviously, plenty of it's through hard work, right. And perseverance and, and all those things, but so much of it has been through social media, social media. And he's, he's just so smart about and strategic about everything he does.

Yeah. I think that makes a big difference, especially on social media when you understand the audience and understand what, you know, what the people who follow you are looking for. I think he's always been a thoughtful person. Yeah. And so that plays right into the hands of people that are on social media when they see him.

The thing that he did with that girl who wrote him a letter about going to the prom, and then his voice came over the loudspeaker at her school or something. She fainted or whatever. My brother and I have been fortunate enough to know him for a few years and um you know he asked us about like our parents and stuff and like i still i still hear from him through his stunt guy a ton of ways cousin yeah and um you know he'll sometimes like yeah he'll be like hey man how you know how wondering how your pops is doing, how your mom's doing. It's like, how does he even like remember their names or how does he even like, you know what I mean? How does he fucking keep track of anything?

He's like on a private jet everywhere. But where he works out now, it seems really cool. It seems almost like a military setup. Did you have some things set up like that when you went overseas? Did they have, sometimes they just have like, I don't even know what you call it, but like they have almost like a tent basically with just a shitload of weights in it, right?

Yeah, so if you're in the bigger bases, obviously the green zone where the embassy was, that gym was, I mean, it might as well have been golds. It was that good. Wow. That's crazy. And what country was that in? That was Baghdad.

That was Iraq. So they fly all that shit out there, all that different strength equipment and plates. Yeah, because it's part of MWR, that whole morale welfare program, and it just keeps people sane like me. If I didn't hit the—I was literally like seven days a week. I didn't even take any days off. It was just sanity, even if I went in there just to fucking do abs. Well, it gives you 60 minutes every day to where you're seeing and recognizing things you've been seeing for years. Yep.

Rather than I would imagine the alternative is just looking at a bunch of dirt. Exactly. Right? Just a bunch of sand and a bunch of fuckload of heat coming off the sand and like not much else, right? Yep. So the main bases overseas are relatively nice considering and then the further you go out to the smaller bases the less and less to the point where you get out to a a combat outpost or a fort operating base you might have a couple water cans and a broomstick and maybe a trx yeah so it gets

a little austere and then in the states here at the bases the gyms are amazing like you go to camp lejeune or you go any of those the big military bases and bases, the gyms are amazing. Like you go to Camp Lejeune or you go into those, the big military bases and you know, the ceilings are just like, you'd think you're in a, an embassy somewhere. When you're training nowadays, do you kind of think back to some of the tough things you went through, uh, with the military or do you kind of take yourself back to, you know, when you were a kid, when maybe you had a little bit of self doubt or others doubted you, um, do you get like kind of fired up and amped to really push yourself? Yeah, I don't.

Before this whole motivational, positive speaking thing came on board, I started listening to that a long time ago. And when I walked into the gym, I just kind of turned everything off, and then I would let my life just kind of mold my motivation for the workout because in the Marine Corps, just when I fell in love with it, what it did for me, where it led me to, which is now, and then thinking about being overseas in that environment, having that sanity piece, but also being overseas, training with one of my really close friends,

and then, you know, leaving him right when a rocket hit the gym and ended his life. So, you know, the gym means more to me than... What happened? What did you say happened? A rocket? Yeah, there was a point in time in two in 2008 and i don't know how much you watch the news i try to watch it ever in 2008

the green bad information yeah it's horrible yeah but in 2008 they were covering i mean obviously when the war was going on in iraq it was yeah seven, but, uh, the green zone was being rocketed every day for about a month and a half. It was just like destroying the green zone. And, uh, one of the bases on the outskirts of, of the green zone was, Phoenix base and they had a gym there where we were training and uh you know we had a we had a good workout I had to leave I left and literally man like I was probably about I don't know 50 yards from the gym when the rocket hit and uh it killed several soldiers wounded several soldiers i mean again you know it's like you you kind of just so many so like so many things go through your head because i mean you're fortunate enough to have a gym over there and then you get killed in the

fucking gym yeah um trying to do something good for yourself you're trying to relax you know have some good times with some buddies get some hard training in make yourself stronger for your job right yeah yeah that shit happens yeah i mean you you get out of the shit to come back in to try and which i mean it just goes back to show when you're in a place like that you're really never completely safe right you know you can't an indirect fire when a rocket's coming in you know you you don't know where it's going to hit um but yeah so in that thing when when i go into the gym to work out my motivation is just it's i mean it's it's full bore everything in my life man right let's be grateful for the time that you got here right

I gotta take a small pee break I'll be right back you all good? yeah that was equalizer 1 oh yeah yeah cause equalizer 2 hasn't come out yet yeah that's what it was

yeah that's why I was like man equalizer 2 yeah I saw some previews for equalalizer 2 recently. We're rolling. We're all good? Yeah. Back from the pee break. All right.

Yeah, so you were mentioning a crazy story. I have a friend that was in the Army, and he was overseas, and he's a powerlifter. he was overseas and he he's a power lifter and now he's actually nowadays he's a bodybuilder but he was one of the greatest power lifters uh of his time in in around that time around that 2000 around that 2008 time or so but he said that like he'd hear shit going down and like he'd hear like bombs going off and like all kinds of crazy shit and he'd still be in there working out yeah i'm like oh my god and he's like yeah man he's like i just you know had to finish my shit and you know you got certain times to do certain things and that's the way that's the way it was i was like what really so there's this alert, this alarm. It detects incoming fire, indirect fire.

And you have around five seconds to take cover when you hear this alarm. So you have bunkers everywhere. And there's a few of them right outside the gym. And the music's blaring in the gym and then you hear that alarm go off and it's like, do you stop your set to go get into the bunker or do you keep going? I'd say half went out, half stayed in. But yeah, I mean, it was during that period, it was common, man, because it was all all that's when it was coming from solder city and uh yeah it was it was pretty gnarly does anything that happens now you know you mentioned like smells and different things like trigger these things in your brain

um like helicopter or plane flying over like does it give you like anxiety or anything like that um kind of trigger some of the sounds and stuff you may have heard um or is it more random than that you know what i mean i'm pretty good this to this day i mean every now and then probably one of the biggest things that always really gets me and it makes my heart feel like it just stopped is uh when you hear the fucking dumpsters just being dropped you know you know what i'm talking about when they yeah they dump it and then they just fucking drop it i mean it gets it's uh it's just a loud fucking noise that you're that maybe triggers a response from yeah i mean i'm i, it doesn't do anything crazy, but things that are that loud and direct, you kind of take.

Yeah, that boom. You're like, wait, what was it? Okay, it was just a dumpster. It wasn't. Yeah, so you take a beat. But, I mean, for the most part, I did a movie, this Brad Pitt movie. It comes out January of next year. It's called Ad Astra.

And we shot a lot of, we shot the big moon sequence out in Dumont Dunes, out in Death Valley. And this was, it was the middle of the summer last year. And I'm telling you, between the heat, the dust, and then smelling all the generators and the fuel. I mean, it literally smelled like I was in Baghdad. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a very eerie, it was very eerie feeling because, you know, in the times that I was just sitting there waiting for, you know, to go on to the next thing and you're just, the dust is blowing and you're, you're smelling the fuel. I mean, it's, it to the next thing, and you're just, the dust is blowing, and you're smelling the fuel. I mean, stuff like that can bring you back a little bit or make you have some memories come to light.

Right. So how many bodybuilding shows have you done? You've done a handful, right? right? I did, I did, uh, 2009 all forces in Tampa when I was with Tim Gardner. Um, he was my coach down there. And then I did, uh, I did the 2010 new Orleans show, which is where I won it. And then I started my goal and going through the situation I was in having nothing living out of my car, the whole nine, I said, I'm going to win this show and I'm going to promote myself as Mr. New Orleans because no one had done that since, uh, early two thousands, late nineties. So I started, I won the show, came up, uh, runner up for the greater golf that year next year i won the uh

the super heavyweights for the greater golf states and then at that point right there that was my last show because i was getting more involved in film and tv and i was just too big right so and it was 240 250 on stage some of that um i my last show, I ended up being 235 on stage. Yeah, that's big. Like pretty, I mean, I was, you could barely even pinch skin. I was, I mean, I had, I, that was the best show. I mean, I, I completely dialed that in. Can't even take growth hormone being that lean.

It was good, man. And I, I miss, I miss competing so much much i still feel like a meathead bodybuilder i mean it's never gonna leave me um but i had to think more about the future of right what i wanted to do so you think you'll uh utilize that discipline you know anytime soon just to get like you know leaned out for a photo shoot or yeah or maybe do a show just for fun it's kind of hard to do stuff for fun after you did it so extreme but i mean as soon as i can get my career to a point where i can start getting roles and right and you know for shows or films that's going to be the ultimate for me because that again i just thrive off all that i just thrive off hard work and

i want to i want to you know i want to do that hard stuff some of these guys get in really good shape you know josh brolin looked really good for uh his last couple movies and he's been on fire you know i think yeah some of these people are um and you see it at the gym too you see that golds there's guys in there that are 40, 50, 60, 70. Robbie Robinson. Yeah. Speaking of Robbie and Mike, January of 2013. January 1st, New Year's Day, January 13th, 7 a.m.

I met Mike and Robbie at the gym at Gold's. We just had a kick-ass training session. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So training with Robbie, training with with mike such a great experience you know robbie robinson um we were doing some chest uh we were doing some uh hammer strength bench press and we were using like two plates and then we uh we got another plate on there and like i i knew not to say this to him but i was just like i was just trying to like mess with him and i was like let me take a plate off and he just stared at me but like he stared at me the whole time like he like as soon as i said it

he looked at me and then he sat down like this and he stared at me and he like did his set he's just staring at me the whole time and then he like just let the thing go and he got up he's just staring at me the whole time and then he like just let the thing go and he got up with the plate on yeah yeah he left it on yeah he was just like fuck fuck you like you know but that's that mindset you know we talked about earlier you can't have doubt and it wasn't like it was you know super easy for him he knew he was going to push himself a little bit but at the same time he knew like that would be a good challenge for him that's what he should do a lot of times the things that you can't do are the things that you need to force yourself to do right yep as soon as you get that resistance flowing in you know you were mentioning the uh how you have that you know in the military you have that radar

of like detecting shit that's coming in when something bad comes in that's a good uh a good a good thing to note in your brain and say i'm gonna i'm gonna fucking fight against that shit yeah something bad's coming in you know and you gotta figure out how to process it how do you cope with it what do you what do you do with that information that's the best i mean that's some of the best stuff right there i'm just being able to do that and find that, like, just dig into that mental fortitude. Those coping skills are important. I think that's why so many people suffer from, you know, anxiety and depression. And, you know, there's obviously brain chemistry plays into it too. I'm not going to ever, uh, understate or underestimate how

somebody's born, how somebody's built or their environmental, uh, circumstances growing up. You know, if you're abused growing up, like I, I don't, I don't have information for you that can help you because I never had that. You know what I mean? Like I can't speak on that perspective cause I didn't come from that. But what I can speak from is that if you are an adult and you're trying to be successful, no matter what happened to you, you have to take care of the circumstances that are in front of you. And you have to have good coping skills with things that are coming in. We all have negative things that are coming our way. And I think a lot of times it's really easy to just talk yourself. It's easier just to say, you know what, I'm just going to sleep in.

Like you always think you deserve it. You might have a long shoot one day. You might have been filming for 18 hours. You might be in this makeup forever and they got to pull it off you and it's another hour and you didn't eat much all day. Somebody says, let's go have some drinks or let's go to In-N-Out Burger, or whatever. And you somehow think that's a treat, but I think it's a trick.

You know, they say trick or treat. I think it's like a, and it's a trick your brain plays on you. Your brain's like, yeah, yeah, go ahead, man. It's like you get a little pat on the back. Go for it. And that's the time when you've got to resist against it. And if you resist against it over and over again,

back to what we said in the beginning, it gets to be easier after a while. The hard road gets to be easier. And other people look at you and they're like, why does he keep taking the fucking hardest route? I don't understand how he does it. Yep. Because, I mean, what you just said,

literally, if you really want something bad enough, you can justify whatever in your head. Total justification. Oh, I can, like you just said, I can sleep in. I can go eat in and out. I've been good for six days. I can have an extra cheat meal. Not all my clients, but there's a few of them where I'm just like, why don't you call me when you're really ready to do this? You know what I mean?

It's a great thing to say to people because then they're like, no, I'm ready right now. And you're like, no, you're really not. You're not. Did you see the, so JK Simmons and I, he's one of my really close friends out here. He's 63 now. He would say, he would make sure that I add to half.

I don't know why, but he he's 63 and a half. And, uh, we just did season two, a counterpart a couple of years ago, we had a photo that went viral in a gold's gym, North Hollywood of him curling on the arm blaster. People freaked out. They thought he was getting ready for justice league. And really it was just a personal goal. he had set to get in the best shape he could get into yeah so for season two a counterpart on stars uh have you seen the counterpart of the show no so he plays there's there's alternate worlds there's this world in this world cool he's this way in one world he's this way in one world and in season two way in one world. And in season two, there's a dramatic physical difference between the two characters that he's playing.

And we did some cool stuff physically throughout the show. That was one of the hardest things I've done yet, physically transforming someone. But for a 63-year-old man to be able to do what he did uh when you see it on screen i'll show you pictures after this it's it's gonna blow your mind man the the because that's what i that's mainly what i do now in film and tv are are transformations um so i'm not as much of a just a trainer anymore as i am uh people come to me like in crunch time to get guys ready for shows that's i mean that's a huge difference here right like you know somebody

we see trainers all the time there's a lot of great trainers a lot of great a lot of people helping a lot of people motivating people getting people to exercise um but i mean to be totally honest a lot of times you see people kind of with the same similar physique it's understandable because again it's just it's really hard the food thing is a hard thing and uh the trainer's not always there to instill that discipline but it is something that you have to instill in your client because they need to understand that you're going to train here for an hour or two you know josh brolin you know my friend uh justin trains him a little bit and said that uh you know josh was like hey man i'm gonna i'm all in i'm gonna train three times a week or three times a day if i need to josh is dedicated yeah so you're

not always going to have those those kind of. But even if somebody did train three times a day, if you're not eating well, you're not going to get the results you're looking for. When you're working with people, are you kind of implementing some bodybuilding type stuff? Not even so much just the training, but the eating of a bodybuilder. Yeah, well, for me, whenever I'm training someone, I look at it as a programmatic thing. So they're not coming in just to train with me. I'll we, I explained it to him from the very beginning. If we're going to do

this, this is what like you are going to train with me, but I'm going to help you with the supplement regimen. I'm going to help you with the nutrition because I want to figure out how to get the results that you want. Because if you come in and train with me, I can't guarantee the results you want unless you're eating right. And everyone is different. So the guys that come in wanting to put size on, I use more of a bodybuilding type of protocol. Guys coming in trying to lose weight or get in shape quicker or doing stuff like i did with jk it's a mixture of maybe some bodybuilding stuff but i've really i've really uh uh started using intermittent fasting a lot i like intermittent fasting yeah it's undeniably

it's undeniably beneficial and it works and how dumb did you think it was when you first heard about it like i thought it was so i was like give me a break you got to eat every two three hours you got to stay jacked what is this bullshit as a meathead it goes against everything that i understood like what yeah but for instance with jk i mean he has aches and pains and joints and all this stuff and we have to be very careful about how we train and do certain things probably got rid of so much inflammation it went away like he had he had all these places that he had issues with before gone it's amazing gone and you and like for somebody like him what do you eat two three times a day and it's kind of a six hour eight hour

eating window yeah so he typically did a uh he actually ate earlier a lot of people do the 11 to 7 12 to 8 type thing. He was doing more of a 9 to 5, 10 to 6 thing. He just preferred to eat earlier and cut it off earlier. But for, I mean, every one of them is literally different. I don't ever, like I don't even know what I'm going to do when they come in because I don't know how their body is going to respond. So the first week is usually trying to figure everything out. Yeah, a good place to start is just to, you know, a lot of times communicate with somebody about,

I mean it depends on where they're starting at, but a lot of times it's just communication about healthy foods. You know, what the hell foods do you even like like let's go over that that are within reason that we can have you know in the diet because if you recommend chicken all the time and i hate chicken it just might the diet might not be able to last long enough because willpower is not going to really win you know unless it's a hardened individual that has done that sort of thing before. You know, somebody who's got experience with that,

they're like, yeah, I can eat the chicken. I don't really care. But it's always good to kind of go over like, okay, the first week or two, we got to kind of experiment. We got to kind of see what's happening. You know, eat 100 or 200 carbs a day. Eat your body weight in grams of protein and eat about, eat about half that and fat. And let's see what the week looks like. Yeah. And try to follow that and eat six times a day.

I mean, it's, it's the, it's the, I feel like it's the best way to figure someone's body out because I see too many people automatically think they know what this person needs before they even really know the person. And then the results don't happen. And I've dealt with it because I get clients who come to me saying, I was training with so-and-so and it didn't work. Well, people are confused. And I think that sometimes their trainer doesn't even communicate with them exactly what it is they're doing and why. Yeah.

I think that ends up being a big problem because, you know, somebody might be on like a keto diet and they might be all excited about it, but then they tell you that they want to get bigger and stronger and you're like, well, not that you can't do that on a keto diet, but it'd be really hard. It just doesn't make any sense to utilize that strategy for that or maybe even intermittent fasting for somebody, for a kid who's 18 that wants to put size on for football.

It's just not, you can use intermittent fasting, and we just talked about it. It works great. It works great for all aspects of dieting. But in that sense, it doesn't make sense. So the scenario and what somebody's trying to do really matters. Yeah. And the other thing, too, is something recent that I've got into more, I work with Josh Brolin on Oldboy and we used it.

And I've been messing around with it since, but food sensitivity testing. Because a lot of times people eat so much bad food, meaning it's impossible to eat all organic all the time. But if you can eat organic as much as possible, it's going to eat all organic all the time, but if you can eat organic as much as possible, it's going to make a big difference. Even if you don't taste it or see the difference, it's down to what's in it, the pesticides and all the bullshit, because when you eat it and it sits in your body, it can create these sensitivities, which creates inflammation. And it's like, I get people who come in, they're like, I'm eating so healthy. You know, I don't, I don't cheat. And I'm just, I'm bloated and I'm full. We get it. We bring

them in, do the food sensitivity test, identify what they're not supposed to be eating. Nine times out of 10, it's everything they're eating is what they're not supposed to be eating. Put them all in the green category. They drop 10 pounds. All the inflammation flushes right off. Well, it's, it's amazing when you discover things like that but in short like a really simple thing for people to try to keep in mind is the lesser the ingredients of the products that you're eating probably the better yeah and so that's always something to keep in mind because you know the pesticides or the different things that are in there and we can get all crazy when you try to figure out like you know where the fucking cow came from that you're eating and and you can get all nutty with it but really you know most of your

meals shouldn't have too many different ingredients even if it's um say you have uh peanut butter some stays a steak and rice or something right it's like steak salt pepper rice if you're trying to gain weight maybe there's some butter in there but there's not there's not a ton of different seasoning there's no barbecue sauce there's no ketchup there's no yeah peanut butter cashew but any of these any of these nut butters and stuff um in my opinion they shouldn't have i know that people um they try to skirt around it because they want like snacks and stuff but i really don't i think the less the sugar alcohols and less these things look man if you eat a lot of them they're gonna make you really gassy yeah gas is

a really good indicator that like what you're eating is not working now sometimes it might take an adjustment period because somebody might have said hey man you need to eat more vegetables and that might take a minute so you might have to like build up towards something or if you just came to me and said hey for your bodybuilding show you need to have 350 grams of protein a day well if i just go from having 100 to having 350 then i'm gonna be farting all day right yep um but it's just these little things that i think sometimes people aren't thinking about but just try to cut the food ingredients down. And that's a really good place to start for most people rather than thinking so much about a diet and being this like crazy caloric restriction.

Yeah. I like your recommendation of, uh, you know, go organic and try to make sure that when you look at something, uh, that it doesn't have 15 different things in it. Yeah. Like you look at peanut butter, peanuts, or if you get a steak, like you just said, like 15 different things in it. Yeah. Like if you look at peanut butter, peanuts. If you get a steak, like you just said, like there's nothing on it. I mean, and for people who don't do the food sensitivity testing type stuff, you can always, if you feel like you're eating clean and you're having some type of inflammation or bloating, it's try and start to subtract, you know, deductive reasoning,

you know, figure out, all right, this, I ate this meal. I feel good. I eat this meal. I'm a little bit bloated. Let me figure out what's in this meal. Cause a lot of times when you're just eating the same thing over and over again, it's easy to create the sensitivity. Yeah, that can happen. Uh, and it happens quite a bit with eggs, you know, especially for bodybuilders because they're like that's a real staple in the diet. You have tons and tons of eggs and all of a sudden you kind of have almost like an egg allergy. Yeah. Because you like over flooded yourself with whatever these amino acids are, whatever it is.

How do you get like a food sensitivity thing? Test. Yeah, there's different. I mean, I use Alcat, but I mean, you can go to, I mean, if you Google. Is it saliva, blood? It's blood. Yeah, it's blood. I mean, I think maybe some of them can do it other ways, but I feel like the most accurate is going to be just getting blood work done.

Yeah. And some places are. Where'd you get that information from? Something you picked up along the way or? along the way or um i i started researching it for this josh brolin movie back in new orleans because what what had to be done for the character was not necessarily the healthiest thing but we were trying to figure out a way to make it work on the schedule without having to dump thousands and thousands of dollars into cgi and stuff so um american back institute it's a it's a chiropractic place they work on the new orleans saints football team they have a, it's a chiropractic place. They work on the new

Orleans saints football team. They have a whole, they have a huge setup in there and they have a nutrition office. And, uh, we were just talking about it one day and then I went ahead and did it myself. And then I was blown away on what it did to me. So then what are some changes that you made that you noticed? Well, for instance, I was eating the normal stuff that I had been eating forever, you know, chicken, turkey, which were the two things that I was. Right. I was like, man, I would have never even have guessed that. But as soon as I took them out and started eating more fish, like it was you could literally just see everything drop off. It was it was incredible.

And then, you know, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. you could literally just see everything drop off. It was incredible. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, and when you do it for a certain period of time, it almost like resets you, and then you can start eating those foods again.

Yeah. Yeah, recently we had two people on that talked about omega-3s kind of back-to-back, and one of the guys that we had on, he just basically was, it was Doug that we had on, he just basically was, it was Doug that we had on. He's trying to be a pro bodybuilder. He's like, this guy's like 280 pounds. He's fucking jacked.

You know, bodybuilders have a simple way of putting things sometimes. And sometimes you're like, I don't even know if that's true because it sounds too simple, right? And he said, he's like, I switched out some of my chicken for salmon and i noticed a huge difference and uh switched out some of my steak for salmon too and

um he's like the omega-3s just burn them up quicker and he just and then he just moved on and he started talking about something else and like my head i'm like burned them up quicker because i i don't like to like make a statement I feel like too many people watch some of the stuff that we say, and they kind of hang on to every word, so I always try to be a little bit careful. Or if I do make a statement like that, I'll say, you know what, I don't even really know if this is true, but this is what I feel.

He just kind of said it, and it was just in and out real quick. And I was just kind of dwelling on that. I'm like, Omega-3s, they burn up quick. I'm like, what does that mean? And then we had Thomas DeLauer on, who has a very popular YouTube channel. And he breaks things down to the molecular structure, and he talks about all these different things. And he said the exact same thing, and it was like the next day. And he talked about Omega-3s but he talked about it in a scientific way but basically in short what he said was they burn up quicker and

i was like fucking big doug was right man look at that fats yeah yeah it's just uh you know i guess just due to the due to the way the structure is it's easier for your body to uh break them down than it might be with saturated fats or some different things like that. And I was just like, wow. Okay, cool. Good information. It's good to get that info and then be able to utilize it. Who are some people like in the strength and fitness community,

uh, that you've looked, looked, uh, look to over the years to kind of gain information. Have you been to seminars? Have you, or is there just some guys you follow on Instagram or YouTube where you found some information or inspiration from any of those kind of people in the fitness industry?

I mean, honestly, not really. I've kind of just, I've always, I try and stay on top of what the latest stuff is. And then I always try and understand why this is now so popular right and half the time it ends up being something that's really not even that true yeah sometimes it's crap or sometimes it's something like intermittent fasting where it's like you know you didn't think it was a thing and then you're like oh shit you used it and it worked so i typically what i do is i just try stuff on myself and see how it works. And that's pretty much how I've done everything my whole life is experimentation through my own body.

And that way I understand it personally and then I understand things because I have a couple clients who just love training with me and will do basically whatever. I mean, you know, within reason. Yeah. But – Yeah, you tell them to pick up a sledgehammer and hit a tire with it, they're like, cool. Yeah. Sure.

But one of the biggest things for me, though, that I've just hung on to is nothing beats good old free weight training. Right. So one thing, one of the things that I've noticed here since I've been in Los Angeles and like every, I see it every day, everywhere is these trainers are training these normal people like an NFL athlete or something. And it makes no sense to me because you know, they're, they, these people want to build muscle or they want to get a little bit more in shape, but they have them doing the most insane things. And then I go in with my clients and we're just, I mean, it's good to have fun sometime with it.

No, I believe in what you're saying and totally understand. And I think that when you go into the gym, there's not that many different things that you can really work on. And if you work on too many different things, then you end up with nothing really. You know, if you're hopping around like a bunny rabbit going back and forth between a bunch of exercises, then that's not going to give you time to elicit the right response. It's not sending your body the right message. it's not sending your body the right message.

Normally when you're in the gym, you're sending a message to your body of, we're going to stimulate some of these muscles. We're going to create some damage to some of these muscles. We're also not going to overdo it. We're going to try to find an optimal range to work within. We're going to pick two to four exercises per that body part. We're going to give it some good rigorous work, but we're not going to overload it with too much weight. We're going to keep good form,

keep good tension on the muscle. And we're in here very specifically to try to gain more muscle, try to stimulate the muscle so that it sends a message, your body sending a message to your muscles that we're going to induce some change we're going to we want you to grow the only other thing that you can really work on other than growth in that fashion is strength maybe like a little bit of endurance but you can't really i don't want to say can't because there's things that that certainly do happen but you're not really in there like burn body fat right you're not really in there to if you are in there to burn calories such as you're on a piece of cardio equipment you you basically a lot of the research shows

that you're basically burning calories for that moment i know there's research that shows that you might be burning calories throughout the day, but just for purposes of what I'm trying, the point I'm trying to make is, let's just hypothetically say that you burned 500 calories from being on the Stairmaster, right? You might potentially throughout the day, because of the response that you gave your body from that, you might burn off a little bit more throughout the day, but predominantly it came from the actual movement itself. When you weight train and you send a message to your body that we're going to build our arms up more, we're going to create this damage, and then you eat properly, and you do that over the course of several weeks, your body builds more muscle.

You hold on to that muscle, and your body then starts to do the work for you while you're not even at the gym and that's a really cool thing for people to have and that's how when you start to see somebody make these little changes it's like they make these little tiny changes and they start going whoop and you're like oh man that guy's off to the races and it's it's because of that because their metabolism is starting to race they're starting to really burn a lot of calories now even the very act of the cardio that they do because they change the body composition that they have maybe they were 14 body fat now they're 10 they're burning more calories they're not burning 500 calories anymore they might be burning 525

calories yeah which over time is going to start to make a really drastic difference. So I agree a hundred percent. I see people they're in the gym. They're a little too confused on what it is they're doing. Yeah. Because when they, when they leave my goal, my goal as a trainer, by the way, that was excellent. What you just said, my, my goal as a trainer is a long time. I know. I mean, I don't want to... I'm not trying to keep clients for life. I mean, when they come in, I want to help them change their life. They can stay with me for a month or two, look completely different,

understand what they're supposed to do, and then take it on their own. Whereas I feel like that's not the case with a lot of people because when the clients leave or try and do something on their own, they don't really know what to do because they've done so many different things that nothing makes sense. And then comes into the play of the Internet. When you try and go figure it out, then you're even more confused before you started. I saw something really cool today. Do you know who Tito Raymond is?

Yeah. Yeah. Tito is just an awesome guy, and I'm excited. We're going to get a who Tito Raymond is? Yeah. Yeah. Tito is, he's just an awesome guy. And I'm excited we're going to get a chance to interview him in a couple days too. He's been a longtime friend of mine. The guy's just a savage. You know, he really is. The guy gets after it all the time.

But he has like a standard. He's got a particular standard. I watched him. He's always annihilating people in there. He's always kicking the shit out of people. But today he was working with a particular standard. I watched him. He's always annihilating people in there. He's always kicking the shit out of people. But today he was working with a guy and there he was, he was coaching a guy on every rep and he was doing all these things. And anybody listening that wants to be a coach or personal trainer, do your best to coach people on every rep, even if it's just encouragement. Hey, keep your elbows in. Hey, you're doing good.

You know, pick it up or whatever whatever you got to say to somebody but i really am a big believer in trying to coach every rep that's what you're getting paid for um but what do you what do you and you're there to be a teacher you're there to be a uh you're there to be an inspiration to those people you don't have to everybody has got their own version of that. You don't have to come out with this speech like you're a football coach and it doesn't have to be this epic thing.

Sometimes you just being there, you being present and you being firm with them is plenty, right? This guy gets done, he's having the guy do some sit-ups on the bench. Guy gets off the bench, Tito grabs paper towel and he starts wiping down the bench what does his client do grabs a paper towel starts wiping down the bench

tito grabs a couple dumbbells because they were using a bunch of dumbbells they were super set and some stuff tito grabs a couple dumbbells puts the dumbbells away his client grabs a couple dumbbells puts his dumbbells away that's the guy you want to train with because that guy's teaching that person life lessons on how they're going to get better if he just keeps handing them those weights over and over again hey here you go here's how you get better oh here's your protein shake oh here's your meal what did you learn you learn shit you didn't learn anything this guy's learning the value of keeping the gym clean, keeping the gym in order,

when no one gives a fuck about that gym. That Gold's Gym, that thing, that's some sacred hollow ground over there, and people just, they don't give a fuck. If you even try to charge someone to go in there, people get all upset because people are kind of used to getting hooked up. I was even commenting today.

Somebody's like, oh, you should get in the posing room. Because you've got to work on your posing. And I was like, well, I'm going to go. I'll sign up for it. And they're like, oh, you don't need to sign that. I said, no, I need to do it the right way. Like they have a sign-up sheet. I'm going to go sign the sign-up sheet.

They're not like charging me to use the posing room. And it's just those little things so those little details that some other people are missing yeah and it's a it's a respect thing i mean it really is i unfortunately for me i have i feel like in the on the hollywood side it's a little bit different on this side because there's an expectation that I have to pick my own weights up. Like seriously. Right.

So it's a little bit, I know, I know exactly what you mean. But it may have depend on the client. Sometimes you got a 75 year old woman who's like, you know, there's, there's a time and place for everything,

but really you want it like a 75 year old woman doesn't need to be taught life lessons. Yeah. Sure. He knows the fuck's going on. Right. But for the most part, I mean, this was a 20 year old like doesn't need to be taught life lessons yeah sure he knows the fuck's going on right but for the most part i mean this was a 20 year old like athlete you know and that guy he can't be you know what i mean like you these professional athletes will get so pampered sometimes and it's like that's not training like what the fuck are you doing jumping over some

hurdles or whatever it's like that's fucking stupid you're already good at that why aren't you squatting why aren't you doing something you fucking suck at yep you know it's not fun try to find something that's uh that's like a real struggle when somebody comes in and they want to work with you uh what does that what does that look like um like uh like what is what does day one look like you kind of sit down have have a conversation about their goals and what it is you guys are going to do together before the training starts and before some of this changes with the diet start? Yeah, normally what I do is I'll try and meet them somewhere for a coffee

or something, or maybe we'll come in and meet a little earlier at the gym to sit down and kind of discuss the game game plan but it's really understanding their lifestyle are they on their feet all day they're behind a desk all day um is there is there a person that you would like to resemble or look like to get a good idea of at least understanding yeah you're going you want to go from here to this and then understanding what injuries they have um their understanding of nutrition is a big point for me. Cause I'll ask them what, what healthy foods do you like? What healthy foods do you not like? Um, because I want to help make your diet based around the things that you'll most likely eat. And then nine times out of 10. That's crucial right there. I mean, you said a lot in that one sentence.

Yeah. Cause a lot of times people really think they understand nutrition and I'm like, what'd you have for breakfast? And they say they had a banana, which is, it's a banana is a good start, but you want to have like,

you want to have a little bit of protein with it. You want to have balance of the macros. You want to understand the structure of a meal because the better you can understand the structure of a meal, the better set for success you're going to be. So that's kind of the biggest thing we talk about getting started, what kind of training they've done in the past, what kind of training they like. And then, uh, when we get into the actual session, it's more of the first first the first day or two is still it's taking them through a workout but i'm assessing where they're at so that i can plan the subsequent training from there and i know i know exactly where you're at i know exactly what i need to do so that's that's kind

of how the setup is with me i like the way that sounds because yeah i mean you have to have a plan of attack you can't just like all right we're just need to understand the person's goals what it is they want to do you mentioned the injuries what are some things you do you know somebody's got you know a really bad shoulder or something do you kind of do you kind of research therapy and stuff like that or are you kind of guy that kind of just works around it um depending on the severity of the of the injury or the trouble my my what i want to do is figure out how to strengthen it um and then sometimes it's not always sometimes they i had a client who he was trying to work

through it i'm like you i think you need to go get that looked at and he had some he had a client who he was trying to work through it. I'm like, I think you need to go get that looked at. And he had some, he had a torn rotator cuff. Right. So obviously you have to get that fixed. Sometimes it's legitimate. Sometimes it's like bone on bone and crazy shit going on. Yeah. And a lot of people will try and work through it.

And that's where you have to understand the difference between muscle pain and injury pain. Because, I mean, if, if you're trying to work through injury pain, then it's going to get even worse. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, I just like whatever, whatever area they're injured in or they feel pain in, I always make sure that we focus on, uh, maybe, maybe not injury or pain in, but wherever they've had injuries in the past or wherever they feel weak at is I want to spend time properly warming that up. Um, maybe rolling that out. I have the Theragun that I use to kind of get in there. Yeah. It's amazing. So, uh, I mean, that's, so that's kind of how I get into it to get, I want them, I want them getting in tune with the muscle and the way it's supposed to feel.

And, and, uh, yeah, that's cool. What do you got coming up? Working on any movies right now or, um,

right now I'm, uh, I'm kind of in the middle of things. Uh, I'm working for a magazine in Toronto. I fly out on Sunday actually cool doing some fitness stuff up there

we're filming fitness content we're in discussions with some different brands awesome Apple being one of them which is a big one there's two projects coming up later this year that

I've signed letters of intent for that I'm excited about. Very cool. But right now I'm just, I'm just training. Just training your face off and working with people and trying to get people in shape. That's it. You have a website. You've got a place where people can find you. Website is AaronWilliamson.net.

I'm most active on my social media on Instagram, Aaron V. Williamson, and then AVWilliamson on Twitter. And then you sent over that YouTube video. Do you have a YouTube channel? I do, but I'm still learning it. You still work? So I couldn't tell you. I mean, I think if you type in Aaron Williamson Fitness, my channel comes up.

Some stuff will pop up. Yeah. Yeah. What do your workouts actually look like? Do you do some powerlifting, bodybuilding? Do you utilize anything, you know, that any of your military experience, the physical training that you did there? Because I've had some stuff happen to my body over the years.

Keep it simple. Yeah. I've really started to focus on uh i still love the bodybuilding like when i go in the gym i'm i'm pretty much bodybuilding yeah but i love using the time under tension approach right i feel like i feel like you can do bodybuilding forever yeah i really do because at the end of the day i'm not i don't care how much weight I'm lifting. I'm almost 40. I'm not trying to impress anybody. Well, and you can still be strong that way too,

and you can still move around some weight. So on days you feel good, you go for it. On days you don't, you don't worry about it. Exactly. And that's pretty much how it is because with travel, I might be filming nights. There's so many variables that that throw my schedule off in terms of training too much lifting experience to not listen right like your knee hurts on a squat i can find another exercise yeah and a lot of times i

can i'll if i've been on set all day and i haven't had a chance to eat or drink water like I need to, then I'll just forego that day and focus on getting that extra rest. That's some great advice right there. That's, that's a tough one to do. So tough. So tough. Missing it, missing it, missing a day at the gym. That's a planned day at the gym is not an easy, an easy thing to do. I forget who we had somebody recently said that going to the gym is not the discipline not going to the gym is the discipline it might have been jay cutler yeah because i mean it's it can be an addiction you can literally be addicted to it just fucking take a day off yeah i'm not about to do that anytime soon are you what kind of split are you on uh you know what it's um it's been kind of a standard bodybuilding split

where it's spread out over five or six days, basically. And so the actual day doesn't matter, but specific body parts are going to keep getting rotated in. And what happens is it'll get moved around a little bit. Like we killed our legs this week. We did a quad training session one day and a hamstring training session like two three days later and that left kind of both sides because you know you're going to kind of run into uh the other body part one way or the other we

did like these walking lunges you know at the end of our hamstring day and that we just a 10 minute lunge with no no body or no uh no weight just our body weight and that left our quads really sore so we were supposed to train legs today and so instead we trained uh some biceps and triceps but yeah it basically just rotates around and it's only one muscle usually i guess other than like bicep tricep it's normally just like one muscle group so it's like shoulders arms chest back quads hammies and it just kind of keeps rotating around but yeah so far so good I got to keep working on the posing just cuz like that's just weird that I never yeah I've never even really been to a bodybuilding show before so I barely know what the hell is

going on they're like quarter turn I'm like what i don't even i barely know what that means so what's the show you're doing uh it's in sacramento it's at the end of august um i keep forgetting if i'm in i'm not in the actual bodybuilding i'm in like classic physique or something like that yeah i mean it's still bodybuilding yeah yeah it's yeah it's just uh i guess not as many poses but there's like seven or eight of them which that'll be a little easier to master and then they're like asking me uh you got what kind of music you got and stuff i'm like i'm like i don't i need music i'm like i don't know i don't know what's going on i'll figure it out that's the fun part i'll figure it out. That's the fun part.

I'll figure it all out when I get there. I know I need a lot of, a lot of lubing up and a lot of shaving. I know that much. Hey man, it was great having you on the show.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's good to be here. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. We're out of here.