Mark Bell's Power Project - What Women MUST Know Before Using PEDs - Cory Hageman || MBPP Ep. 1066

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

In episode 1066, IFBB Bikini Pro Cory Hagemen, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about what women must know before using PEDs and the dangers of what could happen when abused. Follow Cory on IG: https://www.instagram.com/cory_fit   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

The fitness industry is generally irresponsible when it comes to PEDs and women's health. I do think on the drug side of things, it is very cookie cutter. Tons of coaches have permanently ruined the long-term health of their female athletes by blasting them with high doses of substances they use on men. The biggest comment that I got out of the whole thing was my voice. That's where IFBB bikini pro Corey Hagman comes in. Sometimes you hear some guys maybe have had issues with their anger in the past. They take testosterone and it amplifies that a little bit. Does that happen to women? I think

people are pretty surprised when they tell them they've been on TRT for like two, two and a half years. You know, a lot of women end up losing their menstrual cycle when they get lean during prep. Should they be looking to get it back at a certain point? There's getting the period and there's ovulating. Not ovulating, bad for you. It's bad for fertility. If you're a woman that competes in strength or physique sports and you want to learn how to tackle PED safely, this is the episode for you. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air. But we did that for you,

to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you, and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can, leave us a review there, and enjoy the rest of the show. Today is different. I apologize to all the fans, but we do have a female on the show today. Uh-oh. And because of that, I brushed my teeth this morning. Say. Look at you guys.

Civilized and stuff. Combed my hair. Thank you. I feel honored. Tried to pretty up a little bit today. Thank you for being here today. Can you give us a little intro? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So for listeners, my name is

Corey Hageman. I'm an IFBB bikini pro. I just finished nursing school, so unlicensed to take my licensure exam this next month. Damn. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you so much. I couldn't have come soon enough. I'm so glad to be done. But yeah, I'm a coach in the fitness space. So I work predominantly with female athletes, some men as well, but really on the consultation side of performance enhancements or hormonal optimization. Do you help a good deal of kind of like regular people or is it mainly people just trying to get on stage? No, no. Large majority are gen pop.

So just lifestyle. On the male side, a lot of individuals who maybe have never used enhancements in the past, they just want to have like TRT in place, just kind of take what they're doing to the next level. I would say, yeah, competitors, very far and few. I work with them, but I mean, like it's a different mindset entirely. And for some of these regular people, I'd imagine because of your YouTube channel and some of the stuff that you talk about on Instagram, they're probably coming to you and they probably want to get performance enhancement in some way, right? Oh, all the time. Yeah. They just want the source. Like, I mean, they're literally like,

take my money. Where can I get drugs? How do you kind of coach them through that? Like what, like where, what are the next steps after that? You're like, yo, I got your hookup. Mark, are you, do you want the source? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, please. Where's the fountain of trend all right we'll talk later um really i mean the starting point with someone who's looking to make that transition from you know not being enhanced to being enhanced uh needs to come down to their needs yeah i mean like i want to identify if that's someone who one um understands what they're asking i mean like because I think a lot

of people come into the space, they want to include something that like we were talking about this morning. They think it's going to solve a problem that frankly, they can solve through behavior modification. They can change what they're currently doing with diet, with training. But this idea around, okay, I'm just going to put this drug in place. I don't know. They're kind of misguided to begin with. So one, educating them on here's a purpose of these drugs. So I mean, really two main purposes that can help you lose fat and it can help you build muscle. Past that, I mean, sure, there's a few. We got GH trend that are going to have like a multitude of effects. But really when you get

into anabolics, I mean, the purpose is to build muscle. So someone who comes to me, hey, I want to use Anovar in order to lose a little bit of fat. Our starting point is educating and helping them see that like, that's not really in line with the goal. So if the goal is to lose fat, let's look at our other options. Corey, I'm curious about this because, you know, there's a lot of people that want to compete. And one thing I noticed, because my girlfriend, she's been competing for a long time. And she's told me kind of some horror stories she's heard from people heading with and working with certain coaches where certain coaches just like, you know, they'll start an athlete off and they'll start having them do a ton of cardio. Then they'll

start having them getting on a bunch of drugs, an idea to try to get them a pro card. And they think that's the process, right? So what are the red flags that new bikini or wellness athletes need to be thinking about when they're going to look for a coach to work with? Because although this coach might get them a lot of, get a lot of pro cards, there's some people doing some fuck shit. You know what I mean? So what do they need to look out for? Fuck shit. Yes. That is the standard for today's coaching mills. I would call it the- Oh, that's a great coaching mills. Ooh, that's good. I mean, and now it's turned into not just producing pro cards, but now it's producing coaches under them to produce more pro cards. I mean, like it's very pyramid-esque. Honestly,

I think what you need to look out for, if the individual is just simply willing to take you on and put you on drugs, are they able to answer questions about the drugs? If you don't know why the drug's included, I mean, like that, it sounds really rudimentary, but have you asked like why this drug as opposed to another one? I mean, a lot of these things are being put in place with the intention that it's going to get you that pro card. It's being misused though. I mean, like any anabolic in a fat loss phase, we're not really able to take advantage of what it's best at. It's best at building. But as a female athlete, you're still being exposed to the risk of irrealization, which you only have so many cards in your lifetime that you get to play. And it's not like you have little video

games where you can see your life bar. It's not like you can be like, oh, you got eight more cycles left. Well, if you want to be a pro and you're planning on competing as a pro in multiple seasons, it's like, you're going to burn through those eight cycles to get to the national stage, to what, get third, fourth place or get second call-outs. So I kind of look at it like that. Like first identify, okay, what's the purpose of the drug? What's the long-term strategy? Is this like, I had a girl last week, she came to me, she's on SARMs indefinitely.

Just supportive therapy of SARMs. I'm like, I don't get that. That's another thing I've heard. I've heard of a lot of coaches just putting women on SARMs. I'm just like, what? And what's the thought process behind that, if there is any? SARMs are easier, I think, to get into an athlete's hands because it's a lower barrier to entry. It's oral.

So, I mean, like what you're going to find is that getting someone to take something that you can say, okay, just alongside your multivitamin every morning, you can even use words like precursor that ultimately misguide them, make them think, oh, it's just a fat burner. Just a little. This isn't a steroid, right? And you're like, no, it's a fat burner. Yeah, it's fine. Jesus. At high enough dosages, SARMs, they are no longer selective. So they're just as virilizing as anabolics. So that's one issue with that. Also, accuracy, highly in question. I mean, even in studies, we see that SARMs typically come back. It's not just like one type.

It's not just Osterine. It's like a multitude of SARMs, if not other anabolics. So accuracy, okay, that's a big one. Then you look at the health impacts of SARMs. They have a major, major impact on ALT, AST, so the liver enzymes. If you take someone, let's say even like a moderate dose of ANIVAR, you're going to see liver takes a hit. Okay, just the root of administration has to go through liver. Cool. You're going to see ALT, AST still likely sub 100. You're not going to see those numbers like in the 200, 300. With SARMs, even at, let's just say a moderate dose, you can see

levels quickly go into 300, 400, 500. I mean, at that point, I'm like, how is this even a discussion that we're saying, oh, this is okay. This is female friendly. It's like, yeah, but it's also putting you at serum levels that are reflective of liver failure. Did you say this woman's on SARMs for life? Why? SARMs for the course of working with this coach. Oh, okay. You're on SARMs for the remainder of our coaching term.

Just indefinitely. Like there was no strategy. It wasn't a cycle. It was just like a warmup, right? Like, hey, you just, you do this now and that's it until we're done. But the fun thing is about like SARMs and like the studies that people will point to, like, look, they obviously work. They were done with like one to three milligrams or something like that.

And like entry dose for like almost anybody is like at least 20. Like that's what I was taking. And that just really wrecked me with Osterine. Like that destroyed my like labs and everything. And I had a pretty weird like rebound effect off of it. Definitely don't recommend it now. No, no good. Also question about this, the Anovar, right? Because Anovar is one of those drugs that a lot of bikini athletes take. Uh, what, cause you mentioned the eight cycle thing, guys, that was the ginger ale. It's fucking coming up, baby. Um, virilization, how, like what do women need to be paying attention to? So they, cause like a lot of coaches will just give them and say,

get on this, this amount of Anovar and they don't know what amount it's going to take until they start talking like that, right? What do they need to pay attention to? How much does it take? It's going to be highly individualized, but it's also going to depend on the compound itself. So, I mean, like you take someone who's on five milligrams of Anabar. Okay. They're on a short cycle, let's say six weeks. Should they see signs of virilization?

Well, no, they shouldn't. But if it's not anivar, if it's something that is higher androgenic profile compared to an anabolic profile, like Winstroll, okay, you might see virilization happen sooner. Oh, you take something like, let's say, primobolin, so also DHT derivative. Primo is highly faked. So also DHT derivative. Primo is highly faked. If it's not Primo, if it's testosterone at the dose that someone would be taking Primo at, you're for sure, for sure, almost absolutely, you're going to see virilization occur.

So it really depends. Okay. If it's actually Anabar, what's the line in the sand that we say, okay, like you're really asking for these side effects. I mean, can you say that 10 milligrams, 15 milligrams, 20 milligrams, okay, this is the threshold for everyone? No. But the longer that you're exposed to these higher doses, the greater the chances. Anivar is thrown around a lot too because it's an oral, right? So the injection side of things I think is maybe a scary place for people to start. Do you think there's other things that people should be thinking about when they think about taking Anivar?

Well, I mean, yeah, like the root of administration, like it being oral, sure, it's going to hit the liver. It's also going to have an effect on cholesterol. Personally, I think it could be utilized. There's an argument for it to be utilized if the setting calls for it. So in a contest prep, if you're taking someone who, let's say even in the bikini division, you need something with a shorter half-life. Okay.

The root of administration is indicated as opposed to something like Primo, Mastron, still in the same family tree. The root is different. It's an injectable. We're avoiding going through, I mean, your liver still has to metabolize it. But in the case that someone is looking to grow, like they're looking to build muscle, well, we should be using that anabolic in the off season. Well, why would we use something with a shorter half-life in the off season if we don't have to, if we don't have that requirement?

So really I kind of break everything down. If we're comparing anabolic to anabolic, it's like, well, what's the purpose of it? Do we have that requirement that we need a shorter half-life or can we look at an alternative? So I think it really, really depends on the context. Is there issues of like mood? Sometimes you hear some guys that maybe have had issues with their anger in the past, they take testosterone and it amplifies that a little bit. Does that happen to women too when they take performance enhancing drugs? It's a great question. I think drugs are going to exacerbate symptoms, tendencies, personality traits that you already have.

So you take someone who is a little more emotionally heightened, just naturally a little more sensitive. I think it's going to enhance that. Do I think it's going to alter you and change who you are? No, not exactly. Oh, okay. So this is one of the questions that we have from some athletes and I think it kind of works in with this. Does Anovar suppress sex hormones? If so, are there recommendations for PCT or DHEA post-cycle? This is from Chris Nicole. She's an IFBB pro bikini athlete. Yeah, yeah. So all anabolics are going to have suppressive effects on the HPO axis.

So HPO versus HPA, we tend to see HPOs impacted by exogenous. So any kind of supplement put in place. is impacted by exogenous, so any kind of supplement put in place, really what this comes down to is you're signaling to your body that it doesn't need to produce these hormones, even though what you're putting in. So Anovar is going in, your body's like, cool, we can shut down. Ovaries don't need to work. Okay. Now in terms of PCT, because HPO, HPA, they work on negative feedback mechanisms. Technically, it should turn back on, but it's going to turn back on or it's going to return to the baseline in which you already were at. Or in the case of someone, let's say who's been on cycle for an extended period of time, or maybe they have hormonal birth control already in place, already getting a signal

that they don't need to produce these hormones. Well, I could see where, and I see this often where someone would be like, well, hey, I didn't PCT and I think that's why these sex hormones aren't returning back to baseline. Well, is your baseline suppressed? Is your baseline already shitty? Okay. Well, in that case, yeah, we probably aren't going to see those come back up. You know, it's really interesting because with the, I guess even the angle of understanding of an athlete's on birth control, when I hear a lot of coaches talk about this, when they're giving prescriptions to their athletes on things that they should take, it's like there's a template of, okay, these girls take this much

and let's just, there's not this level of thought. And it's a scary thought that there's so many people working with coaches who are just feeding them drugs because it worked for another girl who's now a pro. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I do think on the drug side of things, it is very cookie cutter. And I'd like to believe in a lot of cases, this is not done out of malice. It's done out of ignorance. It's done out of maybe a fear of doing something incorrectly. But I think when it comes to looking at what the effects of these drugs are on females, I mean, like we don't have a lot of room to fuck around and find out. I mean, like you make a mistake and it's like, some of these are irreversible.

Yeah. So let me ask you this too, real quick. If a coach is thinking about wanting to get a level of education to understand this stuff, because you can't just learn this and fucking the encyclopedia of steroids from Arnold or whatever. Like, I don't know, you can't learn this stuff easily. Who are some good resources like yourself? Like, where did you learn some of this stuff? How did you, yeah, how'd you learn it? How did you learn it? Yeah. So my introduction into the enhancement side of things, after I turned pro, I mean, at that point, I wasn't natural, which I'm happy to get into. But at the time, I was like, I know I'm not doing things completely optimally. I know that there's room for improvement. And if I'm going to be pursuing being a competitive pro, which has always been a goal of mine, I want to know that if I'm taking any kind of risk, any degree of risk, that I'm not being reckless. I don't feel like you can really give informed consent if you're not informed. So post-season, I reached

out to Jon Jewett. So individuals know he's owner of J3U. He has a platform where he does put out a lot of information regarding enhancements, diet, nutrition, prep design. So originally I reached out to him for assistance with my hormones because I knew at the time I was on DHEA. I'm like, hey, I have low test. I've had low test since I was early 20s, whether I'm in prep, whether I'm my fattest in off season, just not at a high training output, those levels aren't really returning. For this prep, we put DHDA in place at a very high dose.

Sure, it offered supportive help, but is that what I should be doing long-term? Is there an alternative? If I'm going to consider using enhancements, when would I be looking to do that? Worked with him more on a one-off basis for the consult. And then past that, he started helping me with training. I'd gone through J3U at that point. And he's like, okay, moving forward, here's what I would do. Really the next season I got into, I asked him, what are your thoughts on me self-coaching? Because historically I'd been self-coached. I worked with a few coaches, one to get my pro card, who's just historically known for getting pro cards. But again, the approach to drugs, it wasn't something that even at the time was like, okay, maybe this is how everyone does it, but it doesn't feel like this is the best way. I mean, you're probably not going to name the name, but was it irresponsible, the way that coach was doing things?

the name, but was it irresponsible? Like the way that coach was doing things or was it? It wasn't the most irresponsible. I mean, now at this point, like, here's the thing. Like I knew at the time I knew like there were, there was a lot of misuse and a lot of drugs being used inappropriately since getting into the coaching aspect of this and operating like really more as a consultant. I'm like, yo, this is fucked. Like this is way worse than I thought. Like I definitely, definitely need help. And really, I mean, like to John's testament, he encouraged me for like a year before I started making videos. He's like, listen, this is happening and it's going to keep happening. And like, even within the bikini division, it's getting worse and worse because the division's becoming more competitive.

You have these girls who've been lifting maybe a year. They're getting into the sport and they're being told, hey, yeah, you know what? You want to start prep next week because you saw this girl on Instagram. Cool. We can do it. Here's 10 milligrams of hopefully Anovar. Are people shocked? I'm sure you probably get a lot of questions. You go to the grocery store or something, somebody sees your shoulders and probably – I'm sure women ask you questions. Are they surprised at the way that you work out? Because what we did today was pretty much like straight up kind of bodybuilding. And are they thinking that you like do a bunch of like Peloton workouts or CrossFit workouts?

workouts. Do you think that maybe it's a misconception that some people that are in shape like yourself, that they do like these kind of like bunny rabbit workouts where they're kind of bouncing around from one thing to the other? Totally. Yeah. No, I either get CrossFitter, just, I mean, when I'm wearing a tank top, it's very much CrossFit or spin. Yeah. Do you do soul cycle or something to that effect? But yeah, I think gen pop, definitely there is a belief that having muscle, I mean, just being at a lower body fat is indicative of someone who does a ton of cardio, doesn't really lift weights. I mean, but that's kind of why we have these terms like tone, firm up to describe like female training. firm up uh to describe like female training what um no it's like what drew you to like cable machine workouts because like those lately oh well not lately i should say the past couple years have been like the only way i really train anymore because i feel pretty dang awesome and again as we spoke in the gym as somebody who doesn't have like the best mind muscle connection

i feel like with a cable machine i I kind of always can find that. But I've seen that you've been doing a lot of that stuff. So what drew you to that? Or maybe like, where did you start? And did you end up there? Or like, what was the story with the cable machines? Yeah. Okay. I think with like very specific body parts, just being methodical about picking modalities that make sense. So for instance, laterals. Historically, I'd always done dumbbell laterals. I mean, that was the modality. There really wasn't another one past that. Cables offer the ability to have resistance throughout the entire movement. Kind of the same concept with lat biased. I mean, I could do a dumbbell row. I mean, that's what I had done previously to hammer strength. And I'm still a big fan of machine work. But I find for continuity and

currently my needs relative to my upper body, cable serve is a great function. And I mean, like, yeah, they're pretty consistent for me in my goals. And then do people get surprised that you only, not only, sorry, but that you mainly lean on the cable machines? I don't, I don't feel like I do. I feel like maybe I gave a misrepresentation to you this morning only because like a lot of my movements, I mean, they tend to stick to heavier compounds. It's just like with upper body, I don't need to continue to develop it. So for lower, for instance, I mean, we're hitting like front squats, doing a lot of barbell work. So front squats, barbell RDL, walking lunges, split squats, dumbbell step-ups. So I mean, like still focusing,

I would say less on isolation because the need there is more size. What kind of body composition changes have you gone through? Like what'd you look like before you started this process and when did you start lifting? like uh what'd you look like before you started this process and when did you start lifting so i started lifting in high school actually like i started like consistently weight training um i played sports i loved that aspect of you know like whatever volleyball we'd have these weightlifting workouts sweet um yeah i just i wanted to be able to kind of build out a physique that I wanted to look like. So I mean, at the time, 2014, 2012, I started taking it a little more seriously, started seeing people in the bikini division. I'm like, well, these are like Victoria's Secret models, but they have muscle. They have a

little bit of curve and like really like the look. So yeah, I want to do that. That kind of propelled me into exploring the nutrition side of things, which at the time, I mean, 19, I was a really stubborn, still am. And I started to tune into Lane Norton's content. So he started sharing information around flexible dieting, understanding concepts of energy balance and how to really challenge what bodybuilding dieting was in that at that time. Kind of like body weight change, because I think it's interesting. Sometimes there's really not much of a body weight change for some and then for others,

sometimes they increase their body weight quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Body weight's gone up. When I first started competing, I mean, I did not have the muscle that I do now, but almost 10 years of lifting, I mean, like granted, it's definitely made some improvements in the technique and the programming itself in the last few years. But yeah, gosh, I mean, really at this point, I would say, I guess it's hard to quantify.

I would say I've put on 10, 15 pounds of muscles since conception, since I started. Yeah. I mean, like a big portion of that was put on in the last two to three years though. Really? What changed in the last two, three years of your training? I stopped training shitty. I started training better, honestly. So wait, you got your pro card a while ago, right? Before these last two to three years, you got your pro card? 2021. I turned pro. Okay. Wow. So that means that the physique you're going to come back to on the pro stage is going

to be very different from the physique that you got your pro card with. Yes. That is the hope. I'm not... Okay. So in bikini, I mean, like you see a lot of girls will compete back-to-back seasons. Hey, I don't know, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I just, frankly, I want to look different next time I compete. I just want there, I don't want to look the same. I just feel like it's a waste of time. It's so much work. And like, also it's hard. Okay. So like, I'd rather do this thing that's also hard, the building and like, you know, dealing with like the body dysmorphia. It's like, yeah, that's going to be hard, but I'm going to have to do it again if I didn't make any progress

or if I didn't make enough progress. So I mean, caveat, like also my last season I did right before I started the clinical portion of nursing school, because I'm like, listen, like, I don't know how hard this is going to be. I'm told it's going to be hard. I probably won't get on stage until 2024 when I finish. So it worked out. I mean, like the last season I did, I made improvements in a year. Cool. But I knew at the time I knew I'm like, I'm not going to be as competitive as I'd like to be. And you said training shitty, like what, what kind of shitty training were you doing? You know, what kind of training, high volume, high volume.

Yeah, just the intensity was not there. I mean, like we're talking RIR of like 10. Whoa. It's just, I mean, but that's what we see. Like we see that there is an establishment of, okay, I'm in the gym for two and a half hours. I'm doing all of these isolation movements. I'm chasing a pump. And I think that is like pretty standard across most women's training. Is it the way they should be training? No. And I mean, like that's where

really the last two years, last year, I've really tried to pump out that message that like, hey, you don't have to do nearly as much volume if we're training at the proper intensity. Like, yeah, high volume works. It does. You'll build muscle if you're in a surplus, if you're doing everything else right. But are you trying to get the most out of what you're doing or are you just trying to waste two hours in the gym for the next two years to like not even make that many changes? Previously, you weren't really doing maybe bodybuilding. You were supersetting and maybe doing multiple exercises at the same time type stuff?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very minimal rest periods. Not a lot of thought into the structure design, the exercise design. Yeah. Way different than probably what we did today where we sat at the end of a bench and we were doing like bottoms up kettlebell presses kind of uh i guess we wouldn't really say super slow but just controlled and that was just super difficult oh yeah no those wreck those that was super humbling

even today especially without mirrors i mean um personally i would rather train that way because i know that like unit per time i'm like this is the most efficient i I know that like unit per time, I'm like, this is the most efficient. I also know that like, hey, if I keep training this way, like right now, like I'm not on cycle. Like I have TRT in place. I have GH in place. But outside of that, I've been able to make a lot of improvements with such little, so little drugs in place, which to me is. I'm hardly on anything, bro. All right.

to me is... I'm hardly on anything, bro. All right. To me, it's more appealing because when you consider, and this is like the argument I'll make for people is like, okay, Anovar cycle, six to eight weeks. For a beginner, how many pounds can you build? We're not talking a lot. Realistically, you only have that time period. I mean, what, you're going to stay on it for 12 weeks, you're going to stay on it for 12 weeks, you can stay on it for three months. Like at that point, it's like, that's pretty reckless. So what's the alternative? Well, if you take something like TRT, like true TRT, not sports TRT, if you take that and like I'm on half a milligram a day, so three and a half a week, that puts me into like PCOS serum levels. Okay. You can be on that for 52 weeks. That's 52. You can be on it indefinitely. I'm just like for effect, but you can grow during that time. I'd rather take, I'd rather take the slower growth that's stable where you can actually,

you can take advantage of, you know, being in a surplus. You don't have to go on cycle, come off cycle, worrying about, okay, what are the weight discrepancies that I'm looking at? And frankly, I would say that, you know, it has made a difference. Yes. And my ability to build like truly to build muscle, the ceiling there, but it's also allowed me to do things I would say safer. If you're someone that's taking supplements or vitamins or anything to help move the needle in terms of your health, how do you know you really need them? And the reason why I'm asking you how do you know is because many people don't know their levels of their testosterone, their vitamin D, all these other labs like their thyroid, and they're taking these supplements to help them function at peak performance. But that's why we've partnered with Merrick Health

for such a long time now, because you can get yourself different lab panels, like the Power Project panel, which is a comprehensive set of labs to help you figure out what your different levels are. And when you do figure out what your levels are, you'll be able to work with a patient care coordinator that will give you suggestions as far as nutrition optimization, supplementation, or if you're someone who's a candidate and it's necessary, hormonal optimization to help move you in the, or if you're someone who's a candidate and it's necessary, hormonal optimization to help move you in the right direction so you're not playing guesswork with your body. Also, if you've already gotten your lab work done but you just want to get a checkup, we also have a checkup panel that's made so that you can check up and make sure that

everything is moving in the right direction if you've already gotten comprehensive lab work done. This is something super important that I've done for myself. I've had my mom work with Merrick. We've all worked with Merrick. Just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing guesswork with our body. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject

to save 10% off any one of these panels or any lab on the entire website. Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. There's also the aspect of like, you get better at training, you know? And like you just mentioned, if a woman is put on NFR, like when she starts training, any athlete doesn't know how to zone in on the tissue

that they're trying to work on. Like when you were doing those lat movements in the gym, a noob might just like pull in a weird way and that noob now that's on Anovar, that's not doing it correctly. It's like, you're wasting your time. You are. I mean, like you, maybe you're getting a pump, maybe you're creating some kind of stimulus, but consistency is everything. And if you're not, yeah, if you're creating some kind of stimulus, but consistency is everything. And if you're not, yeah, if you're not, if you're not consistent, if you're not producing the results in a consistent manner that you can track, well, and it's like, well, yeah, there's not going to be a lot of progress. What's more attractive for you when you look completely shredded or when you're in between?

look completely shredded or when you're in between? Listen, I am sick. I like being low body fat. I like, I want to be disgustingly lean. Like I can appreciate the look for what it takes to get there. Really. I mean, that's what it comes down to. I, I like this.

It represents a lot of hard work. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of dedication. Yeah. I mean, like, it doesn't fit within the bikini criteria. Yeah. A lot of dedication, yeah. I mean, does it fit within the bikini criteria? No. I mean, no. Tamara's like, who told you to show up like this?

I'm like, sorry. Were you too lean? Way too lean. Yeah. Which is like, that's for someone who's struggled with conditioning, who's told you have thick skin. It's like, amazing. You could not compliment me harder right now.

This feels so good. But I definitely have come to appreciate when I'm not, when I'm not shredded, I still stay in pretty good shape. I like, I like how I feel, like being able to be strong and to train and to have continuity and energy levels. I mean, I can't do shit when I'm that late. I'm useless. Like business definitely takes a hit. So it's like, yeah, there's a time and place, but when I can devote that kind of time, I'll get back to it. I wanted to ask you a quick question about when you were mentioning your training before you mentioned like the RIR of 10 and high volume. I want to know, do you still do

like sets of 10 to 12 to 15, but like with an RIR one or two, is that the difference? Or are you doing like sets of threes and fives no no no ten ten is really realistically under that and i mean like it's just i don't i don't think it's enough of a stimulus yeah um i i can lift emotionally and i can you know maybe maybe i'm having a bad week and i'm like yeah you know what i want to hit eight reps so that also i recognize what it is i'm like this isn't this isn't as effective as like sticking sticking to the program you know what i want to hit eight reps so that also i recognize what it is i'm like this isn't this isn't as effective as like sticking sticking to the program you know so um usually 10 to 15 that's around the range i mean depending not all exercises are created equally so it's like consider sfr and then from there what are your needs like are you plateaued are you still moving

up in weight now to add on to that real, now that when you mentioned the shitty volume, does that mean that before you were doing like sets of 20 and 25? It was like shit like that? Okay. This makes so much more sense now. It's just junk. It's just not very, and you do have to compensate. And you, I think realistically you can compensate and do that. Like I do like 12 working sets like for my lower

workouts right now. And that's significantly less than I was doing before. After that, there's very little I can do. I mean, like sure we can throw in some isolation work and it's pretty easy for anyone to do even when they're tired. But if you were to continue to stack on exercise on exercise, like the quality is going to significantly be diminished. And real quick to mention to some people, RIR is reps in reserve. So that means when she said RIR of 10, that means when she was doing stuff, she could have done 10 more reps. And that means that you're not getting anywhere close to failure.

So for anyone who doesn't know. Not even in the ballpark. And as we were talking in the gym, you nowadays mainly go to like a technical limit. Like your form starts to break down, you might hit an extra rep or two and then you call it, right? Yeah. So the marker that I like to use is a deceleration in velocity. We don't need it to be sticky. We don't need you to actually stop. If we're at that point, well, something on like squats, RDLs, you're probably going to be so fried going into those next movements. So I think like

teaching the athletes, so for clients of mine, listeners, I'm like, look for that deceleration and velocity for like one or two reps. Sure. If you aren't skilled, like if you don't have that, if you can't identify what actual failure is, maybe you do push up a little past that, but contextually. Yeah. From a form and technique perspective, it seems like you're really diligent with it, which, you know, I admire that because that takes a lot of, that takes a lot of like stick-to-itiveness, you know, which is difficult for most people to do. A lot of, a lot of restraint, a lot of, a lot of inner dialogue of like, hey, what are we doing here?

Are you trying to have fun? Which it can be fun. It can, don't get me wrong. But like, also we're doing this with a goal in sight, which is to build. And like, I need that. I feel like I need that continuity, uh, session to session, month to month to objectively be able to say like, Hey, this makes sense. Like you're not actually plateaued or you are. What are the different metrics that you look for as far as progress? Because a newer lifter, when they think about progress, all they think about is I want to do more weight. I want to lift more weight. But when you see a lot of experienced bikini athletes or athletes in general lift, sometimes they're not using the most weight,

but they're still making progress. So what are the different metrics that you're paying attention for, for progress? Yeah. So progressive overload. So what are the different metrics that you're paying attention for for progress? Yeah, so progressive overload. So I mean, like load is relative. If you're finding that you're able to work up to the upper end of the rep range, okay, that's progressive overload. Should we be throwing in additional working sets? No. That's a way to quickly accumulate volume. Now you go from 12, 15, 18. Okay, now you're at 20 working sets? No. That's a way to quickly accumulate volume. Now you go from 12,

15, 18. Okay. Now you're at 20 working sets. How high is the quality really going to be? We can look at time under tension for something like laterals. I mean, realistically, you're not going to be making leaps and bounds in load. You're probably going to be at 10 pounds for like five years. Okay. Like that's just the nature of it. Like, sorry to break it to you. Quality of the skill, assuming that the skill isn't refined. So the technical movement, like squat, are you able to stay in position? Are you able to use the right levers? I would also say generally your ability to recover. So I mean, like there are some movements that, like I do these, like I do these

like front foot elevated split squats, like contraloaded, they light me up. They're so good. They're my favorite. Like, I mean, and seriously for glute med, I, I didn't want to, I didn't want to continue to do like 10 sets of abductions. Like, I mean, they're just boring. It doesn't, it's not fun. Started doing these. I need that one, one and a half minute rest break in between. As you get better at the skill, as you get better at the weight, it's really easy to then cut down on that rest period to an extent. If you're still finding that like, hey, I'm not needing a one minute rest break or 30 second rest break. It's kind of like, well, what can you, can you go up and wait then? Can you do more reps? There's another constraint we can look at. It's interesting how like vanilla,

you know, some of this stuff can be sometimes, um, it can seem like, um, it can seem super boring, but it's true and it's effective. You know, the, the style of, uh, that bodybuilders have been using for a long time is super effective. And we know, you know, there's so many people that are unhappy with the way that they're built at the moment. And they want to try to figure out a way to make these changes. And they kind of keep going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And it's like, it's your food. It's your food.

It's your food. Over and over again, it's your food. It's your food. It's your food. Over and over again, it's your diet. Almost anybody that you can kind of think of that's unhappy with the way that they're built, you could go back, trace it back almost every single time to the diet, minus some people that might be, I guess there are exceptions to the rule, but the diet seems to be the biggest factor. How many times do you have to continue to share that with people that you're helping? It's constant. Even intelligent individuals, even individuals who are intermediate, advanced, going back, I mean, Occam's razor, it's like usually the simplest thing. That's the explanation.

When we look at diet, I mean, it's the one that's most accurately controlled. And personally, if someone is coming to me saying, I can't see the results that I'm after, typically just by looking at their diet without even having a dialogue, I can be like, this is the issue. Like, I mean, you know, pretty upfront, like calories aren't being controlled, even if they think they are. And I think that's one area that a lot of people, I mean, you can believe you're in a deficit. It doesn't mean you're in a deficit. Have you run into some people that just like are legitimately stuck and you tried to help them a little bit and seems like they're tracking the calories,

you guys calculated stuff, you're giving them advice and they're like legitimately are stuck and then they like are there people that have like you know hormone issues or thyroid issues where they're like actually literally more stuck than somebody else maybe no no they're not i'm sorry i just i don't believe in stall like okay the definition of this, it drives me crazy. There's actual cessation of weight loss, which even if your hormones are fucked, still doesn't happen. You're overeating or you think, or you're eating more than you believe you're eating. And I try not to, I know it can come across a little aggressive, but it's like, I get it. Like you can have a suboptimal, you know, thyroid function. You can have shitty tests and you can still look like I got

shredded with really, really imbalanced hormones. It's still possible. Most women who are getting on stage have imbalanced hormones. So I mean, I get why people grab for that as a rationalization. It doesn't exist though. Sure, you have people who are at a higher, who are predisposed to have a higher receptor activity, you know, related to hunger hormone. And yes, that's something to take into consideration. There's also, I mean, that's the argument nature versus nurture. Like, I mean, growing up, like I was always like overfed, like intentionally. So, I mean, my hunger signaling is terrible. Like, I mean, I have a very, very high appetite. I was never really given that example of like, oh no, you stop eating when you're full. So I mean, I think a lot of people in our society and in the US, I mean, that's how

they've been raised. So I mean, is it wild to think that they're not able to control their appetite? Do we really think it's like an actual inability for these processes? No. Like your body's going to regulate. It's constantly operating on a feedback loop. So do I think that there are things that make it harder? Sure. You have someone with PCOS who's maybe less optimal blood glucose management. Sure. Still doesn't impede fat loss. So whenever someone's like, oh, I can't, I'm like, you can, we just, we need to figure out the source. Like, what is the bottleneck here? Have you ever seen it be the case where somebody has to just do something a little bit more drastic than somebody else? So like, you know, 500 calorie reduction, boom, works great for this person. But 500 calorie reduction for this other person

isn't working well and they have to maybe do some cardio or something in addition to that. So I think the deficit that we're creating, ultimately, I think that is going to spit out this rate of loss. Do I think the perception of it being more challenging exists? Yes, absolutely. And I think the way we create that more challenging exists. Yes, absolutely. And I think the way we create that deficit is largely going to dictate that perception. So I was that person who's like, yeah, I'm a glutton. I'll run up cardio, the whole prep, but we'll get to two hours before I drop calories. I mean, really, if given the choice, which I was, I was given the choice every single

week, big mistake. I think a lot of people will pick that if they have those behaviors in process where they prefer to have a higher food intake. I think there's an association with, I don't want to go, I don't want to go under this value, this 1400, 1300. The last videos they had pulled up, that prep, I approached it differently because of the previous preps, cardio being so high. And I was like, this is beating me up. This is way too fatiguing. It just also doesn't make sense. I dug this hole. Okay, now let's learn from the lesson. That prep, I started off the first month. I'm like, we're dropping food. We're going to have cardio in place, but we're only going to hit a certain ceiling. I'm not going to exceed that. We're going to manage fatigue. And honestly, like with the food,

I dropped it. What many would say is too aggressively off the rip. I went from whatever it was at before to 14-ish hundred week one, which sounds crazy, but then you're like, okay, what's my target rate of loss? My target rate of loss is 1%. At 140, okay, that's 1.4 pounds. How do we create that deficit? We're talking about a 600, 700 calorie deficit a day. Well, if I'm trying to do that for the next 15 weeks, if I immediately jack up cardio, I'm going to have to sustain that. Now, the actual energy unit doesn't change from a calorie. it's always going to equate to the same. It might feel a little differently and hunger is going to become further and further dysregulated. Cardio is going to become exponentially harder. Like objectively,

no one's like at the end of prep, it got easier. Like I was really strategic about creating that deficit, which I think for some people can help mitigate that perception of hard. So just to understand, you went to 1400. Did you have a level of cardio you were doing or you were just getting in a certain amount of steps, but you didn't have cardio at that point? You implemented cardio later on. I was at 1400, 10,000 steps a day, structured cardio, which I set for myself, for clients, I set a weekly target. So I mean, like you're autonomous, like budget this, schedule it in. Like it needs to be appropriate. Don't do an hour after you just did legs.

That doesn't make sense. Be smarter than that. But structured cardio can count towards steps. Steps can't count towards cardio. So steps stay constant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So you don't believe that people utilize energy maybe a little differently? count towards cardio. So steps stay constant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you don't believe that people utilize energy maybe a little differently? I think it's kind of... Do you mean in terms of thermodynamics? Yeah, just in terms of, you know, from one person to another, like it's some of my belief that one person might utilize energy like more efficiently. Okay. I think there definitely is a degree of preference, physiological preference and like metabolic flexibility. I'm not very metabolically flexible. I don't like switching from using carbs to fats. I do feel that pretty acutely. As soon as I try to lower carbs,

jack up fats, I feel it in my training, I feel it in cognitive function. So definitely can see that there are aspects to that that the individual will perceive as harder as opposed to no, it just being constant. Everyone experiences it the same. Now, I want to know about this. What level of suck should a bikini athlete be ready for? Because there are coaches who will jack up the cardio and bring the calories down really fast. And that is just like what they do for everybody, right? And sometimes it could be actually too much. Some of them have a, let's just say they have a reputation for really hard diets, really hard cardio. So if an athlete is working with someone, when should they be like, this is actually too much? When do you know?

Because as an athlete, you're going to trust your coach. You're going to do what your coach says. They have that power. But a lot of times that power is wielded super irresponsibly. What should they pay attention to? Totally. What I like to do is identify when the client is hitting yellow or orange as opposed to red. I don't want to know when a client is at the point where they're like, yo, I can barely stay on track. I need this diet to end. If someone is finding that like, okay, week one, we start, it doesn't matter what I deem is like an appropriate level of suck. It's completely dependent on their skillset. The amount of suck I could handle when I first started out, like, I mean, like 2014, it was embarrassing. The last prep I did, I handled much more than even I thought

I was capable of. Um, and even compared to the one I did with, with the coach before who was completely different approach. Um, I think it's like, uh, I take ownership as a coach. Like it's not my place to tell you if this is too hard, it is my place to help you develop the skill to handle harder. And I do take a lot of pride in that because I think like the whole, oh, if you can't handle it, like go work. I just think that's such a cop out. That's just so lazy. Like at that point, it's like, okay, you can get someone to follow the plan, but the real

coaching, like isn't that kind of built into the name? Yeah. And this is one of the, okay, so this is the amazing thing I think from what you said that I took is that you have an open communication with your clients. Your clients feel comfortable telling you when they feel like shit. Whereas with some people, it's literally the coach's way or you're a fucking weak client. You suck at this and you shouldn't be doing this if you can't do this cardio girl. That's how they treat it. It's an abusive relationship for sure. Like, I mean, it's very problematic. But here here here's the other side of this i'm not someone who with a coach i'm i it's

going to take a lot of time for me to develop that trust even past hiring them i expect knowing that's how i am i expect people who come to me they might like me they might trust what i put out on the internet they might trust what I put out on the internet, they might trust my methodology, but I don't expect them to feel comfortable sharing things that are very vulnerable and personal to them, such as non-compliance, non-adherence. I don't expect them to even have the self-awareness to understand that this is relevant to share. So therefore, I'm prompting them for that information and I'm telling them up front, like, I mean, I do these free calls, but I mean, point blank, I'm doing it so I know

if we're not a good fit before you give me money. I don't want to keep churn rate low. If they're someone that's like, hey, you know what? I'm coming from a relationship where non-adherence was met with negativity. I have to know that person is probably going to take additional prompting. They're probably not going to be as willing or even timid when it comes to sharing, hey, I went off track. Me taking that first step, letting them know like, hey, this is not about judging you. It's about helping you. I can only help you if I know the information,

if I know what's going on. If I don't know what's going on, you're on your own really in terms of corrective behavior. What about like diet tricks? You get into the teeth of your cut and you're just kind of dying. Do you have any tricks? Do you have anything that you like to do to like waste time? Like do you read more? Do you watch more movies or something?

Gosh, that's such a good question. Um, I, I'm trying, I'm trying to think back. I'm sure at the time I was, um, I mean, you're pretty self-consumed with all the posing and all the different things that you're responsible for. You know, honestly, honestly, I really just leaned into additional fatigue. So I had like the, the, uh, the leg squeezers, the, those, I mean, like I was like round the clock, like leg squeezers. Yeah. Theragun, power, like, I just, I don't know. I mean like recovery tools. I remember my last prep, I was like just using them as coping mechanisms. Like, I don't know. Um, that's a luxury. I know that's not something a lot of people, um, might have access to or be able to do that way.

Yeah. Fatigue management though. I mean like that ultimately, and truly like not hyper-focusing on what, not saying disassociate. Yeah. You're going to have to do that to some extent. Even I don't believe I, even I don't, I'm not convincing myself. But prep is a time that you need to have the ability. You're like, fuck everybody else. I'm going all in on this. You have to be able to compartmentalize and at least know that like, hey, if you... Okay, let me take a step back. It's uncomfortable being hungry.

And you're only going to be hungrier if you continue to be upset that you're hungry. So at least acceptance in the fact that like, this is what I signed up for. This will end. This is so temporary. It only exists in my brain. That's the only place it exists. It's only for a few months. Yeah. Just get really good at that part. It's unhealthy. I know. That's why we take the long off seasons in between. Just kind of look at the clock and you're like, I'm just going to go to bed because I'm starving. You know, the gymnastics that goes on for a competitor is so funny. For example, my girl had her last prep and every now and then she'd smoke.

And I'd be like, how are you not eating a lot? Because when I smoke, I get hungry, right? And she's like, you know what, actually, when I smoke, I just tell myself that my stomach's a bottomless pit and absolutely nothing that I do will be able to deal with that hunger. So it helps me actually not eat. Same, same. You too? Oh no. I was like, this is your gift to you and it's only you're only going to get to smoke if you can't if you don't eat if you start eating you get the gift you can't use this as a tool so figure it out wow that's so yeah mental gymnastics yeah just around the clock

when you get down like that shredded and like that low of calories and you know mark just said like oh i'm just gonna go to sleep because I can't eat. But you kind of get in that fight or flight mode where you can't fall asleep. So how do you handle that? I think this is, I don't know. Are y'all familiar with like inner child work? Like relative to like CPT a little bit?

Explain, explain it with sort of basic. Condensed into, hey, these are the impulses that you're having. This is what you want in the moment. You're hungry? Okay. You want to eat? You to you? I say this all the time.

Me to me? I'm like, yeah, I get it. I know you want to eat. I know that this show matters a lot to you. And if you do eat, which like, fuck, you can do it. You can go eat. If you do that, tomorrow there's more makeup work. There's consequences to that. Decide what do you want to do?

Is that inner child work? Kind of, sort of adjacent. Yeah. I like what you said about what Sam said. And that's the way that I think a lot is I'm like, if I eat, it's just not going to do anything. Like it's really not, unless I'm going to eat, eat, then. I'll just fuck shit up. Yeah. Honestly, yeah. I mean, I think wrapping my mind around, it's not necessarily the lack of food in this moment.

It's the body fat percentage that I'm at. That is what's causing this feeling. And I mean, for me, it feels like you're high. You can't end the high until you gain body fat. So arguing with myself that like, this is not due to not having food in your stomach. If it was, it would be a matter of putting food in your stomach. You wouldn't feel this way, but you're going to feel this way. You're going to want it. You'll, you would binge on 99 one right now. Like, come on. Like that is not hunger. That is like just sadness. All the rice cakes.

What's mom and dad think of this bodybuilding stuff? They're very supportive of what I do. I think they know how hard I am on myself and I have very high standards. They try to respect that while balancing it with, you know, encouraging me. Like, you know, Hey, like you, you're doing great already, which is, which is nice. It's nice to hear. I know a lot of people don't have that. Honestly, though, I mean this like with respect, like my opinion of how well I'm doing and what I want to do is ultimately what matters most to me. Like if I hit that standard or not. So, I mean, with or without that kind of support,

like, yeah, it would be nice. It's appreciated. I'm grateful for it. But I think oftentimes they worry. They worry because it is extreme and they know that that bar continues to rise as I get more competitive, as I do this longer. Why does she want to be different?

Why does she want to keep changing herself? She's perfect the way she is. Totally. It's like, it's okay. This is just, it's a defect I have. on stage. They do their first show, then they go their off season. I can't do this. Then they compete again real quick. They come to stage with either the same body or the worst body. Then they come out, but they go right back in. And then you see these competitors that look the same over time and you think to yourself, why? Right. But you just took this great off season. So what's your advice to competitors who need to have an extended off season, but they keep competing. Sometimes even their coach wants

them to compete again super soon. Sometimes coaches do that. Yeah. For me, it's more important. I don't, the outcome I'm really detached from. I've collectively had very objective success on stage. I'm very proud of what I've done on my resume for competing. If that mattered more to me, I probably wouldn't keep doing it. I do it because I enjoy the process. And part of that process is really becoming the person that I need to become in order to perform better objectively. But I don't think I can do that just through means of being catabolic, just through means of fat loss, which is the only thing that we're really doing in prep. Prep is a very simple process for me. When I compare it to what's required on a day-to-day, what are tasks and off-season versus prep, prep's easy. It's simple. You just don't do the thing, the thing that you want to

do. You want to eat, you want to, okay, you don't do that. And then you train and you do the cardio training. Training is hard. And that's when you're going to make the changes. That's not really going to happen during a prep. So, I mean, my advice to someone is like, Hey, if your goal, like really be specific in the goal, is the goal just to do better at a show or is it to make changes in your physique? Cause you can get lucky and you can go to a show that's not very competitive. And we have like 90 bikini competitions a year. Like just pick one that has like three shows that weekend. I don't know, roll the dice. I care more about making myself proud and like knowing at the end of the day that like, oh, like you built this.

Like you, that's the closest thing I can get to feeling like I created something. I'm like, yeah, that wasn't there last time. That's so much more rewarding. That only happens outside of a prep. A constant thing that's been beneficial for all of our health has been intaking enough protein, but also intaking quality protein. And that's why we've been partnering with Good Life Proteins for years now. Good Life not only sells Piedmontese beef, which is our favorite beef, and the main reason why it's our favorite is because they have cuts of meat that have higher fat content, like their ribeyes and their chuck eyes, but they also have cuts of meat like their flat iron.

Andrew, what's the macros on the flat iron? Yeah, dude. So the flat iron has 23 grams of protein, only two grams of fat, but check this out. Their grass-fed sirloin essentially has no fat and 27 grams of protein. There we go. So whether you're dieting and you want lower fat cuts or higher fat cuts, that's there. But you can also get yourself chicken. You can get yourself fish. You can get yourself scallops. You can get yourself all types of different meats. And I really suggest going to Good Life and venturing in and maybe playing around with your proteins. I mean, going back to the red meat, there's picanha. There's chorizo sausage. There's maple bacon. That stuff's incredible. The maple bacon is so good. My girl put those in these bell peppers with steak and chicken. Oh my God. It was so good.

But either way, guys, protein is essential. And Good Life is the place where you can get all of your high quality proteins. So Andrew, how can they get it? Yes. You can head over to goodlifeproteins.com and enter promo code POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your entire order. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I can hear like an athlete telling themselves though, well, I see a lot of pros compete every single year. This pro I know, she can compete every single year at the Olympia.

I've never seen her not get on the stage. So if she competes every year, I need to compete every year. Do you look like her? I don't know. I don't mean to be a dick I'm sorry no it's just like but that's that's what I would tell myself I've had these conversations with myself where I've been like oh should I get back on stage I don't look like any of the pros are you kidding me squash me they're so much bigger they have so much more muscle like no there's still shit to do off stage there There's still practice to be done. I'm not there yet. I'm close. But I think being able to be radically honest with yourself about where you

stack up without being punitive, it's like, yeah, I need more muscle to have that be a better outcome than it would be currently. That girl might be better fit. Maybe she's a little further ahead than me from a muscularity standpoint. Yeah, you can't just test yourself all the time. You have to actually be practicing, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You have to be doing your homework. It sounds like to me, some of the information that you've been sharing with us so far,

it sounds like you're big into reading. Am I right? No? No. It sounds like you've developed some pretty cool philosophy around the practice that you're doing. Thank you. I place a lot of value in individuals who are further ahead than me in all aspects of life. Um,

not, not just in sports. Sports to me is a very small part of my identity of who I am, of the person I am. so, you know, I do, I guess I,

I guess I should reenter that. It's not necessarily like the, it's reading the format. Like I love audio books. So I mean, like typically is, um, a lot of videos,

Ted talks, things like that. Um, but yeah, TED Talks, things like that. But yeah. The power project. It's okay. You can say it. No. You don't even know how long I've been listening to both of y'all.

And now I'm here. Like I'm such a stand right now. Like this is amazing. It's great to have you here. So how about, you know, we hear stuff like, oh, if we eliminated all the PEDs, the top bodybuilders would find themselves back at the top because of work ethic and genetics and whatever it may be. But when you do start taking performance-enhancing drugs, are there certain things that you can get away with that you couldn't as a natural athlete? with that you couldn't as a natural athlete. I'm just thinking something like, you know, when you're getting really deep in prep and you drop your fat intake to like nothing for a natural athlete, that's going to cause a lot of damage. But maybe if somebody's on something,

can they kind of like circumvent some of that stuff and kind of, like I said, get away with a little bit? I want to throw a question back at you. So you drop your fat intake to zero as an enhanced athlete. That's affecting downstream biosynthesis. So sex hormones, unless you have those in place. I mean, really, I guess the question would be how would an enhanced athlete circumvent what a natural athlete is going to experience, right? Because like an anabolic, it's having those same suppressive effects, right?

So I think like it depends on the context. Like for a fat loss agent, for sure, for sure an anabolic would allow for you to push a little bit harder. for sure an anabolic would allow for you to push a little bit harder uh for sure a fat loss agent would allow you to not necessarily have to drop cardio as low or you know uh sorry drop calories as low move cardio up um but ultimately i mean i think when we're looking at what they're able to get away with it comes down to muscle preservation. Is that generally? Yeah, I just threw the fat thing out there because I didn't think of anything else, but no, that makes a ton of sense. I'm sorry, I got really specific with that.

No, you're great. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's very well said. And that answers the question because, you know, even though you can't just like jump on a needle and all of a sudden, like you can just like cruise but again like like what you just said like okay well if i do get on something then maybe i don't have to do as much cardio as maybe or maybe my prep is just not as long now potentially yeah i mean like it gives you it gives you more lateral mobility and i do think there's a point where without the anti-catabolic effects in place whether that be through non-androgenics or anabolic androgenics, it's like that's going to help you. Because if you're losing muscle, even if you're technically getting leaner, I mean, like your body fat percentage might be net zero, which really sucks.

So I would say for that individual, it's like if you're doing anything that's causing you to lose muscle, I mean, you're setting, you're extending your prep, you're setting yourself back because now that look is further away than it was before. Yeah. When did you start using performance enhancing drugs and like, what, like, yeah, like what was the decision? Yeah. 20, 2021 with, with yeah i mean like there was yeah 2020 2021 i was competing in national shows um i was open to to using really i mean like very low doses um i think first anabolic i used was anivar at two and a half milligrams. This wasn't a 20 milligram tab scored down into eighths. This was a two and a half milligram tab. So that's like, I think from accuracy standpoint, that's reassuring because I mean, most people,

for listeners, typically if someone's taking that low of a dose, they're cutting something up or hoping that it is Anabar. Really, the decision-making process, I was becoming more competitive and I was listening to individuals around me who I still trust. But as I progressed into that next season where I did turn pro, I was like, well, okay, I don't know enough about this to feel confident in my decision making. And I really don't like feeling like I lack autonomy. Like the agency is really important to me just as an individual.

And like whether that doesn't actually need to be delegated out in the case of a contest prep where you're like, hey, I can't see myself. You tell me like how close am I or how far away am I? In that case, cool. That makes sense. But I still need to understand the risk because it is my body. And at the end of the day, like I could wake up in 10 years and be like, oh, well, I wish that person would have looked out for my best interest. Who should be in charge of that? I should be in charge of looking out for my best interest, which so with clients, like whenever they're at that point, ultimately I try to reflect back to when I was in that position and think, okay, who would I have wanted if I needed to delegate that

out to that risk assessment? And do you take testosterone? Currently? Yes. Yeah. So right now I just TRT and GH. Yeah. Cause I think, you know, it's getting more common and people are hearing about it more and you're hearing about women taking testosterone. But I think in the past, I think everybody was kind of like, whoa, you only take Anovar, only take Primobolin. Yeah. No, it's still pretty taboo. I think people are pretty surprised when I tell them I've been on TRT for like two, two and a half years. But the dose, I mean, again, we're talking about a dose that isn't super physiological. It's putting me in a position where I have normal high test levels. I mean, when you look at like Olympic female athletes,

some of them naturally are sitting in that upwards of 90 nanogram per deciliter range. I mean, we do know transgender community, like thanks to that subgroup, we have studies, extremely well-designed studies that show past 100 nanograms per deciliter, that's when potentially androgenic side effects can occur. That's literally the invert. That's what like our female physique athletes, that's like literally what we're looking for in terms of understanding anabolics. So from what you've learned and your experience and obviously the experience you've seen with other people, there is a dosage. And I guess, first off, how does a woman find out that dosage for herself, but there is

a minimum dosage that you can take perpetually that will not lead to virilization? Is it still a roll of the dice for virilization or is there something you can look for? If you're, so, okay, two questions. I would, no, no, no, you're good. I want to make sure you answer the first one. I would always titrate up, not down because three and a half milligrams a week, that's what I take. You can go lower technically, but like that dose for most people is going to put them in a good range without superseding a hundred nanograms per deciliter. Is this a shot? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's subcutaneous. Okay. Because I mean, I'm just thinking like the amount of milligrams you're saying is just so tiny, so I don't know.

Yeah. No, no, no. If you try to draw it up from male TRT-dosed bottles, good luck. You're going to lose some air in there, too. It's going to be really inaccurate. So one of the issues I have, which we were talking about with clinics and stuff, is that they're missing out on so much money. I don't think they realize it. And I'm like, Jesus Christ.

they're missing out on so much money. I don't think they realize it. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, like, please, will someone partner with me who has 10 milligram per ml bottle concentrations for women? Because like, there's a need for that. Hey, Merrick, let's figure something out here. Like, stop putting women on- I was gonna send him to Brigham

because Brigham Bueller has his own pharmaceutical company. He'll actually literally make it for you. And Americans still use it. Cheers. That is something that I think widespread for the female consumer, the female client in or out of bodybuilding. That's one of the biggest hurdles with TRT. And I'm theorizing, I think one of the reasons they're putting women on higher doses of TRT is literally the concentration. They're just like, well, this is already like 0.05 mLs from a 250 milligram per ml bottle. That's actually how Anovar became super popular because Anovar used to be in 2.5 milligram dosages a long-ass time ago. That's why everybody thought it was safe.

A long ass time ago. That's why everybody thought it was safe. Bill Phillips in a magazine called Muscle Media 2000, he published an article about how this was like a steroid that you can just take and it had no consequences. But it wasn't that it had no consequences. It's just that it was an extremely low dose. And then you had Dianabol and Anivar, which were like 50 milligram, 100 milligram. And obviously those aren't very safe. No, no, no, no. I mean, yeah, it's the same argument with TRT for females as you put them at that higher dose at a convenience of a lack of female friendly. So, I mean, yeah, really in

theory, allegedly, if you can get a bottle that's 10 milligrams per ml, you can dose half a milligram daily. Wow. And if I'm mistaken, did you mention earlier that if a woman has a certain amount of, they've used Anabar for a certain period of time, a certain amount of cycles, the more you're exposed to it, the higher chance for virilization over time. But that's not with extremely low dose tests. That's not the same. It's what the evidence says. That's what the evidence says. I'm two and a half years in. So if I start virilizing, I'm probably going to stop TRT

because my threshold for like, and thank you to answer your question, things we're looking for, the irreversible side effects or effects, that would be changing in the voice. So I mean, like you would actually hear that pitch go down. So what I have women do if they're going to start TRT or if they themselves, they're going to start a cycle, uh, or establishing a baseline, what is their voice? So literally the app is called voice analyzer app, measuring that you

want to have continuity in it. So I mean like, yeah, if you're sick, don't, don't measure it that week. Cause you're going to mean like yeah if you're sick don't don't measure it that week because you're going to be like if you're congested like just make it consistent okay i'm just congested trust me oh my gosh no the amount of yeah i gotta blow my nose congestions lasted for two years of concern. So we're monitoring for that, obviously. So there's some individuals who are just like predisposed to like acne, darker facial hair growth. I mean, there are women who have PCOS who, I mean, they're free test. It's going to be higher, lower SHVG.

They're going to have a higher degree of test that's able to be utilized in active test. In that case, we need to be aware that their ceiling for maybe these superficial effects might be lower. So I mean, like I had a girl who wanted to start TRT, her test naturally was like 60, 70, but she's like, listen, since I've hit puberty, I've always had darker facial hair. I'm like, okay, so our considerations around virilization for her are going to be different than let's say someone who has a very sing-songy voice, someone who didn't have acne growing up, like never, never had any issues, doesn't have darker facial hair. It's like, okay, you might have a higher ceiling. I mean, you were just dealt more runway in that regard. Anatomically, things can change. And if that's a concern, I mean, like...

Like what? Are we allowed to say that on YouTube? Yes, this is the panel project. Okay, great. Your clit can grow. Yeah, you can begin to morph into not female anatomy or larger... I'm big on talking here. Do you want me to answer that?

To be continued. Patreon only. There you go. But okay, so in that regard, what I'm asking them to do is monitor. Like, I don't care. Please don't send me pictures.

Please, dear God, don't send me pictures please dear god don't send me pictures but it sounds like that's happened before what do you think of this you're like whoa we're done we're done here yeah like i don't think you should have sent me that by the way uh merrick does have lower dosed vials for women so they can dose better yeah there we go yeah they have 50 milligram per ml yeah they should get 10 they can they can get 10 we'll tell them to lower even further run that shit up the chain yeah you can make so much money like i'm just saying y'all are sleeping on this um yeah so pictures for not just anatomical changes i I mean, acne, hair growth, hair loss. Also just to be considered like, hey, what are your, I don't know, hair care practices? Because the amount of people who I

think are very predisposed to thinking I'm experiencing a symptom just because now they're hyper aware of it, we need to have some kind of objective measure in place. I mean, like we're terrible historians as humans. So having a way to be like, Hey, this is what this looks like month to month. That's what I would recommend. Gotcha. And I think a natural progression, it's actually a question that one was asked here. How often would you recommend getting regular lab work done for assisted versus non-assisted athletes and thinking of, okay, if they've never done PEDs and they're planning on doing PEDs, like frequency of lab work, what they should look for in their numbers. So there are four times that I really think lab work is necessary. And in the case that like,

you can get them done more than that. I mean, amazing. I just think realistically, they are expensive. I mean, if you have a service, great. Pre-contest. I want to establish a baseline. I want to know going into it. So I drive like a Hyundai Elantra. It's had the check engine light on like the first year I got it. Like it's never turned off. I've gone to so many mechanics. They're like, it's fine.

I'm like, I don't, why is the light on? It didn't come this way. Okay. I have some bad news for everybody. It's an announcement. There'll always be some goddamn light on no matter what car you drive always and forever i you think like i'm gonna make it one day and not have this stupid fucking light on

it ain't gonna happen i just have so much hope eventually i can solve this mystery uh but so any like okay it gets temperamental. Like it'll start to like shiver when the temperature goes down in LA. Like it's not good. So if I'm going to Vegas, like I'm taking it to a mechanic and I just, can you make sure the engine's not going to explode, please? I want to know. I want to know what I'm getting into with prep. It's kind of the same thing.

So four to six weeks pre, I want to see if TSH is elevated. If someone's like, hey, I'm getting on stage, no matter what these labs look like, okay, that's going to help me determine what we need to have in place. Do we need to have T4, T3 in place week one? Let's say test is on the lower side, but it's someone who's like, I'm not open to TRT. Okay. Maybe we include something like DHEA boron. Knowing that can help us establish realistic expectations for the prep itself. So we're not playing this like ambiguous, what's it called? Bird box. Like just, oh, I just hope that this works out, but we're stalled two weeks in. Other times post-contest, I want to make sure that it's not even necessarily the week after contest.

It's really four to six weeks post. At that point, I'm going to be able to determine, Hey, are you, are you ovulating again? If you're not okay, there's still work that needs to be done. This is going to determine what kind of strategy we're taking post show, how aggressive we're being. Body fat should be up relative to how lean they got, but we should see an improvement in those markers. But this is going to be our first baseline going into the off season.

Do you care about speed of body fat gain post-contest? Yeah. Yeah. We want a higher P ratio of muscle to fat, but realistically how much muscle you're going to gain when you're in that non-productive state. So would I like to see body fat come back up in a systematic way? Of course, uh, depending on what the athlete can actually handle. I mean, that matters a lot to me too. Um, I'm not going, I have very, very realistic expectations, the whole like, Oh, only gain five to 10 pounds. It's like, that might be very, that might be unreasonable. And it's not to say that the athlete can't get there eventually, but that goes back to the coaching aspect.

Like, let's work on the skill. Let's teach the athlete how we do that. And that largely comes to how we prep. Gotcha. You mentioned boron. Is there any supplements that you found to be pretty effective for females that can help bring their testosterone levels up without actually injecting testosterone? DHEA and boron. That would be my starting point. I mean, I don't really believe in the tonkatsu ali. Tonkatsu ali? I'm like, sure. Maybe you do that with the sunlight and I don't know,

something happens. DHA and boron, I have a graph. I just used it on my webinar, biosynthesis. It's up the chain. So I mean, boron will also lower inflammatory markers, which can raise free tests. It seems to be relatively safe to take, right like as a supplement period uh boron yes dhea the considerations to make is if you have someone who's not ovulating and their progesterone is not coming up dhea is non-specific so it's going to cause a rise in testosterone estradiol maybe progesterone maybe probably not actually i mean thinking about how that process happens. You take someone whose estrogen, estradiol is already within range, but their progesterone is not coming up because they're not having ovulatory cycle. Now they have unopposed estrogen. Now that's going to present from a physique standpoint as estrogen dominance. It's also not great because

it's either endometrial or uterine cancer. There's a specific reproductive cancer that's associated with unopposed estrogen. So even though technically you could be in a great range for your body and what feels good for you, having that DHEA in place could raise it to a point where now those symptoms present. I hear a lot of women talk about losing their hair. Do you have any information on that? Because of PEDs or because of lack of micronutrients or what? Not because of PEDs. Yeah, just I think my understanding is that a lot of women are told that they have something wrong with their thyroid, that they have like, you know, they need T3 or T4.

In some cases, I think some people have Hashimoto's and different things like that. But it's just something common that I hear and I don't have enough information. I haven't, like, asked a lot more questions, but I've just relatives and friends and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay, so we could, I would start by identifying the catalyst. Like what's the,

what's the cause of it? Um, is it something that can be improved by like better hair care strategies, which I know people are listening, like what, like, no, I'm talking about health issue. Like, but actually though, if you're someone who is, um, doing a lot of practices that are essentially bad or would accelerate hair loss. I mean, on the male side of things, like you have guys that are very concerned about that yet they're doing a lot of things that ultimately are going to speed up that process in addition to already being predisposed to it. Now, if it's a genetic component, so if it's something that is kind of in the cards or is then caused by a disease process, it would be something I would really consider,

okay, what kind of supplements could be in place if there are any gaps in micronutrient intake. I mean, globally, that's going to assist and at least provide the reassurance that that isn't exacerbating it. But I'm sorry, I would need more context. I might not know as much as maybe you hoped about that. That's okay. I want to know about this. A lot of women end up losing

their menstrual cycle when they get lean during prep. That's normal. But post-prep, should they be looking to get it back at a certain point? Because sometimes I've heard some women that they're like, I'm happy that I don't have to deal with my period anymore, but is there a problem with that at all? Oh yeah. Yeah, I know. So anovulation. So there's getting the period and there's ovulating. Not ovulating is bad for you. It's bad for fertility fertility going extended periods of times without having the rise and fall of those hormones that's really the differentiating factor you can have the period but not have an ovulatory cycle i know it's amazing so what we want to do

and even this is for people even if they don't want to have kids ovulation is like the epitome of female health that's going to be your like hard line in the sand okay things are working generally the way they should we're assuming they're balanced for the individuals who don't see the value in it okay i'll make the argument like from a physique outcome like these hormones are really going to be actually helpful a lack of these hormones is going to make it harder to lose body fat or to build muscle. Typically, it's not estrogen dominance. That is the reason that you're not able to get super hard or have this really crispy look.

Usually other things. And having the presence of estrogen, having a normal rise in estrogen is actually necessary for the conversion of GH to IGF-1. So it's like whatever way the person's like, oh, I need to build muscle. It's like, okay, well then we need your cycle back, but we need a quality cycle. We need to see those spikes when it's appropriate. Now, when we're talking about during a prep, like calibrating expectations, everyone's threshold for like, which they'll lose their period or lose ovulation. It's completely dependent on that individual. So I think Mark and I were speaking about it this morning, maybe about like growing up, like their

parents who were very strict and like the kid would get like a B minus on exam. They take away the keys and be like, no, like you're're not doing anything your body has an internal regulator a parent that's essentially going to decide at this point no like you're shutting it down you can't even take care of yourself like why am i giving you the ability to have a baby then you have other kids who like they get away with hell like they come home drunk late whatever they don't go to school it's not like parents on african kid right there shit that individual we would say is built for the sport they can sit probably at a lower body fat year round they can go through multiple preps and they're still going to have that reoccurring ovulation so that's where understanding what your profile is like what cards you were dealt and then understanding really how to play them. That person who's not as resilient for them, yeah, you might need to take longer and you

should expect, you should anticipate needing a longer time to get that cycle back. How, like for, I mean, I know everybody's different, but you know, for an athlete, if they've been off of prep for a while and they've gained some body fat back and they still don't have their period, what should be being thought about? I mean, maybe I have to look at their blood work or whatever, but what should they be thinking about? So the three primary causes for someone being anovulatory, and these are just three that I see a lot of. There are more for sure. REDS, so relative energy deficiency in sport, essentially permadieting, dieting too long. Your parents take away the keys. Cool. Um, hormonal birth control, uh, menopause. So menopause,

yeah. Like it's an expected process. We're going to see, um, higher production of these hormones, the precursors. And it's not to say that like there isn't still, these hormones are still being produced. It's just over time, biologically, you're not going to be as robust. Now, when you take something like hormonal birth control or just exogenous support as a whole, so hormonal birth control or anabolic androgenic steroids, those are going to have suppressive effects on these hormones. If the individual is in that post-contest phase, we've removed the reds, but have we really? Is there still a certain threshold of circulating glucocorticoids that is making it improbable? That individual's allostatic load, perceived and real, because a lot of the stress you experience, I mean, it can be perpetuated. Is that still too high for them,

for their body to, I guess, feel like it can divvy up resources to non-critical functions? Fertility. If it's hormonal birth control, okay, that's in place. Do we need to remove that? Is that an option? Is that on the table? Is the athlete okay with that? The anabolic. A lot of people are big fans of like, okay, two weeks post-show, I'm going to throw the anivar in place because I need a new goal. I need a new pathway to go down. And it's like, you're not in a great position to build. So I would try to identify, okay, is there anything that can be modified in that regard? And I think to give you a number, I'm looking at like that 12 to 16 week mark post-show. If we haven't regained ovulation, we kind of need to pump the brakes.

And that typically is the point where at least my athletes are like, yo, can we please put something in place? Like, please give me drugs. Like I want something to help make this easier. Okay. You're probably wondering why am I wearing these glasses? Well, it's because I'm being bathed in blue light. And blue light isn't necessarily bad.

There's blue light in the sun. But if you're in your office, if you're indoors, if you're in front of a screen during the daytime, it's not a great idea to have your eyes being bathed by blue light all day long. That's why EMR Tech, a company that we've partnered with, has blue light daytime glasses and blue light blocking evening glasses. These glasses right here are meant for you to wear during the daytime when you're in front of screens, et cetera. But if you're outside, take the glasses off and get the natural sunlight. And if you're at home in the evening when sun sets and you need to be in front of the TV or you need to be in front of your computer or on your phone, these glasses are the ones to get. They also have the best red light therapy devices on the market. If you stand in

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to so many people in incredible shape you know with social media and stuff and we're seeing them at the best right nobody's taking too many pictures and being honest and showing like look i'm a little chunky right now um how do you help people with the old classic body dysmorphia you know because like we have these, um, at least these, these goals in our minds where like, yeah, I want to, you know, get shredded, but it's like, Hey, you're kind of upwards of like 25% body fat right now. Like it's going to take you a minute. And then, you know, again, they have these expectations of like, okay, I just started working with a coach and all this and that. And then it's like, I don't look like all of them.

I look kind of crappy right now. So maybe body dysmorphia is not the right thing, but I guess managing expectations. I really like that question. I think, I think a really powerful tool as a coach is to get them to verbalize back to you what the expectations are as specifically as they can be. So I mean, if I'm like, literally, send me a picture of who you want to look like, I'll break this down. I'll be like, oh no, she has X amount of muscle. She's probably a very hungry person. Are you prepared to be very hungry all the time? Are you prepared to say, how prepared are you to say no constantly? Because these things, they have constraint, they have minimum buy-ins. A much nicer way to do calls. I don't talk to them like this.

It's my internal dialogue. Only I get to hear this usually. So usually we're having a conversation that revolves around, okay, what is it that you can do? What are you willing to do to achieve this goal that I want laid out very specifically? Okay. If that is different than what I know they can do, or if they're asking for too much essentially, okay. I bridge that gap with like, hey, based on what you told me, here's the best we can do. And I would never send them a picture of what that looks like because I think that would, you know, there could be some discrepancies there. But if they're far off in their expectations, I mean, I think it warrants having a very honest conversation of like, it's okay if you can't do anything more, but this person I'm telling you,

they're doing so much more. Like they're doing a whole lot. And let's be honest, maybe their lifestyle can accommodate that. Maybe it is easier for them to manage the fatigue that comes with achieving that physique. So let's say they are like, hey, okay, I hear you. I do want that physique still. Can you help me? And this is never really the conversation. Can you help me develop the skill to become that person? Now we have something to work with. Now we can have intentional phases where we're working on their managing fatigue, then dealing with some of the challenges of dietary adherence. Ultimately, it helps me as a coach because I feel pretty fulfilled helping someone become an athlete that frankly they wouldn't have been otherwise without that actual

one-on-one coaching. And then how do you help them with like swallowing the pill of knowing that like, hey, this is going to take a lot longer than you might think? Yeah. I'm fortunate that a lot of, a lot of clients I work with, I think come in with the expectation. They come in and they list what's important to them. So like, Hey, I do want to use drugs. I'm open to using drugs if you think it's necessary, if you think it's worth the risk, but unfortunate that a lot of the clients I work with are very risk averse and they don't have a high threshold. They don't want side effects and they're actually willing to forego the drugs if that was what needed to happen. So laying out the framework of like, hey,

I can get you results as fast as I can, but the only alternative to this is taking drugs that I don't think you should take. I think it would be a pretty reckless decision to take them to speed this up. And these reference points that you might have with others is like, oh, she got this and okay. We don't know the full story. Like I have a girlfriend, a lover whose test is 500 milligrams or nanograms per deciliter. And she's like, I'm okay with anatomical changes. That doesn't bother me. I also want to respect that. Like, hey, it's not my place to tell you what is or isn't virilization, which is why you really have to be honest about that term. I mean,

it's very ambiguous and it varies person to person. Now, I wanted to quickly mention these two questions because since we're talking about drugs, there's two questions about HGH. This one is again from Chris Nicole, IFBB Pro. I think that's her profile. But can the use of HGH cause insulin resistance and are there precautions to take to reduce the likelihood of that occurrence? Yeah. So, I mean, like we're definitely going to see increased fasting blood glucose, sure.

But like how high? Like, I mean, what, 10 points, 15 points? This is important for someone like me who type 2 diabetes runs in my family. Like a lot not, this is important for someone like me who type two diabetes runs in my family. Like a lot of people have it. So when I put GH in, I've also put in metformin. Probably had metformin, pretty sure I had metformin in before GH because I'm like, oh, this is just in the cards for me. Like I should do this prophylactically to manage blood glucose. Yes, you should definitely be aware and you should be aware that GH

is ultimately gonna drive risk factors that you're kind of already coming to the table with. So if insulin resistance is one, if that's something you're predisposed to, be cognizant of it and take the necessary means to have that in place if you're gonna have it in place long-term. But metformin is like first-line treatment

for type two diabetes, even I guess pre-diabetic. So it's like that's a pretty easy solution if you're just wanting like a one-to-one. Gotcha. And growth hormone in real modest dosages, I don't think it's going to have that much of an impact, right? Like you take one to two IUs should be... Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's the dose I take.

Like, I mean, really past that, there's people who want's that's the dose i take like i mean really past that there's people who want to be more aggressive um is there a need but i mean like when you're talking about the effects on blood sugar it's like i i think it's over sensationalized um but i mean to each their own gotcha there's a now another question there's two for my girlfriend so my girlfriend sam by the way she's, so like I mentioned, she just got her pro card, but she, you know how guys will like know all the football players and all their stats and like, you know, the, what season that they did this X, Y, and Z. She knows that about bikini.

She knew everything about your contest run about like when you were competing, how long your off season been, what your judges told you to improve in terms of your glutes. She knew that all. And then she gave me the rundown so like she knows this about ashley coltwasser which is the only reason i know about this about ashley is because she is a fucking encyclopedia of bikini competitors so question from sam um what was competing at the mile high for your pro debut a strategic move to see how you stacked up against ashley coltwasser or did you realize she competed at that show annually at that point?

I need to meet your girlfriend. I like her. That's such a good question. Damn. So, yeah, that was four weeks after I turned pro. I won the overall at Junior USAs. Talked about this on a few podcasts. I did not even, I was just trying to not get last call outs at that pro show later, the national show.

Going in to Mile High, I did want to see where I stacked up. My goal was like, hey, if I can get first call outs, that would be wild. When I saw Ashley on the list, I didn't know that that was something that she did annually. But I remember being like, I had people who care about me, who are smart, who were like, oh, don't do that show. You're going to get smashed. It's Ashley. Can you give people some context on Ashley Colwasser too?

Because I think most people don't know. She's great. She is one of the most seasoned bikini athletes. She has seemingly the most wins as far as IFBB competitors go. She's a sweetheart. She's a great representation for the sport, a super professional, but always, I mean, she's very competitive. She's very hard to beat. Like 47 or 48 shows she's won, right?

Yes. Pro shows. Yeah. And I mean like she's very active she continues the last name so i'm trying to look her up colt wasser k-o-l-t-w-a-s-s-e-r i believe yeah k-a-l-t k underscore fit yeah something like that um so going into that um and i also have a relationship with ashley super respectful respectful, really been an inspiration for me. I was rather like, no, like, I don't, I mean, no offense, I don't care how I stack up against like people I just competed against or people who have, let's say, you know, done, you know, done well, I would say at the lower, lower end of the pro shows, I want to see how I stack up against the best. And I mean, like by all definitions, she is the best. So, I mean, it kind of excited me. It was something that I was like, yeah, like,

even if, uh, I'm far off, it would be really cool to even get the chance to stand next to her. And at that show, I mean, I got second, There was a one point difference. So, I mean, to me, that feels like a win. Like, I'll take it. That's a big deal. All right. And then another question. Do you deal with self-doubt as a coach, especially as you coach athletes to higher levels like nationals? Totally.

Yeah. I don't know if self-doubt is the right word. Yeah. I don't know if self-doubt is the right word. I don't know if self-doubt is the right word, but I'm very honest with myself about what I don't know and areas that are new to me. And I think that's, it's something I feel is an asset because it does force me to continue to learn. It does force me to consult with others who I think might be better versed or even bounce ideas off. Athletes going to the national level, I mean, it's something that I feel like I'm very good at coaching them through the mental aspect of that competition. So if answering the question that way, I think I'm really locked in. I'm like, hey, I get the nerves and I also get what's important to you about this show. But ultimately I almost

like parent in a way, cause I'm like, I want to protect you from ruining this experience for yourself if the outcome isn't what you want it to be, which is going to be the case statistically for most people who compete at nationals. Yeah. You have a really, uh, like it's really cool how you're a high level athlete, but also a coach. Cause a lot of times you'll see coaches and it's great to be just a coach. It is great, but there's an aspect that you cannot delve into when it comes to the athletic mind. You won't understand what it's like when they're stepping on stage in certain situations, but you know what that's like. And then you have a level of knowledge too. So that's fucking one, two punch that many can't fucking compete with. Thank you. Thank you. Um, no, it definitely,

definitely helps. And it's something I, um, I think without empathy, I think you're just going to have a hard time really getting the athlete to trust that you're in this relationship for the right reason. So I don't, I don't know. I love coaching, but I also, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it if I didn't love the experience of developing these relationships with athletes and seeing them being, being able to be a part of something that is so vulnerable and so important to them. These sports have only been around for a pretty short time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Bikini 2013.

2013. Does it ever concern you that the sports have only been around for a short time? Because we don't know what the results might be health wise of some of these. I mean, in bodybuilding, we've, you know, there's bodybuilding has been around a little longer. So we had gathered some information and it seems like there's some pretty good knowledge around like sort of what not to do. But maybe with what you do, maybe we don't quite know yet. Yeah. Do you mean, um, the supplemental side, like the, like non over the counter supplements? I would just say the whole thing, you know, the, you know, the pharmaceuticals. I mean, you mentioned like metformin growth hormone, anivar, testosterone, like there's like a lot going into it. And, and I don't personally think that

any of that stuff is bad. I think that there's a reasonable way to take a lot of those things, but I don't really truly know. But yeah, the sport is pretty new and the low body fat levels and stuff like that. I'm wondering if you're, if you have kind of concerns or thoughts about that. Totally. So I think the way my decision-making process around certain drugs, like, I mean, like, cause I'm sure y'all are familiar. There are people in the space who this is like, they go really deep into the drug aspects of this. They're also the people that are like, oh, did you hear about this new one?

And like, they're always like peddling like some other, I don't know, fucking sarm. Like, stop. Like, okay. Once you take that one, you got to take this one. Yeah. It's like, I don't, yeah. I try to base a lot of the decisions and I guess like they're not recommendations, but I guess my beliefs around drugs largely are tied back to what we see in literature, which is heavily integrated or stems from the medical community. So I mean, like we see metformin is like, I feel super

confident with that one. GH, I'm like, yeah, you know what? I feel really confident in understanding like the mechanism, but also understanding like, hey, this is not one that we have great studies on in an extended duration. Also, we don't have a wide enough demographic to really encompass all the comorbidities that take place with the clients that I work with. TRT, I mean, like, I guess really what I'm trying to say is like a lot of the framework is based around what research shows. And I mean, like, I know it's like invoked to be like evidence-based right now. And like everyone, they jumped on that one. But actually it's like, okay, does this make sense from a mechanism standpoint?

And what's the associated risk? And is it even needed to accomplish the goal? So, I mean, a lot of that comes down to, is the athlete going to be able to do all the other things? Because the drugs, that part, that's the easiest part. If you're not able to do the other things, like why are we talking about drugs? How do you eat? Very carefully? Slowly. Yeah. I track macros. I've tracked macros for like 15 years. I started tracking early, early on. Right now I would say I'm a little less rigid with exact meals that need to be had, need to make up this macronutrient profile, but it really just comes down to like traveling, schedule changes, collectively hitting target range for each of the macros. I mean, it works well for me, but I'm in a slight surplus at this point. So I mean, I still want to grow a little

bit before I start a prep. It doesn't make sense right now to be in a deficit. So just trying to make sure I don't accidentally fall into that. Whole foods. That's the answer you wanted initially. I'm sorry. Very long winded. Protein, one gram per pound-ish in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Give or take fats, 40 grams minimum, carbs, fill in the rest. Normal supplementation? Like outside of... No, only the cool ones ones only the really intense ones wait is that your answer no no i'm sorry my sarcasm doesn't translate well i just don't i don't know it but yeah that makes sense multivitamins fish oil um sure like some adaptogens like ashwagandha, melatonin for like sleep, kava kava, gaba if like it's really a problem.

Kava kava? I love, yeah, love kava kava. Oh, okay. It can be a little much on the liver. So I mean like just if you're also on cycle and just be aware of that. But yeah, really good. That melatonin I find is a really good mix for me. Let's see.

Yeah. Outside of that, I mean like the TRT and the GH, those are really the only performance-enhancing supplements that are in place. Yeah. All right. What else do you do? Because it's like this stuff is super time-consuming. You're coaching people and then you have to be on point with your meals all the time. And then if you're in prep, you got to work on posing and there's just a lot of – do you have time for anything else?

Do you have time for some TV or anything like that? No, just time to cry about how little time I have. Yeah. No. So I mean like I – on the business front, I do everything myself. So right now, the past month I finished nursing school, I've been focused on systemizing, putting SOPs in place. I would like to delegate out some of these tasks that I feel like at this point are more time consuming. So really that's where my focus is. A lot of the free time is integrated back into business development.

But I think ultimately, I think the sooner I move that in the right direction, the more I'll be able to focus on the tasks that make more sense. Is your main income from coaching? Yeah. Yeah. Coaching. There are aspects to coaching where it is just like one-off consults. So coaches and athletes will hit me up, be like, Hey, we just want to review

what we're doing and make sure that it's not reckless. Um, those clients are, you know, they're technically clients, but it's on like a per needs basis. So, um, coaching, consults, Patreon. And does your Patreon give you the freedom to just sort of say whatever you want rather than maybe on YouTube, maybe it gets pulled down or something like that? Knock on wood. Mark. Really bad joke. You made the clip, Pix.

You said it. He laid you up for that. So it was right there. Patreon. I like Patreon. Yes, there are no regulations, but honestly, I haven't been self-regulating on YouTube either. So we'll see how long that lasts. Yeah. I like Patreon because I do feel like I'm able to connect with the audience more and they're

able to ask very specific case study type questions. I can then record. I typically do audio messages, but it'll be like 10, 15 minutes. I'm like breaking down, just walking them through my thought process and what I would do. Yeah. So low ask on both our parts, I would say. Also, you mentioned earlier, when on prep or when starting prep, some people, they start losing weight really, really fast, right? And it does depend on where their starting point is. prep. Some people, they start losing weight really, really fast, right? It does depend on where their starting point is. What's where the rate of loss looks like for you? I like to start initially in a fat loss phase, 1 to 1.5%.

Of your body weight? Yeah. I mean, so I'm 132 right now. So that is going to look a lot different if I'm like 145, 150. Those numbers, they're kind of arbitrary. It depends on the kind of deficit that it requires. So how much do you weigh? I am 250. Okay. So 1% is going to be pretty aggressive. I wouldn't do that to you. That seems excessive. We could get away with a lower deficit per day. But still, I mean, like when we think about on the low end, where I'd want to start someone even minimally is like 0.5% per week. If that's not moving, create a little bit of a bigger deficit. Gotcha.

What type of women should be maybe considering testosterone or some of the things we've been talking about today? or some of the things we've been talking about today? So to me, it makes the most sense if someone is considering the use of anabolics, TRT needs to be your starting point because anabolics will shut off your testosterone production. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, again, like going back to like, what's the potential? What's the opportunity cost?

At six to eight weeks of an anabolic or you have TRT in place, you can probably pull out at least another year of progress that you wouldn't have been able to get. So are we just going to like skip right over that and go straight to the six, eight week cycle for a pound? How many pounds do you need? Are you gender? You need, I don't know, maybe 0.01 pounds. I don't know.

I'm just making that up. If you're a highly competitive pro and you need, I don't know, maybe 0.01 pounds. I don't know. I'm just making that up. But like, if you're a highly competitive pro and you need such a little improvements, cool. I think for a lot of people, they're looking at much more weight and I'm kind of like, Hey, let's, let's make this make sense. Like, don't step over this for something that eventually, I mean, like you're going to run out of your cycles pretty soon. Gotcha. I think it makes sense for people that are maybe having a hard time with motivation and their workouts and stuff like that to not necessarily take testosterone, but to get their blood work done. Then to make an educated decision from that point on where they should kind of take things. Because I do think that PEDs, TRT, once your hormones are set in the right direction,

I do really feel like it can be a motivator for some people. Oh, absolutely. No, I think for me, I really value knowing that what I'm doing is effective. If I'm on a program that I feel like is busy work, I get demotivated very quickly. If I'm on a program where I feel like there's a bunch of aspects to this that are just put in place, I don't know, for the coach's entertainment, I'm like, what the fuck are we doing? I want to know that everything I'm doing, there's rationale for it. And I think when you look at

individuals with low testosterone, it's like you're having to work excessively hard for something that we have the solution in place. And if you're already considering being in the sport, well, if the concern around TRT is fertility, you really have to ask, what does the literature say? It doesn't necessarily support that. But also it's like you're in a sport that is putting you in a suboptimal state. So I think reflecting it like that, like helping them see like the sport itself can have long-term effects. There's a few more PED questions. Now, I'm pretty sure this one's from a guy named Finn. Is it necessary to cycle off things like clenbuterol, albuterol, L-carnitine?

If so, what is the recommended duration on and recommended time off? Three different things there. Okay. So clenbuterol, albuterol, both beta-2 agonists. I mean, like this is just going to increase, it's going to increase your ability to burn body fat. You're going to burn more calories at rest, essentially. Do you need to cycle off, like taper off? No, not necessarily. Do you need to taper off L-carnitine? No, not necessarily. L-carnitine, I mean, we're just talking about a supplement that I pose as like, hey, the bioavailability

is much more favorable in an injectable form as opposed to an oral form. I've physically, I just, that makes sense to me. I don't mind. Now, if we're talking about time off in between, which L-carnitine, I'd run that year around. Injectable L-carnitine. Yeah. Okay. Clenbuterol, albuterol, I would say that like, if we're talking about a low dose, like 20 micrograms, I ethically have a hard time being like, oh, this is going to pose a problem if this person is already abusing stimulants of all sorts.

You can't tell me that clenbuterol is – tell me the receptor it works on. Also, you're taking XR and 600 milligrams of caffeine in the morning. Get out of here. I want the consistency of how does this work? So it's, yeah, I don't think that you need to necessarily have Clin or albuterol is just the same bronchodilator, shorter half-life. So I mean interchangeable in this context, but in the off season, it doesn't make sense. That would be a fat loss agent. So have it in when you're in a fat loss phase. Gotcha. And then another question here, and I'm going to assume this is about testosterone, but he asks injection frequency,

in example, small doses daily or end of day versus once or twice a week. I'm assuming it's about test. Yeah. I would say, I mean, more frequent injections is going to offer more stability and levels. So personally, if you're able to pull from a bottle that allows you to do that, if it's a male, I'm sure you will. Female, just try to get a lower concentration bottle. I would go with more frequent injections just to avoid that elevated peak and trough. What's up with all these peptides? Are there any peptides that you have utilized that you're in favor of? Yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of like BPC, TB500 and acute settings where there's an indication for it. So like the difference between them, BPC, it's going to be for avascular tissue. TB is going

to be for dynamic tissue, some muscle. I think they can be used. And my understanding is that like for minor injuries, they can be helpful. And my understanding is that for minor injuries, they can be helpful. But if you're not seeing improvement in two weeks, it's probably not going to see improvement from it. So just running them indefinitely, I don't think that makes a lot of sense. I think it can become very expensive if you're paying a high price point. Let's see. Um, let's see. Um, the, the like ghrelin agonist, the GNRHs, I, I'm not as much a fan of them because I, I would rather just use growth hormone. I mean, I think like when we're talking about the directness of peptides in general, you look at like DHEA versus TRT. DHEA is then telling, like sending a signal to them, produce this. It's like, okay,

cool. Why not just put, like, why not just put tests in place? There's no conversion that needs to happen. It's the same thing with GH. I also have a little bit of a thing about like, you know, like with clinics, they charge a lot of money for these peptides, ifamorelin, semorelin, and it's like, okay, doesn't make sense to have this in place, period. I think a lot of clinics, they can, let's just say, accidentally capitalize on the ignorance of the consumer. So I've seen pricing inventory sheets that literally have things that have opposing effects. They have Ozempic and MK677 on the same price sheet for the client. It's like, did you literally just give them the ability to pick what they want?

Like, oh, it conveniently works out to like $1,200 a month? Hungry and not hungry at the same time. When it comes to the GLP-1, how prevalent is that in bodybuilding, figure and bikini and stuff like that? It's a good question. I think it's very prevalent nowadays because I think the growth of telehealth services have allowed for further access. Do I talk to a lot of people who ask my thoughts on them? Yes. So I mean, like in my tiny little bubble of competitors, yeah, it seems like it's much more prevalent now. I would say though,

even if you're going UGL, I mean, you can access GH for the same, if not a lesser cost. UGL. What's UGL mean? Whatever you think it means. It's just a non-prescription. Underground webs. Yeah. And that ties into a question that was actually asked on here. What are the concerns with sourcing different PEDs? Can most things be ordered through a doctor or a hormone clinic? So GH, for instance, you're probably not going to get a prescription for that. Like you for sure, a doctor, any provider would get flagged for writing for that. So no, you're probably not going to get a script there.

Even for like TRT, HRT in general, estradiol, progesterone. I mean, like those are going to be hard scripts to get. Maybe you can better off going to Mexico. I mean, like I'm joking, not joking, but at the same time, it's like we- This is not medical advice. I'm a girl on Instagram.

Don't listen to any advice. Please. I don't like... I'm not licensed. We need the disclaimer before this whole episode, by the way. Usually I... You're almost licensed though, so... Almost.

But not. Maybe after the show comes out. Oh, yeah. Is anything going to have to change? No. No, don't put that pressure on me, Andrew. I'm just saying because like... Don't lock me into a test today.

You sound like my advisor. You have like, I'll say authority or yeah. Cause I know like what doctors can't like talk too much about that. They can only, you know, does that make sense? I think I've crossed, I think the line, the lines I should be worried about, I crossed a couple of years ago. So, um, no, no. So I will be becoming a registered nurse.

Um, so not an MP. So I still wouldn't legally be able to prescribe anything. And usually my big disclaimer, I should just put it in my bio at this point, is like, don't listen to anything I say. You know what's kind of funny is that if you could picture this, if you could picture that we discovered that Chris Bumstead used GLP-1s, everybody would be like, oh, fucking cheater. People wouldn't like that. They would have very colorful reactions, I feel like.

I know. Isn't that interesting? It's interesting. Because he famously dives his calories down quite a bit and is able to sustain that. Yeah. I think people love to discredit and come up with a reason it's hard no matter how you slice it yeah well it's easy for you it's like sure yeah there's no work that went into this actually like i did none of it so um we were talking in the gym a little bit and

you were mentioning you do some cardio but but does that, do you increase, do you do quite a bit of cardio when you're in prep? Didn't seem like you love cardio. I enjoy, I enjoy cardio for the activity of it. I do find it like really decompressing like now, like with work, it's kind of my running joke. My story is like, it's literally where I go to like feel something after a long day. It's like, it's just, it's a nice way to decompress, which for the competitor is like, oh, what? No, that's miserable. I find in prep using it sparingly and using it with intention makes a lot of sense just from a fatigue management standpoint, because historically I did kind of fall into that trap of just higher and oh yeah, there are no consequences to having high bouts of cardio, but ultimately as female athletes, we're trying to keep muscle on our frame. So anything that's

going to compromise training performance can put you in that theoretically catabolic state, which probably already going to be predisposed to losing muscle anyway. Where can people find you? Corey underscore fit on Instagram, Patreon, and YouTube. Got my own podcast on YouTube, self-selecting podcast. If you want to listen to that, listen to more drug talk. Be sure to tune in. Oh, quick question to add on to that. If an athlete is working with a coach and they've listened to this and they're like, oh shit, I don't want... Can they come to you with their plan and get consulting for that? Is that part of what you do? Yes.

That's mostly what the consulting is. Hey, you just want a second eye on this just to green light or white or red light. Yeah, I can do that. Take advantage of that, peeps. Take advantage of that. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.

Bye.