Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 548: Ben Pakulski is Giving Away 100 Pounds of Pure Muscle

Episode Date: July 10, 2017

A few weeks back, Sal, Adam & Justin went to Tampa to hang out with IFBB Pro, Mi40 Gym owner and fellow podcaster, Ben Pakulski. This episode touches on a wide variety of topics from life philosophy, business and how to train to build muscle. Check out Ben's Muscle Expert Podcast on iTunes and also visit him at www.benpakulski.com Get our newest program, Kettlebells 4 Aesthetics (KB4A), which provides full expert workout programming to sculpt and shape your body using kettlebells. Only $7 at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Got a beard? Condition your beard with Big Top Beard Company’s natural oils and organic essential oil blends to make it not only feel great but smell amazing! Get Big Top Beard Company products at www.bigtopbeardcompany.com, code "mindpump" for 33% off. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Holy moly! Listen, in this episode of Mind Pump, we met with a very intelligent and large human being. It's a whole lot of intelligent meat. Ben Pekolsky, probably, now I follow bodybuilding a little bit, I did quite a bit as a kid,

and even now I'm still kind of in the world in terms of watching it, whatever I know Adam, it's very in the world. You're a big fan boy. Let's be honest. Ben Pekolsky's one of the most respected bodybuilders. Well, and I think I talk about this in the episode with him was when I was getting into competing and I really didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

I've been a trainer and I've been training for a very long time. So I understand nutrition, I understand lifting weights very, very well, but I've never got on stage and competed. So right away I started looking into like all the pros that were out there, both in men's physique and bodybuilding. And I had a really hard time finding guys that were putting out good information. So one of the things being someone who's been a trainer for as long as I have right away I could tell when it was like bro science or bullshit. Like I find some pro that was like, God, this guy's an idiot. Like this guy. Like all

these guys are like, are you kidding me? Like there's got to be somebody out there. And this is actually how I found Ben was I was like, oh, well, finally a dude, he has his kines degree. And you could tell when he presents himself and when he talks about mechanics and when he talks about nutrition, like he doesn't. It's a sound approach to this very sound approach, very, very sound approach and very intelligent. And instantly I was drawn to his message.

And even though he hasn't won Mr. Olympia, in my opinion, he is one of, if not, the smartest guy that hits the Olympia stage. And he's impressive himself. What really impressed me a lot about him is he also has a good understanding and openness to what total wellness is. He's not just, he hasn't pigeonholed himself

in terms of just being a bodybuilder. Of course he understands bodybuilding very, very well and he takes a very scientific approach, but he's also open to other avenues of health and wellness and experiments with them and learns from other people in those realms. He is, you know, he's one of these like a Renaissance man. He's one of those people that's kind of in all these things

and wants to learn. That was the most surprising for sure, to meet somebody of that stature and that sort of, like being ingrained and well-known in the bodybuilding community and having that kind of open mind and thought process where, oh wow, let me look into the microbiome and all these other wellness pursuits.

So that was refreshing to see. And he and he drops uh he I believe I don't think he has yet uh released the information that he releases on this show. No, he actually made your announcement. He makes a major announcement in this episode. So this will be the first time. Uh he says what he says on this episode publicly. So if you're a fan you're going to want to listen to us and you're going to want to share this. But again, tons of respect for the guy. We were invited down to his MI40 gym in Tampa. We had a great work out there. One of the best bodybuilder gyms I've ever been to. He took us through some exercises. We all got to do some photos together, which was really cool. You can find his website is Ben Pekulski.com, Pekulski

Spellt, P-A-K-U-L-S-K-I. His YouTube channel is BenPak, IFBB, and he also has a podcast, Muscle Expert Podcast, and his Instagram is IFBBBenPak. Make sure if you guys really enjoy this episode, aside from just sharing it, go over to MuscleXper podcast, check out what he's dropping, he's got some good guests over there and leave him a five star review for sure if you guys enjoy this and don't forget,

we got three days left. It's the final three days for our massive by one, get one, promote, promotion, where if you enroll in our Super Bundle, which includes all of our maps programs, it's a year's worth of exercise programs. So basically, you pay this fee, you get all these programs, everything's worked out for you for an entire year, and it progresses you through different kinds of programs, different types of adaptations, everything from, you know, maximal strength training to mobility work to training like a stage competitor or a bodybuilder, learning how to prime your body correct and

balances, how to train without equipment so you can get that proprioception that you get from bodyweight exercises. It's all there and it's all phased and put together planned out for you. So it's like a years like again it's all there and it's all phased and put together planned out for you. So it's like a years like again, it's a years worth of exercise programming and it's discounted anyways. But on top of that, you enroll in the map super bundle, you'll get one for free for anyone you want. So a friend, family member, your workout partner, your wife, your husband, whoever you want. It's the last three days. It's not a full month promotion. We're ending it short because again, it's a big promo. So to enroll in this program, go to mindpumpmedia.com. And without any further ado, here we are talking to Ben Pekolsky.

Ben, let me hear your voice. Talk. Check, check, check. He's a little quiet. Can we give me a little more Ben? A little more Ben in my life. A little more Ben. Everybody's more Ben on the line. There he is. There it is. Now I might start singing your intro. Oh, shit. Do it. I'll back you up. I'll back you up.

I really hate you if you could sing too, bro. Okay, God, thank you. Oh, I'm feeling you strong in the fucking dude. I do not. You got a nice beard. Yeah. You got big old muscles. I mean, all you need is an epic valid.

Besides the fact that I was lifting more weight than you're really in houses. 100 busts on some poverty. I mean, he has no even now. All you need is an epic valid besides the fact that I was lifting more weight than you everything else In some poverty no minute. He has no even now My head would explode Dude I tell you what this is probably top three for me gyms. I've ever been in man. Yeah, I think you designed this pretty well Buddy, I think for for bodybuilding. It's got to be It's perfect Especially if you're in hypertrophy style type training.

On the menu here, I'm with the fuck you mean top three, man. I know, I was just, I guess one, bro. Well, I'm just kidding, man. No, no, you're right. I was trying to think, I know, I said, it was telling the guys, I was like, we've been in so many goddamn gym, well, Shippaudi's gym is great.

Now, that's different though. No, it's different though. Shippaudi doesn't even crack top three, really? It's cool, I can't survive. That's your style, but I don't like it. Don't get me wrong get me wrong like there's but I got to have all the I get inspired by this I got to have this I got to have the stuff that mystery is everything right is the atmosphere here like to you Like obviously the equipment is world-class and we did we can anybody can do that though So did we do a good job with the atmosphere?

Absolutely no absolutely and even the way you even the way you separated and we were talking on the floor earlier The way you laid out the squat rack and deadlift areas, just the way you separated it from all the machines and everything and the dumbbells. I think that's perfect like that man. Well, very mindful human being, you know, everything I do, I try to be mindful and it doesn't stop in the gym, right? It's like everything needs to be where it needs to be for a reason and cast some my head of education here and I kind of sit down and Joe you guys met Sit down and just pondered like hey, where should this be? How should this be set up and and it all needs to be in the right place as needs to feel right?

You know you you talk we you know or our so our audience knows we had the pleasure of having dinner at an amazing place with you last night And you talk a lot about mindfulness self-awareness Did you have that as a child growing up like Like, when did you evolve into someone like that? I'm questioning. You're gonna dig there already, huh? I already, I already, we're already boys now, bro. We had dinner together, we worked out together, I go right to the heart right away. I'd be calling you an angel last time.

Open up, man. Yeah. Tell us about your parents. So, so as I mindful as a kid, now I'll tell you the honest truth. I became very mindful at a young age. So pretty much everyone in my family, not to throw anybody into the bus, is overweight and most of people are alcoholic. So I became very mindful of the idea that that family over there across the road, whomever they happen to be, had the ability to drive what they want, every nice house, be happy, smile, take cool vacations, and we didn't.

And I was like, what separates them from me? Like, what makes them different from me? Are they better, are they different? And what allows them to do the things they want to do, have the things they want to have, and I'm maybe not there, and why is my family maybe not happy? And these other people seem so least externally happy,

perception wise. What's the difference? And I just became aware of asking that question for me. And that was the step one, right? It's like, awareness, I think, is massive. And I remember being aware from as early as maybe seven or eight years old, it's like looking at my family and almost being, you know, not to be a dick, but almost being repulsed by the reality of obesity and negativity and lack of self awareness, lack of... That was our attitude, like, in that victim kind of mentality, where it's like, it's my

genes, it's my... Or did they feel empowered to change those things? I think they just accepted their reality. And nobody has ever changed their reality. They just said, hey, this is what we have. I don't even think they had the awareness to realize that more was possible. I think that's all it. And a lot of people get stuck in that, right?

And luckily for me, I wasn't. I mean, I was lucky enough to reach out and realize, like, yeah, I can do more than accept this shitty existence. You know, just the fact that I was exposed to some cool things, some cool people I saw, like, man, like, fuck that guy's driving a nice car. What's different from him and my family? You know, hey, that guy's got abs, what the fuck are he's got a hot chick?

What's that? And what's that? What sets him apart? And I just asked those questions from a young age. Well, speaking, I mean, meeting you, you're obviously our pro bodybuilder. It's probably one of the most self-aware, and I'm talking from a fitness standpoint,

bodybuilders that I've ever met, in the sense that first we come into your gym, and when you go to a bodybuilding gym, you expect to see machines, you expect to see some dumbbells and barbells, but I was surprised to see chains in the back and put some powerlifting stuff sleds. And then when we were talking last night, you were talking about doing yoga four days a week and mobility work.

And even Adam was messing with you a little bit during our workout, asking you to do a pistol squat and you know squats on the sides of your feet. And shockingly enough, I mean here's a, you know, how much you weigh right now, about 260 to 70? 280. 280, shit, you know, I mean, you're a big dude and he's doing these mobility, mobility movements and it's impressive to see because typically at that level of competing, people become so myopic with their view,

it's so, you know, so narrow. It has to be, man, and I was, I was just as guilty as everybody else is is literally as we spoke about briefly in the work I blocked out the whole world. And if you happen to be someone who was unlucky enough to get in my tunnel vision, I'd fucking run you over. And that was the way I became successful. And a lot of my people that I've encountered

along the way will attest to them. And I wasn't a mean person. I was never a mean person. I was a never a mean person. But if I was in the gym or if I was focused on something, get the fuck out of my way. So where can I swear? Oh, fuck you. I mean, you're a fine dog.

Fuck yeah. This is Howard's sort of fitness girl. You can say whatever you want to say. Yeah, so I was very, very focused, man. And I get very offended if you were so audacious to get in my way. I was very singular focused. And when I was outside the gym, if you were so audacious to get in my way. I was very singular focused. And when I was outside the gym, it may have been different,

but inside the gym was very singular focused. And I realized that was maybe one of my biggest attributes during my career and one of my biggest detriment toward the end of my career, man, as I hated the idea that I started to lose mobility, I couldn't run anymore, like I could, but it just didn't feel right man Or I'd bend over to pick shit up. You know the biggest realization for me was I'd be at home and there'd be something on the floor

And I'm I didn't essentially wouldn't bend over to pick it up And like I'm like what the fuck's it matter like I'm not didn't wasn't raised this way like I like I fight something on the floor I bend my ass over and I pick it up and I'm like man Just don't bend over pick it up anymore. Maybe it hurt. Maybe unconsciously, like my back would hurt and my hip would hurt or something. And I'd be like, I'm not gonna pick that up. And that was like the first awareness. I was like, all right, this is something's wrong here, man.

You gotta fix this. And that's where I started getting back into yoga and mobility. I've always been a very mobile person. You know, I was a guy at E-Teenage's dog put my ankle behind my head. Oh wow. But I lost that because I was so singular focused on it.

It need to be as big as possible. You get as big as you can really possible, which is bodybuilding right now Do you see a place in that type of training mobility yoga flexibility in Someone's arsenal who is you know, you got a guy right? I'm sure you get lots of these messages from from young dudes who are like listen I just want to build muscle. I just want to look muscular Do you see there being a place in their training for these types of things that not only will not take away from building muscle, but may actually contribute to it?

And range of motion, active range of motion is everything in bodybuilding, and so many bodybuilders you see, you know, using the term muscle bound. What does that mean? It just means their bodies become really, really good in this really small range of motion. And if they go outside of their weakest kittens, and oftentimes they get hurt. And to eliminate that muscle bound restriction, it's absolutely necessary that you're getting strong at these ranges that you've never gone in before. And for most people, that requires like, body first, soft contractions to start.

It's literally not even body weight, right? It's less than body weight. And then progressing toward, now I can actually load this substantially enough to actually hip-archify a muscle. So, it starts with weight, right? It's less than body weight. And then progressing toward, now I can actually load this substantially enough to actually hypertrophy muscle. So it starts with stability, right? You gotta create stability in every aspect of every range of motion that you have access to. And then getting stronger from there.

And that creates the impenetrable physique, right? That creates the physique that's almost, you know, you gotta ask on your chest kind of thing. You can't get hurt, nothing gets hurt because I'm so strong everywhere I go. Even besides that, like one of the pillars of hypertrophy training, something that was mind blowing for me years ago and my training was, you know,

one of the pillars of hypertrophy training is to train a muscle in full ranges of motion. Sure. And that full range of motion changes as you challenge that range of motion, as you gain more strength in those new ranges of motion. Sure. And that full range of motion changes as you challenge that range of motion, as you gain more strength in those new ranges of motion. So training for what you're talking about is not just going to help you with mobility and stability.

You're also going to build more muscle. Sure. Because now you can connect, you know, if I'm doing a fly and I'm coming down to 90 degrees, and if I start to work in that deeper range of motion, start to connect in those deeper ranges of motion, I may have to go lighter, but I'm training in ranges of motion and I've been training before. It's a new stimulus,

and I'm gonna grow more muscle. And this is a message we try to communicate sometimes that people like, look, it's not gonna take away from your ability to build muscle. It's gonna contribute to your ability to build muscle. It's gonna add aesthetics. So here's an important realization. You say, you know, I have to go lighter in certain ranges

and that's an absolute reality. But the realization is, just because I go lighter at certain parts of the range, doesn't necessarily mean I have to go lighter in certain ranges. And that's an absolute reality. But the realization is just because I go lighter at certain parts of the range doesn't mean it's necessarily me and I need to not go heavy in the mid-range. So I'm strong in the mid-range. Fuckin' go strong, go heavy there. But if you really weak somewhere else,

it's okay to go weak there. Just realizing that your body has a different capacity or different ability to generate work or generate force in these different parts of the range. And that's okay, but you still have to appropriately stimulate muscle everywhere. It's not like, oh, just because I'm using, you know, girly weights or pink dumbbells

in these particular ranges, doesn't mean I'm not using really, really heavy weights where I'm strong, because you still want to challenge the muscle as much as you could possibly challenge it, as much as they can handle without being hurt. So here's what you're big on that, challenging that strength curve, right?

Yeah, I've noticed that in your gym, like a lot of the machines are based off of that. Can you explain that a little bit about? Sure, man. It's the simple reality that a muscle has a varying ability to generate force at all, parts of its contract.range. So when a muscle slowly lengthens, it has one ability and the mid range has a different ability

and a short range has a different ability. So wouldn't it just make sense that I would want to appropriately challenge that muscle to what it's capable of at all parts of that range? And the perfect, you know, if you could design the perfect set or the perfect rep, it would challenge my muscle 100% max effort through every part of the range, but nobody's designed an exercise equipment like that would be kind of an isokinetic thing. It doesn't exist. So, what we do here is we have a company called Primet. We have a lot of their equipment and it allows us to As closest as possible match with the bodies capable of it all parts of the range So there's parts when you're strong man and load it heavy. Yep, this parts for your week So take a little bit off and that's okay

And you know that that's the most efficient way to challenge the muscle. So I'm I'm you know pretty vocal on the show about net Not necessarily being a fan of machines for the most part, but what's interesting is when you're talking about what you're saying is absolutely true, and where you're going to be doing a movement and you're much stronger at one part of the range of motion than you are in another part of the range of motion, and freeweights have their own just because of gravity, they're going to be heavier at some parts and lighter at other parts, and you can't necessarily challenge those other parts unless you change angles and one up. How do you do that within the movement?

What I found that was interesting with your plate loaded equipment that was out there was that there were different, you could load the plates in different parts of the machine so that you could overload different parts of the wrap. Exactly. And I remember, I think it might have been not a list that did this a long time ago with their, with their selectorized equipment, or at least they made an attempt to do something like this where you could kind of change the attachment of the cam or whatever. That's right. Was that, okay, was that what it was? So, but yeah, with the plate loaded equipment, you're able to do that. And I can see some, some real

benefit in doing that for people who, you know, even old people or people who have weaknesses or injuries, like going to those places where you're really weak. So most people have this preconceived notion that if I'm weak somewhere, I should avoid it. And that doesn't make any sense at all. Like if you're weak somewhere, you need to go there. You just need to go there with what's appropriate for what you can handle right now and then challenge it progressively. So it doesn't make perfect sense for anyone who has an injury or anyone who's trying to optimize performance. Like you got to go through these ranges, but you got to load it to appropriately to what it's capable of doing. And that's what these machines

allow us to do, which is what you can need a opportunity. Now that being said, what do you think about, because I feel like there's this trend happening right now of kids attaching rubber bands to all these machines. Mindlessly just slapping it on there because it's cool. Yeah, have you seen that? Are they doing it right there because it looks cool. Yeah, have you seen that? Are they doing it right? Sure, of course, yeah.

Yeah, it's mindless. I mean, is there a benefit? So bands have tremendous benefit when used properly, in specific exercises and specific scenarios. One of the things that it does though, that maybe a side benefit to these guys who really have no idea where to load, like we see guys loading on equipment and you're like, man, that's just backwards.

But what the benefit is, it changes the inertial properties of free weight, it changes the inertial properties of machine, which means it forces you to either have to slow down to acceleration. So if I'm doing a negative and eccentric with a band, it's going to fucking sling back at me if I don't slow it down. So adaptation, right? Yeah. So it's going to force me to dampen the inertial properties, which this benefits

on. And it may even be accelerating me in one direction. So again, there's different benefits. So either I'm pushing against a band, so it changes the resistance, or I'm decelerating a band, which again, it's going to change the resistance, all of which just makes people more mindful and more in control. And if people can do that alone, they'll make tremendous progress in their training. And that's what everybody lacks, right?

Everybody goes to the gym, they're too busy like thinking about their Instagram posts or whoever just wrote a negative comment on their, or who didn't like their page or something. And they're not being mindful of anything they do. And if we can at least shift the paradigm of people in the gym to being a little bit mindful and putting a little bit of a thought process

in that we've probably moved the needle a lot. Well, now how do you do that with, and this is the challenge I always have which is teaching people that there's a place for almost everything and like how to focus on the big rocks. Like how do you speak to that to like a young kid I'm 17 years old. I see you doing like these really unique cool movements, but yet maybe I don't even squat or deadlift or bitch like how do you speak to a young mind like that that is just maybe seeing something on Instagram and trying it because they think their their idol does it. Sure.

So how do you talk to someone? So I mean, I guess it depends where you are in your journey and everybody's a different point in the journey, but we kind of develop the process, right? It's I think everything needs to start with execution. You need to master your execution first because just from a muscle recruitment perspective, you're trying to prioritize the muscle you're trying to prioritize. If you're trying to work your chest,

at least let's start by making sure your chest is doing work. If you're trying to prioritize your shoulders, well, the first and most important thing is make sure your shoulders is actually working when you're trying to work a shoulder. So execution from my perspective is number one. And then learning how to load that muscle

and maintain tension. And then from there, you start looking into, what is your limiting factor? So Justin and I had this conversation in the gym where we're training is, I've always approached a firm perspective of, well, what sucks? Like, what is holding you back?

What's my limiting factor? Whether it be something as simple as my cardiovascular conditioning, whether it be my mobility, whether it be my stability, a certain joint, whether it be my range of motion somewhere, my ability to clear elastic acid, do I get a tremendous stability of certain joint, whether it be my range of motion somewhere, my ability to clear elastic acid, do I get a tremendous amount of elastic acid, do I get a really bad focus?

What is it? And just look at it and objectively assess, well, this really sucks. So make that a strength. Like do everything in your power in the next short amount of time, whether it be four to six weeks or three months however long it takes,

make that your number one priority to be awesome at it, right? So most people don't just, they'll they'll see it and like I forget about it It's you know, I'll change my type of training to not stress that system where it should be the opposite training Right should be like hey man. I should really suck at this. Yeah, I need to do more of it Something you said last night that was Dress minded that was awesome Because having been I was a huge fan of bodybuilding. It's what got me into exercise

When I was a kid fan of bodybuilding. It's what got me into exercise when I was a kid. And one of the things that bodybuilding has been espousing now for a little while, and I don't know when this transition happened was, if you're not growing, you're not building muscle, if you're not burning body fat, it's all diet or supplements or drugs. And nobody ever talks about exercise programming. And something you said last night,

which I don't ever really expect to hear from a bodybuilder or a pro bodybuilder is, you said, no, it's their programming. Like nobody puts any effort or thought into their exercise programming. The workouts all look the same. When did that transition happen? Why did bodybuilders stop really paying attention

to their exercise programming as one of the main reasons why their body may not be responding. Because the gear got so good that they could get away with bad programming. Yes and no, man. I think that this is actually the opposite. So that's kind of the conversation we had last night. Is all these kids coming up, you know, had the access to the internet and they started having these presumptions as to what pro bodybuilders cycle look like. And when you're taking, and they go, oh, this guy's taking this bunch, so I got to do that. And if I want to look that big.

And they just start disregarding the relevance of the nutrition, disregarding the relevance of the training. So back in the day, when the business wasn't so drug focused or up and coming out, things weren't so drug focused, they had all their attention on, I mean, I got to optimize my training. I learned I'd do this properly, like I got to make the most of this,

and that was their primary focus. And then when the internet came along and you started seeing these ridiculous cycles being posted by guys, it's shifted from an intelligent training approach focus, like I need to be awesome at training, and now it's shifted to, well, how much drugs can I take? I think that's what took it away, man,

is people just had a singular focus on making the assumption that it's all your drug protocol and it's the stupidest thing man like guys are hurting themselves and you talk to the best probiotables in the world and they're not the guys doing the most drugs that the guys who have are absolutely the most genetically blessed that's always step one right like if you're going to be the best in anything in the world like which one of us in the room can go compete with you seeing both right no but you know no matter how much we no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, But obviously, to optimize your body for what you are capable of, training has to be number one, right?

And steroids are an augment if that's your chosen direction. Yeah, it's funny, we talk about that. If you take away the drugs, which obviously play a role in any professional sport, but if you take those away, you're still dealing with a bunch of massive human beings. I mean, I've seen pictures of Jay Cutler when he was a teenager working out and uh... i mean he he's ridiculously impressive uh... to a level that i would never achieve even probably

with drugs and i think people assume that the top guys are the ones taking the absolute most here uh... but i've having been in the world a little bit of uh... bodybuilding having known bodybuilders i know amateurs who've taken Having been in the world a little bit of bodybuilding, having known bodybuilders, I know amateurs who've taken just extreme high doses of gear who look nothing like guys who, you know, I know at the pro level who take a lot less. So there's a genetic component to training, but I think there might be a genetic component

to how you react even to antibiotics. Of course, there is, man. And that's the thing you notice amongst the elite is they take the smallest amount and they respond extremely well. There's two things that I think kind of set the elite apart from everybody else. There are, since they've either drugs, it's massive. You know, a guy who'll take 200 milligrams of testosterone a week, which is therapeutic, testosterone replacement therapy dose and put on 25 pounds.

And also their ability to retain muscle, I think is massive. So you watch guys, and this is where I kind of separated myself from everybody else, or at least I saw a separation from everybody else. If somebody's guys will take two, three months, you're off training, and they won't lose any muscle. The beekeeper is lean, maybe just a couple pounds of fat a little bit softer, but they don't really lose any weight.

Like if I take three months off training, I get smaller. Like I look different, I get smaller, I get fat. And that's the difference, man. As you notice that a lot, it was a tremendous amount with professional bodybuilders. These guys don't touch a weight for months, sit on their couch, play video games, and they still fucking huge.

And I think that's the difference. If we stop training, what do you look like? Yeah, like a swimmer. Yeah, or a cyclist, right? I would go 180 pounds. Like a, you know, I remember having- like a you know, I remember having I remember having Kids that worked for me as trainers that would be you know 22 23 years old Eat in Taco Bell and just you know

Calories man go and their programming was terrible and they just looked amazing and that to me That was the the connection when I realized how much genetics play the first role. I mean, that's the big piece. And the average person would look at that guy and go, like, oh, he must be taking steroids because he looks this way. And it's like, if you only knew that the genetic piece is the biggest piece. But now, what I'm afraid for, I'm curious to hear what you think. I only dabbled in the men's physique world for a little over two years. Why I even got into it is I felt like men's physique was the answer to bodybuilding getting out of control.

A lot of the average person looked at bodybuilding and said, these guys are just unobtainable. I could never look like this. Here's this new category that the the average guy if he trains right diets Right could obtain this this look this natural look and so that appealed to me I thought okay, I could hang with that you know I I know I don't have a physique to you know hang with a bodybuilder for sure It was a functional bonus be though So Yeah, that's all right. So, what's meant should be. Yeah. So, but what I saw when I got back there, I was floored by how many of these guys were

taking bigger doses than some of the big bodybuilder guys. I know, is it getting worse? Is it getting better? I don't know if it's getting worse or getting better. I'm not directly in the men's, it's the grilled man, but it's definitely a misunderstanding as to what that entire section of the sport is. And I think I agree with you when I say like it should be the more attainable like, I can not have to take a whole bunch of gear and I can look this way.

And sometimes it works really hard and you really well, I can look that way. And as human nature, man, people just want the shortcut and they want to do a lot faster. And I want to be there now, I want to be Mr. Olympia now. What about the fucking 10 years that every other guy has been putting in now, like, relax, take your time and actually build some appreciable muscle. But speak to your point, man, I think that it's definitely being abused there too, and it's unfortunate.

But it's a reality, man. I also think that, and not taking anything away from the physique, guys, but I think the difference is just the genetic predisposition. So the physique guys are just genetically smaller. They're taking the same shit probably more often, or maybe at the same amount, I don't know. But the difference is just like, hey, these guys are genetically mesomorphic and these guys are genetically active, morphic, who added some supplementation in and now they look

there, a genetic limit, right? I love that you went there because that's my theory is that I believe that that's really the biggest difference. I think people, I think people think on the outside looking in, they see a guy like you and they compare the two of us and go like, oh, you just must be taking four times more. You need to do it more.

Yeah, you're taking four times the dose I am, but that's not the case. That's not the case at all. I mean, not the case I mean, again, away from the physique as, but I think it's just like, I think it's an unfortunate thing that they got away or they got the board short thing going because it's just an excuse for guys to go Well, I wasn't really good as a bodybuilder because my legs were shit. I didn't want to put in the work Yeah, so I'm just gonna throw some white shorts on yeah, that's not right man like the point of being a professional athlete if this is a professional sport is the fucking work ethic and the amount of work

It takes to get there and not a time I grew up and there was only men's bodybuilding and women's bodybuilding and if someone said they're an IFB pro I put them out of pedestal and I was like fuck I know what you went through I know how much work how much time how many years how many shows yet to win it was such a tremendous level of commitment and now somebody says you know I've got an IFB pro card and people don't even's talk about it. You talked about last night a little bit about the social media sort of stars and how that sort of changed everything. Sure. Bodybuilding. Like, sure. Yeah. I mean, just so I say, last night is you go to a bodybuilding show now and the bodybuilders don't have a lineup. You know, you see previous Mr. Olympia's Ronnie Coleman, Lee Haney, Jay still got a lineup. But most of these guys are standing

there like fucking twiddling their thumbs and on the YouTube stars And I will throw names out, but the guys who are at completed idiots. I will. Joyce Wall Never man, whatever, yeah, whatever it is, but they've their lineup is three hours long It just speaks a lot about the reality of today people want to glimpse into your life They want to relate to you and nobody puts Credit on or any merit on hard work, you know for me people want to glimpse into your life, they want to relate to you, and nobody puts credit on or any merit on hard work. For me, it's like, I respect, they're the only reason I got into Body Blument. Zero vanity for me, it was all about, I want to push my body, I want to push my mother.

You guys can see that now. I honestly thought I grew up as a lazy kid, grew up in a lazy family, and I fucking hated it, I was a lazy guy, so I'm like fuck that. I never want to identify with that. So now like I told you, man, at 40 years old, I'm going to do all the Navy SEAL training and stuff. That's when it was my goals. Just to prove like fuck that, you can overcome that lazy, natural, and tendency.

So you talked a little bit about now, perhaps intentionally trying to shrink your body or go down so that you could do all this other kind of job. I have to go. I do. Well, I mean, this is interesting to me because you know, you're 280 pounds. You're a big dude. Obviously, I mean, I know you were saying how you're not, you feel like you're not the

most genetically gifted, but compared to the average person, you're another type of human. You've got a real process. You've got to realize for the last 20 years of my life, 100% of the time has been focused on accumulating building muscle. 100% of my day, 24 hours a day, I've had this tunnel vision on, I'm going to be the biggest hardest motherfucker to walk this planet. So when people go, oh, you know, he's just genetically big. Mm-hmm. You show me what it looks like after 20 years of you having tunnel vision on something.

Right. I train harder than everybody. Like that was my exclusive focus. Like if I walked in the gym with somebody, I don't go fuck who it is with Ronny Coleman, I'm gonna die or I'm gonna win. Like, I'm not gonna stop. And that was always my mentality. And you know, not speaking to the arrogant, just like, that was just my attitude, man.

It's like I just wouldn't stop. So people seeming, oh, you're genetically best. Maybe at some level, maybe I think what I had genetically given to me was shape. For a big guy, I had pretty good shape. Am I as gifted as a flex wheeler, obviously not. But I obviously didn't build muscle as well as flexed it either. So I was a very different existence man.

But for me speaking to losing, what effectively will end up being a hundred pounds of muscle. It's just how do you do that? It's definitely gonna be a long process. You know what the biggest shift for me is man, is not the training. It's shifting your paradigm around food. Because when you walk

into a meal environment, are you awake up in the morning, your natural innate instinct for the last 20 years has been eat, consume, to, not only to, here's the funny thing people don't realize, when you're training defelier, as a bodybuilder, you're often eating defelier. So it's not just like, it's not just eating to eat food. It's like eating to fucking be completely saturated and like more than my body wants to consume. So you gotta break that habit. I'm gonna do that for 20 years.

You know, I'm like, I don't wanna fucking, I hate it eating, man. We came to a gym and now you have to change that paradigm. So like, I'll go a whole day without eating. But at the end of the day, you're kind of an instant kicks in and you go, I'm gonna eat until I'm some full and you've got to switch that thought. So I think that for me so far has been the hardest thing is I'm trying to connect with the idea of, hey man, you're not eating to be big anymore. You're just eating to be awesome. You're changing your relationship with food

and all that. And the quote we give is rather than you're eating to live rather than living to eat. And there's a big separation there, man. Now how long have you been doing this, this process, and have you lost any size since doing this? Yeah, I'm down 25 pounds, maybe 30 pounds. Did that come off real easy that first 25, 30? No, people think that, right? People like, oh, you know, just speak freely on your show. People people like I can take the needle out and it's all gonna fucking deflate and Comedy is like I haven't done even testosterone replacement there if there be from a state months and I post People and think I'm full of shit, but like man. That's just fucking reality like my my sketch sex drive sucks But I'm trying to I'm trying to lose some muscles. I kind of a purpose. Yeah, so have you rebounded at all?

Are you testing your natural tests to see if it's up to normal or... It's not still low, man. But yeah, I'm testing, I'm experimenting, I'm actually testing my blood every week. So it's kind of a new thing because I'm in the process of just trying to see how things affect my muscles. So here's what's fascinating to me about that. I know you've lost 25 pounds and you're saying your testosterone is low But you're still a massive human being and that just goes to show there's more than just that that goes into building muscle

And I wonder if because you trained so hard for so long and pushed yourself to that limit for so long And we're so singular focus that a substantial amount of maybe muscle fiber hyperplasia happen to where you've got permanent size to the point where you're going to lose muscle but you're always going to look muscular because you keep the frame there. You've created so much permanent, almost permanent muscle size. Yeah and well it needs to be a pure focus on catablyism. Like it needs to be complete opposite of what motorists want.

It's got to be such a mind-foughts man. It is, I really, it's because like, you know, you go through the whole day, I'll go the whole day with that eating and I don't think about it. But as soon as you switch and start eating, your brain goes like, just consume everything in sight. So you have to like slow down and control that and make your response to consume.

Yeah, it's a very different shift, man. Like, so training is obviously very, very different. You know, and it's funny that I find if I train even more than three times a week, I get bigger again, because the amount of threshold for stimulus is so low that any amount of stimulus I get I go You know, well because you're gaining back what you lost It's that whole muscle memory that your satellite cells are just all over the place I'm so curious now. I'm like if I kind of rent back up again

I'm like fucking could probably 30 pounds I bet you I bet you money. Yeah, you know some of the bet some of the most impressive body But I know Kevin LeVron I believe you should I bet you money. You know some of the most impressive bodyblood, I know Kevin LeVrone, I believe you should do that right? That's right, which you would shrink down and blow up and shrink down and blow up and almost would come back bigger each time. And I mean, bodybuilders have been talking about for decades where the most anabolic

that you'll ever feel as post-show. Right after a show. But I just find it fascinating, you're telling this last night to us and you're like, yeah, man, I haven't, I've been trying to kind of shrink down for like eight, nine months and my testosterone's low and I'm not eating that much. And I'm looking at you going, what?

Like how's this even possible? But so I want to speak to that first, man, because people are going to go, why are you doing that, man? Like what the fuck's motivating you? And I kind of want to talk to that, because people don't ask that question. Good.

Yeah, I lost my purpose. So as a young kid, you're driving your full piss and vinegar and you want to prove to the world and to yourself that you can do it. You can do anything I can conquer. That will everybody in the world say, you'll never be a professional bodybuilder. Everyone said you'll never get to the Olympia stage

and never get to the Arnold stage. I did all that shit. And it wasn't at that point it stopped being about proving any balls strong. I started being about telling myself that I could do anything. And then we talked about having kids. And having kids shifted my

paradigm. And like I said, I was a very focused guy. I was very driven ton of vision, like all about hard work and having that killer. And they're selfish. Very, very, very, 100% selfish. And you have kids. You can't be selfish anymore, man. Like my singular focus in life is my children. So that that switch immediately when you saw it, when you had kids, or did it take a second? I think it switched immediately, man. Honestly, I don't know that it was a conscious thing. I don't want it, as soon as I had my daughter, my second child, it switched. Yeah, I felt it.

Same thing for me. It was weird, right? It's like God's giving you some sign. But anyways, but yeah, I mean, you just become, yeah, you just become much more aware of your decision making. Yeah, aware of your surroundings, aware of being your protective mechanisms for this other human being you're now responsible for

Yeah, it was very so Speaking to why I decided lose a hundred pounds of muscle man. I love bodybuilding. I fucking love it But I don't love it for the vany of never have I think I spoke to you guys yesterday You know the closer I get to the contest. I'm down, you know five four, you know, maybe under four percent body fat at some point in my life I don't know I was when I was my most insecure so I'm like and I'm life at some point in my life, I don't know. I was one I was my most insecure. So I'm like, and I'm getting to this point in my life, I'm like, why would I want to bring that back into my life?

I fucking hated how I felt. I hated the being on stage. So I your most ripped, at your most muscle errors. This is where you and I connect so much. I hated the stage part. I loved the prepping for the show. I loved, I loved getting ready for a show. That was my favorite part. I loved the prepping for the show. I loved, I loved getting ready for a show. That was my favorite part. I loved getting into the science of paying attention

to what I'm eating, my programming. I loved all that. Right. The getting up on stage and being judged and knowing that people are the fuck. That's exactly it, right? I think you have a fuck about that. I loved working hard, man. I love. I love. I love. I'm pure athlete about it. Yeah. Yeah. And you get up there and ultimately I always called the pageant I'm like, why do I want to go there? Totally. And even if I was to win Mr. Olympia, I don't know that I would have everyone go So how did you feel the win your first pro show? I got fuck man like it didn't mean anything to me Not think anything away from bodybuilding man, but it meant nothing to me. It was on the process You know my greatest victories were when I actually had the best

preparation and I didn't necessarily get the best result. If I had one Mr. Olympia, would I have felt better about myself? I don't think so, man. Unless the prep was fucking epic to the point where I know I just smashed every workout. It was perfect and every meal. I'd worked harder than ever before.

And then the end result happened to be that I won the Mr. Olympia. That would have been fucking amazing. But if it would have been anything one one thing went wrong, I would have been focusing on that one thing that I won the Mr. Olympia, that would have been fucking amazing. But if it would have been, you know, anything one one thing went wrong, I would have been focusing on that one thing that I could have done that better and it wouldn't have been a victory for me.

So it was never about the end result, man. It was always about the process and it sounds cliche, but isn't it the reality? It is my reality that like, I just fucking loved the work and I love the person that made me to become a professional bodybuilder. Fuck yeah. That's one of the conversations.

If you guys don't follow Jim Rohn, anyone of the listeners that follow Jim Rohn, he's actually passed away. But he's always the guy who said, don't set the goal of becoming a millionaire for what for the money. Set the goal of becoming a millionaire for what it'll make you to become, to achieve it.

Process. Yeah, man, fuck isn't that amazing, right? So that's what bodybuilding was for me in Atley, man. It was just this avenue to develop an awesome, becoming an awesome man and become a better representative for humanity. Well, I love to look at my physique after every show and see, and I didn't give a fuck about the judges

because one judge will tell you one thing, another judge tell you, so I didn't give you too much oil on your shoulder. Yeah, right. I didn't give a shit about little too much oil on your shoulder. Yeah, right. I don't give a shit about what they had to say. I looked at myself objectively and said, you know, hey, Adam, you could improve your delts here. You could do this.

And then I would love to go back to the drawing board, build my programming up, get ready for a show, and then compare and contrast. That was the best part of the game. Fuck yes, it was. It's saying, man, I've been working for eight months or 12 months, and this is what I was able to do. And if you didn't see it, then you're like, fuck, that was discouraging, right?

If you didn't see the changes, maybe you're expecting. Yeah, I mean, that was always about us. So having to change that. For sure, man, for sure. Yeah, I mean, they're just the most amazing teachers. People always say, what's your responsibility as a parent? And I say, my responsibility is to keep them safe. Their job is to teach me.

I think that's truthfully how it works. Look at them and I see every limitation I've ever had as a human. So the things that they're shortcomings is an indication of my limitations as a parent. So I see a lot of your insecurities play out right and funny, right? And then you try and like,

get them to avoid these things and it's just like, you have to let it play out. So how can I be a selfish, you know, self-motivated prick when I see it would see that manifesting in my kids, like just as an extent in my brain. So, and so that the reality is, why did I stop is I no longer had a purpose. I was like, what am I doing a for?

Am I doing it proof something? Nope. Am I doing it to make a purpose. I was like, what am I doing a for? Am I doing it proof something? Nope. Am I doing it to make myself feel better? Nope. So what am I doing? And ultimately, I love training. I can still keep training. I'm still how training is hard as I can.

Do I need to walk around a 300 pounds, I'm 36 years old? Probably not. So it's now trying to get into a fit. I love the idea of being a role model or a figure in fitness. I love the idea of getting in shape and doing some other type of physical endeavor. We talked about Spartan races. We talked about maybe an Iron Man.

We talked about doing the Navy SEAL training. All that stuff is appealing to me, man, and getting back to my athletic roots. The irony of all that, because you're also a very, I consider you, one of the probably the smartest business men in the bodybuilding world. Thank you. The irony of what you're saying is, that would be brilliant for business. To have an ex pro bodybuilder change and adapt

and train in these different ways. That's a dramatic shift. So I don't say a thing as people are like, oh, you're still gonna be a big guy. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna be a fucking big guy. I'm gonna be a smog guy, like a people like bullshit. What? What? So I wanna go to like the opposite fucking pole, man. Guy, I'm like, no, I'm not gonna be a fucking big guy. I'm gonna be a smother, like a people like bullshit. Like watch. So I wanna go to like the opposite fucking pole, man.

Like, you know, that's just the mentality of, I'm gonna be documenting this whole process. Well, 100 pounds. And I tell people, I lose 100 pounds, I think I'm crazy, but I don't just wanna still be a kind of big guy. Like I wanna be able to do triathlons. I wanna be able to do, like I've, you know, I've got this genetic, if I do have a genetic gift, it's my legs. And want to be able to do, I've got this genetic, if I do have a genetic gift, it's my legs.

And if I have a genetic gift, I agree with you. Yeah. Well, why not use research? Why not use sprint cycling? Why not do some track, like Pell and Drone type stuff? Fuck, it's there. And use it, and I've got a tremendous innate endurance. So that was kind of, if another thing if I was gifted with, it was to be got a tremendous innate endurance. So that was kind of my, if another thing

if I was gifted with it was to be an endurance runner. Interesting. You're kidding me. Well, actually, no, you were saying when you trained with other pros the way you would crush them as with volume. Don't, don't. Yeah, but that's my gift, man.

So if you look at my genome, my genetic testing, my genetic gift is my aerobic capacity. So it's like Viking under aerobic capacity. Yeah, I was about to fucking mark his marching bike and Viking. So I want to circle back to the deep shit, right? I want to go back to the family stuff because I immediately I immediately I do and I and I'm immediately connected with you right away. Your level of self-awareness, mindfulness to get somebody like that and you're a young age. We're young still. We're 36. You're old, both of us were 36. Um, did you, would you say you had a rough childhood? Would you?

Interrespective. I don't think it was rough. I wouldn't say I was, I wasn't abused. I wasn't It was rough. I wouldn't say I wasn't abused. I wasn't particularly neglected. I don't think it was just a lot of time to observe. I was always the observer, man. Mouth closed, ears open. You went the opposite, like I did, from my childhood. I know that I had to work through a lot of animosity that I had towards my parents,

where my mom, my father killed himself when he was seven, my mom remarried into an abusive relationship and I learned a lot of what I learned was from seeing what they were doing. Yeah, going to the opposite side. I was very blessed that I had my grandparents. So my parents split up when I was young, my dad and I had basically no relationship. My mom was working. So I don't know that had any animosity, so it's a lot of time to myself. My grandparents were older, they're great people, but older. Zero health consciousness. So, you know, just existed. So yeah, I didn't have a bad upbringing, but any stretch, man, like I was never abused, I was never, I mean, never beaten or anything like that, but it was just

a lot of time to be by myself and observe. Now, were you more of an intellect or more of an athlete? Like, I would say I was an athlete, man. Yeah, I didn't resonate at school, man. I was like, I was a straight D student for most of my life. Oh, wow. So here's what I would have never guessed that, because you're really smart.

Yeah, I agree with that, man. I agree with that. So I just didn't like school, man. It was boring for me. And here's the funny part about school is, and most with that, man, I agree with that. So I just didn't like school, man, it was boring for me. And here's the funny part about school is, and most people find this funny, is I had a speech impediment and a learned disability. So now the irony is like I teach people,

and I'm a public speaker, right? That's always the irony of it, right? Is the things that maybe your limitations is a kid you turn into your greatest gifts. So yeah, I mean, those are the two things I love to do. I love to teach, I love to talk. And it's funny. Do you remember the truck because I remember the turning point for me. I was a school Not interested. I did I did okay. I was a three-o student, but

Definitely didn't apply myself because I wasn't interested and at 25 I they're hit a switch where I started to read things that I was interested in and then it just I became I Just started reading and reading and reading but there was a moment in my life that I was interested in and then it just, I became, I just started reading and reading and reading. But there was a moment in my life that I remembered. Do you remember a moment where you kind of made that transition? I do, man. So, uh, Canada, I was in school. I went to ninth grade, first year high school. And the high school I went to was in a battery, uh, and I had no sports. So I switched into a new school, which is actually near my dad's house. So I moved in with my dad.

And at that new school, it was a complete paradigm shift for me with the people I was associating with. And every single person from that school went to university. So I went from a school where literally when I graduated one person, so if I'm looking back at the school I went to ninth grade, I knew that the graduating class had one person at one university in the school that I went one person, like, so if I look back at the school I went to ninth grade, I knew that the graduating class had one person that went to university in the school that I went to in tenth grade, every

single person went to university. And that was the shift for me is surrounding yourself with these people and you're like, wow, it's just a massive paradigm shift for me to be like around these people who are all, you know, so my ninth grade, like my ninth grade home room was, probably every guy in the class would come and smung like glue, having huffed glue on the way to school kind of shit. That's honest, man. And I was like, what the fuck, like where am I? And none of them played sports.

And you know, I was very athletic and I had kind of nowhere to know outlet. So I go to this new school. I see all these kids were really smart, good athletes. And I was just like, well, you know, I went from being the alpha male at the first school to now having to step up my game to be the alpha male at the second school. So I just stepped up my game and it was just kind of part of the crew like you didn't fit in if you didn't go to school they would make fun.

So that was kind of where I stepped up my game ago I better start this reading thing and I was always like I said I wasn't always an introspective guy so at 14 I started doing endurance running man just because it was my outlet from my life you know observing these people around me that I didn't want to be like. So my disconnect was I'd wake up every day at five o'clock in the morning and I'd run for two hours before school. I was just my thing, man, like freezing cold, fucking Canadian winter, I'd be outside at five in the morning, literally every day running until I basically puked, because it was my disconnection from the observation of the reality that it was existing.

When did you find your passion for learning? I think once I found something I liked. So, you know, I started off with endurance running because I liked to push myself. And then I found training because I was an athlete and I was 15 years old. And I wanted to become faster for sports. So my coach goes, hey, man, I want to go try the weight room. So I just started doing some legs. I noticed it made me faster. So I literally went in every day before I

practiced before games, still like, because I was like, Oh, when I do this, it makes me feel faster. And then I started to respond. I started to grow. So that was kind of the catalyst for, you know, 15 years old, you just go into the gym to train. And I literally went every day because I noticed when I trained, I was faster. I felt stronger or maybe felt more loose. And then just progressed from there, man. Like it was never really an inspiration or a goal of mine to be a pro bodybuilder. I just kind of submit it. Now did you dive in and really learn the science behind training at this point or was it just I'm going to go do it? And then later on, you became much more of a, you know, so yeah,

I guess that didn't really answer your question. Yeah, so yeah, my discovery of learning or my desire to learn happened when I was probably 18 years old. So I found bodybuilding and that because it was my passion, I tried to consume everything. And I tried to find the one guy, I think one of us were talking about this thing was you actually, and we were talking about trying to find that one bodybuilder who you could kind of attach to and be like, I want to follow this guy and he didn't exist, man. Nobody existed, at least I couldn't find him. And so it just became this self-journey of trying to find, you know, fill in the gaps. Like, what should I be eating? How should I be training? You know, what should I be taking? What should my sleep look like? Which

am I day time routine look like? And trying to model it after somebody and then end up being, unfortunately, there was nobody out there. So it was just kind of this, you know, plathor of people that I was pulling from Asia from. That must have been really tough because we should share with the audience that you kind of represented that guy for me because I was getting into a world that I knew nothing about. I was not like Sal. Sal was somebody who followed all the old time bodybuilders was into that. I was always just an athlete Sal was somebody who followed all the old time body builders was into that. I was always just an athlete.

Like I love sports, I love competitive, and I purely got into the sport for business reasons. I'm 30 years old and I saw the opportunity. And so right away I began searching for, the guys that knew, and I'm searching for the same stuff. My sleep, my diet, like how about finally, and I'm not finding anybody, I'm going Jesus and there is nobody And so that's that's kind of a dichotomy spoke of this to us. I'm pretty I don't know if I'm introverted man

But I'm a private guy, you know, like I'm not a guy who's gonna go in social media and push shit about my life And I almost should because there's probably guys there's probably thousands of guys that they're like you looking for it And I have to be honest a lot of people take your inch think you think you're an asshole They do. Fuck you. Yeah, no. They really, like, like, when people, I had a lot of people ask me when we were coming over here,

like, yeah, find out, I think you're in a big sweetheart. Yeah, I know what the hell. No, no, and incredibly self-aware and mindful and respectful and just, I mean, an incredible guy, even nicer than what, and I knew because I dug deeper, I'm not somebody to judge after I just see something, I've learned more about you to do that, but because you have kind of more of an introverted

quiet personality, people took that as an arrogant, and we kind of talked about that. Yeah, that's the thing, it's not introverted, it's extroverted, but it's selectively extroverted. Like, I'm not gonna let everybody into my life because I don't want everybody in my life. I've had that taste of quote unquote fame and it's not for me, man.

I'd like the idea of helping people. I love helping people. But at the same time, I don't have to be the guy who's the center of attention and I have to be the guy who's standing on a pedestal with my shirt off, getting everyone go, oh, you look great. It's not my thing.

So I kind of disconnected because I want to keep my family alive private. I don't want to keep my personal life private, but like we speak about man Maybe there's a benefit for me, you know, and I'm starting you know I'm starting with the podcast and starting as my body my life shifts away from bodybuilding Maybe it's afforded me the opportunity to get a little deeper into what actually happened behind the scenes What my life does look like and I mean I've just always been a private person because It's just who I am. I don't like the idea. I'm not a spectacle guy, man.

Like as much as that sounds contradictory, like, you know what's funny? Because I can completely identify, you know, and I think you kind of picked up on that, even at dinner itself. It's one of those things. It's like, I don't like the center of tension. I like being the guy in the spot and like,

has all the answers and let me just do my thing. Yeah, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, leave me alone and so just for me to kind of even become part of the group and express myself through a podcast was such a big challenge for me. But like I seek these opportunities to challenge myself and I feel like you're the same way

with that as far as like getting yourself out there and you know this is something where I can improve and project myself in this light. Yeah, I've got a pretty cool platform in front of me and it's just a matter of picking and choosing how you want to kind of leverage it, right? So obviously I can go out there and drop my pants and get a bunch of likes. Well, literally, it really is, right? Like, hey, I'll show you my quote. And a bunch of penalties.

And I'll get 20,000 likes and that'll be fucking awesome for about five minutes and then I'm going to feel insecure about myself again. And I'm just not someone who builds myself worth based on people's judgments. So I've fucked my care, what you think? Like, ultimately. So for so long, you were judged based on your appearance, your aesthetic, your size, right? For so long, and now you're making a very, very sharp pivot.

What would you like to be known for now? Good question, man. And so this funny, I'm actually leaving today to go on a vacation with my family. And it's just a week of introspection. It's a week of journaling. It's a week of literally identifying that. It's who are you?

What are the hats that you wear? What does your life look like in 10 and 25 years? Who don't want to be known as now, man? I don't know that I have a clear depiction of that. You know, honestly, what my entire focus of my career has been is I want to be that guy that Adam speaking about that anyone can turn to about if I'm going to have to build muscle and not and be an awesome dad a great businessman and the ultimate modern man

ultimately right like I want to be that guy like I want to be fucking ripped and I want to have great sex with my wife I want to love my wife I want to be a fucking awesome dad to my kids so my kids grow up they go my dad was my superhero I want to make million dollars a year, but not because I need millions of dollars with the material to ship, but because it allows me an opportunity to travel the world, see new people, meet new people, and help new people.

That's probably the ultimate definition of what my life looks like in five years. That sounds awesome. Yeah, right. Man, I think a lot of people can relate to that. If they take the time to step back and identify what it looks like, and most people don't, right? But luckily for me, I make time for a lot of people can relate to that if they take the time to step back and identify what it looks like. Most people don't, right?

But luckily for me, I make time for a lot of introspection and answer that question. But I think I need to dig deeper too, just like anybody. I think I need to get really specific on what it looks like, where am I living? Who's in my life? And who's life I'm impacting and what specific way? Because you can't impact everybody's life or you can impact nobody's life. We had some pretty good discussions last night on, I mean, a whole gamut of health optimization,

everything from gut health to brain. Yeah, we introduced you to grind, we didn't have to educate you a little bit. Showed up some picks. Brain optimization, like, what are the subjects that are really peaking your interest now? All of the above. So, man, it's gonna sound arrogant as fuck, but I think I've kind of mastered the most of building thing. So, man, it's gonna send arrogance, fuck,

but I think I've kind of mastered the most of building thing. So, my execution... You can say that. Yeah, man. You're allowed to say that. I mean, I don't know that the pictures... I don't know that there's very many humans in the planet

who get it as well as myself and my staff, you know. We've pretty, we pretty get it, man. Like, we get the execution component, we get the programming component, we get how to nourish it as much as we can. Obviously, there's a lot of answers that aren't there as far as research and that's necessary. But I think I get the muscle building component, the execution, the weight of everything and how to balance all those factors. And now for me, it's optimizing brain performance,

consistency. So we talked about the idea of self-mastery history. What was that really mean? Overcoming living beliefs, not allowing anyone to influence you, being secure in your personal values so that nothing in no situation ever sways you from the man that you are inside. And obviously being a good or ultimately being a great role model for my kids, man. That's what it comes down to for me. That's what I call being a Jedi. It takes fuck to some serious mastery to see that. And we need, we need a word.

We need a word. Like, we need to be like, I'm we're doing this. So like, I always connect with the ultimate modern man. I'm like, okay, you know, and it may or may not be the term, but we need to create a word. It doesn't exist. Like, even with your an alpha, I'm like, fuck that. Alpha's like old and has weird, it's gay, too much bro connected to Alpha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There needs to be some word, and we need to create a word, we will create a word today, what do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Jedi like Reservant, man. It's something I know, it's something I know. But when you say Jedi, people think of something else. I want to think of a word that everyone's like,

hey man, that's exactly what it is. You know, the ultimate modern man is like, I'm connecting with all of these things. You know, I want to master my body, hey man, that's exactly what it is. The ultimate modern man is like, I'm connecting with all of these things. I wanna master my body, my mind, my relationships, my business, my longevity, my environment, and my insides. That's a shit. I wanna fucking be the king of all those,

not just one, and let's create this. Now let's talk about longevity for a second, because body building at that level is not known for being great for longevity on any, pretty much on any level. On many levels. What do you do now in terms of training, nutrition, and you know, I don't know, you talked about doing yoga

four days a week now and stuff like that? What are some of the things now you implement for longevity in particular? Meditation is step one, man, and it sounds cliche, man, but it's one of those things that if you've never done it or you're thinking about it you got to try it if you don't have your two. Oh we talk about all the time. Just the ability to eliminate the bullshit. Eliminate the noise that the world is

trying to pull you in all these different directions is so important. Especially in this time right now. We are becoming more and more disconnected and present with all these tools that I mean how often now do you sit look around at a dinner table and see people are all on there if they're not even connected to the people that are sitting right and fucking in front of them. So if there was ever a time that it's important to be present and I don't think there's anything out there that I've ever put into practice that has helped me like meditation, like meditate that. I mean, and I'll tell you what,

it's actually was difficult. And we talk about the challenge because we all shared our first experience of trying to meditate because I went after it the same way like my athlete, my set, like, I'm gonna meditate. You can't go in like that. No, you can't meditate hard. Yes, you can't be that you can't say, I'm gonna meditate it. You can't go in like that. No, you can't meditate hard. You can't be that you can't say,

I'm gonna meditate so hard today. And it's another big paradigm shattering moment for me with it was that it's a practice. So it's like, imagine this, imagine going to the gym for the first time and trying to squat. It's gonna fucking suck for a while. It's gonna suck, you're not gonna feel it

or you wanna feel it, you're gonna be shaky, you're not gonna feel it, or you wanna feel it, you're gonna be shaky, you're not gonna have good mobility, and all of the above. Well, the first time you go and meditate, or even the first 10 times you go and meditate, you're just gonna sit there and think about

the fact that you're wasting your time. And I think setting expectations is massive. That's one of the things we talk about with the trainers here is, you gotta set someone's expectations. Like, what are you expecting to get out of this? And I think if people just realize, like, hey, I'm gonna go into that, your brain is gonna get distracted. That's okay. And Like, what are you expecting to get out of this? And I think if people just realize, like, can't we go into that?

Your brain is going to get distracted. That's okay. And like, you know, coming to terms with, hey man, your brain's going to want to think about everything. That doesn't make you a bad person. Just do your breath, do your focus to bring it back. Do your best to focus on bringing it back to the breath. And keeping it, you know, very, very easy, very flowing.

And that's really all it is, man. It's just eliminating the monkey mind. And it's such a simple thing. Now knowing this, knowing about meditation and doing it now, do you think that would have benefited you in the 20 years of bodybuilder? I think for sure, but I think training was my meditation and I think that's why I talked about that. That was your flow state. Yeah, dude, I think that's why I talk about when someone entered it. Like, if someone would get my way, it'd be like, why the fuck did you just get my meditation?

Like, if someone, if you're sitting at, you know, six o'clock in the morning, over the time you meditate and somebody walks up and kicks you in the face or something, you get up and you'd probably fucking smash something over their head. That was my state, right? That was like, man, if I'm in this state, like I got my hat on, I got my headphones on,

regardless if it was music plan or not, when I was training, I was just so zoned out, man, they broke that. I was fucking pissed. I was like, what are you doing? I'm so same thing now, man. Like if I was meditating somewhere and I was like deep into my, you know,

my flow state and somebody came over and like startled me, I might not, I might, I might, I might smash them like I might have in the past, but now I at least be like startled, right? I mean, I'll be like, fuck, you surprised me. So that was the same thing, right? It was a fear-based response previously. It was like, well, you know, you came into this world,

you weren't supposed to be in. I thought I was here by myself. So yeah, man, that, I mean,, man, that's all meditation is, right? It's getting into that state where you block the rest of the world. How often do you do it now? I try to do it every day. So I get up every day at 4.30.

And my first practice is I brush my teeth, clean my teeth. And then I meditate. And sometimes, if I'm if I'm up late with assholes like you at night, I don't get up at four. But yeah, man, so the certain days I miss, but if I can control it, I, I meditate. And so if we didn't have plan on training today or doing a podcast, I probably still would have

got up before 30 and do my meditation. And I just would have assumed I'm not going to train later, because training on four hours of sleep usually ends up sucking or if I have to do something that requires a lot of focus, it's gonna end up sucking. So I decided to sleep in a little bit today, which is five o'clock. And then we knocked out the workout in the podcast

and my brain still works. But if I find if I get less than five hours of sleep, my brain's pretty shit. So I know a lot of our fans are gonna be like, I wanna hear all of us muscle building advice and all, you know, because you say, you said yourself, you've mastered a lot of what goes behind hypertrophy and muscle building.

What are some of the suggestions or ideas or, I guess the big rocks when it comes to hypertrophy to building muscle because that's something that you're so well-versed in. Sure, man. Within the business, so my business is MI40s, you guys know, and we've created a, we try to create a, kind of, a framework

where people can latch onto and at least giving them a jumping off point. And I think the biggest thing that maybe is a paradigm shifter in the beginning for people is creating an internal focus as opposed to an external focus. What do you mean by that? I'll explain. So internal focus, what goes on?

What's outside your body? Bars, dumbbells, machines, people are focused on what's going on inside of their body. And what you want to do is you want to shift your focus to an internal focus. So let's think about what this muscle is doing. If I'm trying to try to try to muscle, the only thing that matters is what's happening at the muscle. It doesn't matter how much weight is in my hand. It doesn't matter what machine I'm doing to do it. People get this bias or attachment to certain things or certain exercises and like, I have to do this exercise because, you know, Bempikolsky did this exercise. We're talking plastic to this or a fucking j-colour, whoever, and they get this attachment. Without realizing that everybody's body's different.

So if you can create an internal focus and focus on what the muscle's doing, and realize that muscular contraction is relatively simple, it's pulling an insertion closer to an origin. That's it. So if I can conceptualize and visualize, like in a lot of times for me, this is closing my eyes, you guys probably saw that that one was training a lot of times it's very internal

Close my eyes and I envision bringing my insertion closer to my origin and That's it and if I can so there's a few other things we latch on to from that or we add on to that and so It's important realization that if both ends of a muscle are moving You're not j any attention to muscle. It's the idea if I'm holding this rope in my hands and both ends of the rope are moving, how much tension can't create in the rope, zero. So one end needs to be anchored. The other needs to be generating tension.

So when you're training, one end needs to be anchored, one end needs to be as stable as possible. So my main focus is I need to stabilize my body, create a stable jumping off point. So the idea is you can't fire a cannon from a canoe. So stabilize your body as much as possible and this term I often use is lock it down and then generate tension in the muscle at the other end and bring the insertion closely to the origin.

That's it. And then once you find that and then it's a matter of, okay, well now I found it, how long can I keep it? And how much can I stress it? And then once you find that and then it's a matter of okay, well now I found it How long can I keep it and how much can I stress it and how much can I how much tension can I create and how much can I properly disperse that amount of tension over the entire range of motion and then loading it so what you're really trying to do the entire time and this is what one thing that bodybuilding has contributed I Think greatly to fitness is the ability to connect to I think greatly to fitness is the ability to connect to individual muscles. Now from a personal trainer standpoint, when we're training clients, the average person

who just wants to get in better shape, a lot of times they're completely disconnected to their body. In fact, I can't tell you how many times I'll do a tricep press down and a client would ask me, where they're supposed to feel it. Where am I supposed to feel this? Well, they don't know. And that's why I try to detach from names of exercises, man. Like, if I say a bench press and I go,

guys, what does that work? And everyone goes, oh, that works your chest. And the answer is fucking bullshit. No, it doesn't. It works whatever I want it to work by how I set up for the exercise and have one of my mechanics determined. So a bench press may be an awesome exercise for me

and maybe a terrible exercise for you. And acknowledging that, I can turn a bench press into a lab exercise for you. I can turn a bench press into a an awesome exercise for me, and maybe a terrible exercise for you. And acknowledging that, I can turn a bench press into a lot of exercise for you. I can turn a bench press into a re-dult and try to sub-exercise for you. Just by changing what you're thinking about, maybe your body position a little bit, I can make it an exercise that works absolutely zero chest.

We can take chest and the gym floor right now, and you can do a chest exercise with a zero peck. And you're like, oh, that's interesting. So disconnecting from what you think is happening, those biases you have, and attachments you have to exercise, and the name of an exercise, and trying to train the muscle. And that's a very dichotomous thought process from CrossFit, and things like that, where it's your training and movement. And I have nothing against that, man. If you're training for powerlifting, you're training a movement that's completely

different thought process. But if you're training for a purge fee, and you're training to optimize your body composition, transform your body, it's not an external focus, it's an 100% internal focus. And that's a very different paradigm for a lot of people, man. It's like, you know, why do you guys need to be able when you train? They don't fucking think of what's happening in the muscle.

Like, what should you squat and you shit like that? Obviously not, right? Like you need to be aware of what your surroundings when you're squatting, you and doing shit that's complex. But if you're doing something like lateral raise or a dumbbell press or something where you're safe, if I can close your eyes, think about what's actually happening

and eliminating all the bullshit around you. Like it's meditative. So question on that then. So, you know, let's say I'm doing a tricep press down and I'm really focusing on what my tricep is doing, really isolating it, get that contraction, getting that full extension. Why, and this has been a debate for a long time

and there's lots of theories, but I don't think anybody's ever really explained why a close grip bench press or a dip is gonna build typically in people more tricep than something where you may even feel to tricep more like a tricep extension. It's not. So, okay, let's go there.

That's what I say, detach from your attachment to exercises. The only singular thing that's going to be correlated with growth is increased muskotension. So you just would argue, well, that muscle is putting more tension through it. Let me ask you this, man. Why would a line tricep extension or a line close grip bench press put more tension through a tricep than a tricep push down? The singular reason is stability. So if I'm lying with my back and my scapulas pinned to a bench or on the floor, it's important to realize that the long hair of the tricep inserts in the scapula, or originally it's

in the scapula. So if that scapula is moving, which it often is when I'm doing a tricep pushdown, I can't train any tension at long-hit. So if I lay on the floor and I artificially stabilize that scapula by shoving into the venture into the floor, I've just created a stable environment for that long-hit to now recruit more out of. So that would make a lot of sense as to why maybe then I could create more tension, perhaps use more load and thereby would translate to more growth.

But it's not a better exercise. Nothing is a better or worse exercise. It's all the same shit. It's all just a matter of creating tension in the muscle. That's a great way to argue that. That's an excellent way to argue that. If the volume is the same, then you're right. But that's the difference, really, is that somebody is more than likely going to be able

to close grip, bench press, you know, 100, 200 pounds. Just because they're creating more stable environment. So if you were to load your obviously a very strong guy, I don't mean if you were to load the tricep push down, what's the first thing that breaks on a tricep push down? Like so if you think about, I've got perfect form, I've got the shit locked in, I'm starting to get it close to failure, what happens? Do tricep fatigue first?

No. Fucking never. No. It's always you start internal rotation, you show them, you shrug your shoulders up. So what's happening at the scapula? Moving. So how much tension am I joining in that long head? Very little.

Like it's still gending some tension, but it's not maximal. Right, because I'm getting motion at my scapula. So when you know the scapula moves the long head, can't work. Why do people get elbow problems? We got these three heads of the tricep that are capable of working. The long head shuts down while at times

because the scapula is not stable. So we got these two heads trying to kick up doing twice as much work to try to compensate for the long head, which is the big one, primarily as far as size. So it's trying to compensate doing twice as much work and they get fucking inflamed because they can't all the amount of load that you're trying to put on it. You're trying to move.

Like, why does everybody build them other level problems? So here's the counter to that because it all goes down the central nervous system. It all goes down to being able to connect that muscle, activate it with as much tension as possible, which is a central nervous system. It's a CNS signal. But we do know that when you activate more of your body, in other words, if I were to have you squeeze something as hard as you could with your hand and isolate just that area Or the rest of you were stabilized you would be able to squeeze much harder if you squeeze your entire body

Along with your hand and this because you're you're creating a stronger Stabilization no, just to stay here. It's stronger. So I say, oh, but you're also creating stable environments so maybe this way me maybe why a barbell squat or a barbell row or an overhead press is more effective than, let's say an isolated, isolated environment. Define effective. At building even the target muscle. No.

So you're saying a side lateral done in a stable environment would build a deltoid as much as a say a standing overhead press. No, because it's a different, it's a different play. It's a different play. But sir, if we were to compare the extra we did today, the cable side ladder all against the dumbbell side ladder, which one builds one muscle? See, I would have a tendency to say dumbbell. It's not correct, because it comes down, well obviously load being equal. Okay.

So you quit load. Okay. That's the real thing, right? To me, it's the real thing, right? To me, it's load and volume, really, man. Well, it's load and then time under tension. Volume. So the time under tension with the cable would be greater because we did a better job of

matching the resistance profile to what my body's cable looks. So with the dumbbell, at the top, it's heaviest fuck. Right. Come down to the bottom, it's nothing there. Right. With the cable, because of the direction we chose for the cable coming across the body, as soon as I move, it's loaded. So I've got, instead of just being maximally loaded at the bottom, there's nothing there. With the cable, because of the direction we chose for the cable coming across the body, as soon as I move, it's loaded. So I've got, instead of just being

maximally loaded at the top, it's gonna be maximally loaded to the entire range. So I would argue that you would get substantially more hypertrophy from that cable version rather than the dumbbell version. Now, from the way you're arguing, it does make sense. From an experienced standpoint,

I've seen people do so much better with free weight movements and that's also the common, if you will, common knowledge in the muscle building world. Is it because then maybe people are able to generate more tension with free weight movements because they're, I don't know, adapting to them differently or able to use them differently or you're just saying no, that's just incorrect all the way across Sorry, you're saying that people will get better results from dumbbells that tends to be the common knowledge right free weights Everybody says free weights is going to build more muscle than a machine or a cable That is

Straight ignorance. Okay, not from you. Sure from the paradigm. No, and I don't mind. Listen, I just straight it. Okay. There's zero fucking benefit to a dumbbell compared to a cable. And everyone's going to jump on my nuts for that. But anyone who understands biochemistry, anyone that understands biomechanics would know the answer. Like it's it's it's close your eyes. It's just fucking load. It's just tension. It doesn't matter where it comes from. It's close your eyes, it's just fucking load. It's just tension. It doesn't matter where it comes from. It doesn't matter that it's a machine, it doesn't matter, it's a dumbbell.

How does the fuck does your body know? It's like, think about it. Like if I'm loading my muscle, but is my body know if this is a cable or a dumbbell or a fucking kettlebell or a shake weight? Right, right. It doesn't know. I love you through a shake weight today. Right, right. It doesn't know. I love you through Shake Weight today.

Okay. No, it doesn't know. That's why my right arm is so big. 1,000 Shake Weight just sold across America. I'm sponsored by Shake Weight. I'm number one of mad. I think it's the gross America. Yeah, no, it doesn't know.

So what's the argument for a dumbbell? Probably marketing. Okay, probably the fact that 25, 30 years ago Joe Weeter said I'm gonna sell you a set of dumbbells because these are the best for training And it's been indoctrinated into our our thought process from a young age There's no difference. And you're speaking from a purely hypertrophy standpoint. Sure. Yeah. Functionally, man, if you go something different, it's something different. But hypertrophy, my goal is I need to stabilize the environment and I need to load the muscle. That's that's why you're in a distinction. Well, yeah, yeah. That's important because obviously, you know, weights are going to load you differently than machines are going to load you. And

if you're looking for broad spectrum performance and all these different things you want to be able to completely man. If you're training to be an athlete it's often and should be a movement based emphasis, not a muscle based. We're talking purely hypertrophy there. So that's an important realization I'm distinction I'm going to make right now. If you're training for hypertrophy it's not the same as training for athletics and it shouldn't be. I dissuade athletes from training muscle isolation most of the time.

Unless there's a glaring weakness, it will often decrease your performance. So, because you want that elastic response when you're training for sports, right? You want to train that ability. Well, you want your entire body to communicate with it when you're doing a sport. Yeah. This is when you're getting on stage

and presenting something completely different. And if it's not on stage, even if it's just like, hey, I'm trying to transform my body, which is going to be more metabolic demand in the body. So you're going to burn more fat with this muscular type training, transformation style training. It's just a different thought process. So everyone disconnect from the idea that I'm saying,

hey, you need to do this. This is successful. No, we're talking about some of them. Yeah, exactly. I want to make sure that all those people at home that are clenching their butt cheeks. No, this is all the crossfitters that are pissed right now. Exactly. Fuck that guy. Come Yeah, exactly. I want to make sure that, you know, all those people at home that are clenching their butt cheeks. No, this is all the crossfitters that are pissed right now. Yeah, exactly. Come on, man.

Yeah, I sure all of them are my page right now. No, this is great. And this discussion needs to happen. And I'm glad you said that because there are different ways of training for different particular goals. We're talking about optimally for purely hypertrophy-based reasons. I mean, heck, our program maps aesthetic incorporates machines for that purpose. For that particular purpose, because when you look at the highest level of any sport, you're going to learn something from it, and bodybuilders are, if you look at the entire sports arena, nobody can feel and isolate a muscle like a bodybuilder. Nobody can connect to an individual muscle like a bodybuilder.

And that's what you're talking about specifically. Yeah, man, but even disconnecting from the fact that I'm a bodybuilder, I'm a biomechanics student. Yes. You know, like I've got a kidney cellulogen degree. I've studied biomechanics for the last 15 years. And I've learned from the brightest people in the world. And, you know, it's not just, hey, this guy's a bodybuilder.

Like, that's kind of my, I don't identify as a bodybuilder, right? Like, I'm saying bodybuilding, bodybuilding is what I do not know I am kind of thing. So, yeah, man, I've studied it inside out. And I think the thing you'll realize is the higher you get to the top of the totem pole, everyone talks at the same light, which everybody says the same thing.

So. Now, being a guy who is transitioning from being a bodybuilder and kind of being more functional-based, how is your training start to mold and change? Are you still training purely hypertrophy or are you doing a lot more functional type stuff? I don't know that I'm doing very much functional stuff. I just want to maintain a certain level of aesthetic. I want to maintain a large degree of my strength and mobility and starting like

I say transition into more athletic endeavor. So I want to be able to sprint. I guess it's a little sprint, man, but I just end up hurting my ankles and I put my hips and shit like I want to transition like and I know it's just pounds off the joints. Like I got to take some pounds off the joints, right? Like my ankles, my knees, my hips are going to hurt if I sprint. It's just, it is what it is. So it's transitioning into maintaining as much strength as you can while still not training to the point of, hey, I'm going to build muscle because it's a different stimulus.

So I'm trying to be, maintain as much strength as I can while improving mobility, improving, oh, I mean, my overall strength is pretty balanced. So my body doesn't tend to have very many injuries, not going to wood. But yeah, so the idea is, maintain as much of a balanced symmetry and a balanced strength as I can as I gradually transition to this lighter body weight. That enables me to train more.

Well, let's talk about that. What does that look like? Because this is something I'm currently going through myself. Like I went, I was one side, the Minsvizik, you know, focus all on aesthetics, then I went to complete hippie crunchy, meditate yoga looking guy, and now I'm trying to find this balance myself, and I have things that I'm doing in incorporating.

I'm curious to, like your approach on that. What? Yeah, man. Training is a little more scarce. It's a little more infrequent, two or three times a week. And honestly, I'll be honest, it's a new process, man. Like my whole life for the last 20 years has been exclusively consumed with, you know,

each late train girl, each late train girl. And now it's, you know, predominantly based on what I look like in the mirror and how I feel when I'm doing shit, like on a performance stuff. So my training right now is based on what I look like in the mirror and how I feel when I'm doing shit, like on a performance stuff. So my training right now is based on, I try to make sure that I get everything in twice a week. So I'm kind of doing like an upper body, lower body split. Involume is determined exclusively, honestly, this sounds ridiculous, but by aesthetic, like if something looks like it's like I'm going by this visual ideal that I have in my brain,

like, I want to build this and I want to build that or you know, I want going by this visual ideal that I have in my brain like, okay, I wanna build this and I wanna build that or I wanna maintain this certain visual appearance. Well, if my arms look like they're getting small, I'll do a little more arms. And if my legs aren't gonna get small, you know? So it's not like I'm doing legs often enough that I'm trying to hypertrophy them. I'm just doing them to maintain mobility, maintain structure around the joints,

and still be able to squat so it can repel. I'm 140. It's a dance because you wanna at atrophy but you don't want to lose function because atrophy goes hand in hand with who's in function. It's a very unique, I mean I've never obviously experienced it. I don't know if very many people have, like who's ever tried to lose 100 pounds of muscle. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good way of. Well maybe there's, maybe there's an attached special relation with like an X and F, football players. Like X and F.O. I'm like Michael Strand, I'm sure you lost 100 pounds of pretty damn close to it. Sure. So some of those guys maybe can relate to what I'm doing

and I'm trying to lose a ton of pants. Yeah, but he did the slim fast. Or whatever. I do. Me too. Jay Craig. Is there anything in terms of supplementation that you're doing for that?

I mean, I'm wondering if the body's metabolizing that much muscle or adapting at that direction. Does that, because I've never even contemplating what that could mean for the organs. Is that change anything? Are you looking at elevation? I think my protein is the CK level and all that stuff. Oh, my liver enzymes are great. Oh, my kidneys look great. My protein consumption is much lower, like I talked about, is about 120 to 150 grams a day. That's, I fucking love hearing you say that, dude. It's so, yeah. It felt, I actually felt awkward last night having to order 15 ounces of fish

because it was my only second meal a day and watching you eat half the size of the protein being twice my size. Yeah, I mean, my meal's my, now people laugh. It's like I always eat of a bowl. I don't know why this fucking strange attachment to eating of this big wooden Big wooden bowl and I got a big red bowl. Yeah Funny

I don't feel like any anymore, but it's fucking vegetables. It's like 90% vegetables So I literally have like a pounded two pounds of vegetables and like different like salads and green beans and broccoli and like everything And it's always changing and then I have like this little serving of meat and like a big chunk of fat Like so depending what it is if it's if it's coconut oil if it's avocado if it's some fatty meat You know that's it's really it so it's predominantly most of my my volume right now is coming from vegetables Yeah, how many grams of protein did you eat when you were competing and trying to build? Good question. Were you were you one of the like eat, you know. How many grams of protein did you eat when you were competing and trying to build? Good question. Were you one of the like eat, you know, 5 million grams of protein or were you still

were you even conservative there? No, man, I went through phases. So it was kind of dependent on one of my carbohydrate intake. So if my carbohydrate intake was high, my protein intake was low. If my protein, if my carbohydrate intake was low, my protein intake was higher. So carbohydrate obviously has a muscle sparing effect. take was low. If my carbohydrate take was low, my protein intake was higher. So, carbohydrate obviously has a muscle sparing effect. So, if I was taking in 12 to 16 ounces of carbohydrate per meal, so 80 to 120 grams, depending on what's coming from, my protein was 6, 7 ounces,

so pretty small. And then if I was getting ready for a contest, those two would kind of just gradually change, because obviously the less carbohydrate you take, the more protein perhaps you need, and I found that to be true. So I got up to eating, there was a certain time I was eating 12 ounces of protein per meal, five, six times a day, and actually ironically correlated with when I did best competitively. Do I think I need that much? No, but it comes down to that, and this is the ultimate question, right? It's like, if I'm not taking it from protein, what am I taking it from?

So, and I would always believe that manipulating carbs worked for me. I didn't really believe in a low carb diet, but I believed in manipulating carbs. So, some days I'd be, you know, six, 700, 800 grams carbs. Some days I'd be 100, 200 grams, and some days I'd be lower than that. But I would always be fluctuating

based on my work capacity. My work volume. So were you over a gram per pound a body weight with protein or was it always around? Yeah, I was always over a gram. It's like three fifty four. A gram would be kind of staple for me. A gram would be kind of baseline. Got it. But again, in the off season when my carbs were around 800,000 grams, it'd be lower because it just wasn't necessarily. Now something you said that was awesome that I did not expect to come out of your mouth was that you have your trainers will tell the clients to have days where they go low protein. Sometimes once a week, man, once we recommend low or you know, meatless Monday kind of thing where we don't need any meat.

Now we talk about that on our show all the time. Explain why you do that. Just recensitization to protein. I think there's a tremendous benefit from a gut health perspective as well. Dude, and we talked about this again when we were trained, just the idea of getting uncomfortable and being mindful. Like if I remove nutrient,

I think that's one of the greatest benefits of all these diets that people are attached to. Like if what's the benefit of ketogenic dieting is a beneficial share from certain perspectives, certain people at certain times of the year and certain parts of the life But the biggest fucking benefit is it's the being mindful of what's going on the mouth Most people just eat so mindlessly and just shove whatever they can into their hole like

Stop and think about it for a minute and then that'll be step one and changing your body right taking control of what's going on Yeah, pay the signs and say don't you mind some man and we're all guilty of it like you know I'm just as guilty of you know the number of tubs of peanut butter that have disappeared over the last couple of years. Like, fuck, where did that thing go, right? Everybody does it, but like being mindful of it as often as you can. Let's talk a little bit about the support of bodybuilding.

I know we're gonna have a lot of fans that are like, I wanna hear more about what they're doing, how bodybuilding has changed. I was a huge fan growing up and I remember distinctly there being a dramatic switch all of a sudden and it was when Dorian Yates won his first Olympia and he showed up on stage and took body building. I mean, there were several phases of body building that I can remember. I mean, you had the 70s, then the 80s, all of a sudden they looked so much more shredded

and more muscular. And then it was like that for a while and then Dorian showed up and just was this new level of mass monster. And now we're seeing some changes as well. What's happening to cause those dramatic shifts? Like, what did Dorian U, was it, you know, growth hormone insulin? Like, what were they doing differently that changed their bodies? And what's happening now that's different? I mean we talked about Kuwait last night and body was going over there. I mean we can go we can run the gamut here but what's

happening now that's really different or changed or is it just more of the same? Well what happened with Dorian I think I think and I and I don't want to take anything away from anybody that came before him but I think maybe for the first time he was the guy who was all consumed. Right. It was the only thing he did. He didn't leave his house, he didn't leave his gym, and that shifted the paradigm altogether. Right. Like previous to that, you know, Arle was at the beach a couple of times a day.

He was probably experimenting with mine, expanding things. Well, I mean, the 70s, right? So he's doing what he's doing. And then you could start getting the 80s. Lee Haney was just fucking amazing and blessed, worked hard, but still very, very blessed and probably didn't have to live a completely consumed life. And then you're pushing to Dory who lived this consumed life and he brought this package

that nobody ever seen. So it changed the paradigm of the entire, she's the same idea with Roger Benzer in the four minute mile, right? I was just kind of relate this topic to, if you're a fan of sports, it's pretty common across the board on all sports. If you compare it to basketball, play it in a football player today, to 30 years ago, you would think that they're doing all these other anabolic's increased up, but really the dedication level is starting at an earlier age.

Some prototypes, we're learning more what body types are better for what sports, the sport is evolved, right? And without a shout out about the chemistry changed in the 90s You know, there's a lot more designer drugs and those guys will be transparent about that. I'm sure So that changed it all and I think that's what was responsible for the hard like shredded look Oh the night with this guy's camera stage is green everybody was crazy looking Yeah, man I don't know I don't know if her names up

But people would tell me like like guys would walk in, like guys from Balco and all those chemistry companies would walk into Gold's Gym and look at guys and go, oh, you need a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We're gonna make you this drug and like the next day, kind of show up with the guys. Wow. Yeah, interesting perspective.

But, you know, obviously that doesn't exist anymore. So that's changed the paradigm of the sport. But I think that Doreen just changed the paradigm, changed people's belief as to what it could look like. Well, it was possible. Yeah, yeah, and like what it took, like he was pretty transparent about like, I don't fuck it, talk to anybody, I don't make appearances, I just all I do is train because I'm going to be the best.

Michael Jordan basketball, and Michael Jordan hit there, and so, oh shit, we could actually take off from the free throw line, we could do things like this. Change everything. I'll tell you what disenfranchised me as a young kid that was such a fan of the sport. I knew they used drugs, I knew all that stuff happened. It wasn't a big deal to me. They still had to work hard, fine, do whatever.

So when I learned about sinful and the injectable oils that didn't even build muscle, that's when I totally disconnected from the sport. Man, I don't know, man, but I don't think that I really believe that's more prominent with the kids who want to look like the bodybuilders than is with the bodybuilders. And don't get me wrong, I could be wrong, man. But you can kind of tell when a guy's fucking foolish,

Synthol, and when you look at close to these bodybuilders, maybe some of them are doing it, I'm sure there's a few that stick out of my mind that have done it, but like, I remember the 90s, there were a few bodybuilders that, no at the time before anybody knew about Synthol. Right. It was that guy, Manfred, whatever, and Ernie Taylor,

and you're like, Yeah, and you're like, wow, look at those arms, they look fucking insane, how are they so big? And then of course later on, you look about Synthol, and like, he was one of the first motherfuckers to experiment with. There wasn't even Synthol back then, it was something completely, the Escaline.

Escaline, yeah. Escaline as I said, yeah, I don't know, I said, Semantics, right? But yeah, that, and yeah't know how you say it. Semantics, right? Yeah. But yeah, that, and yeah, that was a big deal. Wow. Because it expanded the muscle without blurring it, and that was very different.

Now, Synthol is oil, which is different. Like, you see these monkeys on Instagram, and you see like, dude, you look like it hurts, right? It looks painful. Oh, man. What are you doing, man? Well, the muscle doesn't change from flex to the last. Right, yeah.

Or they look like they have implants. There's one dude that does it all in his packs and it looks like he's got implants. Let's go through the head, right? No, no. And I wonder if it's like steroids with women, right? So steroids with women, I'm completely against, obviously. And the thing is with them, it's one of those things,

like once they do it, I don't think they realize how much it's gonna change them and all of a sudden they've gone too far and they've locked in and they can't go back. And I wonder if it's like that with the synth all guys, because yeah, obviously they know it's going through the head, but you wonder if like, man, once they've done it to like,

oh shit, I've so far gone, now I might as well just keep going. And they don't know what the long-term is. That's good. I mean, steroids with women, I've seen pictures of, I mean, people, women don't realize this, like, if, like, clitoral enlargement,

like if you go online and look at some of these bodybuilders and they, looks like they have little penises, that doesn't shrink. And the thing that people don't point out is the psychological change. It's literally becoming a man. You're changing the energy and profiles in your brain. You're just not the same human being anymore.

I couldn't imagine how much that foxic woman's psychology to realize like, hey, I didn't really want this, but this is one of the results. Like, I wanted to get this awesome body and nobody told me that I'm gonna put this needle in my ass. And are these pills or the fucking taken? And then all of a sudden, I'm gonna change the human being that I am. I'm going to put this needle in my ass. And all of these pills are the fucking taken. And then all of a sudden, I'm going to change the human being that I am.

I'm going to change the way my brain works and would have become a different person. That's a fucked up perspective. What do you see happen with women when they start to go on cycle psychologically? They're just angry, man. Women aren't meant to be, they're meant to be emotional beings, right? And you amplify an emotion of a woman and and yeah, you're amplifying her anger, you're amplifying her insecurities or anxiety. And when you time you amplify some of his anger, you're amplifying anxiety, right? It's just a whole, and they're all these women in

a presence and at the psychotics, and then there's a whole bunch of negative shit that goes on women because they're not meant to have testosterone. You introduced to their system, other meant to have a little bit, but it's a very interesting paradigm, man, that I tried to sway it. Any women listening out there like, you don't realize once, so here's the perfect story, man. I knew this girl 15 years ago now, who was this beautiful girl working at a tanning salon and she goes, hey, you know, like I want to do this and I go, why? And she goes, oh, you know, I want to compete.

I go, you don't have to do that to compete. So she did one shot of wind straw and her voice changed. I never went back. One shot. Wow. It was like from different from Friday to Monday. Wow. And her voice never went back. And I was like, was that fucking worth it? Like, I don't know, it's me. I was just going to ask you what you thought about because it's, God, it's crazy how many bikini girls are you doing wind straw and computer all and I'm like you're a bikini girl. Because it will be the unfortunate part is they think it's part of the sport right they think it's part of the reality maybe it's for some of them it is but the truly gifted

ones don't have to do it and if you're not one of the truly gifted ones do it for the love of the sport rather than for the desire to be miscil and peer or whatever it is. If you're not doing it for the love of the sport, you're doing for the vanity or for the wrong reason. It's not going to change. People think that becoming this amazing Instagram person is going to change their confidence or change the person that they are, but it doesn't. It's just going to make it more amplified. So first off to each their own, if you want to be sure your body to go for it. But I will say this, a lot of women don't you, if you're a woman and you go to the doctor and you say, I would like to change my gender.

I would like to now legally become a man. The first thing they do is put you on anabolic steroids. So you're literally doing that to yourself and you are changing. This is why the clitoris grows. It's the part of, it's the part of the female anatomy that's a modus to the penis. Your voice drops and you grow facial hair and you literally become a man. Whereas when a man takes testosterone, he's not changing his gender. He's just getting more testosterone and he's not going to have

such a drastic change in psychology. He may get horneer, he may get all that kind of stuff. And all those things are already present in his brain and your body is evolutionally adapted to that. So, you know, when people talk about guys going on steroid rages and shit, it's all fucking bullshit. It's all just amplified versions of who they are. You know, it's actually connected to man losing their temper or estrogen. Estrogen low testosterone. Yeah, higher estrogen.

Yeah, low testosterone. I want to hear what you guys rage when they come off their cycle. Right, right. I want to hear what you think about this. I shared this on a podcast. Maybe about a month or two ago. I know I got a lot of feedback.

I got some, obviously, hate, but then I got a lot of people that changed their mind about competing after what I said. One of the things that I had said is, I feel like Instagram and social media is part of the reason is it's become like trendy that everybody wants to become a beckoning or a men's for Zeke or bodybuilder or whatever, like it's become very trendy to do. And I said, you know, a lot of people don't know that I spent a solid year to mind you. I've been training for 15 plus years already.

Then I spent a solid year to two, year and a half or so, almost two years of training to get ready to just step on the amateur stage. And I tell people that if you've never dieted down and leaned down and got yourself in the best shape of your life, naturally by yourself and figured that out, I don't really think you have any business getting on and competing at the highest level against the one percenters in the world.

It's like me going out and playing a sport that you've never really played before and trying to play with the best. Right, it's like me showing up and running against you same balls. Right, right. It's a little ridiculous, but it is what it is. I try to disway people for a different reason, and I think it just changes your perception. One, if you're doing it for Instagram, Instagram is just a dope of me, right? Every time you get somebody hits a like, you get this amazing, and I feel good about myself. And people think that the more likes to get the better and feel about themselves, which we all know is fucking bullshit.

But in reality, the reason I try to display people from competing is it changes the way you perceive food, particularly for women. Men can usually detach from it, but some men can't. But particularly for women, food becomes a reward system. So they reward themselves with cheating, you know, big cheat days, like I've done really well. Let's go, let's go there. Let's go there. I don't know if we need to go there, but

just the idea that man, if you're an emotional leader to begin with, or if you think you're trying to do a show because it's gonna get you in great shaping and maintain it, it's not a good idea. You just have to make a lifestyle change. You have to make a shift that goes, hey, for the rest of my life, this is who I am. This is the person I've become. Rather than, I'm going to do this one show in 12 weeks and then I'm going to become like, I've seen a woman in Noxederation, I know her very well, put on 60 pounds in under a month, four weeks after the contest. When she did a show, she looked fucking unbelievable.

And then four weeks later, completely different human being, unrecognizable, and could never go back. She's destroyed her metabolism Just obviously training will shut down your thyroid to some extent And then doing all these calories again just destroyed her on water puff I'm gonna puff out no progesterone anymore no estuary anymore like all these things are just destroyed and Never get it back. I'm gonna make I'm gonna make you go there, dude Because I I a lot of the stuff I used to speak out on when I was going through competing was Because I didn't know about it until I got in it and I found this this cheat meal cheat day cheat thing and

I just couldn't connect with it because I didn't understand why you would want to create that relationship with food of I eat really good that I reward myself with all this bad shit, right? And calling it a day. And it's only that, man. If people that rationalize it as like, this is good for me, I'm doing something good for myself. You know, yeah, anyways, it's the idea. It's been perpetuated by a few coaches saying, you know,

cheats are good for you. And there's absolutely no reason why physiologically cheat day would be beneficial for you. There's absolutely a benefit as to why Calorie surplus would be calorie increase to be good for you But you don't have to get that beating fucking pukk�. No, I'd say probably the worst Connections to food or eating disorders and self-image issues. I've seen our people in the competing world and I mean if you don't believe me, go see any bodybuilder or bikini or physique competitor post contest and watch what they do with food.

I know people who will buy boxes of, you know, Oreo cookies and ice cream or whatever. And literally have it in their fridge and their cupboard and be like, I can't wait to eat this. This is what I'm gonna have. So the trophy case. I dated this girl years and years ago who used to eat entire basket Robbins ice cream cakes, the big ones. So one day she had one, next day she had another one

and she fucking flipped on her roommate for taking a piece of her basket Robbins ice cream cake. And I'm like, and this is on top of her stop and don't at places and all this other junk in the way home and I'm like, she got to the point where she ate so much crap. She stunk, like she had like BO coming top of her stop and don't at places and all this other junk in the way home. And I'm like, she got to the point where she ate so much crap. She stunk. Like she had like, be oh, coming out of her system.

And that's awesome. Like, redale. That's awesome. That's really, my girls get such this attachment with I've been depriving myself for so long. I can make up for it. But where does it stop? Unless there's a line in the sand and it just keeps going

and going and going until finally your brain goes, oh, damn it, I look like shit, I have to change this and by that point you usually too far gone right. And the sad thing about and the difficult thing about competing on a stage is if you're not in a secure situation with yourself that's probably the last thing you should do and the unfortunate thing is it tends to attract people who are not. That's obviously the people that are drawn to the sport because I think it's going to change who they are. It's going to make me really confident myself.

It won't. Unfortunately, like it just can't. A game changer for me with food because I had horrible self body image issues. This is why I got into resistance training and why I even abused my body in my younger years. And a game changer for me was fasting. I remember I used to have to eat every two hours because I'm like oh shit I'm a lose muscle if I don't eat all the time and I had food with me all the time and protein shakes with me in bars and the first time I actually broke free of that and did it fast and didn't lose all this muscle and I remember it was like this

enlightening moment like a holy shit like I can go out with my family, and that have to take three Tupperware containers full of chicken and rice and bars and protein shakes with me everywhere. And it was just this mind blowing experience. And when people ask me advice on nutrition and competitors in particular, one of the best things I can tell them

is try intermittent fasting. Break free from the chains of the, I need to eat every other hour and see what I- I was the first coach in the Bikini and Men's Physique World that I knew that was actually prescribing that to his athletes. And I did it just to fuck with everybody. Just to be like, yes, we can get ready for the show.

And absolutely, we can intermittent fast. And it'll be great for you. And just through a curve ball and everybody, and everybody was tripping out that I was doing that, but I was blown away that here we are, we're getting ready to lean down anyways. So we're in cutting for a show. Why wouldn't we throw a great day of intermittent fasting

in there once a while? You talked about it earlier. Do you incorporate that right now into your routine? I do, yep. Probably once a month, I'll do like a 48 hour fast. Nice. What do you notice from that when you do it for you? I have tremendous mental clarity. I actually notice as soon as I reintroduce food, my energy levels dip, my mental clarity dips. Honestly, man, if I could just not eat, life would be fucking awesome. Like, you have no attachment to anything. So like I said, I'm heading down to vacation today and I'm my plan for the

week is to kind of like not eat. Like I might eat a couple times, but I want to eat some veggies and like, I don't even know what I'm gonna do, but I have no attachment. At least the first time in my life I can take a vacation, this is a cool thing, right? I should probably document this. But first time in my life I can take a vacation and have no attachment to have an eat, having to train. Wow, that's a paradigm shift right there. This is the first one really? This one ever meant. Oh shit, wow. You're gonna be, you're gonna, I don't know,

you may find that I've found this. I've been, I've found this myself the first time I did that because vacations for me used to be, and I was never a competitive bodybuilder, I was just obsessed. Vacations to me were like, does the hotel have a gym? Yeah. Where can I get my food?

What do I need to bring? Oh, we're gonna go see this thing, okay, I gotta make sure I have this food. Where can I get my food? What do I need to bring? Oh, we're gonna go see this thing. Okay, I gotta make sure I have this food. And then all of a sudden, I can go to vacation. It should be like, fuck, I could just be with my family. Yeah. It was mind blowing to me.

Invocations became so enjoyable. I'll be interested to see what your experience is with that. Yeah, man, I have no attachment to anything. Like, it's the first time where I'm packing shit. And I'm like, wait, I have to bring six different changes outfits for the day to get in my two workouts and my cardio. You know, I'm like, I'm just gonna to bring six different changes outfits for the data. Like, getting my two workouts and my cardio, you know, I'm like, I'm just gonna go and kind of exist. So yeah, it's a new...

Did you catch yourself reaching to those habits though? Or did you, or did you know? No, I think going on with... Yeah, pretty mindful of the fact that I'm going on in the woods with my kids and it's gonna be like, I can no workouts. I mean, I will swim, we'll meditate. My kids are starting to get into meditation

and yoga, which is a cool thing. Yeah, I'm not pushing them into it. They're actually asking, like, Daddy, can I get up to you at 4.30? The meditation has like, no, you can't, but we'll teach you, and you like that. That's daddy time. Yeah, yeah.

And you also don't want you to get up at 4.30, but yeah, but it's definitely daddy time. How about it would be cool, man? Just, yeah, disconnecting and see what happens and have no emotional attachment to what I look like when I come back. And if I look like I haven't been in a gym in a week, I haven't been in a gym in a week, that's okay, right?

You're not gonna take away from your paycheck and you're not gonna, nothing's gonna happen. The world's not gonna end. I love the fact that you can talk about all these different things that are so outside of that scope of muscle building hypertrophy. We talked about gut health even last night. You're one of the only bodybuilders

that I've heard ever talk about the microbiome and taking care of the microbiome. We have, I guarantee you, we have some bodybuilders listening right now or some aspiring bodybuilders, and they've heard all the usual advice. What advice can you give them that's different, that may be in compassies some of that, that may help them. Fastings can you give them that's different, that maybe encompasses some of that, that may help them?

Fastings, a good one. That's a good start. And it's not, and I like you spoke about, man, it's not going to kill your game. So it's actually may accelerate them. And I spoke of that, I do that with... Now explain that why, because I've heard people are like, no way, the fasting is not going to help with games. I've experienced it, I've experienced it myself.

Just kind of a resensitization to, to progen synthesis to the emtore pathway, right? So when you're constantly stimulating emtore, your body, it's almost becomes like the mute signal, right? It's, it's the idea of that perpetual noise your body stops hearing. So I'm taking a break from it. Same idea with like not eating for eight to eight hours at night when you sleep, like some people are like, I gotta wake up and have a shake in the middle of the night. No, you don't. You have to, you have to, you should fast. Same idea.

But and having that day, you know, I wouldn't suggest two days for us people about 24 hour fast or even like, go warrior 16 or 18 hours. Yeah, like donate in the morning before you got a bad kind of thing or maybe even the morning and donate before like one of whatever. I just disconnecting from the idea of of having to eat every couple hours. I think that would have a huge benefit and have been shown to shift the microbiome. The biggest thing, man, I think if anyone's out there, starting to acknowledge the fact that

you are not what you eat, you're what you absorb. And if you can supplement your microbiome with a diverse array of mitochondrial or microbiome accessible carbohydrates. So, in prebiotics. No, insoluble fibers. So, all those fibers are fueled off insoluble fibers. And if you can take an avastory of different types of fibers, you're going to be fueling these different micro-different bacteria. Yeah, we talked to Dr. Ruscio about that. Chick or E-Root, I think is a good one and certain types of starches. Sure.

And he did talk about, and I wanna make sure I say this on the show, that there are some people where they may benefit from sometimes trimming back their microbiome load. And you'll know you're this kind of person, if you find that you eat a prebiotic like you're talking about and you'll get a horrible gut reaction I was one of these people for a while something that reset me was a 48 or 72 hour fast It brought everything back down then I could eat those things and then my body responded

It could be an inflammatory thing right so your microbiome is Dr. Corley with inflammation So you could just be bringing down the inflammatory mark exactly the other. The other thing that's very fascinating is, you know, Dr. Walter Longo talks a lot about fasting, is doing some of the most amazing research on it, and he does what's called a fasting mimicking diet. But when you're fasting, all of your old cells, if you will, are what start to die off. It's your, you know, you increase apoptosis

and stem cells start to get stimulated. When you eat again, you build up the cells again and they're newer and healthier. And I know that studies have shown 72 hour fast will recycle your white blood cells, almost all of them in animals, which is pretty fascinating stuff. Organs will shrink. You'll actually lose size of your liver when you fast and they're rebuilt. Yeah, maybe by soon. So liver's got a lot of protein Pretty fascinating stuff. Organs will shrink, you'll actually lose size of your liver. When you fasten their rebuild. Yeah, maybe by soon, so livers get a lot of protein in it, right?

So maybe it's just catabolizing the amino acid. Yeah, it's really, really fascinating stuff in this process really does benefit the muscle building process. I've been doing a low protein day now for a couple years and on the low protein day I can feel it, but the day after when I eat that protein. It's like you blow up turbo charge.

It's like turbo charge and this is all important stuff even if your goal is muscle building it's important to stress those things. I think the hard thing that I had with that is as a body boy I think I would have been okay with doing it. It's just picking the day to do it. Like today's legs fuck off. So I gotta have like three days in a row, right? Because if you're gonna train today, you better not fast.

All right, I mean, I would suggest you don't fast if you're having any type of high intensity training. And if you're gonna train tomorrow, you don't wanna train on fast today. So it's like one of those, like most guys don't take more than two days off in a row. And maybe start there. Maybe it's like taking two days off training in a row,

like, oh, hey, that's a big paradigm shift for some guys. You like, I got a chance of it as a week. Cause there's more on set there perpetuating that, which is- That's a big paradigm shift for some guys to you. Like, I got a chance of it in his week, because there's more on set there perpetuating that, which is- That was a big paradigm shift for me, who was being the young skinny kid who was trying to build muscle. I put it in like, oh, the more I'm in here hammering, the more I'm going to grow.

But I was burning so much and not allowing myself to recover that just taking days off. So that just kind of points my brain in the direction of speaking to one thing we talked about in the gym floor with Arthur Jones. And we said, you know, Arthur Jones had something to write and something's wrong. And speaking to that, I think the biggest reason

why a lot of people don't build on not the biggest, but one of the reasons that people don't build their bodies is it's this constant low grades stimulus. So when they're training, the training is seven days a week. So how intense are they training? Hmm, how hard do they workouts? Probably not that hard. Whereas if you trained a little less often, trained a little harder, you probably have a higher level stimulus and you actually get a response from it. And I think that is the first step for people. Like if you're training seven days a

week, step outside the gym for three days and go back and tell me how you felt that day. And if that's still the same intensity you were generating, and when you would do seven days in a row, then keep doing seven days in a row. But you need to be able to take three days off and maintain that level of intensity. Like, how do you guys feel after you take three days off? I know I go back in, I feel like a fucking super here.

Oh yeah, that's cool. My weights go up 20%. Everything's awesome, my strength is awesome. Kind of how I feel every time I get in the gym now, because I'm only training three days a week. So I'm replenished, my intensity's there, my focus is gym now because I'm only training three days a week So I'm replenished my intensities there my focus is there It's almost like you know, you're you have like a caged beast and you're holding me back And they'll see let me go and like boom your intensities to the roof. You're focused to the roof

It's funny how many times I had to feel that though before it got tattooed Sure fucking head, you know, it's like every time I go back god damn every time I give myself rest I feel great, you know what still getting out of that breaking that habit, right? And you know what it's it's probably the, breaking that habit. Right, and you know what? It's probably the nature of the beast, the nature of the alpha male or female to wanna do more and more and more. I was guilty of it just as much if not more than anybody.

Like, you know, if I'm getting in there and I'm crushing it today, I'm gonna get in there and I'm gonna crush it tomorrow. When do you stop? Like, you know, for me, I always was of the mentality, I'm gonna work harder than everybody. So I absolutely overtrained. I absolutely trained too much. And it's hard when you're in it to go, oh, I need a couple days off. You know, that's where having an intelligent coach comes in.

Like, hey man, like push as hard as you can for the short period of time, overreach, and then chill out, or take three days off. What helps me, what helped me a lot with that was also determined to deciphering the difference between a day off and doing nothing. Sure. Or a day off and having active recovery. That changed everything for me. Yeah. Because I was under the impression as a kid that today's my day off, I should sit here and do nothing and let my body go lay.

It's a little bit. When you do that, you actually send a signal to atrophy. I mean, you could train your legs like crazy on Monday and then go to bed and don't move for four days. You're going to come back not stronger. You'll lose muscle. And so when I learned that active recovery was actually more effective for me, stretching mobility, even going into the gym and just moving through full range of motion, stretching and squeezing, boy, did that amplify the muscle building signal that I had sent the day before and we've branded that in our programs.

We call them trigger sessions and maps in a baller or focus sessions and maps aesthetic, but it makes a huge difference to understand that. What about frequency of training? I know bodybuilding or bodybuilders now for a long time have been preaching once a week. Hammer your muscle once a week, rest it until the next week. Sure. What is your belief on that? Do you believe in more frequency, maybe another day a week with less intensity?

I know studies right now are showing there's a few now that have come out, a bit of shown. Yeah, that if you get like, instead of doing, you know, 15 sets one day, you're better off doing five sets three days a week or something like that. Have you looked at the populations? No. Well, one of them was athletes, but the other one I believe was this is usually sedentary. Sedentary.

Yeah, which is normal. So my thought on that is it depends. As always. Of course. Of course. Yeah. So if someone is a lower level trainee, I mean, have been training for a long time

or their execution isn't great, it's a learning curve. It's a learning process. So the amount of stimulus that's actually going into their muscles when the training is very low, so it needs to be more frequent for to optimize the learning curve and optimize just getting more stimulus into that muscle. So someone who isn't really a highly trained athlete

would absolutely benefit from higher frequency. But someone that more advanced to get, I really believe the frequency goes down. So some like myself, if I were to train them also more than every five days, provided that I'm having a tremendous amount of stimulus that in that workout, which I usually am, I think it's probably too much. And then, can that change, of course, based on your cellular nutrient levels.

So like am I nourished or am I depleted? Where am I in my cycle as far as like, am I dieting for a contest and my and caloric excess in the off season? So all those things are variables, man. So but I think that the simplest way to express it to people is if you're new or if you're a beginner, if you're learning something new,

it's a learning curve. If you do it once a week, what's the learning curve? We talked about this when you're training. It's terrible. So if I want to optimize learning curve, I need to go often two to three times a week, sometimes four times a week for some people. And then so you're training with less volume, obviously.

So volume and frequency are inversely proportional. So if I'm training with high frequency, I need low volume. And then for someone the more advanced you get, then you start kind of spreading out your frequency and eventually going into, maybe one session every four to five days. I think that's optimal. But then again, that cycle is back and forth in both directions. So if there's a period where I know my recoverability is lower, my calories are low, I can't sustain

the recovery from a high level volume. So I need to then shift back to higher frequency. So it kind of shifts back and forth, man. And, you know, maybe related to just honestly, the amount of muscle mass that you carry. I mean, when you're, you know, 300 pound bodybuilder and you're doing squats, and I am 180 pound dude doing squats, and we're going at very, very high intensity, there's a lot more shit happening

with that much more weight muscle. Yeah, neurologically as well. So there's a lot of considerations, but that much more weight muscle. Yeah, neurologically as well. So there's a lot of considerations, but I think this is where periodization and programming comes in is just, you're working up to this peak environment of creating as much volume as you can every five days. But how long can you sustain that?

How long do you want us to sustain that as being a novel stimulus? And then once that novel stimulus loses its novelty, well then change it. Then decrease the amount of volume a little bit and increase the frequency a little bit and kind of just go back and forth From that from those I mean and people read you know Need to realize that the human body has an incredible ability to adapt you can adapt to a lot of frequency as well I know Olympic lifters will squat every day twice a day and have from I mean and the recovering fine from that

There's squat and tremendous amounts of weight. It's not a musculoshteneless. No, they're training a movement. Yeah, they're training their CNS. And which is also important if you're looking for, of course, overall, right, function performance, you want to be able to work with both those. I think that's kind of what you're,

well, how do you feel about that feeding into hypertrophy, even if hypertrophy is your main goal, how important do you feel training the central nervous system and training adaptations like a power lifter occasionally? Like do you ever flirt with that as a body builder? I think there's a benefit in strength training, but I wouldn't, if my exclusive goal is is body transformation, muscle building, and hypertrophy, I don't think there's, and I no longer think

there's a need to diverge from perfect execution if I can put that in quotations. So, you know, people go, well, should I do cheat reps and forst reps? And when should I lose my form? And you have shitty form, the answer's never. Because you're just instilling bad habits. Sure. So if your exclusive goal is to hypertrophy,

you want to be a bodybuilder, you want to learn how to train, maximum hypertrophy, maximum body transformation, there's absolutely a place for strength training, which is just shifting the percentage of loads, but there's not a place for strength training being correlated with shitty form. What do you think about, I feel that this was something else I talked about a few years ago, the chasing of PRs, like I didn't even know the term PR 10 years ago. I didn't even heard that. And I feel CrossFit has really brought this to the masses.

And now I see all over PR, this, PR, that, PR, this, and so many people chasing that. What do you, how do you feel about that? Man, I get a lot of slack on social media. For me, the guy that says progressive overload is bullshit, which is like the holy grail of muscle building for most people. And I say that in this very specific context. So most people put progressive overload in the context of more weight on the bar means more muscle. But you got to realize there's more to progressive overload.

So if we're talking about strength training, more weight on the bars is your holy grail. If we talk about hypertrophy, there is absolutely a benefit to quote-unquote progressive overload. But progressive overload for hypertrophy does not equate to weight on the bar. There's more variables to increasing like time and attention. Yeah, load. And so there's more components to force than just load. There's like you speak about time.

There's also distance that people don't think about. So if I'm doing here's an example. Man, this is the analogy I give in my class all the. So if I'm doing, here's an example. Man, this is the analogy I give in my class all the time. If I'm doing a hundred pound dumbbell press, let's say I'm doing a flat bench press dumbbell press. And I'm doing a hundred pounds and I'm doing ten reps. And when I'm doing it, my hands are directly over my elbows. So I'm doing a press and then through the entire rep, my hands stay directly over my elbows.

I do a hundred pounds for a clean rep, a hundred pounds, 10 clean reps. And I go, well that was easy. I wanna go up. So I do go to 110. But now all of a sudden my hands dump two inches inside my elbows. What have I just done?

I decrease the distance from the axis. I decrease the distance from the shoulder joint, which is the joint I'm trying to influence. So I've decreased it by potentially up to 20%. So I've actually decreased the load that's influenced in that joint by up to 20%. So people go, man, I just did 110s today. I'm like, who the fuck cares? Like what did it look like?

They look the same as the hundreds, or they look worse. So the progression may be as simple as, hey, I'm doing 100 pound dumbbells for 10 reps. So well, guys, if you're out there, try changing this. Try taking your hands from me directly over your elbows to take in one inch outside your elbows. So you just increase the distance from the axis a little bit. So you increase the length of the lever a little bit and now I'm doing 10, 20% more work during that set

and that's the first progression, right? And then once you can own that, we talk a lot about ownership in this business. Like I wanna own every inch of that contractile range. Once you do that, then maybe we can go to 110s with my hands directly over my elbows to the entire, you know, see them say, I'm so, most guys, you see every guy, like the 140s and their hands are basically directly over the shoulders, will end up being like a close for your bench press, which is effectively doing nothing for their peck, even though

they think they're doing a bench press. Are you training your triceps, man? Are you training your front delts? You're not really doing much for your peck, because there's no distance from the axis, so the analogy is if I were to hold the dumbbell directly over my head like this, showing you guys, we can see this on a podcast, but if I'm holding a dumbbell directly over my head like where my wrist, elbow and shoulders are stacked, how hard is it? It's really easy.

I can stand there all day. That's the same idea. Whereas if I now, if I put it out all the way lengthened out to my side like in Iron Cross, that's heavy as shit out there, right? And nothing's changed. It's still the same way. It's just changing the distance from the axis. So if I'm doing a dumbbell press and I'm bringing it right over my shoulder joint, what is that doing in my pec? Nothing, but it's doing a lot to my tricep potentially. But what mostly you're trying to influence, right? These are things that people don't consider. And why I say

progressive overload is quote unquote bullshit. I just say it's, you know, ruffles people's feathers a little bit, but just make them think like there's more to it than load. So just because I say, hey man, I did 120's today. Who fucking cares? Right. How did you do? Yeah, it looked the same. It was a better, you know? That's why execution has to be the standard because it's the only way to objective objectively assess progress. Yeah, we talk about that all-time equality. Yeah, quality of your reps, like rather than adding weight to the bar on your squat, get your squat better, get better control. And defining what that objectively means, right?

Right, right. So we're really clear on when we teach this stuff, it's like, what's the objective? Am I trying to turn my quads or am I trying to turn my glutes? Or am I trying to do a powerlifting squat? Which one is my objective? Right. And learning how to manipulate the exercise to influence either one. Mm-hmm.

So if I'm doing a quad-based squat, it's fucking completely different than I'm doing a glute plate-based squat, and completely different than I'm doing a power-based squat. They're all just completely different, but when you guys write a program, why do a squat? What the fuck does that mean? It's completely different thought process, man. It's a completely different execution,

and we can go through videos, all that stuff, if you guys want to do it for your followers, man, it'd be cool, it's actually diving to that. Yeah, when you come visit us, we gotta do sure. That's our big class. Yeah, dude, it's the simplest thing to see visually, but people are like, oh, I never thought about that before.

I'm like, it's a fucking completely different exercise. Well, there's so many ways to make the muscle do more work. And the last way that you should go to is adding weight to the bar, because that also happens to be the most risk for injury. And the heavier you go, the more likely your body is to revert to muscle recruitment patterns that are your

defaults. And many times those default recruitment patterns are the ones you don't necessarily want. The strongest muscles. So your body is always going to revert back to its strengths. So if you're trying to develop your weaknesses, then you should probably not allow the source of strength to enter the equation.

Absolutely. Oh shit equation. Absolutely. Oh shit man. Yeah. Great conversation brother. Yeah great time dude. Great time going on. Great time and on huh? Yeah seriously.

No we'll definitely do this again for sure man. Definitely have you into our place and hopefully we'll have you down over at Tahoe man. I'm going to have those dates until or two. I'd love to have you there. Yeah it's been a pleasure having you on brother. Thanks you guys. It's been a pleasure having you on, brother. Thank you, man. Check this out.

Go to YouTube and check out Mind Pump TV. We post a new video every single day. You can also check us out on Instagram at Mind Pump Media. You can find my page at Mind Pump Sal. Adam's at Mind Pump At Him and Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

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