Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 585: Rich Piana & the Dark Side of Bodybuilding

Episode Date: August 31, 2017

Five days ago the bigger than life bodybuilding icon Rich Piana passed away. Rich openly discussed his use of anabolic steroids and was known to advise followers to not use drugs. In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the dark side of bodybuilding. Bodybuilding can be a very unhealthy sport and building such a body can come at a very high price. If you are hell-bent on being a bodybuilder what can you do to avoid going down the path of failed organs and an early death? Listen to this episode to find out! RIP Rich Piana. Guys talk Game of Thrones finale (2:12) Justin’s new truck gets “bad” oil change (5:31) Poured oil in his radiator! Integrity Automotive Service: Auto Care Scotts Valley & Santa Cruz The dark side of bodybuilding (11:49) Dallas McCarver and Rich Piana passed away Dallas McCarver choked on food Argument of lifestyle choice or anabolic steroids Rooted in insecurities Bodybuilders abuse other drugs than anabolic steroids Whole life spent in the gym Selfish Sport Impact on hormones People who get into fitness look at bodybuilders as role models Their programming Their diet Take drugs Consumption (or lack) of calories bodybuilders consume Perception of being healthy Poor relationship with food Identity crisis You are not your body Rich Piana very honest about his lifestyle Adam talks about his genetics being not tailor-made to be a bodybuilder Adam talks about coaching current client for her first show (48:12) Increasing activity Carb cycling Water intake Final thoughts (59:40) See more honest people in the industry Treat as sport Get yourself to the leanest you have been, naturally (practice) Can be a healthy lifestyle, just not the extreme Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it 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! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. 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! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpradio) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND lately. It's been a while since we've done an episode that we didn't have either an interview or we had a Q&A where we just talked about some fucking chick going on in the industry. Discussing things. Yeah, we, I mean, we start off by kind of doing some chit chat and we talked about some popular shows and theaters and game of thrones and Justin's truck disaster. A lack of integrity. But then, you know,. But then earlier we were talking about kind of rich Piana who just passed away, and then the world of bodybuilding, the dark side of bodybuilding. So most of this episode,

we talk a little bit about that. And I ask Adam quite a few questions about how he coaches people through this process and what it's like before a show and after a show, and just a mental side because I've never competed myself but I know quite a few people have competed and for those of you who have competed you know that there is a dark side to this extreme you know fitness and we need more.

Adam coaches out there for sure. Yeah and it's kind of a it's a it can be a dangerous sport in terms of nutrition. It can be dangerous in terms of the drug use. The training can be excessive. Just the whole mental side of it. So we talk a lot about that in this particular episode. Also, I think today's the final day. It is.

For the promotion, right? If you want to get on that forum for free before it goes up, this is the final day to get free access to our Mind Pump Private Forum on Facebook. All you need to do is enroll in any of our maps programs or any of our bundles, including our Super Bundle, which includes most of our programs. It's one year of exercise programming.

So enrolling any of that stuff, and you get access to our forum for free You can find it all at mine pump media.com Hey that game is wrong. Oh my god, dude. Holy fuck It's gonna be tough waiting. How long we get away till next year like 2019 What that's what I heard so you know, it's funny How long we get away till next year? Like 2019. What? That's what I heard. So you know what's funny? This is what I was thinking while I'm watching this.

Okay, seven million people watching this. Doug, are we hot? Yeah, we are. Seven million people watching this. This is what I was thinking last night. Okay. Okay. Somebody needs to do this.

I don't know why we haven't seen this already in Hollywood. When you have a show like that, get seven million people, and I don't remember what a big box. When you have a show like that, get seven million people, and I don't remember what a big box office hit is for a movie theaters, but tell me you would not go watch a three hour movie, this January, on just that, the ending. Like could you imagine it all three hours? All like three hours. Of course it's going to go to Opus. Yeah. It's got to go that direction, right? Why wouldn't it? Because they've already made movies based on video games.

Wow. They've made movies obviously based on both. Well, video games have superseded revenue wise. So, on Tarraj kinda did this. On Tarraj kinda did this. I don't know if you guys know that or not, but on Tarraj went to the movies. So there was a movie on Tarraj,

and it was basically just a longer extended version of the show. It was okay, but it wasn't, it was basically just a longer extended version of the show. It was okay, but it wasn't, it was no different. It wasn't like the finale, right? It wasn't. It wasn't the finale. It was just entourage the show and they can, and I'm sure it made enough money to have paid for the budget that it had on it, so it was fine.

But I think something like this, like the lead up tell me, you do that to walking dead. You can do that to some of these other real partners. You're breaking bad. A lot of these, a lot of these really big ones with deep plots right a deep plot and then you have a two hour or three hour film or even a two part you know two two hour movies that you sell at the movie theaters and then you then you fucking rake it but then you got to ask yourself like are are they getting to the point where it's not going to be? You know what I mean? Where it's not as profitable as I'm investing

that money in time. Well, they're already, like, think about it, right? You already have the money, you're already paying the money for the hours to create the series and do all those things. How much more different is it to create it as a movie? Well, that's what I'm saying, to promote it, put it out.

Like, at some point, I personally think at some point, Hollywood, big Hollywood production movies are gonna go down, because it costs so much to make. It's such a big gamble. It could be more of a paper view thing, right? So you could have a big place to host it. I see what you're saying though. Yeah, yeah, cause it's totally an event.

Everybody's like, totally salvage it. I would pay at least, okay, I just paid for McGregor's fight at a hundred bucks to watch that thing. Right. To watch a Game of Thrones four hour special of like, well, how this thing is supposed to play out now or what's at extension to what we just finished, like, especially getting me right after this week, like next weekend, pay-per-view $175, watch the four hour Game game of thrones, man, fucking A, I'm paying. Four hours. No, and the high-deaf upgrade, and for both TVs if I have to,

whatever, dude, that's, I'm paying for that. Oh, I'm eating popcorn. Right, there's no way I'm not doing that. That's crazy though. Why are there a huge UVs in there? Somebody's school me, we always have somebody on our form who is really smart and has experienced somewhere in a field that I am talking about.

I know nothing about it. They let us know. So, look at this. Look at Modius on the sidebar of Doug's computer. Oh yeah. Oh, looming us around. Yeah. Probably because he looked it up at some point.

Of course. Justin, I want to hear about what happened to your truck, dude. You were all pissed off or something. Yeah, because, okay, this is probably like right before you guys, well probably right after you guys left, but I I had used my time here to Get some errands done that you know have like you guys are gone whatever. I decided to take my truck in to just get a oil change and so I didn't take it to Like, you know the dealership or anything and it's a brand new truck

Um, just for an oil change. Yeah, but it's an oil change, right? Yeah, you know, the dealership or anything and it's a brand new truck. Just for an oil change. But it's an oil change, right? You can't fuck up. No, you got a jiffy loop or whatever. Yeah, so into this loop, you know, quick loop, and it was like an extension of this place, which I'm debating whether or not to blast their name out right now.

So I may come back and blast them later. Tell us the story and then the animal decided to little decided to finish sure no problem. Okay, so Maybe you're just emotional. Yeah, exactly. We'll help you. Okay, cool. So basically I got the oil change, you know, it took like ridiculous amount of time for them to do it. They're just You know taking their sweet ass time with it. So already up shit Creek with you. Just pissed off, because next door was a park. So I was like, oh, this is convenient. I can like, you know, go with my kids and we'll go to the park and then come back.

I'll be done four hours. It took four hours. Was there a line or something? No, not really. I mean, they're just like fucking taking their sweet ass time. Just to do oil, you nothing else? Nothing else. No timing bells, anything, anything.

Wow. Nothing, right? So I basically bells, anything, and crate. Wow, nothing. Right? So I basically finally, like they're done, I get them. Like, yeah, that took a long time on. Like, ah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, we're waiting on some special oil or whatever bullshit, you know? And so I went a couple days and realized, my truck's leaking.

Like it's leaking oil. And like, what the fuck did? Like I have this like puddle in my driveway. Oh, sure. And I look and it's like kind of like, it's like a creamy oil. It's like not just like oil. It's like a cream like, you know,

it's mixed in with something else. And so kind of was like, oh fuck, I gotta take this back, you know, something happened. Like I gotta take a back, they gotta look at it. Like maybe it's something wrong with filter or whatever. So they're going back and then they're kind of shuffling and they're like, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe like it's not like it's tight of a seal

because they use the different type of filter whatever and then they're like, you know, and they're kind of squabble and trying to make sense of it, whatever, and then they're like, you know, and they're kind of squabble and trying to make sense of it, whatever. And then finally, like, after they've tried and figured out, oh, we noticed another horrendous problem with your truck. I'm just like, what the fuck are you talking about? I was a brand new truck. They bring me back and show me underneath the undercarriage and everything. And that creamy consistency, that fluid on the other side

was just all over the place. It was leaking excessively. And they're like horrible problems, probably a factory issue, it was probably a factory problem. You know, like they showed me that basically what had happened was all this oil was mixed in with the coolant and they're like oh my god Maybe it went in through like the engine block and oh fuck maybe you blew a head gasket Did these guys pour oil and you're fucking radiator? You fucking jumped the gun and yes

These motherfuckers poured oil in my coolant Are you fucking that stupid? No wonder it took so long These motherfuckers poured oil in my coolant. Are you fucking that stupid? No wonder it took so long. Oh, bro, we can sell this. Who's the come business? We have to sell it. Wait, hold on, how do you know that?

They did that or whatever. Because I took it to the dealership and they like assessed the whole thing because I had to get it towed all the way to San Jose. And you need how they know, bro. If you got fucking radiator. One other time. If you have coolant and oil mix, for sure,

that's what they had to do. Yeah, but they're trying to say that like, it came in like, it was a factory issue. And they're trying to look at all these forums to justify their fucking shitty job, right? And so, oh shit, how do you fix that now? Well, they had to replace my radiator and all the hoses and everything,

but it's actually, that's the blessing. Because like, the other alternatives, I have to get my my radiator and all the hoses and everything but it's actually that's the blessing Because like the other alternatives I have to get like a whole new engine. Oh my god. Yeah So yeah, you could definitely get shot their name out. Yeah fucking integrity. I'll know Suck my dick. That's that's the name of the business integrity. I was gonna go there spray paint. No That's the name of the business integrity. I was gonna go there spray paint no You don't deserve that name so no one that took four hours will probably happen is some numb nuts Probably fucked up and they'll fuck what do I do now? I bet you I bet you I bet you money your rights out because that is way too long for an oil chain Especially one of those places that motherfucker probably fucked up, probably tried to fix it.

Try to fix it for four hours. Right. And they're like, ah shit. Put a drain well. Yeah. We'll just leave it in there. So and here's why you're allowed to, because you know what mistakes happen, right? Yeah.

And I'm not, and you guys have been. Which would have been great if they would have admitted it, not tried to cover it up. Okay. See then, that's how I feel like. I wouldn't blast them. I feel like how you handle it afterwards is what really matters. Because everybody has,

everyone fucks up in my pocket. Because they dismiss it immediately. Like, oh, your warranty will cover this. Your warranty, and they're trying to like push me out. You know what I mean? And I'm like, wait, that doesn't leave you, you know, like innocent from this. Like you fucked up, admit you fucked up

and do something about it. Right, right. So what was the dealership saying when you got there, they were like, what the fuck? Was it, yeah, they you fucked up, admit you fucked up and do something about it. Right, right. So what was the dealership saying when you got there, they were like, what the fuck? Yeah, they were just like, they're like baffled by it. Did they say this happened? Has ever happened to another truck before? I didn't say any of that.

There was nothing in the forums, like he was just pulling shit off the internet on Google and like Googling shit. And like, you can find anything on Google. Fucking guy, fucking Sal. Yeah Well, let me see if it's Yeah, watch you'll probably find 10 things right now. I had oil in my cool. It's fucking weird on the on the keto Holy fuck I'm a keto forum. There's somebody

Still don't have it I. So he died last week. It's actually somebody did. Speaking of dying too, we had a rough, we rough like little while here. It's huge. It's huge. Huge. Mames.

Huge names in the bodybuilding world passed away this past week. You know, and I got all these inboxes and messages because I would only get a reception on my phone when I hit the ports. And I saw it everywhere. And I actually, I wouldn't paid for some Wi-Fi time just so I could look this up because I couldn't believe it that both Dallas Macarver and Rich Piana died this last week.

And Dallas Macarver is only 26 years old. He's a fucking baby. Wow dude. You know what's, whenever something like this happens because you guys know I was a big fan of bodybuilding in the 90s, you know as a kid growing up. And there were quite a few bodybuilders from the 90s that died or had some chronic health issue. And what always happens when somebody dies who's's in bodybuilding, is you get the knee jerk reaction of people who are like, oh, it's tons of steroids, tons of steroids.

It's a can't stand that either. But then you get the flip knee jerk reaction. The other side, which is like, no, it wasn't steroids. There was a safe, the lifestyle had nothing to do with it. You know, it's, it was something else. You wrote a really good post. So if you're listening to this and you haven't read the post at Sal Road, I thought it was I thought it was well written and I think both sides need to hear that because I think you're so right I think that you this when something like this happens we get it we divide everybody either Your pro steroids so much that it's just like it can never be that it could never be any like that They're totally fine

We have plenty and that you can argue that all day long that we've got all this stuff to show that you can be completely healthy and utilized and pretty much your whole entire life and in fact there's even some health benefits to taking them so yes I've seen and heard all the fucking debates in science then you have the other side that wants to blame you know and start connecting all these these bodybuilders dying to correlations to steroids. So no, there's so first off There's a bit of both going on here. There can definitely be a little bit of both And I think we should talk about this because we have a lot of people who listen Who are maybe not necessarily competitors, but they follow the world or they're very motivated by

You know building muscle and in kind and they know of that world. I mean, I was like that as a kid. I know Adam, obviously, was a pro physique competitor. So he's in that world. So first off, Dallas Macarver, the story is that he died choking on food. So I had that would have nothing to do with. That's the current story as of the time of this recording.

So that has nothing to do with bodybuilding lifestyle and thing else. That could happen. Anybody do with the body building lifestyle and anything else. That could happen anybody. And it does actually happen quite a bit, very sad, but it happens actually quite a bit. Do you know statistically, I know your Mr. Stats and Remberall's stuff, do you have any idea of how many Americans die a year from choking?

I don't know, but it's like, I mean, because I actually thought that was really rare. And you actually, no, it's quite significant. I think it actually happens more often than I think. It's actually it's actually relatively can a high number of people every year. I know Doug's trying to pull up more than five thousand. We would die from choking in 2000. Wow.

So 5,000 people died from choking in 2015, which still in the grand scheme is actually extremely rare. Because when you look at it, you know know that's what in the world right there so i mean you're talking about i don't think that's the world i think that's the u.s you think that's u.s. yeah that's u.s. uh... even then though it's still still five thousand it really how many how many billion do we have in the united states uh... few billion right

a hundred million three hundred million oh i thought we were i thought we were in the bill we're not billiard that's china that's china a few billion right? 300 million. 300 million. Oh I thought we were in the billi- We're not billi- That's China. That's China. It's like China and China. 3 billion in the entire world right?

Yeah. More people choke- Seven billion. We're all looking on. Fuck you. Let's throw numbers out there. Is that fall under geography? Is that fall over that?

That's what I don't know. It was never my thing. Yeah. You know what? Shit. You know what? It's important, but that's a good, it's never my thing. Yeah, man. But, you know, you know what, it's important, but that's a bigger number than a lot of the things that we're scared of, like people like assault rifles don't kill nearly as many.

Police don't kill as many people. Assault rifles don't kill as many. No, not even close. The game violence all over the world. Not even five, Doug, you got to have to Google this now. Now you got me and now you got to go. But now done. But now gun challenging you the Google master right now. Yeah, no assault rifles. So the vast majority of deaths by gun are done by handguns.

Assault rifles are such a tiny fraction of total gun deaths. So that's funny when you, the reason why I'm at wanting to look because before I make a statement like that's crazy because we put so much emphasis on getting rid of these fully automatic weapons, because they're so dangerous when in reality. There's a few thousand people hanging and concealed that. Yeah, that's ridiculous. But anyhow, growing up in the 90s, there was all these bodybuilders that I followed that

died. And a lot of them were the result of their lifestyle. So it's not just, because the argument is, the steroids, it's the steroids or it's not the steroids. And I don't like to say it's the steroids. I like to say it's the lifestyle that makes it such a, I guess dangerous sport, although the sport itself

is not dangerous. Again, it's the whole lifestyle, but Mike Moderato, bodybuilder that I followed quite a bit in the 90s, love the guy, died of heart attack, I think it was like 47. And Dreas Munster, you guys remember Dreas Munster? Super shredded bodybuilder, died of what, you know, internal bleeding, probably the result of all the

doretics and other drugs that he was on at the time. Muhammad Benaziza duretics. There was, God, let me see if I can look up. Oh, great covax. Do you guys remember him? He was like this massive bodybuilder. Didn't place very well, but he died of liver failure. The men's or brothers died.

Nasr El-Sombadi, who was very, very high ranking bodybuilder. That was the black guy, right? No, no, no. He was like that, Middle Eastern bodybuilder. He was a massive bodybuilder, and he lost competitions because his back was really good-looking black guy that battled Arnold. Don, oh, Arnold.

I thought it started with an N. Oh, Serge DeBray. That's what it was. But he died at an older age. I'm talking about guys that are dying in their 50s and 40s. You know, I'm saying that's early. It's we should talk a little bit about the lifestyle of this extreme bodybuilding and just what it kind of promotes because some of these people die of. Well, I don't think that is not related necessarily to bodybuilding, but I think that extreme lifestyle kind of lends itself.

It's funny. You wrote what you did on it. And that's why I really urge people to go check it out if they haven't been your page lately. I was talking to Katrina when the news came up and I was explaining to her that people don't realize that 300 pounds on a body is unhealthy just as almost as bad for if you're obese and as if you're fit you don't realize that. I'm fit by fit. I mean muscle and lean. The body just was not made to carry around that much weight. It puts a lot of stress on all of your organs, your skeletal system,

like your ligaments, your joint, everything is stressed on that body. It's just not natural to carry that much weight all the time. And it's a lot of work for all those organs and stuff to operate that, whether it's your soup. Now, mind you, the guy who is 300 pounds and eight or 10% body fat, you could argue as potentially healthier than the 300 pound obese person. But not that much more.

It's like in nature, you know, like the bigger dogs and, you know, the bigger animals and like it's the lifespan is significantly different. Yeah. For the most part, not always. Not always. You're right though, Justin, but for the most part, but I mean, think of the amount, let's just, let's forget the drugs for a second. Let's not even talk about the drugs.

Because to be honest with you, steroids, if you use properly are safe-ish. They're not safe. There's always risks, but they're safe-ish if you use them properly. We won't even talk about the abuse of the drugs yet. Let's just talk about the diet. If you're a 300-pound shredded bodybuilder, you're eating a lot of fucking food. Right. High amounts of protein, lots of just- If you're a digestive system, when it has to go through, how much work it has to do. You're putting miles on an operating system in your body that are unnecessary, right?

It's not, and that's what I, and I know I, I'm sure I probably piss people off when I said that, you know, there, obese person that's 300 pounds and the shredded person who's healthier at, you know, that's an exaggeration. But you did exaggeration for sure. But you gotta consider all the things that they're doing, like, okay, right. And this is what I'm talking about. you got to consider all the things that they're doing like, okay, right?

And this is what I'm talking about. They're assisted that all these systems that you're stressing, you got to think like their his digestive system, right? And I don't know because I don't know their exacting has, but I'm sure that if he's carrying that much muscle mass and he's training as hard as he is, guys got to be eating upwards of 6,000 plus calories. Well, Rich Piana, I think eight or nine meals a day, he drank massive protein shakes.

The thing about Rich that I really respected is that he was blunt and straight about it. Yeah, and he also talked about his dysfunction. Like, this is not a healthy lifestyle. This is not something I advocate. You know, don't do what I'm doing. Think about the roots of what causes someone to push themselves to that limit of anything,

of any extreme, right? It's usually rooted in some kind of deep-seated insecurity. And it's not just bodybuilding. It's any type of extreme endeavor where someone's pushing themselves so hard to the point where they're killing themselves and, many times, consciously doing it, whether you're obese because you're over fat or you're a bodybuilder or you push yourself and other endeavors, many times you're doing things that are not healthy for you,

but in bodybuilding in particular, you're doing so much damage to yourself. I wish we had our boy Ben Pekolsky on today to talk with him about this because I think he has an awesome perspective, and I know, without even talking to him right now, I already know like he would have so much to say on this topic as a man who has gone through this and is now in search of this, you know, trying to lose 100 pounds of muscle and why that's

so important to him. And how challenging. Yeah, right. I would say that's probably, that's more of a mind-fucked than losing 100 pounds of fat. I would assume you guys. Oh my God, it's gotta be. Yeah, how would you go about losing?

I know it's a mind-fuck for me, just the difference between when I'm ready for a stage versus now and just that. It's a, it is a, it takes a very self-aware and emotionally intelligent person to be able to separate that body that you're building for stage and to be competitive and real life you and how it's very hard to

separate the two of them. It takes so much dedication and work to be at that size and that life. It's a lifestyle that if you have any kind of insecurities, if there's anything, if you're not mentally sound, and you go into extreme bodybuilding, it's gonna take whatever issues you have, and it's gonna amplify them. It's like you're not just putting your body on steroids,

you're putting your issues on steroids, figuratively speaking. You are amplifying all these issues because the lifestyle itself is extremely selfish. It just is. You know, if you're eating six, seven, planned out meals a day, you're training a certain amount of time, you're taking anabolic, you're... And you're... I'm talking about the extreme bodybuilding, by the way. I'm not just talking about people who bodybuild. I'm talking about extreme bodybuilding. It's a very extreme lifestyle, not only that, but you've already crossed the line, so to speak,

when it comes to consuming tremendous amounts of black market drugs, that many of these bodybuilders also abuse other drugs, not just antibox steroids. People don't talk about that. Bodybuilders at this level, I've known quite a few of them, and all of them, a few of them, and all of them, almost all of them, have abused painkillers at some point, have abused other recreational drugs. GHB. Yeah, other types of things, and I've known some of them who've

died, not from their drugs, the steroids, but from other drugs. Other drugs. Coke and so on. You're doing a lot of pills and powders and things like that that don't put calories on you, right? You'd rather do something like that as a bodybuilder for the most part, like not everybody's this way, then drink alcohol, you know, so. But you're also in that mindset already. You know, you're already in the mindset of where you're not,

you know, the way you judge your health is very different. It's just how you look. And you're using substances to make exactly to feel a certain way. So other drugs, then it blurs the lines, with other things. And so I've known quite a few bodybuilders who just abused other recreational drugs as a result.

I mean, think of the abuse that you put through your body. Adam, you competed, like, to just to get on stage, the abuse you have to do for your body. And that's if you do it right. Yeah, no, I used to tell people as I was going through the journey, like, you know, I'm going to do this as healthy as I can, right? As far as making decisions and the things that I would do to get that lean in that shredded to stay as healthy as possible is keeping a good balance with my training.

So I'm not overdoing it. I'm still having a day off here and there. And I'm not, you know, working out twice a day and doing all this crazy amounts of cardio. And because I know that's not sustainable for a long time. So I want to get in the best shape as I can before I start really crossing those lines. But it's inevitable. Once you get down to it, if you're going gonna compete in the IFBB and at the professional level,

it's inevitable that anabolic are gonna be involved, it's inevitable that you're gonna push your body to extremes that are unhealthy, because the only way you're winning a show is if you're coming in sub three percent body fat, and that is not healthy. It's not healthy to keep your body there, nor is it healthy to really take it there.

Now, there is, now I do think there is something about pushing your body to new levels of leanness and stretching those. Like I think there was a lot, I think when I did my first fat to fit journey where I was 19% body fat and I came all the way down to seven, I think that was extremely healthy. And I think I did it as healthy as I possibly could. And there was, and it was good for my body to see that Low of a body fat percentage and then kind of level out around 9 to 11 percent because I think that's a much healthier Sustainable range for my body and everybody's uniquely different, but most certainly nobody

Should be walking around under 3% body fat. It's just that puts a lot of stress on all the, everything's on high alert. Think of it like that. When the body is that low of body fat, because fat on our body is that extra reserve tank of fuel when it needs it, right? It's its resource. It's like, it's your savings account, right? And you're running, when you're running that low, you are constantly flirting with that overdrafting, you know, flirting with pushing those boundaries where you're going, now you're be having negative effects. Yes, you're fit and lean and you're healthy, but then you're

flirting with, that's a little unhealthy to push myself that far. It's just the extreme lifestyle of bodybuilding that competitive lifestyle is it can be so unhealthy in so many different ways in the sense that you're either pushing yourself beyond what you should to gain or you're pushing yourself beyond where you should to lose or you're taking things to help you sleep or you're taking things to suppress your appetite or to stimulate your appetite. You're on anabolic, you're eating tremendous amounts of food and protein. I mean, kidney issues is way more common in probioty builders than it is in the regular population. And I actually had people comment

and message me after I did that post because I was very respectful. I have, by the way, I respect the sport quite a bit. Like I said, I'm a big fan. I understand what goes into it. And I respect it. It's just I'm right. I talk about the same way that a fucking grown ass man straps on his helmet gets into a professional football game too. We know that we know the studies that are coming out on the damage That's doing long or a man that gets in a ring and puts gloves on and decides to let his head get boxed around for fucking 12 rounds. Yeah They're not long-term and they get the none of them are healthy for you. Okay. I know all of anything Repetitively done over and over and at that extreme is never going to be all things.

See, the thing that worries me about bodybuilding that I try to speak out a lot about is that people who get into fitness, many times were motivated because we want to change how we look, but a lot of people who get into fitness then look at these people as the role models to help themselves. They have the most issues, man. And it's the, you don't want to look there. You don't want to do what they do because for the most part, your body can't handle what they do anyway.

So it's not like you'll be able, you're not going to get the results that they get if you copy them. I mean, let's just start, let's just start with the workout program. Like if you follow a pro bodybuilder, pro athletes, workout routine, your body probably can't handle it. So you're not only not going to get results, you're going to get worse results. But let's say you copy their diet, let's say I look at a pro bodybuilder and I say, oh shit, I'm going to eat like that because I want to be, you'll just get obese and sick and you might not even be able to digest it. Or they'll say, okay, I need to take all

these drugs. These bodybuilders can also handle these drugs. Most people can't even handle them. I mean, if you put the average person on some of the doses that some of these guys take of everything from growth hormone insulin to testosterone, many of them are gonna have horrible side effects far worse than some of these pro bodybuilders and not even be able to survive them as well.

It's just all the way around. It's a difficult lifestyle. I've heard people say to me, like, oh, if the lifestyle's so unhealthy, we're all the bodies. You're not looking. Just do a simple Google search and Google bodybuilders of the 90s who have died. You'll see a list of 20 or 30 bodybuilders or bodybuilders of the 90s who've had kidney transplants. There's quite a few of them. Flex Wheeler, being one of them had to have his kidneys removed and now I know he's gonna compete again, you know, coming up.

It's kind of sad to talk about, because again, I respect the sport and stuff, but it's I think something that needs to be talked about. Well, it's stream life. And I wish there was more that were like Ben Pukolsky or like myself that are sharing all of the truth behind it. I think there's nothing wrong with this.

I loved it. I enjoyed the shit out of it while I did it for sure. And there was a lot of positive things that I got from it, but I think that by no means that I ever make people think that this is a healthy lifestyle or something that you should aspire to be like and do. In fact, I would tell people at this point, this is where this gets unhealthy. And what I don't like, and where I think I speak out a lot

on is, I look at all the men's physique and the now men's classic and pro bodybuilder guys. And these dudes that are year in, or day in, day out, year in, year out, just never leave their whole life is wrapped around this gym to have this incredible physique year round. And you know, all the, all the cred goes to the,

I mean, it's unreal what some of these guys can do and maintain year round is unbelievably impressive. But the average person, if they knew what that entailed and what that person, that person's real life really looked like, probably wouldn't want it. They think it because they see all the, on Instagram, they see all the, because we all put our best foot forward, you know, I'm saying the cool, the cool trips and the fast cars and the awesome clothes and the hot chicks and the buff pictures. Like you put all the good shit on there. So everybody thinks that these guys who live in the gym, you know, two days, you know, two times a day, seven days a week, year around and carry their food or where they go day in, day out like that. They've got these awesome lives. Like, I'm willing to bet some of these actually sacrifice a lot. and most of these guys that are honest and talk about the ship behind the show will tell you that man it's a very selfish

for how tough is it on a relation oh it's incredibly I so crazy thing this is why I've got so much love from my girl because before I ever competed I dated a girl that competed and she was she had incredible physique she went by her second show she was already uh, she had an incredible physique. She went to buy her second show. She was already qualified to go to USA's. She took second in USA's and we were together for three shows. And I remember telling her after the second show, like I'm ever asking her, like, is this going to be what we do all the time? Because this is not what I wanted.

I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for the girlfriend that every time we order out, I have to, we have to hear everything out, go ask the chef and get all these details on it and then bring in our Tupperware and pouring it on the play. Like I was just, oh, we don't want to go there because I don't want to be tempted to eat this. Like I was just, I was over it after two shows with her and I expressed that to her and I remember what it felt like to be the partner who wasn't competing. And then for Katrina to stick with me through six shows,

pretty much consecutively, because I didn't take any time off of her year and a half, almost two years. I mean, God, she's unreal, man. And I'm an asshole as it is. So imagine I'm an asshole, then on top of that. Then you're a cranky asshole. Right, and then I'm unbelievably selfish too.

It's like, it's the most self, and so you gotta think of what kind of stress that puts on their personal relationships, their friendships, their sexual relations. How's that, your sex drives all over the fucking place. You're messing with your hormones. So, one week I'd be fucking horny as shit, and then it would go two weeks I wouldn't wanna have sex.

Like, you know, you're up and down with all that stuff. We put this whole, you know, we put this, we put our, yeah, facade on, like we're so, it's so great and we're so ripped. Yeah, and don't get me wrong. Still this day, I've mentioned on this podcast multiple times, one of the most memorable moments of my life was being in Vegas after USA's,

and knowing I was the fittest motherfucker in that entire place. Yeah, but you know, that was, that, that part cool, you know what I'm saying, but you have to be able to disconnect from that. And you went into it different, do that once, you know, or like twice or you know whatever, like it's cool, it's fine.

You know, it's just like the lifestyle element of it, like you said, like I just can't, I can't imagine people like loving that forever, you know, it's just like so ridiculous. When I have people who will inquire about coaching for me and they'll say, I'm thinking about competing and almost, almost never do I tell them, because I'm always very honest and almost never do I say, I think it would be a great idea for you. And it's not because I have something against competing.

That's not it. It's that I think you need to be very sound, very sound in mind and in body and in spirit to enter into that type of a lifestyle, which is a 24-7 lifestyle. It's 24-7. And how many people do you think you've met in your life that are like that?

Exactly, not very many. Like, it's a 24-7 lifestyle because sleep is included, water is included, food is included, training is included, there's drugs involved many times, there's the, there's a little bit of a self-selection bias because people who tend to want to look at certain way, tend to also be motivated by some kind of insecurity, either they were fat, or they were skinny, or they just don't like the way they look.

So there's a little bit of that already. So now they're gonna compete and stand on stage where they're getting completely judged and scrutinized by how they look. That's all it's about. And you're getting judged against other people who look amazing. It's a totally different world.

You get so engulfed in this world that crazy becomes normal because now you're hanging around with other competitors. Now, it's like going on a forum, it would be like me having eating disorder, but I just around other people with eating disorders. And now we're just talking about it as totally normal. You enter into this world where all this craziness is normal, and it just amplifies all these problems in you, and it can cause some serious issues. And the benefit, the flip side of it, is you win a trophy.

It's a very difficult thing for me to recommend. Unless I find someone like Adam's very self-secure, self-aware person, business oriented, you went into it for business. And he had his own challenges. You've talked about how you even had your own challenges doing it. It's just a... Well, it's the same thing.

I mean, with sports, you mentioned other sports. And I do feel like, you know, at a certain point, like you need to challenge yourself, of course. And like you want to stretch your capacity further to see where your limitations lie. and there's nothing wrong with that That's actually something I would recommend No, no matter what that looks like, you know, so I'm not here to to bash I know you know a lot of people probably think I bash a lot on bodybuilding and all that kind of stuff in that world

And I don't it's not I it is long as you know, this is a sport and it's in your head that it's a sport It's not that you what you're, you know, this is a sport and it's in your head that it's a sport. It's not that what you're doing is healthy. Like, if, and you're professing that me taking, you know, these supplements and then me living and eating, you know, these scheduled meals and carrying this shit with me and interacting with people the way I do is the way you have to live to have a healthy life. Right. Or you look like that, right? It looks like that. So, you know, just, I guess, perspective, you know, just make sure that, you know, going into it, it's like, okay, this is my intention. You know, I want to look my best I've ever looked and, you know, I want to see where I get. And then

if I want to improve on that again and do another one, great. But, you know, like, let's remove the health part of it. And's work on that adjacent to that. So, Dallas MacArthur allegedly choked on food more than likely, probably having to shovel down quite a bit of food, because that's another thing. And we talked about this off air about what it's like to have to try and consume upwards of 6,000 plus calories. I know there's a point and I know right where it's at for me, right when I get to a certain

point and I kind of briefly talked about this on my Insta story about a month ago where I was pushing to gain. Once I get to a point where I'm about 225 to 228 pounds. My body says, I'm at it's upper limit that it really wants, but from there on out, I can feel it. Everything from how much I have to force feed myself, I have to really, and that sounds crazy, but that's if you are trying,

if putting on that more weight becomes more of the goal than these are the necessary things I have to do in order to do that. And at one point, you have to ask yourself, like, how much do I care? But you've got to go in knowing that, where I think that a lot of these bodybuilders portray it, as like you said, Justin, I think that it's,

I'm healthy and that we celebrate with all these food pictures and how shredded and lean I look and watch me eat my pop tart and still look this way. So I think you're so right too with most of the people. I mean, what I was most blown away with when I got into competing was, in my career, and we throw out numbers, I've probably had probably a thousand, maybe two thousand clients that I've personally trained one on one over all the years, maybe more. And nowhere near, so the total of them,

the nowhere near was there the same amount of bad relationships with food and insecurities that I saw with the hundreds I met in bodybuilding. And that, to me, I was not ready for that. It's funny to me, shame on me, silly me, I should have known like been in this industry for as long as I have, but I've never been behind the scenes of the, and I like, I wasn't like you

or I even followed the pro bodybuilder world. So I really was, for a guy who competed in the IFBB, I've just fucking was really disconnected from them. I'm this glue list, really really to a lot of these guys, but it was very fascinating for me to see this and go, wow, so many of these people have, and more than the, you know, I'm used to that as a trainer, how many times have you had the super shy girl who walks in with her head down and she's a hundred pounds overweight, she doesn't even want to make eye contact with you and she talks really poorly about herself. Like that's a common thing. You see that as a trainer. Like it's a very common thing.

It was more common in the bodybuilding world. That blew me away. Part of it is because a big part of it is when you are competing and being scrutinized and judged on your body, and you train and focus so much time on your body, where a lot of times it's all day, like that's what you think about, that's what you do all day long. That you identify, you identify very strongly with your body, which is what's dangerous. You see this in many professions, right?

Many people, when they identify with something, like they think that's them. You see this with actors and actresses that were like, when they identify with something, right? They think that's them. Right. You see this with actors and actresses that were like celebrities when they were kids and then they no longer are and they identified with being this superstar because that's how they were when they were younger. It's tough. And now that they have it anymore.

It's tough because when you identify with your body, at some point your body gets older. You know what I mean? And now what? You have to understand one thing and that's, you are not your body. You're not your thoughts either. You're none of those things. You're the person, you're the entity, the consciousness behind all that.

And I know that sounds very, you know, it's very Buddhism or it sounds very esoteric, but there's a lot of wisdom in that in the sense that, if you start identifying these types of things, you'll find yourself encountering lots of problems identifying with your body leads to abuse of your body It leads to anxiety and depression over your body and bodybuilding is just the world where That can happen more doesn't mean it's going to happen

But if you can separate yourself from your body and just realize that this is just my body I can have fun with it. I can play with it, build it, I could shrink it, I could get it lean. There's other ways to play. Then you're going to be in a safer position. Rich Piana, the thing I like about Rich is he was kind of this new breed of body builder who is super honest about what they do. Because it was Hush Hush. He didn't even compete.

He did it. He did it. He did it. He competed at one time. And, you know, he was a, got out of old with him. He was a team. No, no, no, no, he was a team when he competed. Oh, yeah, he started a young age.

His, I think his mom or his dad was a bodybuilder. When they found him, by the way, they found lots of steroids in his apartment, and they also found some crushed up white powder. This was on the police report, so. You know what, though, I- They don't know what caused the death, you know? It was pretty low the amount, though.

I forget what it was. Did they say what they found? Yeah, it was, fuck, what was it? Because I was talking to Trina like, how much that would actually be in Pilsich, they made it sound like he had enough to deal and do a bunch like I can't remember. It was almost personal. Yeah, it was even it wasn't even a lot.

They exaggerate. You know, they exaggerate the dollar amount. There was $75,000 worth of steroids in his house with the intent of saying it was like, where are you getting that fucking price from? Yeah, right, right. And it's like, nobody pays that much. Nobody pays $500 a bond. He's a black market. Yes, to justice. Yeah, but yeah, but the thing like nobody pays that much. Nobody pays $500 a month. Black market.

Yeah, but the thing I respected about him, he's very honest about the dysfunction behind it all and the difficulty behind it all. He never promoted it in the sense that he didn't tell people to live this way. But just by looking at the guy, I'll do respect. Like I said, I respect a guy, but you can clearly see there's a lot of, there was a lot of image issues. You know, you could tell he's had, probably had some work on his face and you see a lot of this in the world because you start to identify with how you look

and that takes you down kind of a dangerous path where you abuse yourself in different ways. And again, I'm not talking specifically about Rich. Again, I'll respect him and you know I want to be very respectful because it's very recent that this happened but the world of bodybuilding and following that world is It's it's like living in a bar and trying not to become an alcoholic It's you can definitely do it, but you're so surrounded by all these issues and it's amplifying all

your issues that I really never really recommend it to most people. I just don't. There's very few people like I said that have run into where I'm like, yeah, man, you would do great in bodybuilding. Most people... You would really have to have the right out of it. Even myself, if someone, if I came to me and asked me if I should compete, I would tell me no, because I don't think I have the genetics to do it.

And I know, I think the last time I brought that up, everybody like mocked me and made fun of me to that, like, oh, you don't have the genetics. I'm saying, no, I do not have body bilogen. And I'll tell you some of the reason. I know as soon as I increase over 500 milligrams of testosterone in me in a week, my body starts reacting like crazy. So I can't even put, I can't even take the amount that it would take to get to that level. My calves, I could hit them five times a week, consistently, I've tried everything under the sun,

and I get an extra vein, maybe a quarter of an inch over the last four years ago on the, I mean, I'm not, I'm not symmetrical, you know, sure, I have this narrow waist and wide back, which is that was what was to I used to my advantage in these shows and presenting my physique, but I don't have a strong competitive physique. I've worked really hard for many years now, 15 plus years of consistently lifting and training and dieting to build what I have on me. And let me tell you, I let off the throttle for a couple weeks and it goes quick and you see most these guys I don't know if anyone how many people are familiar with some of these dudes off season they still look fucking impressive as shit when they are eating like crap and doing whatever they want they still have got boulder shoulders they still got unbelievable calves on them like these guys that are at this level, they've got the physiques, man.

Not to say they haven't worked extremely hard to build more on top of that, but you know what? They'll all say this too. Even if you took all the drugs out of it, living the extreme bodybuilding lifestyle still would be you'd have a lot of issues there. Even the high I would be willing to argue that some of the other stuff is more dangerous than the actual steroids. I would be willing to argue that some of the other stuff is more dangerous than the actual steroids. I agree. The extreme, I mean, and we're not talking about

the other drugs, because the other drugs are dangerous. The genetics are dangerous. Well, I'm putting those all together, right? Like I'm putting those all, I'm wrapping those all together and saying that the use of the drugs arguably could be as equal to or possibly less dangerous or detrimental to the body as some of the other extreme things like just freaking eating like that, you know, on a regular basis, over consuming that many calories and then restricting that

hard and pulling the amounts of sodium that they pull out of their body and taking the water away and over I mean, it's just a lot of stress on all of your body systems all the time that I don't know that could be most the wear and tear And then all it took was a little thing to well knock off something else if you look at Like Mike Miterato died of heart failure at 47 now. He did have bad genes for that He's I think believe his father and other people in his family had hard issues as well, but he died at 47. Now, would he have lived longer,

had he not lived the body, but in lifestyle? I would say probably, and he even said so himself, because he suffered, I think, a second, or how hard attack is the one that killed him. After his first one, he wrote articles and he said, you know, I consumed a tremendous amount of meat, a tremendous amount of protein, a tremendous amount of food. There's no way it could be good for my heart. Then you've got people like, you know, Don Long, I think his name is Don Long

who had, I think that's his name, Flex Wheeler and some of these other guys who had kidney, Tom Prince, I think had kidney issues as well. If you just, if you eliminate the drugs and just look at the amount of protein that they consume, we don't have any studies demonstrating, you know, eating 300 plus grams of pro to 400 grams of protein a day every single day. For years.

Yeah, for years and years and years, how that's gonna be on the kidneys. We know our relatively high protein diets probably safe on the kidneys if you're healthy, but those levels for super long periods of time, I'm sure that played a role in some of the kidney failures that they had. It just makes sense.

It does. Now, you're coaching Melissa right now. Yeah, she's going into a contest. Right, right. And how many weeks out is she is, by the time of the record, we're recording. Two weeks, so less than that, when this goes, this goes live,

I think on Wednesday. Now, what are you noticing right now with her mentally when it comes to food that this is when should start to find yeah so yeah but what's been great and what I mean a good thing is she's your coaching her so she's got and she's writing about this so I encourage people that that follow her would have to check out her medium blog that she wrote because she's been she's been writing all about this process and what what it's been like. And I would say this, so this last week,

I was gone in Alaska, so this is the first time that we've had zero communications and it's also when she's heading into the probably the most stressful part for her. And this is where, and I told her, I will be it before we got here, that once we get down to that, and I said, you'll know,

because leading up to this, she's been great. She's been like, man, this is, yeah, no problem. She I'm not having her do any cardio. She's not crazy, her 1600 calories is our her low days of calories right now. She's training five, six days a week, like just been steady, Eddie the whole way. And we have now, now we're getting to the final two weeks and this is kind of where I say,

okay, now this just turned into a sport. And she's like, well, what do you mean by that? I'm like, okay, well, now is where this is unhealthy and I'm not going to tell you what you can. I can't do, but we're in a, we're in a short period of time right now where you're probably not going to overdo it. Be mindful. You know how we've been going and you want to every day from here on out a little little more activity. And keep in mind that the next day you got to do a little bit more, so don't overextend yourself and get crazy right out the gates. Just be mindful of how much you were moving yesterday. Move more tomorrow. Move more the next day. And flirt with those lower calories and then every third or fourth day, we refuel the body back up. So she kind of knows where she needs to be. We're carb cycling right now.

And she asked me to kind of explain the science to her and what's going on. She's like, I kind of don't know how I want to write about this. And I said, I'd avoided if I were you. And she said, why? And I said, well, I have. I said, I have carb cycle. And I've also utilized fasted cardio,

but you don't see me right or talk about it a lot. And that's because I kind of have, I have a different view of it and how I use it. And I don't completely disagree with what some of the bros say about fasted cardio. And then I don't completely agree with what all the science and what the, like, like, Lane Norton talks about fasting cardio and like, what some of the things they say. And I think there's truths to both parties and I think I use bits of that with my strategy of fast cardio and I explain this to her.

The similar is carb cycling. Like, okay, we understand that when you lower your carbohydrate intake for long periods of time and your catabolic, your leptin levels start to suppress and we know that that basically is the signal that's telling your body to slow its metabolism down. You don't have a lot of fuel to burn. We also know that by respiking it back up, shooting a bunch of carbohydrates back into your diet, we'll now shoot the leptin levels up telling the body you have more fuel to burn. So that the idea is that okay every two to three days we're doing this what we call refeed where you're shooting extra carbohydrates into the diet and it's basically to keep the

body from getting adapted to that low level of carbohydrate and calorie intake and slowing it down. And so it's all based on theory, but there's a lot of anecdotes. It's been done many, many times. Right. And this is why I told her, I don't know if I'd really write about it

unless you take this position. And I shared this with her today, that, you know, this is the position that I would take on that because, then you have other people, like I said, like Lane, who kind of mock people that talk about fasted cardio, because their theory and ideas,

like it makes no sense to not eat and train when you're, it's so hard to do the cardio that way versus somebody who feeds and then actually can get after their cardio. And if you look, you know, apples to apples, it's pretty much the same, it's a net sum, right? She's experiencing the food relationship part now where it's like obsessing over food or a little bit but not too bad I you know again she's a smart girl she's

been coached by me since the beginning so yeah this is when it gets yeah I mean what tough where what I see with her and we talked about, we talked about this was, um, you know, her water right now. So she's, I, I have her four liters of water plus right now. So she's drinking a lot of water. So you start ramp that up. It's like part of the process. Yeah. I, I, I give them, because what I want to do is I want to, I want her body to get used to taking in that much water. So when I restrict some water, restricting is still, we're getting like a half a gallon of water, which is still a lot of water for most people, right?

Yeah. And so, but I do want her body, her body used to like flushing through that much water. So this is the theory, this is the idea. Again, there's not a lot of studies, not a lot of science on how this works in the science. And this is where it gets very bro, and then where it says,

because some of the bros pull all water and take that out, but yet you're neglecting the fact that 60% of your muscle bellies are water. So if you're trying to present a full look on stage, you don't really wanna take all the water away. That doesn't make a lot of sense. But there's something to be said too, about the water that gets trapped between like your skin

and your muscle and we don't know how much that gets pulled out when you dry out So so then you have the other side that will do that which will they'll pull so they'll pull all this out to make sure they get that that that look so Again the theory is that we're going to increase her water intake and so right now I'm having her push more water. So of course what's's going to what are you going to she going to see on the scale? It's just what he gave you right. She's so she's so her scale is kind of staying the same. I know she's still leaning out because we're catabond we're state we're I know she is, but her scale is kind of staying the same. And she's waterlogged because we're pushing up on water. So she's seeing herself. So it's a major mind fog. And I tell her to I

guess this is really where the coaching comes in. And this is where it helps to have a second eye. Just remind you that, you know, just telling you that you're fine. You're right on schedule. We look great. And I intentionally two weeks ago pulled water from her to show her. So she to help her with this exact moment. She's having right. This is where I could see. I'm so glad you're going into this because it's right along the lines of what we're talking about. This is why where I could see the benefit of working with a good coach because I could see how the opposite could be true. Let's say she had hired a shitty coach, then she could be coming out of this with a lot of issues. Not just health issues, but mental issues with the whole process. It's very this is what I made most my business off of that. Not just health issues, but mental issues with the whole process. This is what I made most of my business off of that.

What you did was brilliant by having her fuck with water before you needed to, so she could get an idea of what's gonna happen, and so she doesn't get that mind that freak out. And I know you're gonna work with her after the contest, which is coming out. Which is, and for differently, and correct me if I'm wrong, Adam,

but after contest for different reasons, it's just as difficult. It's arguably the most difficult. It's always been the most challenging for me. I mean, personally, I think that leading up, like it's easy because you're about to present yourself. That's like game time, right? It's like getting ready. I'm practicing, practicing, practicing, getting ready for game time, game time. I had the game games over Like do I just quit the sport like and because that's when you think about what a lot of people do is they just stop You know they stop they lay off the training and then they eat whatever they want and it's like that's that can

You can go and that's like the most dangerous time to do it because you've got the body so used to eating Low calories and all this activity There's no way you're probably gonna keep up that activity and then on top of that, there's no way you're gonna keep up that low calorie. So the combination of the two of them is a fucking shit storm for everybody. You know what, and also having a coach

like you explain these things throughout the process and knowing having that information, I'm placing, I'm trying to put myself in her shoes and imagine that I'm competing in your coaching me. It would help me separate myself from my body. You imagine that I'm competing in your coaching me, it would help me separate myself from my body. You know what I'm saying? Because you're explaining to me what to expect,

what not to expect, what's happening, versus looking in the mirror, looking on the scale, looking in the mirror, looking on the scale, and working with some shitty co-choos like, you're eating 800 or cardio. Yeah, you're eating 800 calories, you're doing two hours of cardio, and you're not gonna have any water the day before.

Well, this is what they do. This is what got me here. So the reason, I didn't just like, I wasn't taught this, I didn't just come up with this. This was, this is what happens after I've trained so many, especially I had a lot more bikini. So I've done a handful of men's physique and bodybuilders, but I've trained a lot of bikini competitors.

And a big portion of my business was built off of referrals from somebody else who got fucked up from another coach. So almost every girl I took on was somebody who needed help with their relationship with food and exercise. So I had to learn, like, because they would, right away we'd start and then also the insecurities started coming up and oh shit, like we're just fucking starting, you're already like acting like this, like, oh my God,

like wait till it gets deeper. And so then I started learning like, oh wow, I really have to set the stage for these girls to let them know, like this is what we're doing, this is what's going to happen, this is why this is going to happen. Understand, this is not good, this is not healthy, this is what it may take for us to do this.

Don't freak out when you see this, this is what's going on, and why I also require them to track all these things, which normally you would think the whole, like making someone take pictures in the morning and way in the morning and way at night sounds obsessive, but it's not because I'm using it as a teaching tool, because I know, and everybody who's listening right now,

has seen this before on themselves, and this is when the one thing I loved about competing and what it brought to my level of coaching and helping people was, you know, I never really paid attention to this until I got into competing was how dramatic the water fluctuations are in our body based off our carbohydrate intake, our calorie intake, sodium and water intake, and how much that can drastically change over a three, four day period, and how much that's a mind-fuck for the average person because how many people have decided they're gonna get in shape and they decide they're gonna eat better for a day or two. They start working out the gym and they get

on the scale and actually goes up or stay the same and what they don't realize is oh well guess what they started exercising so they're way thirstier than they've ever been. They drink a half more gallon of water than they normally do, but they didn't really pay attention to that. Half gallon of water, you put it on a scale, that's fucking five pounds. Plus, they probably had a little bit more carbohydrates or maybe some salt and something,

and now their body holds on to extra. Now, son, you see a fluctuation on the scale. You, you as an average person who's exercising, sees that gets discouraged, or gets motivated because oh my god I'm not where I need now I'm gonna kick it up a notch that wasn't burpee that wasn't enough So now I'm gonna kick up the intensity now I'm gonna cut even more calories But what they don't realize that's just a body's natural. That's just natural

It's holy it'll release that it's not a big deal how much of your coaching when you're working with people is to try and prevent Them from going the dark mental spaces with food and exercising all that. More than half. Wow. Probably a good, probably 60, 70% of it. I would say a majority of the conversations is around the not worry.

Don't worry, this is what's gonna happen. I'll tell you what, for me personally, I used to always wish that I was this genetically gifted, like could be the spotty builder, this pro-body builder. was this genetically gifted, like, could be this bodybuilder, this pro bodybuilder. Probably one of the best things that could happen to me was that I wasn't because knowing where I was mentally with fitness, with my body, with my body image issues and insecurities, had I ever competed at the peak of all that, it would have been bad for me.

I'd still be in it. I'd still be in that fucked up space. Oh, I could tell you right now, if I really thought I was good at it, I would fucking probably still be doing it, because it's fun. There's a lot of things I enjoyed about it, but even going as far as I went,

like, I know I'm not made for it. It took everything in me just to prove that I could do it. It was more like that was like, let me show people that I've got the knowledge to be able to build a competitive physique to get up with the best in the world But by no means do I think that I've got the physique to take it all the way Yeah, but you you did it as an adult though, you know, I mean you did it more as an adult Yeah, like imagine had you done it when you were alive. Yeah, no, it would have sucked me like 19 Well, and like you said if I, if I was genetically set for it,

like if I touched my calves and they started to blow, because a lot of these guys are like that, not the taking away from some of these dudes, but a lot of these dudes, just like the athlete, like Justin brings up the sport analogy, you know, there's kids that the first time they threw that football as a child, it came out as a spiral. You know what I'm saying?

Five years old, threw the ball, you know, or kid of golf ball, the first in you just had it, right? There is guys that just, and girls that just touch a weight and muscle builds on their body. You talk about your girls like that, right? For a female, like she touches weights and puts her mind to building. She could build, right?

Like that is not my body. I don't give it, mock me all you want, talk shit, but I do not have that body type whatsoever that touches weights and builds muscle. It's a motherfucker. And it's real quick to go. So I think people that have that in an early, if I had that in an early age

and found the sport of bodybuilding with my insecurities that I already had, oh man, that would have been a recipe for this. Yeah, that would have been a rough one. I mean, I guess that's the best thing to do is if you're going to do this, like check your spate, like check where you're at and then find somebody like Adam

that you can work with that's gonna, and if they're telling you crazy shit, like use your, you know, how many atoms are there? Not very many, it's unfortunate. I don't even know. No, like any other coach that I would recommend. Maybe like two or three.

Dude, I had a online coaching client who competed years ago and she still hasn't recovered. Her body still hasn't recovered. And she told me all the stuff that the coach had her do. And it's, it's terrible. It's terrible. Her metabolism hasn't recovered. Her hormones are off still to this day.

Well, this is the thing. Like, I mean, it's the only sport I can think of that you mess with your nutrition and your lifestyle more than anything else. Like, I mean, if I'm going into like being an Olympic athlete, that's gonna consume my whole life, right? Cause I'm just, I'm not gonna be at this facility, but even then, like, you know, your average person

that's trying to do basketball or do, you know, these other sports, like they're not even, I mean, nutrition is almost an afterthought, you know, until, and even if it is, it's more about keeping yourself fueled and fed. It's not about restricting, right? Or overconsuming. It's a good point. So it's just, I mean, it's like an added amount of variables. Well, and that art totally like, like, just like consumes your lifestyle. And arguably that could be the worst. I'd be interesting to see studies on that to show like what the overconsumption of calories and restriction of it for long periods of time like that, and caring yourself. That's heavy.

That heavy for that long. How much stress that puts on all your systems? Well, excess protein has been shown in many animal studies, and there's evidence with human studies that it's got a pro-aging effect, that it actually causes the body to age faster, when done on a consistent basis, which is why, I mean, and we're all in this for,

there's obviously, even I am motivated by muscle and by looking at start weighing strength as well, and there is a way you can play it that's a lot safer, like you don't need to consume tons of protein all the time, in fact, restricting it a little bit here and there may make the amount you do eat when you do eat a little bit more more effective in the body. So you kind of eat when you do eat a little bit more, more effective in the body.

So you kind of use what you're eating more efficiently, which is better in the long term for health. But I'll tell you something, like if you're listening right now, and that's all your motivation is just to be extreme with your body. At some point your body is going to leave you. I don't give a fuck who you are, take all the drugs in the world. You don't only press it so hard. At some point in life, you're gonna be sitting

and you're gonna be 60 or 70. If you're lucky, not all of us get to live to the 70s and 80s and all that stuff. But at some point, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that your body's just, it's aging, and there's nothing you can do about it, and what are you gonna do at that point? Imagine that, right?

Imagine identifying so strongly with your body, and then being hit with the reality of they're in a damn thing you can do. There's no drug you can take, there's no plastic surgery you can do, there's no work at you can do that's gonna make you look like you did when you were 20 or 30. Like at that point you're gonna have to live with that. And I have health issues now that I guarantee are the result of some of the shit that I did into my body when I was in my teens and my 20s that if I could go back in time, I would tell myself, don't do this, don't do that because you're going to pay for it.

And how much muscle would it have cost me? I don't know, 5, 10 pounds, not that much, maybe not even that much. Sometimes I question. Sometimes I even question whether or not I would have built more muscle anymore because I was healthy. You never even experienced it. not I would have built more muscle anymore, you know, because I was healthy. You never even experienced, yeah, do you know? I would like to see more people like Rich Piana in the sense that they're honest. That's what I would like to say.

Why I think we're doing this. Because he was, again, one of the guys I respect the most, he's very transparent. And not because I liked the way he looked or anything like that, it's because he was just, he was transparent with what he had to do in his lifestyle. Yeah. And he didn't necessarily glorify, I know other people did for him, but he talked about how he would say many times I watch videos where he'd be like, you don't want to do this.

Like, if you have the choice to do what I do, don't, don't take this choice because I can't stop. And I respect the hell at him for it. And I think that's why it's such a huge following on social media is because there's like like him or hate him. You got to respect that he's he's given out information on that on somebody who's who's doing that. Because there is plenty of people that are pushing their bodies to extremes like him. And at least he's given you giving you the heads up on claiming it's all from his protein powder. Right. And he shares the pitfalls that he went through and times that he was consuming

beyond grams. They talk about his highest dosage. I mean, he gets into, he literally shares everything when it comes to that. So I have a lot of respect for that. And, you know, I know that it sucks when you have like a, I mean, it's crazy that these two guys in the same time, because you know, for a while now, we're going to hear going to hear the someone even told me that there was people making the vegan community was jumping all over jumping all over this as it's from the from the meat and stuff like that. That's why they're dying and shit. And so you're going to see a lot of shit. What the hell was right? Oh, I know you're going to see you're going to see a lot of I actually got into that with someone the other day. I forgot to tell you guys it's a people

are still still believe that. Yes. It's crazy all powerful, something like that is, because it drops on Netflix. I'm telling you guys, we need to just create a documentary about whatever the fuck we want. As long as it's in the documentary style, it's authority. Yeah.

It's perfect. I think you guys, I think you can do bodybuilding. If you really, I just think that if you treat it like a sport like we said, I think if you go into it, having already practiced some of the things that you're probably going to have to go through with bodybuilding. And for me, I think practicing is getting yourself to the leanest you've ever been. So a lot of times I see what's very common from being from the coaches perspective, the people that want to hire me are somebody who has a friend who did a show.

They want to get in the best shape of their life. And so they want to compete for a show because they know that that's what will make them get in the best shape of your life. I don't think that's a good idea. I think that if you're going to step into the world of bodybuilding, I think the way that you should do it is you should practice just like any other sport and you should, you know, try and get yourself in the best shape of your life and see the things that you go through during that process and learn from them and maybe have somebody who's more knowledgeable or experienced in that area that can share, you know, some of these pitfalls that may happen or it's just be honest, you're trying to get shredded to get laid. Just be fucking honest. Stop with all this nonsense. Which you don't need to do the extreme crazy shit. No, I know. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, not at all. I had a, I met, you guys remember when we first started my pump, I, uh,

uh, fries and ranch. I want to shout out to my boy. I forget. I think it's fries and ranch is, is Instagram names. He hired me and loved this dude. He hired me at, when we first started, we just started. I don't think we knew the fuck we were. I don't even know how he found me through Instagram. And hired me to help him out. And he's like, bro, I just, I go to Vegas all the time.

I've been following, listening to everything you say and stuff like that. I just want, I want someone to help me do it the right way so I can, every time I have a cool trip to Vegas with that, I know the steps I need to take to get here. And it was so great. Yeah, I think I coached him three or four months. I don't remember how long it was. And got him, he was already blind you too. This guy looked good dude.

Dude, dude was already in good shape. I just took him to a whole new level of getting a shape and taught him how to do it in a healthier way and kind of explained the science behind what we are doing, why are doing it. And then kind of he really did most of the work on his own. But it's fun to watch him because he does, he does all the Coachella's all I see his thing pop up in my feet all the time. And he always looks jacked. You know, he does it straight and he straight up by lay bro. I go to these trips. I have a fucking time in my life. He's always got three or four beautiful women on his arm and that's his thing, dude.

And he's like, that's how, to me, I feel like, when you're honest with yourself like that and you approach it with that mindset, and you can, like Sal said, you can detach yourself. You don't identify with that. There's nothing wrong with saying that, fuck, it feels good to be ripped in a good shape and to have everybody looking at you when you work on them,

that shit feels good. I don't care who you are. I think it's bullshit for anyone that tries to say that it doesn't feel good, or you probably haven't felt that before because it does feel good. And you feel accomplished because you worked so hard to get yourself there.

There's nothing wrong with that. And the bodybuilding lifestyle can be very, it can be a healthy lifestyle. You go to the gym and you lift weights and you do your cardio and you eat healthy, you maintain a lean physique, you get good sleep, you drink adequate water, that's a very healthy lifestyle. It's the extreme competitive side that I think we're talking about and what that promotes that, more often than not, it promotes the dark side, right? With nutrition, with body image, with all those different things, drug

use, not just steroid use, but other drugs that it promotes as well. And I don't think Dallas, MacArthur, or Rich Pion, either one of them would have told you, if you were to ask them before they went, do you think that you live a very healthy lifestyle? I don't think either one of them would say, yes, I do. I don't think they would debate that at all. So it's unfortunate that they do take these two cases like this. They probably lump it into bodybuilding. Now everybody, we're going to bash bodybuilding for the next month or two about how dangerous

and how bad it is. It's like, well, no, it just seems like a lot of the wrong people are getting into the wrong sport. It's just, you got all kinds of ins, securities and issues. It's probably not the best sport to get you involved in if that's the case, you know, and that's the unfortunate part is, and for me, that was the part that I was most surprised that when I got into it was I anticipated, you know, just like you would have been playing in the sport, like if Justin went all the way to the professional level, I would expect in football. I would expect that when he walked into the locker room for his first time playing for the Niners, that

he would expect that the locker room, the coaching, the atmosphere would all feel at another level of professionalism. And so when I got into competing, I went into it thinking, okay, here's my level of knowledge and understanding of fitness and everything I've been around at the gym level and this and that. Now I'm entering into the 1% of 1% of centers. It's the professional. It was going to be on this whole other level of professionalism and I went in actually thinking I was going to learn a lot. Like I thought, okay, these guys have been able to take their bodies to a level that I've never been able to take my body to do.

Like, dude, I can't wait to pick their brains and learn stuff and it was completely the opposite. So that's what really blew me away where a lot of these guys and girls that, you know, they've got a million, two million, four million, you know, touring all over China and fucking all over the Dubai and all over the world shaking hands and kissing babies and teaching people how to work out and eat and I'm thinking like fuck dude these are not the guys and girls that should probably be giving out information not trying to hate not trying to hate on anyone's business with that but it's like these probably are not the best people to be advising young men and women that are coming up and trying to get

healthy and in shape I don't think they have the right perspective. I think they're in a most of them, not all of them. Most of them are in a very unhealthy place and relationship with themselves, their own image and their exercise and nutrition. I think it's not as balanced as they think it is. Well said. Check it out. Go to YouTube. Go to MindPumpTV. Subscribe. We have a new video every single day. In fact, we have quite a few videos with Ben Pekolsky. We just referenced him in the episode. He's a bodybuilding wizard, and he's got some videos on our YouTube channel.

Also, 30 days of coaching, it's available and it's free. All you gotta do is go to MindPumpMedia.com and register yourself. Finally, you can find us on Instagram at MindPumpMedia. My page is MindPumpMedia.com and register yourself. Finally, you can find us on Instagram at MindPumpMedia. My page is MindPumpSale. Adams can be found at MindPumpAtom. And Justin can be found at MindPumpJust. Thank you for listening to MindPump.

If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ball, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal and Iman Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

With detailed workout nutrients and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a fine star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. you