Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Superstar Ulisses Jr.: Lessons Learned While Building a Legendary Physique

Episode Date: December 22, 2014

In this podcast, I interview champion bodybuilder Ulisses Jr., and we talk about... How to use diet to break through plateaus and get bigger and stronger. @ 4:00 The prevalence of steroids in this industry and why you need to be careful who you take advice from. @ 10:30 Ulisses Jr.'s top 3 lifting tips for building an impressive physique. @ 23:50 The importance of being positive and surrounding yourself with positive people. @ 20:00 Ulisses Jr.'s newest all-inclusive workout program GET MASS. @ 34:30 Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by Legion, my line of naturally sweetened and flavored workout supplements. Now, as you probably know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted thousands and thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that basically do nothing, and I've always had trouble finding products actually worth buying, and especially as I've gotten more and more educated as to what actually works and what doesn't. And eventually after complaining a lot, I decided to do something about it and start making my own supplements. The exact supplements I myself have always wanted. A few of the things that make my products unique are one,

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then I guarantee you'll like my books. I make my living primarily as a writer. So as long as I can keep selling books, then I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel

great without having to give up all the foods you love or live in the gym grinding away at workouts you hate. And you can find my books everywhere. You can buy books online like Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audiobooks like me, you can actually get one of my audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks.

That's muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks, and you'll see how to do this. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast. I hope you enjoy it, and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from MuscleForLife.com with another podcast. Today, I'm really excited to have Ulysses Jr. as my guest. If you read any magazines or if you visit any websites or do anything and pay any attention to the fitness industry at all, I'm sure you know exactly who he is. I mean, his physique is really nothing short of legendary at this point. He's a Musclemania World Pro, Superbody Pro Champion winner.

He has done covers for every magazine you can name, travels around the world, doing all kinds of tours and events, and super nice guy. So thanks for taking the time to come on the podcast. Oh, man, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I really want to – I like to connect with the fans and connect with the people. So I think this is a good opportunity for us to reach even more fans and for people to get to know me even better. Yeah, totally.

So for those of us that don't know, so how did your journey to where you are today, how did that begin? What was the genesis? I'll be giving an indication of my age, but to be honest with you, I started into the whole fitness industry by accident, to be honest. It wasn't something I was set out. I get a lot of emails from fans that want me to critique their physique because they want to be a fitness model.

When I started, it was more so I wanted to gain some weight. I have African heritage, so I was just usually the scrawny African kid and the skinny African kid. When we went out for any sports, I was just, you know, usually the scrawny African kid and the skinny African kid. When we went out for any sports, you know, I was fast. That's ridiculous to think about. Like looking at you now, that's a ridiculous idea. So my coach was always like, you know, you need to put on weight. You need to work out. And it was drummed in my ears so many times.

So I was like, okay, I'll go to the gym and I'll start. And really I just started working out really just to gain some weight. I remember asking questions about what should I eat, what should I do, what should I take to all the big guys I saw walking around. Some of them would stop and give me some tips and some of them would be like, oh, just train. I was just a bit annoying to them, but, you know, I just persevered on. I just kept going. And I think that's how my journey started.

And within a couple of months or so, you know, I started to see results. I wasn't getting massive, but it was just I was getting a fuller pump. I was looking slightly bigger. So, you know, the confidence went up, and I just kept doing it. Yeah, that's cool. So, you know, the confidence went up and I just kept doing it. Yeah, that's cool. So along the way, what are some of the biggest challenges that you've faced in achieving your fitness goals?

And kind of how did you overcome them? Some of the biggest challenges, obviously, first I was a hard gainer. So I think the number one thing is really, you know, training is great. The number one thing is really, you know, training is great, but I think the number one thing I would advise I would give to anyone starting out is to learn about nutrition and learn, you know, because I think if you don't know anything about nutrition, you're just training to train, really. You're not going to maximize your potential. So you need to learn about nutrition along with different training methods

and it's a trial and error and see what works for you because what works for me may not work for you but at the same time the more you know I think knowledge is key I think the more you know the better so for me

I think the number one thing was learning about nutrition learning about supplementation what to take your recovery your regeneration process because that's when you grow, that's when you see results. I realized that early that you don't grow when you're in the gym.

You actually grow when you're outside the gym. So the number one thing for me was okay, and how does that work? Okay, well, nutrition is key, right? So I was like, you know what, I need to learn as much about nutrition as possible to aid me because it's one thing to have great genes and to have the work ethic and to be there all the time. But if you're eating like crap and your diet is not good, then that wouldn't, you know, that wouldn't work. So I think that's the number one thing. A lot of people, a lot of people fall into that.

I mean, I fell into that for quite some time where I didn't eat, I didn't eat bad food. I ate nutritious food. You know, I wasn't really a junk food person, but I didn't eat bad food. I ate nutritious food. You know, I wasn't really a junk food person, but I didn't understand. I mean, how I was training wasn't optimal, you know, whatever years ago, I didn't really know what I was doing. But on the dietary side, I didn't realize that nutrition boils down to it's a game of numbers. Now, of course, eating nutritious foods, you know, your body needs vitamins and minerals. That is important. nutritious foods, you know, your body needs vitamins and minerals, that is important.

But, you know, there's a certain amount of calories that your body needs to build muscle, and that's going to be different than somebody else's. Metabolisms are different. So basically, what I kind of fell into, and this is the, you know, I speak to many people that fall into this rut, is where they're eating, they're not eating enough to, you know, to lose fat. They're not restricting their calories, but they're also not eating enough to maximize muscle growth. So they kind of just sit in this rut. Plateau zone, right? Yeah. Eating just enough to just stay how they are. Correct. Yeah. No, I feel you on that. You hit it right on the nail. I think, you know, to have a great physique and nutrition, like you said, it's all about numbers.

It's a certain number of calories you need for your body to just exist and maintain, certain amount of calories you need to build muscle mass. So when you look at that, you need to be able to understand, I was just talking to a new client the other day that was just like, well, the average man should have about 2,400 calories and blah, blah, blah. And I have to tell them that the average man, when they consider the average man, they're not considering someone that trains four times a week, someone that's, you know, doing maybe CrossFit or someone that's doing any kind of, you know, power lifting. They're not considering that. They just consider a normal guy. So when you take into account what you do and the exercise you do and the amount of

times you tax your body in the gym, you need to make sure your nutrition matches that, your supplementation matches that. When I actually sat down and kind of broke it down to him, he really understood. I mean, you could see him light up. So I think a lot of people are missing the fact on that. I think once you get a grip around nutrition, you will see how your training will just excel and the results will just come, really. Absolutely. And, you know, it's kind of also like the whole clean eating thing is very trendy right now, which there's nothing wrong with clean eating.

But just because you're eating clean doesn't mean that you are going to lose fat or build muscle. Yeah. You know, what does that break down to in terms of protein, carbohydrates, fats? And, you know, there's like a book, I think that's at least it was popular at least a month ago. I don't know if it still is. There's like the calorie myth or something. So it's kind of trendy right now to say that, to be kind of contrarian and say, well, calorie counting doesn't work or calorie counting isn't the key when, yeah, it is. Like how it breaks down in terms of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, that's important as well. Of course,

you know, if you were to drop your protein intake to 100 grams a day and but keep your calories the same that would cause problems yeah exactly exactly but but it's you still have to it does boil down to uh you know energy in that you're feeding your body versus how much you expend exactly a lot of people they they they don't quite understand that because a lot of misinformation out there you know yeah yeah i think i think you actually absolutely right we're on the same page here I mean energy expenditure it has to be taken into account and and you need to know based on your body everybody has different metabolisms different body types I mean different ways their body processes or metabolizes you know the nutrients they take in so you have to

know what works best for you at There are general consensus across the board in terms of, you know, what you should have and how you should eat clean and yada, yada. Yeah, that's fine. But in regards to everybody's goals, and everybody's goals are different, you know, whether you're a powerlifter or a bodybuilder or whether you weigh 6'1", 240 pounds as opposed to 5'10", 185 pounds. Everybody has different, different goals, different amount of calories that they need to eat. And you need to learn that as soon as possible to improve your results and improve your physique.

Yep, yep, that's very true. So what's like a challenge that you face on the training side of things? So let's say like so you had to learn the nutrition side. What about along the way? Like what training issues have you run into? Yeah, with training, it's really, for me, when I started and then I started getting serious about training and competing, I think the number one thing is balancing my physique and making sure my physique looks balanced. Now, you get guys that maybe have big quads

or big arms and yada, yada, yada. But for me, I want to be complete. I've always strived on being complete. I don't care about being 240 pounds. If that was the case, I would have went down that route before, but that doesn't interest me. I think the more complete you are, the more impressive your physique looks. And you can be impressive at 185 pounds. There's nothing wrong with that.

You can be impressive at 190 pounds. You know, you don't have to be 220 to be impressive or 240. And also... All about proportion. Yes, yes, all about proportion. So I think that was the challenge for me to obviously, you know, as a young guy training, you know, when you start out working, you tend to neglect certain muscle groups like legs.

You don't want to hit that. And back. Yeah, and back. What about the deadlift? Deadlifting is bad for you. I'm not doing that. Yeah, you don't get an 18-year-old that's like, oh, man, I want to go deadlift. I'm dying to do legs.

You know what I mean? But they want to bench press every day. So it's one of those things that I think the difficulty was learning not only the nutrition aspect, but in terms of the training, was learning how to balance my workout to make sure I treat every muscle group and give them the same attention. And if I had lag in muscle groups, I wanted to make sure I prioritized that in terms of prioritizing your training. Dr. Correct. Yeah.

I mean, all of those tricks I've used and they've worked enormously well for me. I think that's one of the challenges. And then the other one would probably be like, you know, people seeing that you have great potential and good genetics and probably want you to maybe use enhancements and stuff like that. I got told so many times that I could be so much better if I just did this or if I just did that. I think that's a bit troublesome.

So you get young kids that are probably a great prospect, but before they hit 21 or 22, they've messed up their physique and then they messed up their body by, you know, going down the route that's probably not suited for them at that age anyway. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And then, you know, just commenting on that, you'll have a lot of people, well, I mean, I guess a lot is maybe generalization, but there's definitely a fair amount of people out there that, you know, are on various types of drugs and, you know, they're not open about it.

And then the advice that they're giving, they don't, like, it's, I personally, I don't care if people do to their bodies, do whatever you want with your bodies, but don't give other people that are, like, are not on drugs the same advice. They can't do the same thing that someone that's on drugs is doing. Correct. I mean. They can't train the same. They can't, depending on what drugs the person's taking, they can't eat the same advice they can't do the same thing that someone that's on drugs correct I mean they can't train the same they can't depending on what drugs the person is taking they can't eat the same so I think that's the big disservice not that somebody is somebody it's their body and who cares they can do what they

want but it's when they you know what I mean so that's the only thing I don't like about that yeah yeah like to each his own don't get me wrong man I have a lot of friends from New York that compete in those leagues, which are fine. I have no problem with that. I go to shows and expos in those leagues and stuff like that. Yeah, it's still impressive what they do. Yeah, yeah. It's still hard work, and you still have to do it.

I think when you're giving advice to young kids, and I call them kids when you're 20, 21, and you have that great potential because maybe you're 20, 21, and you have that great potential because maybe you're bigger for your age and you look great and everything, and you're being told that if you did this and that, you'd look like that. I think it's a bit misleading, and a lot of people giving these advices are not really pros. They're usually just your regular low-level trainers at a gym, really.

And they want to be gurus, in a sense. So they start giving advisors to kids. And these kids, if they see these guys have a decent physique, they just follow it. When I talk to fans,

I actually go out of my way to answer questions like that from my website all the time, just because I think if I can stare one or two people, one or two kids away and you're like, look, when you're older, you're a grown man and 25, 26, and you want to decide what you want to do, then that's up to you. But when you're a teenager, look, just train and eat right and learn about nutrition. I think that's the key. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And then being informed.

I mean, I also get a fair amount of emails. It's not super common, maybe just because of my crowd or whatever, but I get various people asking if they should get on steroids or if I've ever done steroids or what types of steroids to take. And it's also what a lot of people don't realize is that, yeah, while the dangers of steroids are overhyped and there's truth in that, or at least there are certain types of drugs, there are other types of drugs that there's just not enough research to really know what the long-term effects are. And if you look at some of the research that's out there, it doesn't look very pretty. So, you know, I always kind of give the same type of reply to people that like, one, you don't need it unless you want to become a freak huge, and you want to be a professional bodybuilder competing in untested leagues. It's not necessary. The majority of people, they want to look good. You know, they want to have, they want to be big, they want to be lean, they want to be able to go to the beach and look good. You don't need drugs for that. You just need to eat right, train right, and be patient because even when you're doing everything right, I mean, as you know, like if you take a new person and you put 20 pounds of muscle on him in his first year, that's awesome.

Like that's a really good first year. But 20 pounds of muscle on someone that goes from a normal or skinnier type of physique, that's noticeable, but they're not, they're not, they're not going to be like, I doubt that's their goal. They're going to want another 20. You know what I mean? Yeah, correct. Well, it's like, it's like you hit your goal, you always want more. You always want more. So that, that, that leads to more stuff and more stuff and more stuff, to be honest with

you. So I always, you know, when I looked at it, you know, I was, you know, 19, 20, and I looked at it and I read up on it. And, you know, the side effects for me, the negatives outweigh the positives. So because of that reason alone, it's just not for me. And, you know, I didn't really want to go into it anymore. But like I said, I have friends. I know friends that, you know, that works for them and that's good. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. That's what

they choose to do and I'm not knocking it in any way. I just said for me, it's just not my angle. And I think, like you, back to your question, I think when you look at some of the things you face or the hardship you face, I mean, you have to learn about your nutrition. You have to learn about your nutrition. You have to learn about the training methods. Then, you know, if you do have the potential there, you have to make sure at a young age you don't get stared away into something else. And you have to make sure.

So there is a kind of, I wouldn't say peer pressure, but there is a pressure there, you know, when you go to these gyms. So you have to just be careful overall. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. So now what are, what are some of your big sources of motivation at this point? Like beyond, okay, fine. You know, looking good is great. And, and obviously this is, uh, this is your career, but you know, in watching some of your videos and just kind of seeing the type of person you are, it seems like there's, there's more to just like, Oh, I just want to look good and I just want to make money. You know what I mean?

Yeah, no, I stay grounded. That's one. I think there's different sources of motivation for me at this stage. Obviously, you know, I feel like I've reached the pinnacle in natural bodybuilding. And, you know, I feel like how do I continue to inspire myself to be better? I think there are several things. You have to have positive people around you. For me, I have my family.

I work with some celebrities as well that are very positive. I learned from them how they've become so successful in what they do. One of the first things I noticed is that successful people always have positive people around them, like a team of positive people that work with them to achieve one common goal, whether it's to get them more publicity, get them more gigs, whatever it is. They work as a team and they have a positive unit around them. So I've always had that from my wife and kids to my extended family. They've always been positive in what I do and supportive of that.

And then my clients and celebrity clients that I work with, I've always been positive. I've always been true and loyal to them. I don't really – I've been contacted many times to sell stories of people I've worked with and I'm not interested. I think I stay positive by keeping positive people around me and making sure I don't have any negativity around me. That's kept me motivated. I'm always hungry. I always want to get better. I don't get complacent. I'm always hungry. I always want to get better. I don't get complacent. I set goals, whether win in the world title twice. I just keep going. That's one aspect. Then I also have a personal trainer.

I have a degree. I also have four or five other certifications underneath my belt. I've been doing this for quite a while. Being a regular trainer is great. Getting into management is another thing. Now I'm a PT director. I run the biggest gym in Europe with over 8,000 members. We have a basketball court, swimming pool, restaurant, spa, everything here. It's really good. In that aspect of my career as a trainer, it's awesome. I train celebrities and all the top bankers here because it's situated in a banking industry. So it's brilliant.

So I do that aspect. I do my bodybuilding and appearance aspect. And then I also have my website now where I constantly motivate these young kids coming up to really train and put good quality products out there so they can look at it and say, look, I'm not just giving you a one-day diet to go try or just try this chest workout. Stuff that I do in terms of my programs are like 25 pages e-booklet on training. You get the program. You get the diet plans, three phases of diet plans, three modes.

I count everything. We count everything from protein, carbs, fats, diet plans, three modes. I mean, I count everything. You know, we count everything from protein, carbs, fats, to fibers, to sugar. I mean, everything is itemized on my program. So I give quality stuff to my guys, and I think that's why I've had such a huge fan base because sometimes when I look at it, I just think, like, where do all these people come from, you know? But I think it's just that, look, I try my best to reach out to my fans. I try to even do social media chats, you know, once a month. And so I can talk to people and just say, you know what.

And they'll ask me questions, whether it's my stats they want to know about, my training they want to know about. So I think, overall, I just try to be a positive person and have positive people around me. I think once you do that, you would excel in whatever you're doing. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean you see that like you said. I mean you see that with people that succeed in all different types of fields and sometimes that the insidious kind of nature of negative people.

And to me negative people aren't just people that are maybe not chipper or not necessarily like some people are just more cheerful than others. But then you have on the other side of the coin, you have people that, you know, put you down or try to criticize you in different ways, sometimes covertly, you know what I mean, where they're not going to openly say things that are, they're going to try to kind of, uh, you know, work, uh, against you and as a friend, quote unquote. So you'll have a lot of that stuff out there that, uh, you know, you really have to watch out for. And, and, and at least in my experience, as you, as you start to, uh, you know, do better, uh, in life, you'll find that more of those people will, will come to you and, you know, try to try to do that to you. So, um, I'm, I'm also,

I totally agree with that where I'm, I have a lot of, uh, people that I'd say acquaintances and, you know, speak to people I know, Hey, what's up, you know, see them around, but I'm, I'm much more picky with the people that I spend a lot of time with. Not that I really have that much time and I'm always just working anyway. and I spend time with my family. But, you know, if I'm going to do something with people, I kind of am pickier with my inner circle, I guess you could say. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I think you're absolutely right.

I think we hit it right there on the nail. The number one thing is to create a positivity aura around yourself and make sure you have the right people around you to be supportive because if you don't no matter how hard you try you know someone's there to bring you down so if you have positive people there that's all about being positive all about supporting you all about pushing you forward then i think um i think it's a good thing you're in the win-win situation there yeah yeah i agree and i think it's also like you've probably experienced experienced this as well, just being, you know, just the way that you are and that you want to give back to people and you want to motivate people and you want to help people, not, and being humble and just not like, you know, okay, so things start, you know,

you get better and better and better. People, I find that you can get in that position where your attitude becomes much more important, where you can create, if you were to behave differently, you would be creating that negativity, but you can also bring out that positivity in people just by how you are. You know what I mean? Correct. Absolutely correct. Yeah. Okay. So like, what are, you know, for the readers here, what are, we talked about the importance of nutrition. So that's like a big fitness lesson that you've kind of learned over the years. Yeah. What, what for you is like a big, uh, lesson in terms of, in terms of training, like how

over, I mean, obviously how you're training now is going to be a bit different because you're just like, like you said, you've kind of reached the pinnacle and you're, and you're fine tuning your physique. Um, would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. I mean, I still think I

still have a little bit of window of growth there. You know, I'm in my mid-30s. I'm 36. So I think, you know, I have a little bit of window there. But for the most part, I think I'm pretty much up there. What would you say to somebody that's like newer, that, you know, like how did you train to get to where you are now? What's like a big lesson that you've kind of learned in terms of the lifting side of things and the cardio? Well, in terms of the lifting side of things, I think it's, you know, like I said, number one, the number one key advice I'll give someone is consistency. You have to be consistent with whatever you do because

consistency leads to progress. If you're not consistent, the progress will not come. So that's one. The other thing I do in terms of what's led me to where I am, I look at things very differently. I think a lot of my friends at the time, they just wanted to get big, simple as that. Whatever way they got big, they want to get big. I think a lot of my friends at the time, they just wanted to get big, simple as that. Whatever way they got big, they wanted to get big. I looked at it more like, ìI do want to get big and that will come as I get older. Iím not worried about that, but I want to look right. I want to look impressive.î So what I did was basically quite simple. I always had an eight-week program, eight or 12-week program.

My thing was more on the aesthetic side. Everything has to balance. Everything has to look very impressive because if it does, I'll look bigger. I'll look impressive. I'll be able to create that illusion because everything just looks so well-placed. That was my philosophy around things. I would assess my physique and say, ìFor the next eight weeks or 12 weeks, my shoulders are small. So guess what? Iím going to prioritize my shoulders. Shoulders will get hit twice a week for the next 12 weeks.î Then when I got to the end of that three months or two or three months, I'd assess my physique again and say,

wow, shoulders is looking good. Okay. Now I think my calves needs to come up. So basically every three months, there was some muscle being prioritized to balance my physique. Yeah, I talk about this. I'm going to be releasing and launching another book soon. I talk about this.

Like weak point training, exactly the same thing. Yeah, yeah. You only can do so much because you can't just crush your entire body three times a week. Yeah. Exactly like that. And I was doing this, mind you, I was doing this like 15 years ago. A lot of people never even thought about that.

They would just be like, well, why are you doing that twice? Yeah, the last time you were hitting triceps twice or the last time you were hitting hamstrings twice. I don't understand. Why do you switch it? And they used to, back then, like 15 years ago, they used to think I just didn't know what I was doing, you know? So it was a bit funny, actually. I would have joked on them. Now it's weird because now you hear about prioritizing your different muscle group, weak body part training and stuff like that.

I'm like, man, I was doing this a long time ago. And people thought I was crazy then. I'm like, wow, it's so funny how now people are looking at that and be like, well, if I want to be aesthetic, I need to do that. This is something I did like way, way back. So it was good. I think that's what's made my physique more balanced to where it's at because even to this day, I still analyze my physique and say, okay, I need to hit this

body part twice for the next three months because I have a show coming up next year. I need to balance my physique even more. I know it looks good, but now I'm splitting hairs. You see what I'm saying? Now I'm splitting hairs, but that's fine. I still work to be done. It goes back to the goals that you're talking about. I mean, you don't just want to go in the gym to just move the weight around with no thing you're going. Yeah, exactly. And so that was one of my secrets. See, now I'm giving you a lot of my secrets.

The other secret that I had was, you know, about, you know, hypotheca, it's all about volume, you know, volume training, et cetera, which is great. And aesthetics is good. But I also wanted to build strength. So what I did, every time I worked out, it was two things. Every time I worked out, I had to incorporate a strength move in there or compound move.

So if I'm doing back as a deadlift, if I'm doing legs, squat has to be there. If I'm doing chest, bench is there. If I'm doing back as a deadlift, if I'm doing legs, squat has to be there. If I'm doing chest, bench is there. If I'm doing, you know, shoulders, military press. You know, if I'm doing arms, you know, like a proper standard heavy barbell curl with the Olympic bar. So I always had a strength power movement within my workout on each body part that I did. So that's also one of my secrets.

And then not only did I... That's exactly not only how I train, but it's exactly like in my books. Oh, I see. That's interesting. And I didn't even know. So, you know, and then on top of that now, I would do four sets, sometimes five. Now, what I wanted to make sure, even though I went for four, I love training high reps, 15 reps and all that stuff.

But I always made sure I had one or two strength sets in there. And when I say strength sets, nothing more than 10, usually six to eight. So basically, in my mind, I was getting the best of both worlds. So two sets would be proper strength sets. And then the other three sets, I'll go for volume. So that's how I kind of balanced it. And it worked great for me. I mean, it really, really did.

And to this day, it does work really, really good. So I incorporate some strength in that because I always thought like too much of one thing is not good for you. It's always good to kind of mix it up a little bit. So whether sometimes it was one set I did, that's fine. If it was one set I got in there, proper strength, six reps, eight reps, that's good. But I did my standard 12, 15 reps, which was good. So I got the volume, but I also got the strength as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I mean, I think that's a big mistake that many new people, new guys make is, and girls too,

is lifting is not incorporating any of the heavier compound lifting and instead just focusing on higher rep, especially isolation stuff, which you'll see in magazines or whatever. And the bottom line is you're never going to build a big chest by doing 20 rep drop sets of inclined dumbbell flies. It's just not going to happen. Correct. If you want a big chest, you're going to have to get strong on your presses and there's just no way around it. And the same thing goes,

like you say, for the back, you know, if you want a big, complete, strong back, you know, you got to build up your deadlift. If you want good legs, you're going to have to get strong in your squats. And, you know, if you look at it, like, have you ever seen, I've never seen someone, maybe the Olympic guys, but those are the freaks of all freaks, where someone that can deadlift 500 pounds is big. That person is not a little scrawny. Yeah. You can't, there's only, your body can only take on so much weight. Yeah. And it can also, it only gets the muscle fibers that have can only contract so forcefully until it has to add more. So, you know, if you're adding weight to the bar over time on those big compound movements,

your body is going to grow. You know, that goes back to nutrition, of course. Assuming you're eating enough, it's just like one of those simple little truisms that you'll see in great physiques that people like you and, you know, even Arnold way back in the day, he started with powerlifting. Yeah, yeah. Compounds, you have to way back in the day, he started with powerlifting. Yeah, yeah. Compounds, you have to go back to the basics. I always think that.

I think that's vital. So compound movement is a standard. It has to be in every workout. It's in every one of my workouts. And then you have to incorporate a strength set in there where you go heavy and push yourself because one, I figure, it's two things. The benefits of that obviously is stimulating growth hormone release, which is vital for strength training.

And the other two, the other thing for me, I thought, I did that over the years. I'm going to build muscle maturity really good. And it's really helped me with muscle maturity. I mean, I'm 36 now. And muscle maturity, I mean, I'm 36 now and muscle maturity, I mean, I'm not your typically, I'm 200 pounds. I mean, people in my pictures, they think I'm like 220 or 230, but I'm not really. On a good day, I'm 200. Sometimes I'm like 195 or 198. That's crazy. I'm 193 right now. I mean, I'm not. I'm like 8%. Yeah, they don't believe. They usually, they to stand on the scale, and I do, and they're always like, whoa, that's crazy.

So I believe what I've been doing with the strength sets and the volume that I've been doing has really helped my physique to build that muscle maturity to a point where I look a lot bigger, but I'm not. And I think that's key. And I get the best of both worlds. Plus, I prioritize my training. And I think if you're able to do all of these simultaneously within a program and follow that throughout a year, two, three, you'd see great results in that. Yeah, I totally agree. The book that I'm wrapping up is written specifically for advanced weightlifters,

people that have their first year or two under their belt. Newbie gains are long gone. And, yeah, it's a periodized program that's laid out very similar to that where you're doing some very heavy, almost powerlifting-style stuff, and then you're doing some middle-range rep stuff, and then you're finishing with some higher range. And, you know, it's a standard. That's good. That's really good.

Yeah, yeah. People, you know, that's out there among the more informed people in this world. That's the standard kind of style that you'll see. So, yeah, I totally agree. That's cool, bud. Yeah, so what are your plans from here? What's in Ulysses' future? Well, my plans, you know, look, I think I'm always trying to evolve.

I'm always trying to get better. I've been approached to do some acting stuff, which is something I'm looking at, really, and that's been really good. It'll be fun. Yeah, I think that's good. But actually, to be honest, what I want to do and what I think I'm going to be doing

is setting up seminars and training camps and stuff like that so I can really inform people and talk to the young generation about training, about nutrition, and I'm looking to do that and set that up actually. I have a few dates set up this year for that. So it's great. I think I'm going to start with that first because for me, I just like talking to the fans and talking to the masses and letting them know if I can inform several thousand or hundreds of thousands of people to train right, to have proper diet, proper nutrition, then what I've learned from others, I feel justified in passing that on

in a sense of I'm giving back, and that's my way of giving back. So I think I'm going to be organizing a lot of seminars and a lot of different muscle camps and training camps, and not only in the States or in Europe, but worldwide, whether it's Australia, India, everywhere I'll just go and probably do that. I think that's one. And then I'm looking into, obviously, the entertainment angle as well.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. That would be fun. Cool. So you mentioned that you have a few products that you sell on your website. Yeah. Tell us about those real quick. Well, yeah.

Right now, currently, I released my Get Mass program. Okay. Yeah, Get Mass is great. It's a 28-page e-booklet that basically breaks down everything it has the workout programs on there it has stretches on there

that you can stretch, pre and post stretches it has diet plans on there, three different diet plans for three different weight classes so it covers, tries to cover pretty much everyone and everything is detailed and itemized and i take into account your sodium your fiber you know your sugars everything so it's actually really detailed it's not like

just writing you and telling you to eat something yeah here you go eat some chicken here here's like six six meals of chicken yeah and this and this is not even like pre-contest. This is just your normal healthy plan for you to gain weight. The difference with my plan, though, is that it has the supplementation in there. So in regards to taking the protein, when to take your protein, whether it's where I isolate or concentrate, all of that is in there. It tells you the different aminos that helps as a building block for building lean muscle mass. That's in there. Not only have I done that, I also have supplement advice. So each one of those supplements, I've pretty much given you a description of them and why it's important for you to take it so you can read about it. So that's also the outline

on there. So you have the supplement advice. You have stretches in there. You have cardio program in there. Cardio and abs is also included in my mass program because it's lean mass, and cardio and abs in my mass program is mainly as a daily maintenance. So it's not a lot, but it's enough. There's three cardio programs on there, you know. So it's actually pretty good for you to alternate. Now, some people might use it more, some people might use it less, but it's still informative. It's still there, and it's great.

The other thing, too, the Get Mass program, I shot a video series, the training video series on that, because it's a four-day split program. So it's two days on, one day off, two days on. So you do basically Monday, Tuesday, you rest Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday rest on the weekend and then repeat it again so yeah so it's great, I shot the video so not only can you buy the e-booklet

on my website, but you can also subscribe on my website and when you buy the e-booklet you automatically get the videos for free to view them so if you have any questions, you can see exactly what I'm talking about. You know, you get an 18-year-old that gets the program, wants to work out, but doesn't know what pullover is or dumbbell pullover.

So he can go on the video and look it over and it's good. I mean, my method of training and stuff, you know, it might be different from the norm. You know, for example, I have a finisher in all of my programs. A finisher would be where to stimulate muscle growth, obviously, you have to fatigue and break down the muscle fibers. That's why I have the finisher on there. It's really just to totally exhaust the muscle fibers and break them down. It's just one giant set of maybe 50 reps on there. It's actually pretty good at a comfortable weight,

but you want to make sure you either do 50 reps or you fatigue and go to failure before you hit 50. So it's actually really good. It's very informative, over 28 pages. It gives you everything from stretches to the program to the diet plan to the supplement advice, all integrated within the diet plan, and it's pretty good. So far, it's been getting great reviews from the fans. They love it, and, you know, and they give me great feedback on it. That's great.

And so people can find this at your website, right? Yes, which is www.UlyssesWorld.com. So that's UlyssesWorld.com. I also have my – go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, I just don't know how to spell Ulysses. It's U-L-I-S-S-E-S. Yes, correct.

The spelling of my name is U-L-I-S-S-E-S, World, W-O-R-L-D.com. And in March, I will have my Get Abs program coming up because I get so much request on that. And also for the women, I didn't forget them. I'm going to have GetGlutes coming out. So it would be great. And my GetAbs will have a his and her diet plan. So women can purchase that, which is great. And it would be very informative.

Again, it would be over 20 pages of real detailed information for the fans. So for me, I just want to inform people in the right way. And that's the most important So for me, I just want to inform people in the right way. And that's the most important thing for me. So, you know, I'll have that all available on the website in March. And then hopefully be able to have Get Shredded out by the summer so everyone can get that for the summer, which would be great. Cool. That's great. Yeah, keep me posted on those products.

Definitely. Definitely. And I also have other videos on my website. So if you subscribe on my website, you get to see the videos. I actually do two articles a month on my website. I have one on training and one in nutrition, whether it's an article on grains, whether it's an article on understanding the core, training the core. I have articles on there about so many different things,

preparing for a fitness show or a bodybuilding show. So even when I won the Musclemania World in November last year, I did an article on my contest prep for the show, and that gets hits all the time. Everybody likes that article. So all that, so not only you get articles on there, you get videos on there, you get pictures on there, and it's great. So people subscribe and get all the information they can. I even have a sample work out there for free that people can get and just use it as one of my programs.

But I've done over hundreds of programs for people, so it's great. Awesome. Good stuff. Awesome, yeah. Yeah, everyone definitely, you know, I obviously check out the website, all kinds of good stuff on there. So I definitely recommend anyone listening

to go check it out. Definitely, bro. So to wrap up here, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners? Well, I mean, I think for me, for the guys listening, guys and girls listening, I think if you want to get fit,

you want to, you know, stay healthy, you know, you have to be consistent. You have to to get fit, you want to stay healthy, you have to be consistent. You have to be relentless. You have to train and learn about your nutrition. Learn about different training methods that might work for you and you have to implement that and be consistent and be patient. I think that's the main thing. Be patient with your training. See it out. Make sure the program you're doing, you finish it. Don't stop in the middle and get discouraged, you know. It's, you know, it's one of those things.

And also, I think don't hold yourself, like, don't try to just say as a goal, like, oh, you know, the goal is to look like Ulysses. That's the goal. Like, you're starting from nothing. Like, okay, that's fine. That's a big goal. That takes a lot of time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because some people will get discouraged, you know, and after a month,

I'll get people that will write me and they'll be like, oh, I only gained six pounds in my first month. Like I thought it would have been kind of like, wait, you gained six pounds, you know, and they'll be like, only gained six pounds and like my body fat's the same, but I just doesn't look like that's, that's really good. So, good. So when you see, as long as you're making progress in the direction, whether it be gaining muscle or whether it be losing fat, you should see small improvements every week. And those small improvements over time add up to something big. Exactly. I think me and you, we hit it right on the nail when we talk about things because I always tell people when I started, it wasn't about, you know, oh, I wanted to look like Arnold.

My guys that I like were Frank Zane and Serge Nubre, right? And I didn't want, I mean, obviously, yeah, I would love to look like them, but I always just told myself that, you know what, I'm going to just train and see how I look when I get to 25. 25, okay, I'll hit it to 30. 35, okay, 30. That's how I did mine. And what I did every year was set small goals, small achievable goals. And by the end of the year, I look back and say, wow, these small goals have actually led to this amount.

Wow, that's great. So I never looked at it like... You probably have that in your life too. You set all these little goals, not just physique, but in your work. And then you look back on a year, you're like, I actually got a lot done. Exactly. I mean, I started off as a floor trainer, getting paid six pounds, six dollars an hour at New York Sports Club.

And now I'm running one of the biggest departments in fitness and in a PT gym. So it's one of those things where you have to set these small goals and, you know, and gradually chip away, gradually chip away at it, you know, and don't, when you have some, you have to be realistic because when you're not realistic, then you get discouraged and be like, oh, I'm not going to get there. Don't think about how you're going to look in six months. Don't think about how you're going to look in nine months. Think about how you're going to look in five years. That't think about how you're going to look in nine months. Think about how you're going to look in five years.

That's what you think about. Then you don't worry about anything. You just keep going, and that's it. Exactly. You know what I mean? That takes the anxiety out, and as long as you are making a little bit of progress every week or every two weeks, then you're on your way. Definitely, brother. Yeah, totally agree.

All right. All right, cool. Well, thanks a lot for taking your time i'm sure everyone's gonna uh like like everything we went over so i'm sure we'll get a lot of good feedback yeah well thank you so much for having me i really appreciate it it was a pleasure man i think um you guys have an awesome platform here for people to learn um about training and nutrition and you know i'm just happy to be part of it, to talk to people, to use this platform and to reach out to people.

So I really appreciate you guys having me on and I hope we can get a chance to chat again.