Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Paul Revelia on How to Keep Making Progress After Your "Newbie Gains"

Episode Date: February 17, 2017

In this podcast I interview Paul Revelia from prophysique.com. I got introduced to Paul’s work from Cory, who works within Legion, and immediately liked him. He’s a lifelong athlete and natural bodybuilder, he has a lot of hands-on experience coaching men and women of all ages and circumstances, and he not only really knows his stuff, but he also touches on quite a few aspects of diet and exercise that most people don’t talk about. I myself have picked up quite a bit from his work, so that’s always a good sign in my eyes. In this interview, I pick Paul’s brains about what changes as you transition from a newbie to an intermediate and ultimately advanced weightlifter. Specifically, what you need to know to make sure that you keep making progress and, just as importantly, keep enjoying your diet and training. That last point is something many people don’t consider, but it’s hugely important because even when you do everything right, progress is much harder to come by once your newbie gains are behind you. And the methods and mindset that got you through your beginner phase won’t necessarily serve you well through your intermediate and advanced phases. So, if you’re an experienced weightlifter who wants to continue improving and enjoying the journey for the rest of your life, then I think you’re going to really like this interview. And if you’re still reveling in the glorious beginner gains, carry on, but listen up, because this is going to make sure that you don’t lose steam or fall off the wagon once the honeymoon ends. Let’s get to it... 6:06 - What changes once you're no longer new to weightlifting? What is going to determine your progress in the Intermediate phase? 13:09 - How should you go about increasing volume? How do you adjust your workout routine? How do you keep progressing after the newbie phase? 17:29 - Do you prioritize areas based on your physique, or increase overall volume in general? 29:48 - What are some tips and lessons for programming your own workout? 37:26 - Does diet need to change as an Intermediate? What tips do you have for diet and nutrition? 44:16 - How consistent does nutrition need to be? What optimizes progress? 47:05 - Any other tips especially for psychology and getting in the right mindset? 54:49 - Where can people find you and your work? 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/

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Boys and girls, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This is your host, Mike Matthews. And in this episode, I interview Paul Ravella from ProPhysique.com. Now I was introduced to Paul's work, his YouTube channel in particular, actually by Corey, who works with me in Legion. And I immediately liked him for several reasons. First, he's a lifelong athlete and experienced and accomplished natural bodybuilder. He also has a lot of hands-on experience coaching men and women of all ages and circumstances, including quite a few competitors, which, I mean, that's trickier to coach than, you know, just an everyday person that wants to get into good shape. He not only really knows his stuff, but he also touches on quite a few aspects of diet and exercise that most people don't talk about, which you'll get a sense of in this interview, actually. Speaking of the interview, in it, I pick Paul's brain about what changes as you transition from a newbie to an intermediate and ultimately an advanced weightlifter and specifically what you need to know to make sure that you keep making progress and just as importantly, keep enjoying your diet and training. Now, that last point is something that many people don't consider, but it's actually hugely

important because even when you do everything right, progress is just much harder to come by once your newbie gains are behind you. And that means that the methods and mindset that got you through your beginner phase successfully won't necessarily serve you well through your intermediate and advanced phases. So if you are currently an experienced weightlifter who wants to continue improving and enjoying the journey for the rest of your life, then I think you are going to really like this interview. And if you're still reveling in the glorious beginner gains, then carry on, but still listen to this interview because it's going to help make sure that you don't eventually lose steam or fall off the wagon once the honeymoon ends, so to speak.

So with that, let's get to it. Paul, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Mike. It's my honor. Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to talk to you because this is a subject that I get asked about in various dimensions and various ways. And I've written about it a little bit here and there and spoken about it kind of in piecemeal bits, but I haven't had a focused discussion on it. And that is what really changes from when you are new to weightlifting. So let's say you're first, if you're a guy, your first 15 to 20 pounds of muscle, or if you're a girl, maybe about half that are pretty straightforward.

If you're following any sort of halfway well-designed program, you know, barbell, progressive overload type program. sort of halfway well-designed program, you know, barbell, progressive overload type program. And if you know anything about energy balance and macronutrient balance, you're pretty good. And you have a lot of wiggle room and, you know, you're still going to be gaining strength and gaining reps and everything seems to be great. But then you get to this. So that's your first six to eight months. It's like the honeymoon. Uh, and then things start to get tougher. And then all of a sudden you're not gaining reps anymore every week. And, uh, you know, your weight, if you're trying to gain weight or gain muscle that has stalled. And, um, so that's kind of the scenario. And then, so I I've received a lot of emails and,

you know, social media messages and people asking kind of like, what's going on. They don't, is it, and social media messages and people asking kind of like, what's going on? Is it that the program that they're on has outlived its usefulness? Or is it like the calories and macros and all that is not quite what it was made out to be and now they need something else? And a lot of people then find themselves kind of running down these rabbit holes and thinking they need to try all these fancy type of training routines or they need to try different types of these days it's like these branded kind of fad diets like Bulletproof Diet and shit like that or Paleo or whatever.

So I thought this would be, and this is kind of your forte in your training, so I thought you'd be a great person to reach out to and I'd love to hear from your personal experience and also your experience coaching people how things change and so when you go from that you're coming out of your newbie phase into the intermediate phase and then eventually into the advanced how does that really look how does that play out and what things do you really have to start paying attention to and what is going to determine your progress from that, you know, again, so you've gained your first 15 to 20 pounds of muscle and you want to gain, if you're a guy, if you're a girl, about half that and you want to double that though, you know, what got you to that first 15 is not going to get you to doubling it. And how does that really look?

Yeah, it's a, it's such a great topic because, uh because as a child of weightlifting and nutrition and from the 90s and learning all that I could from the muscle magazines, you're often taught things about overtraining and eating twice your weight in protein per grams per day. And eating 10 meals a day and so forth. and so forth. So I always felt like I was just missing out on progressing because I wasn't able to do some of those things. I wasn't resting enough or I wasn't eating enough protein. And so what I would often find is when I would get through a beginner phase where I would make a lot of great progress and feel great for six, eight months, I would reach that place where you go into the gym, the weights aren't going up. Sometimes they're going backwards. You don't feel as good. And I would just stop going to the gym for a couple of weeks at a time. Just to get that feeling back. Yeah. Just to regain that, you know, like if you're not getting

a positive response from something that you're doing, well, maybe I'll just go out drinking with my friends instead of, you know, spending all this time in the gym. And then lo and behold, when you get back in the gym, you make some progress again. And so there was actually a lesson there that I was not paying attention to. And that was, you know, the lesson of tapering or deloading of undulating your intensity. And I think the most important thing when we talk about when you go from a beginner to an intermediate is paying attention to your training volume. The best way to progress is to increase your training volume. But a lot of us, when we're a beginner, we just try to increase our training volume over a single session. So if you're training arms and you're getting 6,000 pounds of volume for arms, well,

let's try 6,500 pounds. There is a maximum recoverable volume that you can train in a single session. And just so everybody listening knows, volume, we're referring to the number of reps, basically. And so you have the reps and the weight that you're moving, and there's the volume. Yeah, volume is weights times reps times sets. So you're just multiplying 10 pounds times 10 sets times 10 reps, right? Or you could just say total reps,

you know, multiply by total weight. But yeah, it's getting to that bottom of how much weight did you lift in this workout in this week, month? Absolutely. Per body part. And once you start training, paying attention to that, you can start saying, well, if I'm doing 6,000 pounds of volume per week, what if I split it up and did some different frequency? So maybe twice a week, you hit the same body part and you hit 12 or 11,000 pounds of volume, but split over two sessions. This is where things get really interesting. And this was what I like to call

my second newbie phase because I was so afraid early on, you know, after reading all the magazines over training and you only want to hit a body part once a week that, uh, hitting a body part twice a week was going to destroy me. The opposite was the case. When I found a program, when the internet started to become more fashionable, I started looking online and doing research on what was actually the truth. I found that more training volume, more frequency was what I needed to make that next level of progression. And so I find that when you take someone who's been on a single body part per day split or just training a body part once a week, even if they're pairing body parts,

and then you put them where they're training body part twice a week, but undulating intensities, right? So you're not doing the same exact workout twice a week. You're doing maybe a higher intensity one day. Meaning a heavier, harder workout. Intensity, what I'm referring to is percentage of your one rep max. Right. So if you're training at 80% of your one rep max or in the 80 to 90 range one day and then 50 to 60 another day, what we might consider a pump day or a high rep volume day.

So those are the kind of things that become very exciting because you're start to progress linearly again, just like you did when you started, you start to see increases in muscle fiber. You start to see increases in performance. Uh, lo and behold, the more you train, the faster you recover from your training. So although you'll initially see some more, some more DOMS, depending on how, what kind of training you're doing, you're going to start to notice you recover quicker. And so when you go from beginner to intermediate, that's probably the most important factor. If we're, you know, if our nutrition,

if we're aware that we're getting enough protein and we're taking in more calories and we're burning on a daily basis, you know, I find that training is the most important variable when it comes to building muscle. You can eat a perfect diet your whole life and never lift a weight.

You're not going to have a great physique, you know, unless, you know, but there's guys that have terrible diets that have amazing physiques because they just continue to push iron for years. Look at people in prisons. I mean, those guys aren't getting five square meals, like, you know, ideal proteins and supplements, but they're probably hitting the weights very consistently because there's not all else to do. So, yeah, I think the most important thing is that's when you got to look at your training variables, your training intensity. And can you get into the specifics a little bit on that? I mean, I know this is, again, I know this is a deeper subject than can even be discussed in 45 or 60 minutes, but just so people

can get an idea. Cause obviously like, for example, you can't just increase your volume indefinitely on all body parts or, you know what I mean? Or even, even if you have the time and even if you have the genetics and the drugs, you still, there's a point where you can't do it anymore. Um, so yeah, if you can just give people an idea of how that might, how does that play out? You know what I mean? So what I like to do, I like to use a training program where I set people up, where they train in the five to eight rep range one day a week, right? So they're going to go in and let's say it's a leg day. We're going to really lift some heavy squats, some heavy deadlifts. Uh, even the things that we do like leg extensions and leg curls, I'm going to stay under the 12 rep range, right? The next day they go to train that week,

everything's going to be in the 10 to 20 rep range. Now with lower body, I'm a big fan of like higher rep work. I'm not going to have anyone do a 30 rep curl set, but I will have people do 30 rep sets for, for lower body for the, for the big muscles. So what it might look like would be you do a set of squats for say, let's say five by five, five sets of five with squats at a weight that you can do. You're going to, you know, you're going to be fatigued, but I don't want you going to failure. You stay in a rep or two shy of failure for those five sets of five. The next time you go to train, you might be doing three sets of 10 on squats, right? So similar, similar number of reps, but we're talking about just volume. Volume might actually be very similar as well, but what's different is the intensity. And so what's really cool is there's a lot of

great research going on right now. As we speak, My friend, Dr. Mike Zortos at Florida International University is studying undulating periodization and its impact. And it's already had a huge impact on the powerlifting world. A lot of the top powerlifters are training now at a higher frequency. And if we look at powerlifters from the 70s, Boris Sheiko was doing this stuff in russia where they were doing daily max squat training and then basing their training off of their strength that day so auto regulating so these principles have been around for years they've been around with sprinters and other sports but we're just now applying them to the bodybuilding world yeah it's becoming more codified whereas previously it was like mad geniuses that just had figured this shit out

intuitively and you know they you needed yeah if you're not Boris Shiko, then you don't know what he's doing. Well, and I think a lot of training in the gym comes back to back when I started lifting. The biggest, most jacked guy in the gym was where you got your advice. So Johnny Big Traps is doing 100 sets of barbell shrugs. Well, that's what you did to get big traps back then. Little did we know that Johnny Traps was taking a cycle and whatever it may be, had amazing high trap insertions. So that's why he had big traps. Or it's just a genetic high responder as well.

I mean, some people respond tremendously well to weightlifting and some people just don't regardless of what they do. I mean, they still can get there, but they're gonna have to work a lot harder for it. Yeah. And that's, and I mean, that's more of a philosophical direction. We can just talk about like enjoying the journey and enjoying the process and how much you actually love what you're doing, but finding that next momentum or goal is really the key. So if we reach that beginner phase and we've made all the progress we want to make, and we're happy with where we look, you know, that's kind of, you're going to kind of lose momentum, you know, you're not making progress. So that's where it's important to start setting more tangible goals. I feel like either the strength goals, body

composition goals. Uh, I love physique sports. You know, if you're into CrossFit, CrossFitting, like that's one of the great things about that sport is that when you get involved, you're always looking at other people's accomplishments and you're going to reach that. You want to reach regionals. You want to reach, you know, the CrossFit games, same thing with powerlifting. If you start a powerlifting program, you know, the tangible goal is, okay, last month I squatted 300 this next cycle, I should squat 320, you know, and like, you should progress like that. And same with bodybuilding. Um, you know, it's a little more aesthetic, but your goal is to have more body mass every time that you compete and you get up on stage and you shed off the body fat and you look great. So there needs to be, in my opinion,

a tangible goal that you're setting for yourself. Um, Because without that, it's going to be very difficult to maintain that level of progression. Totally. And just to comment on this point of increasing volume, because again, just from my experience just discussing those people, I think because people will ask me, because my programs are more geared toward beginners. Well, I wouldn't say beginners. I would say people that are new to proper, um, heavier progressive overload barbell training. They're a bit more symmetrical. You're doing like your deadlifting and squatting are separated. So you have your lower body is, is, is it's really getting trained twice a week from even from that alone and your upper body training, you're essentially training, you're

pressing twice a week and you're doing some arms and so forth. And my thinking on that is, um, you know, when you're new to weightlifting, if you're a guy, your, your lower body, if you're like most guys is going to get to where you want it to be a lot sooner than your upper body is. Um, so like, you know, cause I've, I've had quite a few guys come to me that started out with just strength programs where they're squatting three times a week and they get tremendously strong. Um, but you know, after a year they're looking at their body and they're like dude i'm just too bottom heavy like you know big legs big butt but when they try to when they compare it to their upper body just because the lower body volume tends to be higher

in strength training for obvious reasons because your squat and deadlift is two of the lifts um and so they're just looking at the body like like, what should I do? Whereas a lot of guys, if they're not trying to compete as a strength athlete, they kind of want it the other way around. Like they'll take the, they'll take the bigger, fuller upper body and just like a solid lower body. And so I'll have guys that will then, you know, ask me after doing a year, maybe a year and a half of my program and go, okay, cool. So I know I should be doing what you're talking about. I should be increasing volume and I should be, I need to be working my body more, but do I just do that for my entire body? Do I just do like a, you know, I do upper lower split, like upper lower rest, upper lower, or so do you like to do that? Or do you like to get more

specific in terms of like, let's look at your physique. I mean, I know if you're, if you're training a physique athlete, I mean, that's kind of a rhetorical question. But if it's a lot of people listening, most people listening are not physique athletes and don't want to be. But they do care to, you know, like you were saying, they want to have goals. They want to keep progressing. They don't want to just go to the gym and exercise. They want to train. You know what I mean?

So there needs to be something they're going toward. So, you know, do you just go, cool, I'm just going to train everything in my body twice a week, I guess. Or would you advise where you look and go, what do I really need? What do I need to increase volume on? And then, okay, so do I need to decrease volume elsewhere for the purpose of recovery, for example? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. example, uh, like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, for, for me at least training lower,

like really doing heavy, lower or doing heavy and then like kind of heavy lower body work twice a week. I feel that like it takes a bit out of me. Like, I don't know if I could do like Lane Norton's fat program, for example, I think it would actually beat the shit out of me. Um, and I've, I've, I've talked to, I've only come across a handful of guys that, you know, we're, we're definitely natural that could, could run it. A lot of other people found it was just too much because they were just trying, they just knew that like, okay, more is better. So I'm just going to do more on everything. Right, right. No, there is, there is a, a, a need to responsibly progressive volume.

You can't, you can't progress on your entire body at the same rate all the time. So there are definitely ways to prioritize your volume based on what your goals are. You know, I'll be honest when I first started lifting weights, leg day for me was basketball. Uh, you know, all I cared about was the Arnold chest and arms. That's what I wanted. Yeah. I think I, I think I benched three days a week. I would run sprints. That was my leg day. I was like leg day. Oh, it's basketball. I'm using my legs, right? That counts. I jump a couple times. So yeah. So I had the opposite problem. I had developed a good amount of upper body muscle. But when I decided that I was going to compete, I spent a full year training legs twice a week. Makes sense. That was exciting for me because it was like,

oh, I've never deadlifted before. Every time I went in the gym, my deadlift went up. Every time I did a squat, it went up. So I had that pure enjoyment. So if you have athletes or clients that are working with you that are looking at like, how can we increase our upper body mass? Well, yeah, if you take away some of the CNS fatigue and the need for recovery from the lower body and you apply it to the upper body, I mean, the back alone has more muscle groups than anything. And there's nothing that looks better in my opinion than a well developed back. When you, especially when you go to a physique competition, everyone's got a chest and arms because everyone's like that. Everyone starts off, you turn people around and when you

see like, like dense lats and thick traps and you know, like low lat insertions that are like, you know, filled out, like there's just nothing that can replace that. And so, yeah, I'd really like to prioritize the larger muscle groups. I like to make people get a big back and set of traps, you know, nice, big rounded delts, thick pecs. I mean, these are the things that the guys typically are looking for. And especially since I tend to work with a lot of physique competitors, these are the things we focus focus on most guys have chest and triceps and biceps you know but developing a big back that is usually a priority because it is a game changer especially just the way you look and feel you know like that's probably my favorite body part to train

at this point yeah same so and yeah you get some you get some benefits in the back from the deadlift but you know heavy rowing uh you know pulling down uh there's some awesome just hammer strength equipment nowadays but you can just really build a nice back and um so i think i think speaking with the person like you know what's your goal sometimes i'll have them send me a picture and they'll send me a picture of Steve Cook and I'll be like, Oh yeah, Steve Cook looks great. He's got fantastic muscle insertions. I can't help you get like that. Yeah. Yeah. I can't, I can't give you that. I can't give you Kalem Von Moger's, you know, pec insertions that touches nipple or touches belly button, you know, like I have those huge chest insertions like Arnold had. Those are things that are,

you know, I don't think a lot of people consider genetics is the most important thing when it comes to what you're going to look like. Like, you know, you can take a poodle and put them on a pit bull strength program. They're never going to look like a pit bull. It's just the way our bodies are. But yeah, I talked with Alberto Nunez about that recently with 3DMJ. Oh, yeah. No, sorry. Sorry. It was Menno Henselman, actually. It was Menno. We talked about that. And he went into that oh yeah um no sorry sorry it was menno it was menno henselman actually it was menno okay we talked about that and he went into that in depth and really just broke it down for people on how big of a difference it's not just how much muscle can you gain it's how does that muscle look on your frame and like you're saying muscle insertions and stuff so that was

a good discussion yeah and it's it's not something a lot of people talk about because for what we do, it's not sexy to tell someone, hey, you want to look like Arnold. You can't. Or even the guy on Instagram. You know what I mean? Who knows? The random dude who just looks fantastic. And, you know, yeah, it's just like you've accepted it. We all have gone through it.

We all have our moment of acceptance of like this is what I've got so I'm going to make it as good as I can but you know well and I'll tell you what I'm 41 now and struggling with that through my 20s and early 30s that I wanted to look like those guys

and it just wasn't happening oh it's the drugs and oh it's the things I'm not doing it's not the drugs. You know, like, if you take the drugs away, those guys are still going to be the most genetically elite people on the planet. But, you know, you do have these delusions of grandeur. But when you go through that phase of going, you know what? I look pretty damn good.

I might never look like Arnold. But, I mean, for me, this has been the most enjoyable period of my life in training. I love going to the gym. I love seeing the way my body changes. And, you know, even if it's minor, just seeing a little bit thickness in my lat, a little bit more width in my shoulders. You know, like whatever it may be that I'm able to accomplish after being in the gym for 20 years, you know, it's getting, you have to go through these like rites of passage almost, right?

You have to get the newbie gains. You have to get stuck. You have to go through these like rites of passage almost right you have to get the newbie gains you have to get stuck you have to go through these mental barriers but i feel like i've reached such a good place that i know i'm gonna look better when i'm 50 than i did when i was 40 than i did when i was 30 you know like yeah that's fine yeah it's such a linear progression like and it's one of the great things about this sport is you walk around with it all day you know you you carry it with you everywhere you go and if you just continue to You carry it with you everywhere you go. And if you just continue to get better and better and better, everyone's going to assume, oh, what's your trick?

What's your secret? It's just longevity. It's just consistency. And being happy with the process makes me enjoy it much more now. Whereas I used to get upset if I've been stuck at 315 on the bench forever. When am I going to be on the bench 365? You know, like, so understanding that a lot of that strength has to do with muscle insertions, segments of your body, biomechanics. And also training specificity. Like,

do you really want to, you know, if you really want to, maybe you're going to have to bench, you have to go do a Bulgarian bench type program. But do you want to do that? Do you really, you know what I mean? Do you want to be benching five days a week for the next year just to get to 365? Do you really care? Yeah. You know, my buddy Lane just, you know, he competed a couple of years ago with the world championships for powerlifting, the IPF. And, you know, the training volume he had to go through to compete at that level, he

was squatting three to four days a week, benching four to five days a week and deadlifting three days a week. He was literally in the gym four to five hours a day, five to six days a week. And yeah, he got there. He set a world record in the squat. He won the silver medal for his weight class. You know, he did himself very proud, but you know, he hasn't been able to lift for two years since then, uh, on a competitive platform. And it's just been, you know, what you have to put yourself through to be an elite level athlete, would you do it? Lane, he would do it every time. That's what he loves to do. He wants to do that.

For me, when I started getting injured with a higher frequency and I still wasn't at an elite level of powerlifting, I had to like reassess and go, what am I doing here? If I can't, if I can't train lower body for three months, what good is this program doing me? So, you know, it's, it's, again, it's just part of the, the, the process of like discovery and going through and seeing what works and no matter how scientifically or evidence-based your program is, it still has to be safe and it still has to be done properly. And, and you have to enjoy it. Like you were saying, you were saying earlier, I think it's like, just that, you know, people say the best diet is one you can follow.

I think that also applies to training to a degree, I mean, obviously. But if a program, like you were saying, could be scientifically, let's just say it is laid out as good as it can possibly be given the current level of research and scientific research, anecdotal. It can't get any better than this. But if you don't enjoy it, it's not the program for you, in my opinion, because how long are you really going to be able to do it? And is your heart really going to be in it? Or are you just going to be like watching the clock so you can get into your next set in and get the fuck out of the gym? Uh, you know what I mean? I personally would rather have a less optimal, less optimized program that I truly enjoyed. And obviously ideally you find something that's like, it's a solid program and it's put together well and you also enjoy it. But that looks different for different people.

At least that's what I've found just communicating with tens of thousands of people at this point. Yeah, I think it even looks different for the same person as we progress. so I think it even it even looks different for the same person as we progress like you know like you get it true some people get excited about putting weight on the bar so they want to do a small squat program and then some people get excited about doing a 30 set Doug Miller arm day and they you know they want to put a half inch on their arms this month so you know I think the benefit of having done every basic program I've ever heard of, I've tried them all, is that I can kind of, when I feel myself shifting modes, I can kind of rely on a program. I always go back to basics, and I'll start going, okay, let me go back to this program. I really enjoyed it, and it's what

gets me excited. And then, you know, maybe next month, I'm like, you know, I want to get my deadlift back into this 500 range. Let me put in a deadlift program within this uh bodybuilder centric program so i'm able to mix and match and um i think that's when you get into that intermediate to advanced phase that's what's necessary is that you're able to kind of rely on multiple programs to continue to progress to continue to be consistent because i mean that's the key consistency yeah and that that's a good, that's a good, another point. I mean, so the first point is more technical with volume and so forth. And now you're talking about, um, and I totally agree, uh,

when you move into the intermediate and especially into the advanced phase is making sure that you're still enjoying your training and it's still serving your, your, your, your goals and serving. What, what are you, you're not just in the gym. You know, we don't guys like us, we don't go to just like burn some calories and flex in the mirror. There's girls listening as well that are serious about it. There's more to the experience that we're looking for more in the experience. So how have you, so I mean, I would say then exposing yourself to like trying a lot of

different programs, being willing to do that because it's funny i'll get people that will write me and uh both guys and girls and they'll you know after because i've been in i've been doing this for a few years now and i've been in touch with them the entire time which is actually pretty cool and sometimes people almost feel like guilty that they're you know that they have to confess to me that they're not you know what i mean they're not using my program anymore and i'm'm like, no, no, that's good. Like I never intended you to just do, this isn't a zero sum game. I mean, I'm, I like that my program is introducing a lot of people that haven't done proper barbell training. It shows them the ropes, but I totally expect them to go and try other

things and find what do they enjoy and get to the point where then you can build your own. Are there any like general tips that you can kind of, uh, just key lessons that you've learned that has gotten you to now where you can go, okay, I think I'm going to change this. And, you know, where you can now program your, your own workouts to really meet your, your psychological, emotional, and physical needs. Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing for me is that, you know, I've gone through different phases where I've competed as a physique athlete. I've competed as a strength athlete. Um, you know, I have aspirations of doing more competitions, um, of wanting to look good for photo shoots of just wanting to represent

what I do, my sport, my lifestyle. I want to walk around and people to go, that guy is clearly doing something with fitness. Like, you know, like nothing makes me happier than checking out at the grocery store. And, uh, the clerk says, are these, these things good for building? You know, like, I'm like, why would they have that? People actually at the grocery store ask for advice, you know what I mean? Like, yo, so, so, so what kind of, what kind of weight, what do we, what kind of program do you do? Whatever, whatever food you have on there is some kind of magic that they don't

know about. Like, Oh, are those chips good? Oh, is that protein bar good? You know? So yeah, I mean, uh, I think the most important thing is just the internet is just so amazing. I mean, I get to attend seminars and be, you know, because I was associated with Lane, he's dragged me around the world to be a part of these. I mean, I get to attend seminars and be, you know, because I was associated with Lane, he's dragged me around the world to be a part of these. I mean, I know more people with doctor in front of their name than I can even name right now.

You know, I already mentioned Dr. Mike Zordos, but there, you know, there is a whole slew of people that are now doing research beyond what people do in the gym. They're actually creating studies just for this purpose to look at how we should be progressing. How do you build more muscle? Is going to failure going to help you build more muscle or is it total volume that's going to build more muscle? Like where is the answer? And the great part is there probably is no answer, but we're just getting little pieces of what works and what works better for the person and that person and constantly challenging yourself. I kind of see it as a puzzle that's being built from the inside out.

We don't know where it really ends, but at least it gives us more of a picture. It comes in, oh, okay, that's interesting. We never really saw it like that. And it'll probably be like that until we die. It'll probably never be done. Mike Zortos had a great quote. He's been studying daily undulating periodization. And basically you're doing three different models, power, strength, and speed.

And so he basically did a study with them all in the same order, the power, strength, and hypertrophy day. And then he switched the order. And he basically said, so what I found was this program is better than the other program. Does that mean it's the best program? No, it means it's only the second worst. Yes. So, like, we're not, we're not, we're not eliminating. I think the unicorn is going to be what is optimal. Everyone wants to know what's optimal. You hit the nail on the head. What's optimal is what gets you most jacked up to get in the gym and do something. If that's orange theory,

if that's power yoga, if that's CrossFit, if that's the, uh, Frank Seppi Seppi fitness disc, I don't care what it is, whatever gets you jacked up to go do something, that's going to give you much better results than a program that you look at and go, well, this is the perfect program. I guess I should do it. You're just not going to get the same results. So that's why I like competing. That's why I like doing, you know, physique competitions or powerlifting meets or, you know, whatever it is. If someone challenged me to do a CrossFit competition, who knows that that might get, that might get me excited to do something new, you know? So there's, I'm open to all of it. And like you said, when, when clients reach out to me and go, Hey coach, um, what if I do CrossFit one day a week? Is that bad? Oh no.

Are you excited? Do you go there and have fun and talk to people and, and push yourself, you know, excited, do you go there and have fun and talk to people and, and push yourself, you know, past your perceived limitations, then it's going to be good for you. So yeah, I'm all for, you know, blending the evidence-based optimization of your training with the psychology of it, because the psychology of the athlete, I've said this before is the most important thing, right? So that's one thing as a coach, I pay attention with emails. If I start to get a sense that their, their, their interest is waning and they've been on a powerlifting platform for a few months. Well, guess what? I was on a powerlifting platform. I got sick of going to the gym for three hours and doing 12 sets because I had to wait five minutes because I

was training at 90% of my one rep max. So I remember those feelings. So I can say, you know, I just had a client the other day on the phone and I said, Hey, Catherine, like I I get the sense you're not really having fun because, you know, she was kind of hitting her limitations as far as strength. So we switched gears. I immediately got an email from her husband how excited he was that she's back in the gym, like, having fun and laughing and smiling because she told me she was just like going through the motions. She was trying to survive the workout. She was trying to survive it. I was like, I just hope I get through this workout. I've been there myself.

I know how that is, 100%. And that's the value. That's why you're a good coach, and that's why. Because you can understand that, I think. Yeah, as opposed to just being like, oh, stop being a fucking whiner. Just go do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I'm sure there's some very smart people with PhDs that would say that some of the things I do and you do are not optimal, but they don't have the practical application. And you have to be able

to blend that. You have to be able to understand, okay, that's great that that's perfect, but how do we apply that to this person that just wants to put a little less body fat on their belly? You know, like a little leaner. So, you know, we kind of have to be that bridge, that gap between what's scientifically 100% evidence-based proven and what's actually applicable to this person. You know, where do we use that? Yeah, what is going to actually get them to where they want to be in a timely and safe manner, I think, is big. So that's great. So I guess, like, just to summarize, it's when you're moving into the intermediate and advanced become a bit more, you know, I guess you could kind of say it's

program agnostic in a sense and be willing, don't be afraid to just drop what you're doing. If you're not really feeling it. And if you don't see the results that you're looking for and just try something else. And you know, if, if you're going, if it's, if you're going from anything, you know, again, halfway sensible to something halfway sensible, there's no doubt you're not going to lose anything. It's not like you're going to lose muscle. What's the worst case scenario? What's the worst case scenario? You lose four weeks of progress.

What's the best case scenario? You find a program that gives you that progress that you haven't had since you were a beginner. Exactly. Totally. Totally agree. That's a great point. Totally. Totally agree. That's a great point. So is there anything else that any other big lessons that you've learned kind of, you know, in the intermediate and advanced phase, anything with diet, you know, you can start to get a little more specific with your macronutrient ratios. You know, early on, I'm just going to have somebody make sure they're taking enough protein, make sure their fats are in the right range, and then fill in the rest of their needs with carbohydrates.

But, you know, depending on, obviously, if you're going to compete in a physique competition, that's when macronutrient ratios and calories and all that is going to get very specific. We are going to hit a very specific goal every day to get that body fat off. I've seen pictures of you. I know you've done it. And we're talking about powerlifting. Powerlifting has gotten to the point now where it's so competitive that we have to do something very similar. If you want to be an elite powerlifter, you're going to have to lift in a weight class that you're going to be competitive in. And to do that, you're going to have to pay attention to nutrition. It's no longer just stuff your face and go. So, you know, the longer you've been training, when you get to that intermediate and advanced phase, I think it's important to pay

a little bit more close attention to what your goals are and eat kind of specific to that. Yeah. Yes. So, and then also I'm a big believer in not being too anal, uh, for too long of a period of time. Don't let tracking your macronutrients, don't let that also become an eating disorder. You know, I have some people that are like, oh, coach, I hit my goals within every day. I hit it perfectly on. And I'm like, that's bad. That's very bad. You should not hit your goals every single day.

You know, like you're four weeks out from a show. You're off season. Enjoy, you know, go over by, you know, some, some calories. And, and so, uh, psychologically speaking, I just don't want people to get burnt out. Like that happens, I did my job and I'm very happy. And that's what got me to transition into coaching because I enjoyed it. To that point, I've come across people that because they had gone so far down that road of being so OCD and I've come across, I mean, the people I'm thinking of were, they were competing and they had bad coaches essentially. But it left such a bad taste in their mouth with even like tracking calories or tracking macros.

The analogy that it reminded me of is, you know, if you eat a food and it gives you food poisoning, you like can't eat that food again for like six months. It's just completely unappetizing. You know, it just, you have no desire to eat it. And I've seen that with diet and training, but where if again, like you're saying, if you go too, if it becomes too much of a psychological burden, but you just power through it, power through it.

And then though, you know, you fall off the wagon after and it's really hard to just get back to even like normalcy, keel you know yeah bad coaching is we could do a whole two-hour segment on the that whole process uh unfortunately it's you know sending the same meal plan and workout program to every single person 200 clients is um all it does is just separates the genetically elite from, you know, I just, it's so difficult for me to even talk about it. I just had a client tell me that her old team, and they had a meeting, they called her fat when they met her. I'm like, she was a 140-pound, 5-foot, 9-inch girl.

They called her fat. Yeah, that's not fair. And I'm like, wow, man. And that still scars her three years later to this day. You know, we've been through several phases of, fat loss and reverse dieting and she looks fantastic performing fantastic happiest she's ever been smallest she's ever been and she still remembers that conversation like it was yesterday and i'm like and these are girls this was a coach of girls you know like coaching other girls so so yeah i mean those kind of early setbacks you know how

many people do you know that do a competition in their early 20s and they never want to compete again? Yep. Because they did it the most difficult way possible, sticking to four or five months of the same diet every single day. And that's what they think. Hour of cardio a day, seven days a week, and then it turns into two hours in your last month and all that shit. That's bad coaching. They don't know how to get people lean, so they just starve them. Anybody can starve someone to get in shape one time. Once they screwed their metabolism up and put their body fat back on, that's when an actual coach has to

step in. Uh, fortunately that's, you know, those teams have a very big presence. Um, and they do some things very well. They do some networking. They, they have like team building activities. So they, they do some things well, but the problem is, is that they, they treat people like cattle. Uh, they, they, they cater only to the elite. And so they are the scourge of the fitness industry at this time because they are not fitness. They are the opposite of fitness. So, um, you know, the things that we expose, the things that you talk about on your website, flexible dieting, responsible tracking training, these are things that we can, we can use for a lifetime of success. And yes, just competing is a different level, but you don't have to make it more difficult than it has to be. So that's, that's, um, yeah,

that's a, that's a topic that's very near and dear to my heart because I do deal with a lot of people who have been put through the ringer by bad coaching. Yep, yep. I've come across it, of course, a bunch myself as well. You've probably seen a bit more because of just the nature of people. I don't specialize. I don't build myself as a physique, like a competitor coach because I haven't competed. I wouldn't want to honestly coach someone in something that I haven't done myself. You looked a little too tan for the normal. That was honestly just for photo shoots. That was just to look as good as I could for

pictures. And yeah, I stay pretty lean year round. So every once in a while, it's fun just to like, whatever, like it's one of those little mini goals, like, all right, let's just like, look super good again for a bit and we can, you know, get some more pictures. And, um, but, but I haven't competed, uh, honestly, because I feel like I don't think I could do very well. Um, just given the, given the physique, like I'm, I don't think I could gain all that much more muscle, uh, naturally. I think maybe if I really went for it, I could put on maybe 10 more pounds to my frame and it would, it would take some time. Not that I mind of doing the work. Um, but you know, I, I just think that, uh, I couldn't be all that great at it and I kind of don't like doing things that I'm not very good at. And so that's why I said, okay, well, I mean, I'm going to, I chose the route that I chose more like I'm going to pour all my effort and energy or or not all, but I'm going to really apply myself to just building something that can help a lot of people get into great shape. And I'll just stay in great shape myself. So that was just kind of my thing.

But to the point with diet, so just to make it clear for people listening, and you tell me if you agree or what you've experienced and cause I've experienced it myself with my body and then just working with people and so forth is that, um, again, like, so you, like you were saying in the beginning, you know, it can be pretty loose with your calories and pretty loose with your macros. And, and, and you'll see quickly that as long as you're in the gym and putting in the work and working on a decent program, everything just continues to go up so you're like hey yeah i guess it doesn't really matter like i you know maybe i only ate a half a gram of protein per pound of body weight for the last two days yeah i don't see any difference and you know okay i'll bring it back up but um then when you get into that intermediate phase it seems

like fluctuating if you're if your calories and your macros especially your protein and carbs in particular is what I've seen if they begin to fluctuate too much it it negatively impacts training is like it gets in the way of you know it's hard to build that momentum which I have you know what anyone that has has bolt in in a proper you know I say that but you know what anyone that has, has bolt in, in, in a proper, you know, I say that, but you know what I mean? Like anybody that has consistently maintained a caloric surplus and kept their macros relatively tight, you get into that moment, like you build momentum and you feel good and you have energy in the gym and you continue to make progress. And I, what I've seen is that the people that have the most trouble getting into that groove are people whose nutrition is very volatile.

Is that something that you've noticed? Yeah, so you touched on a very important point, and that is what is going to optimize your progress, and that is your performance in the gym. And if your nutrition is not consistent, if you're not eating enough carbs one day so that you're not hydrated properly, your muscles are not filled out, you're not able to perform and recover in a manner which is going to require you during that training session, that's going to negatively impact you. So yeah, that's where we need to get into good habits. Although I'm not someone that disposes that everyone needs to be on the same meal plan, I do believe in meal planning, planning ahead, cooking in bulk. I agree. Putting things in the refrigerator that are easy to grab and go, whatever that means for you. If

that means you label 40 Tupperwares per week, fine. I tend to just cook a bunch of chicken, a bunch of potatoes, a bunch of vegetables, put them in the fridge, grab them, weigh them, and eat. So whatever that looks like for you, depending on your goals, consistency with nutrition, you're just going to feel better. You're going to notice more consistent, you know, weight and the way you look and the way you feel if you're consistently hitting your diet. You know, I'm not opposed to any one diet lifestyle, as long as it doesn't negatively impact your performance or recovery in the gym. Right, right. Totally. Great. So then I think that pretty much probably covers it on that point. Is there anything else like maybe psychologically or anything that we

just haven't touched on diet or training wise that you think the listeners should, you know, just kind of know and expect? A secondary thing when you're talking about psychology would definitely be, you know, I've noticed a better time in the gym depending on my training partner or the gym atmosphere, or even something as minor minor what seem as the music you're listening to. So getting into the right mindset in the gym, you know, I don't know if I should mention a name, but it comes from California and it's called something fitness. Like I'm a member there, but I rarely ever go there because when I walk in, I just don't feel like that motivation to lift. Dude, I had the same thing. I just moved from Florida to Virginia, and I liked my gym, and I liked the person I was working out with.

I had a good setup, and I actually didn't realize how much it impacts my training until I didn't have it. And I came here to Virginia. I don't have my lifting partner anymore. I'm working out by myself now, which is always just shittier in my opinion. But the gym in particular, it was weird. I was like, dude, I don't know. Am I just like, is my fucking testosterone just like plummeting or something? What's going on? Like, I don't want to be here. I got to that feeling where I was like, I just want to get my workout done and leave because I don't like this place. I don't like the music. I mean, even I have my, I don't know. I just didn like the vibe. I, it was actually, I hadn't experienced that before. Yeah. So I think,

um, the value, the one thing I've noticed over the years is even, you know, I have a home gym, but I still prefer to go to the gym. Uh, that's for more like emergencies or video comment, you know, video stuff. But what I've found is it's very fortunate is that I get to travel to a lot of these big fitness exposing conventions and I get to train, you know, Lane Norton is basically my most frequent training partner. And if you've never seen Lane train, he is a freaking animal, right? I'm also sponsored by core nutritionals, shameless plug. That is owned by Doug Miller, who is arguably the strongest,

biggest natural bodybuilder in the world. I've trained with Doug. He destroys me. Those things motivate me even when they're not around. So just being around people that train at a higher level than you, that are stronger than you. Like I know I'm going to the Arnold in March and I'm going to train with Doug every day. I go in the gym the last couple of weeks. I'm like, do some drop sets, lift heavier. Like you're going to be training with like, so, so motivating yourself, if you don't necessarily have a great training partner, mitigate the embarrassment, find a way to motivate yourself to do these things.

Because over the course of five, 10, 20, 30 years, your motivation is going to wane. And you know, it's, you know,

I'm not a financial advisor, but I guarantee I've heard a thousand times. Like if you want to be better at finances, be around people that are good at financial stuff. The same thing with, you want to be better at anything in life, like if you want to be better at finances, be around people that are good at financial stuff. The same thing with, you want to be better at anything in life, like whatever you want to have a better business, go find people that are better than you at business. And just like, even through osmosis, there's something that happens. Like, you know what I mean? I just think it's because my opinion, it kind of, it's probably because we tend to model

ourselves on, you know, what in our environment. So I think that if we change our environment, there's a subconscious process there of like, we instinctively start to change and what our, what we look at as normal just changes. I mean, I don't know, something along those lines. Well, you know, I said it the other day, I'm very fortunate. The gym I train at was I think built in the late seventies, early eighties, and they haven't changed a damn thing since then. Um, but they do a very good job keeping up the equipment. It's hot in there. It's humid.

But it keeps out the riffraff. The machines are too close together. The dumbbells are all mismatched. But I will never be the strongest, leanest guy in that gym. If you're the strongest, leanest guy in your gym, find a new damn gym. You need to move on. I agree. It might be part of what I was running into also in here in virginia so i go i would uh work out pretty early in the morning and um yeah i would complain to the people here at the

office i was like there's no one that even remotely i don't care about oh because i look good or whatever but no no i don't care about you it looks like there's nobody that's even trying to do anything like i look around and the guy next to me is fucking deadlifting with like a scared cat. He's going to blow his back out. I look behind me and it's literally a 70 year old dude doing, you know, leg extensions. That's not a point of like smugness or arrogance. I call my, what are the, who are these peasants? Uh, it's not that at all. It's just like, I was like, dude, I just wish there was one dude that would come every morning and I could just look at him and be like, that's cool. Like I'll never forget. I moved to Jacksonville a couple of years ago for about a year when my wife got a job promotion

and I was training in a gym in Jacksonville. I didn't know a soul. It was when I was squatting three days a week and I was, it was supposed to be a test day and I was warming up and I just felt like crap. And I'm like, I feel like crap. This is going to be the worst squat day ever. Literally some guy I've never met before came over to squat racks over and started squatting. And it was the best squat day I've ever had because every time he would put on a plate, I'd be like, Oh yeah. Before I knew it, I had hit a PR and it was only because I had kind of given myself that motivation. I don't think I probably even know I existed, but to me he me, he might as well have been Michael Jordan playing me one-on-one.

Like, I was going to, you know. And so, yeah, there's so much value in, like, your mood and your mindset when you're training, and it's not something that you can, you know, you want to be able to make it repeatable, but, you know, for me, I don't have an everyday training partner just because my schedule is so jumbled.

I'll try to plan some days with people, but just training with someone that I know is going to push me with a little bit of frequency here and there just really makes sure that I'm pushing myself. With YouTube and with the internet, there's no more people typing in what they did. You can actually watch them do it, and that motivates me. I still pull up Ronnie Coleman deadlift videos before I deadlift. Light weight, baby. I'll put on pumping iron, talk some trash. That kind of stuff really does motivate me and push me to just push myself a little bit harder. Yeah, that's a good point.

Look at what athletes, anyone that plays any sport seriously does that. And I mean, they're, they're watching for the same reason they're watching the greats do everything they did just for, uh, I mean, there's motivation and there may also even be like, you know, there's research that just watching people do things better than you actually can have a psychological effect and help you, you know, progress faster in your skills and so forth. But, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you start to put self-limitations on. You know, when you've been training for a while, you'll hit a 300-pound bench and be like, that's pretty good.

That's about what I wanted to do. And then you come along, you see some guy who's a little scrawnier than you, a little younger than you, bench 400. Yeah. I promise you, you'll make a lot of progress quickly when you start to remove those expectations and ceilings that you have for yourself and start to expect more of what your physique can do. You know, when I see the lifts that Lane and Doug and some of these other guys

I get to train with do, it just, it removes that self-doubt like, okay, if they can do it, I can do it. It doesn't mean I can do it, but I definitely get more out of myself because I've been around people like that. Totally. That's awesome. Well, I think that's a great point to conclude our discussion on, unless there's anything else pressing that you think should be touched on. But those are all the major things, I think. No, I think I'm just going to have to come up Virginia and just learn some business stuff from you.

Anytime. I'm in the D.C. area. It's a cool area. It's fun. That's where Doug Miller lives. Crap, that's a little bit. Yeah, he's a... Yeah, let me know if you're in the area. I don't know if you're familiar with Arlington Nutrition Corner or the Nutrition Corners.

That's his supplement stores. Okay, so it's in Arlington, obviously. That's where one of the things is. I don't know where he lives. I'm not a D.C. person, but he's in the area. Yeah, I'm 10 minutes from Arlington. Oh, cool.

Yeah. So let's end with where can people find you and find your work and ask you questions and so forth? Yeah, so I'm very fortunate that my last name is the only Ravella there is. I have a very limited number of family members. So if you want to find me, it's very easy. You just type in Paul Ravella, R-E-V-E-L-A-A on any Google machine or any internet box, whatever you use. My favorite way to reach people is through YouTube right now. I love doing YouTube videos. I do them almost daily, kind of answering client questions,

you know, things that are kind of not common video topics. I'll talk about things like mini cuts or, you know, minor things that, that don't like, that's what I like about your work. That's why I came across like, Oh, this is cool. This is like, um, not just the same shit that everyone's talking about. You know what I mean? Like calories. Yeah, it's fine. It's good to know, but you know, basically my way of giving back to my clients, like, because I know that they have a lot of questions. And so my goal is to be as personal with them as I can. And so it allowed me to like create a video where people that don't have a coach can look it up. But my clients also feel like I'm talking directly to them. So I love doing that. Uh, I love Instagram. I'm a big, uh,

long form content on Instagram. I post maybe once, twice a day at most. Uh, I love Instagram. I'm a big, uh, long form content on Instagram. I post maybe once, twice a day at most. Uh, it's backed off a little bit. It's, you know, it's, it's fun to do social media until it gets in the way of like, um, yeah, it can become like masturbation almost, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I love, so those are the two I use. Of course I've tried the Snapchat and Instagram stories and the, um, Twitter, but those are the two I use. Of course, I've tried the Snapchat and the Instagram stories and the Twitter, but those are the two, YouTube and Instagram. And then my website is profysique.com. That's where if you're interested in coaching, you know, I'm in the midst of renewing it,

putting a lot more content on there, like some recipes, some macro calculators, things like that. So it's actually going to be more of a resource instead of just like a business card for me. So that's what I'm working on right now but yeah prophysique.com has a lot of like testimonials and stuff right now but it's going to become more of a a location for you know getting some good information and um progressing and i just wrote my first free training program awesome um so uh so training at proPhysique.com. Okay. All I'm asking is that you just email me and I'll just send it back to you.

All I'm asking right now is just feedback. I just want to know, basically, through my YouTube videos, people have asked me for some things. And one of them was like a beginner's guide to training. Literally, this guide is like how to choose a gym. That's good. Your first workout program. What should your nutrition look like? You know, very like,

I'm trying to get people out of their own way, out of that intimidation, out of that fear. Yeah. You know, I don't care if you go- And just get going. Like, let's get forward motion. It's scary. So I wrote this program basically

like I was going to give it to my parents or if one of my clients wanted to give it to their parents. And there's a lot of value in that, you know, because we, I'm not saying we, but anybody who's in shape and looks like they've done some work in the gym, they become a reference for everyone around them. What are you doing? What are you eating? So I want them to be able to say, oh, well, look at this, look at this free beginner's guide. That's why, that's why I wrote the first book I wrote exactly that. I kept on getting asked all the questions and I was like, I mean, I like to read, I like to write, I'm going to write a book so that I can just tell people like here, this is like, this is it. This is what I do. And

these are the basics. And this is like probably honestly the 20% of the knowledge out there, but it's going to give you 80% of the results that you're looking for. Um, it's not everything, but you know, it's, it's at least something that is going to serve you well so and it went well so i won't say never but you know writing a book is not in my near future but i could see it potentially like evolving because like i said earlier i let things grow organically so if this free training program is well received and people are like hey could you do some video content and show me how to do a deadlift okay here's how to do the deadlift and then can you send the intermediate program now so it might build its own momentum where i can actually start to you know justify my time

writing a book an ebook whatever it may be because you know that's my goal at this point is just to um i want to remain an elite level coach for physique athletes but i also want to provide valuable resources for people that are just looking for the answers. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So everybody listening, I really recommend you go check out Paul's work. I mean, I'm honestly pretty picky with the people I bring on the show just because I want to bring people that I feel are going to be that I want my people to go follow. You know what I mean? Like this person is, this person is good. They know what they're talking about. And again,

I don't treat this as a zero sum game at all. And I want to be also a resource in that way. So, so as if you're listening and you probably know that by now, definitely this is my endorsement of Paul. He knows, I mean, it's clear, he knows what he's talking about. He's also a super cool dude. And I just recommend just go check out his stuff, support him anyway. If you, you know, if you're, if you're into what he has to say, then he's, he is, uh, I think worth supporting. Well, I really appreciate that. And hopefully I get to catch up with you at, uh, some fitness event in the near future. I don't know if you traveled to the, to the big ones, but, uh, I haven't, I haven't yet, but that's going to be something that I will start doing.

The only reason why I haven't is because, I mean, honestly, I've kept myself buried in work to the point where I don't even travel for vacations with my family. Like I just don't, you know what I mean? So when I look, I'm like, yeah, but I am going to start doing that stuff. It may not be this year, to be honest.

We are going to do some stuff as a company, but I'm not going to be there. There's one coming up, the Europa in Dallas. A couple of the guys that work with me, a guy and a girl, they're going to go and we're going to see how it goes. And that's more for the supplement side of things. But I will start doing that for sure. Awesome. Because I know that a lot of people have asked me like, Hey, are you going to be at the blog? Are you going to be at the blog? And it's, I do need to do it. But you know, it's,

I'm just not there yet. Especially if you start doing the supplement thing, you know, you can, you can get people to the booth that just want to talk to you. Then you can get them interested in the supplement. So yeah, that's the real value that I get out of going to these things like the Arnold and the Olympia and the bigger shows is that there's so many people at these events that even though I have a very small following, there'll be a lot of people that follow me at the event and they'll be asking me, where can we meet? And so it's just a great chance to like put a name to a face or a, you know, a username on YouTube and like get to talk to these people because like the fact that I have one person

following me on any social media platform just makes me smile. So when you get to actually meet them, shake their hand and have a discussion with them, you know, I literally come home from those events with like a buzz. Like my whole body is just vibrating just from all the positivity and fun. And, uh, I really, I really love it for that reason. That's cool. Yeah. And I've, I mean, my version of that is I've stayed in touch with, I mean, I think my inbox now, I think I have probably close to 50,000 emails, like total, received and sent, received and sent. So I've been able to stay in touch with so many people that way. But I could see it's a different thing to be face-to-face and thank someone face- someone, you know, face-to-face as opposed to,

you know, via email. So I definitely, I definitely am going to do it. It's, it's on, it's now on the list of like, I would like to even start making it a thing of like going around the country probably and doing some meetups. And I want to do it in a way though, that like, I don't want it to be half-assed. Like I want to actually plan it out and make it cool and put some thought into it. You know what I mean? To make it a real thing as opposed to like... Well, and that's why these events are nice because they can kind of wrap up the trip up like, oh, I get to go meet Mike and I'm going to

go to the Arnold Expo. Exactly. I actually have a team dinner on Friday night at the Arnold where all my clients, current, past, even just people associated with me, I just invite them all to dinner and we just all get to go hang out and get to actually connect. A lot of people, you think social media and the internet is like, it's bad for relationships. I think it's the opposite. I think if it wasn't for the

internet, I wouldn't be in touch with hardly anybody. I'm such like a to myself introvert type person when I'm at home. These platforms are just like ways to keep all these relationships alive. And, you know, I mean. No, I agree. I actually saw some research on like even with younger kids that, I mean, there are obviously problems with the amount, with what is happening just with the amount of people, not a time that people are spending in front of screens whether it be phones or ipads or tvs but in social with social media in particular there's and of course you've probably also seen research that like people that spend the most

time on social media tend to be the least happy because uh they they they're you have there's a fakeness to a lot of people in terms of how they want to portray themselves on social media. And it's more about image crafting and virtue signaling than it is being authentic. You know what I mean? That's the beauty of going to these events. Yes. So that's, that's the negative side of it. But then also though, I've seen research that indicate, I mean, just show that younger people actually now they, by their own evaluation of their of their friend like how many friends they have has gone up quite a bit because of social media which is a positive thing where you have people that you know um maybe just because of personality people are a bit more introverted or maybe a little bit socially awkward where they wouldn't have the type of social interactions that they

have now through social media which has even which has brought out a bit more of their personality and helped them, um, become a bit more sociable and just gregarious and so forth. So I think it goes both ways. I'm sure you've come across, you know, somebody that's very talkative on the social media and you, you meet them in person and they're just kind of like, they clam up. I'm the opposite. If you get me in person, I'm, I'm as talkative, if not more. So, yeah, I definitely think it probably helps those people that have that social awkwardness as like a, a filter between two people. So they can actually come out of their shell a little bit and feel comfortable. Like I say, it feels safe. You know what I mean?

Like they, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So anyways, all right. So now we're just rambling, but anyways, I appreciate the time, Paul. Uh, I think this is great. I think, um, you're going to, you're going to be hearing from people that are going to be listening because they're going to appreciate it. So again, thank you for the time. Well, I appreciate it, and hopefully we can continue doing what we're doing. I'm excited to stay in touch with you and see what the future holds for us both. Absolutely. I agree. Thanks, man. Yep. Great.

All right. Thanks, man. Yep. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of

the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.