The Nick Bare Podcast - 004: Performance vs. Physique Goals: Which Is Healthier?

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Today, I'm flying solo and unpacking my thoughts as we close in on the finish of this bodybuilding prep. I break down the difference in training for performance vs. physique goals and their impacts on your health. Along with why routine blood work is beneficial, the difference between overtraining and overreaching, and my future training goals. Thank you all so much for the love and support on the re-brand of this podcast! The feedback has been incredible, and I can't wait to bring you even more great episodes. Follow for more: IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics: (00:00) - Intro (00:46) - Prep updates (04:30) - Training background (06:15) - First bodybuilding show (08:20) - Eating disorder (10:28) - Transition into endurance training (13:45) - Performance vs. physique goals (20:45) - Why I’m doing this prep (24:40) - 1800 calorie diet (27:55) - DEXA scan updates (32:33) - Bloodwork results (39:55) - HIIT bike workout effects (43:23) - Overtraining vs. overreaching (49:40) - Future training goals (53:25) - Final words

Welcome to the Nick Bear podcast. I've spent the past decade as a CEO building an industry leading supplement brand. There's a story. There's a mission. Serving in the U.S. Army. First video in Korea. And creating a community of inspiring leaders. The mission isn't changing, but it's evolving. So I'm excited for this next chapter.

It's out of you, man. Through powerful, unfiltered conversations. You have to be careful with entrepreneurship. You can get hurt. My mission is to help you unlock your full potential and create the life you desire. I cannot tell you how fine up I just got. Camera's rolling and we're on. I'm your host, Nick Bear.

Enjoy the episode. I just got back from drawing 12 vials of blood. I am officially, at the time of this recording, 16 days out from my bodybuilding show. I'm in diet brain, zombie mode as we speak. What I want to cover in this episode? is my personal experience training for both performance and physique goals and which I personally recommend. I'm not saying one is better than the other,

but which one I personally recommend, performance or physique. I'm going to talk about my changes in body composition through the bulk and the cut. So for the last 10 months since my last marathon, the importance of getting routine blood work done, the difference between overreaching, and overtraining and my future fitness goals and what I'm changing moving forward. So I got 12 miles of blood drawn.

It's probably the most blood I've ever gotten drawn at once. It took like seven minutes to draw 12 miles. I was actually getting nervous because this morning I was really feeling the effects of the diet. And I had my lunch literally waiting for me in my truck. for as soon as I got done drawing blood. And the reason I went to draw 12 vials of blood is because I'm going to share my blood work with the world when I get those results back,

which is hopefully next week. And the reason is I really want to analyze and document and share the impact of a severe chloroquic deficit, a very aggressive dieting approach, and what it does. does to the body, specifically what it does to the hormone levels. I know my hormones are tanked right now based off of objective data. I've been getting blood work done every couple weeks to measure the impact of the diet and subjective data. So like how I'm feeling in terms of energy, mood,

libido. I have zero sex drive right now. Like the last thing I want to do right now is have have sex. that's how I know my hormones are just absolutely crushed and that's through stress accumulating a high volume of training and then being in a clorick deficit right now my calories are at 1800 a day and that probably sounds crazy because during my bulk my calories were at a peak of 4,200. And if we look back at previous Ironman training and marathon training,

my calories, when I wasn't really tracking very strictly, my calories were probably around 33, 34, 3,500, maybe even more on bigger training days a day. But with bodybuilding

and training for a physique specific goal, this is just part of the progress or part of the process, I have to get body fat down to a certain level. And as of yesterday, we did a Dexas scan. My body fat is at 7.5%, which is probably the leanest I've ever been,

the leanest that I can ever remember being while carrying this much muscle mass. But I really want to dive into a lot of this throughout this podcast. I want to unpack a lot. And before we really just dive in, I kind of want to set the stage and provide some more context. So, like, my training background, for those of you that know or might not know, when I first got into fitness, it was bodybuilding, it was strength training.

And I found the gym when I was probably 16, 17, maybe 18 years old in high school, later in high school. And the gym that I started training at initially was our high school, football locker room gym and that was a collection of just old pieces of equipment in this big shed

that wasn't even attached to our school at the time and it was a vibe it was amazing it was fun energy was high I love training there that's where I fell in love with strength training I can I can vividly picture

where the bench press was where I would do shrugs all the time I remember this One time, me and a friend grabbed a 10-pound dumbbell, and we'd like 100 reps straight with each arm. My biceps were so sore for like three weeks after that. I just had fun with training at this stage of my life. But that's where I fell in love with the gym.

That's where I fell in love with training and bodybuilding and hypertrophy and strength. And then when I got to college, I became more upset. obsessed with training. I became more obsessed with bodybuilding and dieting and nutrition and supplementation. And that's where I was introduced to the supplement industry. And that's where I started Bayer Performance Nutrition. And I did my first bodybuilding show in college. This was 2012.

It was a natural NPC show in Pittsburgh that both myself and my brother Preston did. and I believe we dieted between 12 and 16 weeks. I can't remember specifically. I bet you I could go back into my fitness pal and figure out when I started, when I stopped, I'd be very curious what my calories and macros were at that time. But the reason that is so significant for me, 2012, which is ironically the same year that I started BPN,

is that I remember wanting to do a bodybuilding show, and I didn't know where to get started. So I went to my college professors, and at the time I was studying nutrition, I graduated with a degree in nutrition, and I went to my college professors asking them if they could write me a meal plan to diet down for a bodybuilding show,

and they had no clue where to get started. You see, when I went to college, I thought that by studying nutrition, I was going to learn nutrition for sports performance. What we actually ended up studying was nutrition for disease intervention, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, which is interesting and super important on its own, but it wasn't where my true passion was. So what did I naturally do? I went to Google and I started Googling things.

And I discovered if it fits your macros, into flexible dieting and tracking calories and and macronutrients through my fitness pal, which I'm sure a lot of you guys probably still use to track your nutrition. And I just submerged myself in this space. And I discovered my maintenance calories and macros. And then I created a plan to be in a cloric deficit over 12 to 16 weeks and incorporate cardiovascular training

to lose weight to step on stage as lean as possible. and I learned a lot through that show. I think myself and my brother both learned a lot through that prep. You know, at that point I was 22 years old. Eight years before that, I had a very severe eating disorder where I was starving myself. What I realized that prep is that it did trigger old eating disorder habits, where during the prep alone, I was really good at controlling. calories and macronutrients and being very disciplined like I am right now.

But what I found was after the prep, I had a hard time eating intuitively. I had a hard time not tracking calories and nutrition. And it became very over-consuming of my entire life. What has changed from then 2012 to now, 2023, is that I am now more. self-aware of that happening. I am more self-aware of what to expect. So I'm not anticipating any, and I share that to say that I'm not anticipating any unhealthy relationships with food

after this bodybuilding prep, but it's at 16 days, 17 days, a little too early to say for sure. But based off the way I'm feeling about tracking macros and calories right now, I'm ready to eat intuitively again. That is for sure. So when I finished my show in 2012, I graduated college in 2013, joined the army,

you know, between those years until my first marathon in 2018. I wasn't, quote, unquote, competitive bodybuilding, but I was living the lifestyle. I was eating the foods. I was training for hypertrophy in size and strength. I just wanted to get,

bigger and stronger. So I was living this bodybuilding focused lifestyle. It's the only way to describe it. Non-competitive. 2018, I wanted to dip my toes in the water and endurance training and I signed up for my first marathon,

which was the Austin Marathon. And it completely broke me off. I ran a 357. It was extremely difficult and challenging for me. But it was that small dose of difficult and challenging and discomfort that I wanted to do it again the following year.

So I signed up for the following year's Austin Marathon. 2019, I ran slower. I ran like a four hour and 15 minute marathon, like 18 minutes slower than the previous year. Because one, I wasn't training properly. I didn't know how to train for endurance. I didn't want to lose weight. So I wasn't willing to sacrifice muscle and size and strength for running. so I wasn't prioritizing my endurance training.

And after that, it was one event after the next. So that same year, 2019, started training for Iron Man, Florida, did Iron Man Florida. And in 2020, I went for a sub three-hour marathon attempt at the Austin Marathon again. I missed by 24 minutes, which is a huge miss. I ran three hours, 24 minutes. 2021, I prepped for Ironman, Florida. And sorry, no, 2012, I prepped for Iron Man, Texas, which ended up being challenged Cancun because Iron Man, Texas was canceled because of COVID.

I also ran a sub three hour marathon during that prep in two hours, 56 minutes. And then we went right into Leadville. 100 after Challenge Cancun. So 2021 was literally sub three hour marathon, Challenge Cancun, Leadville 100, which is a 100 mile ultra marathon in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. And in 2022, I wanted redemption

because my time in Leadville wasn't as fast as I anticipated. So I signed up for Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile Ultra in 2022, ran that in 19 hours, 13 minutes. And then also in 2022, I wanted to run a sub-250-hour marathon to the Buffalo New York marathon in two hours, 48 minutes. And then right after that marathon, I went into the hybrid build. And now we're in the hybrid cut.

So I listed off all those events to show that in the last six years, six years, I've gone from event to event to event. And those six years have been a huge. self-experimentation of training, nutrition, body composition, and trying to achieve optimization and full potential through that process, through those years. But what I also discovered unintentionally was my breaking point and a point of diminishing return of training and volume accumulation on the body. And really that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode, this podcast.

What I've learned and realized is, in my opinion, and this is no disrespect to bodybuilding as a sport, as an event, if this is something you do and you love, you should do it. But this is my personal opinion based off my perspective and experience. I believe that performance schools are far superior than physique goals. And there's multiple reasons why. One, performance goals, in my opinion, like I said, are healthier. They are more sustainable. They fit into a lifestyle more efficiently and more effectively,

while physique goals are all consuming. I mean, a physique goal prepping for a bodybuilding show. And when I say physique goal, I don't mean like you're just trying to, to build bigger arms or bigger legs, or you're just trying to look better naked or be in better shape. What I'm talking about is the extremes for both performance and physique. I'm an extreme person. I take things to the extreme.

I always have. If you've watched the last decade of my life through me sharing it on social media, you've seen that I've gone after these extremes. The 100-mile ultramarathons is. sub three-hour marathons, this bodybuilding show. Extremes can teach you and show you how to reach a full potential, but they can also be very dangerous through the process. So when I say physique goals, I'm talking bodybuilding competitions.

I'm talking trying to get as lean as humanly possible, where you're pulling your caloric intake down very, very low, running yourself into the ground. So when you step on stage, you can expose all of your muscles with limited fat. When I'm talking performance goals in this context, I'm talking about training for half marathon, full marathon, ultras, triathons, things like that.

Not necessarily recreational athletics and fitness. You know, with performance goals, when I've been training for marathons or Iron Man's or ultras, Yes, you can take them to dangerous lows, but they fit into your lifestyle a little bit better than physique goals have for me. Now, when I signed up for my first bodybuilding show in 2012, I was single. I was in college.

I had limited responsibilities and obligations. I did not have a child. And I could be selfish with my time. And during that, bodybuilding prep in 2012, that's what I was. I was selfish with my time. If I had to do cardio at 12 p.m. on a Wednesday night, that's what I was doing. If I was too tired during prep to do anything else but lay on the couch or lay in my bed, that's what I was doing. My life is different now. I have a wife. I run a business. I have an eight-month-old child. I have more duties,

responsibilities, obligations. So when I come home from the office now and I'm tired and I'm exhausted from this prep, my daughter once needs my attention and my wife needs a break, I can't lay on the couch. I can't lay on the bed. I have to be there.

And that is one thing that I neglected. I don't know if I neglected it. I just didn't think about it. I didn't realize that going into this prep where I would get to with the last couple of weeks. To be honest, like when I've had performance goals, when I've been training for marathons, you look forward to these big workouts.

I remember in this last marathon prep, I'd have like a 22-mile workout on a Saturday. And that Monday, before that workout, I was starting to get the itch. I was starting to get nervous for that workout. I was starting to get excited for that workout. I was planning out my carb up for it. I was full of life and energy and mortality. I was ready to crush that training session. And we flip over to now being in this cut for a bodybuilding show,

making it through a training session is difficult. It's challenging because you are at your weakest. During a marathon prep, as we build into that race, you get stronger and faster and more durable. But for a physique goal, you get weaker as the process goes on. And for the physique goal, you're just focused on the, food from one meal to the next. And, you know, having conversations with staff, my wife, she pretty much says, like at this point in the prep, I'm, I'm kind of useless. Not useless as a

human being, but useless in terms of the conversations that I can have. The depth and substance that I can provide while I'm home. It's almost like I'm there, but I'm not. I'm physically present, but I'm mentally not because I'm thinking about that next meal. I'm thinking about not being able to sleep at night because I'm so hungry. I'm thinking about food, right? I've been finding myself scrolling Instagram

and looking at food pages. So I share some of that insight to provide context into how I felt during performance preps as opposed to physique preps. And it is personal preference. 100% personal preference. You know, I could talk to someone who loves training for bodybuilding

and they could feel the exact opposite way I do about bodybuilding and performance goals. And that's okay because, like I said, it is a personal preference. But I personally don't like the way I feel during a bodybuilding prep. I don't like the way I'm showing up as an employer or a leader. I don't like the way I'm showing up as a husband and father. I don't like the way I'm showing up as a friend. And that is just having the awareness of how I feel and how it's affecting the people around me. Because I'm going to point my life where I can't be selfish with my time, my energy,

and my presence. and that's just some of the observations that I've made throughout this prep. You know, people will probably listen to this thinking, well, then why the hell are you doing it? Well, why are you doing this prep? I want to be a leader and an expert in this space. And I've never been a fan of someone who tries to be a leader and expert who hasn't done it themselves before. Yes, I did a bodybuilding show in 2012, but that doesn't count. that was so long ago.

I really wanted to submerge myself in, in this lifestyle, in this training, in this prep again, so that I could personally talk on behalf of my experience. And the biggest takeaway that I've learned since this prep started in late December, now it's almost the middle of March, is that I'll reinforce, I prefer performance goals, and I will always choose performance goals over physique goals. The physique is a byproduct of training for performance.

And if I look at the changes in my physique over the last six years of training for performance, I never went out saying I need to have a bigger chest or a bigger back or bigger legs or look more lean or look why. wider. My body just adapted and changed to the training stimulus that I was providing to it to be more efficient at the movement that I was trying to get better at. So this will be my last bodybuilding prep. I'm fairly confident in that. But it's honestly, it's been a great experience. It's been an eye-opening experience. And it's been an experience that I know that I can share with other people in hopes of helping more people choose performance

goals over physique goals. Because like I said, I think they are healthier, they are more sustainable, mentally and physically and emotionally, and not just for yourself, but for the people in your life, your family, your friends, your relationships, everyone in your life. It's funny, as I was prepping for this podcast, I was at a coffee house. And I got there around 10 a.m. I stayed there for a few hours. And I was drinking coffee.

I was dialed in. I was feeling great. And then it was getting to be lunchtime. And this was yesterday. And the lunches were getting delivered to the tables around me. And I could smell this food and it smelled so good. It smelled so freaking good

that I had to leave the coffee shop because I couldn't focus on anything but the smell of that food and when I say all consuming that's what I mean. Like last night I shaved my arms I've been shaved my arms for years people ask the question all the time why

personally I like the look and feel that's pretty much the only reason doesn't make me any faster people have assumed that no doesn't make me any faster But I shaved my arms and then I put this vanilla Madagascar lotion on my arms. It smelled like a vanilla cupcake. I almost like I shit you not.

I was tempted to eat the lotion. It smelled so good like a vanilla cupcake. So when I say all consuming, it consumes your entire life where you can't focus on priorities that may be more important. right and that's one thing I've realized so we're 16 days out from this bodybuilding show calories right now are at around 1800 it's about 235 grams of protein 115 grams of carbs and 45 grams of fat it's the lowest that my calories will get throughout this prep tomorrow I actually have a refee day of 600 grams of carbs that I'm super excited about.

So tomorrow's macros are 65 grams of fat, 600 grams of carbs, and 180 grams of protein. And the goal with that refeed, so to kind of give some context into what happens for a bodybuilding show, you know, you choose a show, you dye it down for that show, and then the goal is to maintain as much muscle mass as possible and lose. as much body fat as possible. The goal is to maintain as much muscle mass as possible, but naturally, if you're not using performance enhancing drugs, you're going to lose some muscle mass.

I've lost significant lean tissue throughout this prep, which we'll go through some numbers here in a little bit. Like right now, being 16 days out, I'm very flat, meaning I'm lean, but my muscles aren't full of glycogen. So when you consume carbohydrates, your body will store carbohydrates as glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. And because my carbs are so low right now, my glycogen stores are very, very low. Very low.

So you get like this flat kind of stringy look and feel. And when you carve up, you're shuttling those carbohydrates through digestion into the muscles. and you start to fill out a little bit. So your muscles become fuller. They look larger because they're topped off with muscle glycogen. And with muscle glycogen comes water. So when we have peak week for the bodybuilding show, the last week before the show,

we'll start adding more carbohydrates into the diet. And the goal with that is so that when you step on stage, you have a harder, more full look and feel because the goal in hopes is that your muscles are filled with muscle glycogen and water. So you look larger, you look leaner, you feel, you know, harder. And that's the goal for peak week. So part of the reason we're doing this refeed of 600 grams of carbs tomorrow is we want to see what happens to my body when we give it 600 grams of carbs. Like is my body efficiently going to take those carbs, digest, and then distribute into the muscles?

And at what time and pace and how do I look? So right now, being 16 days out, we're doing some testing with carbohydrates to top off my muscle glycogen in preparation for show day. So like I said, yesterday we did a Dexas scan. Dexas scan is the gold standard in measuring body fat percentage. lean tissue, I was doing Dexas scans throughout most of the bulk and the cut. So my marathon ended the end of May 2022, and we pretty much went into a slight surplus of calories right after the marathon. But the bulk was really fully underway, I would say, in the end of July or August.

So August 30th, 2022 was my first Dexas scan. And I'd say I was probably consuming 3,300 calories a day at this point. My body fat was 8.9%. Total mass was 210.4 pounds. Fat tissue was 18.8 pounds. And lean tissue was 183.5 pounds. So at the peak of the bulk, my last Dexas scan at the peak of the bulk was about four months later, It was December 12th, 2012.

At this point, I was consuming about 4,200 calories a day, which felt like force-feeding myself. I was thick. I was sitting heavy and feeling good. My body fat here was 14%. Total mass, 228.1 pounds. Fat tissue, 31.9 pounds. And lean tissue, 188 pounds. So lean tissue in those four months went from a lot of.

183.5 to 188 pounds. Now, I will preface that to say that a Dexas scan will measure lean tissue, but things can affect these readings. One of those is the amount of muscle glycogen you have, how many carbohydrates are being stored in your muscle at the time of the reading and your hydration levels. So you should try to do these scans when you are in similar conditions. at every scan.

What you don't want to do is going to a scan dehydrated, going to the next scan, super hydrated, going to the next scan, having, like, fasted three days prior. You know,

you want to maintain consistency in controlling the variables when you go into these scans. But based off of these two scans, lean tissue went from 183.5 to 188 pounds. Now, my scan yesterday,

which was March 8th, 2023, consuming 1,800 calories a day. Body fat, 7.5%, which like I said is possibly the leanest that I've ever been based off of objective and subjective data. Total mass, 201.9 pounds. That was measured via the machine.

That morning, yesterday morning, on my scale, I weigh myself every single morning at 5 a.m. Or I have at least during this cut. After I go to the bathroom, before I consume any liquid or food, yesterday morning I was 195 pounds, but the machine measured me at 201.9. Fat tissue was 15.1, and lean tissue was 178.6. So key takeaways. Peak of the bulk, I was 14% body fat.

Last scan of the cut, went down to 6%. 7.5. Total mass went from 228 to 201. Fat tissue went from 31.9 to 15.1, which is significant. Lean tissue went from 188 pounds to 178.6. Now, again, I will caveat to that when I got my measurement at my peak bulk, my muscle glycogen was topped off. I was hydrated. Yesterday, when I got scan, I was hydrated, but my muscles are very depleted in muscle glycogen right now because my carbs are so low, 115 grams a day. So did I lose 10 pounds of muscle or lean tissue? Probably not, but did I lose lean tissue? Yes, definitely. I've seen a decrease in muscle size and strength during this cut, but it's been a very aggressive cut.

So I expected and anticipated that. But those are some of the changes we saw during the bulk and the cut this year. So I like getting blood work personally just to see how training is influencing biomarkers and if there's anything to really look out for. Now, I have stated many times before, I don't use performance enhancing drugs. drugs, steroids, testosterone, TRT, hormone replacement therapy, any of that stuff. I don't use it. I think you can see and verify that with my blood work results.

Like I said, we did blood work today. I'm going to have someone analyze that and we're going to share that content, maybe on the podcast, but definitely on YouTube. And I'm expecting my testosterone to be very low. if not the lowest I've ever seen just based off of the way I feel. But at the peak of the bulk, December 22,

remember I was force feeding here, 4,200 calories a day. My total testosterone was 492 nanograms per deciliter, which is within a healthy range. I think a healthy range is probably anywhere from 300 to, you know, a thousand nanograms, per deciliter, if you, if you pull to one off the street, that was like 18 years old,

they probably have a testosterone level of like 800 or 900 nanograms per decilator, just like raging hormones. As you get older, your testosterone levels naturally decrease, but there's also lifestyle choices that can affect your natural testosterone production. That is diet, sleep, stress, alcohol. alcohol, training, strength training, yes, it helps natural testosterone production, but overtraining or overreaching too often will negatively impact natural testosterone production. So in December, my total testosterone was 492.

My free testosterone was 6.98 nanograms per deciliter. Free testosterone is a testosterone that your body can use. It's unbound. my FsH was 3.0. The normal range is 1.6 to 8. And my LH, which we'll talk about this, was 2.8. And the normal range is 1.5 to 9.3. And my esterdial was 30.

And a normal range is less than or equal to 39. So hormone levels looked really good in December at the peak of the bulk. Again, I was recovering very well. I was running less. I was running maybe 20 miles a week, max. I was overfeeding. I was consuming a surplus of calories. I was sleeping great.

Yes, we had a newborn child. I guess my daughter at that point was like five months old, but she's been sleeping really well since she was born. I can't complain about the sleep we've been getting with a baby in the house right now. and then, you know, I got another, I got more blood work done in February. So last month,

which would have been like the middle of the cut, my total testosterone was down 219 nanograms per decilator. And I actually ended up getting a second blood draw because I didn't trust that one. I was like, there's no way I'm that low right now. I don't feel that crappy. I got a second blood test.

done by inside tracker, that one confirmed it was 231 nanograms per decilator. My free testosterone was 2.48 nanograms per decilater, confirmed by inside tracker at three nanograms per decilator. My fash didn't change. It was 3.0. My LH, my lutonizing hormone, went down to 1.2, and esteridio went down to 15. What is leutinizing hormone? Lutonizing hormone is a hormone that stimulates processes in your body that are important for sexual health, development, and reproduction.

So the pituitary gland in your brain secretes lutenizing hormone, and lutenizing hormone stimulates your testes to make testosterone. So we can see, like, as I'm going into a chloric deficit, as training volume is accumulating, I'm not recovering as well, calories, are decreasing, it's starting to affect my hormones. This was last month. And the blood work we just did today, I am highly confident will be even worse than the blood work we did last month. If you're not training for something significant and you feel pretty good, maybe do blood work once a year.

Just to like check the box. Make sure you're within the normal range. If you're outside of the normal range, we'll talk to a doctor to see what you can do to get back within the normal range to optimize. But when you're training for something and that training is very significant and intense, I personally recommend doing more routine blood work. It gives you more insight. It gives you more data, objective data. And if you start feeling a certain way, you can look back your numbers and say, well, here's why I feel this way. Like right now, I feel pretty shitty at this point in the cut being this to

and in this large of a deficit, I can look at my blood work and say, well, this is part of the reason I feel like crap. My hormones are tanking because of the caloric deficit and the under-recovering and the lack of sleep.

But the truth is, like, this is part of bodybuilding. This is what's going to happen. I remember watching a video on natural pro-bodybuilder Chris Alkins. Before his show, his natural testosterone level was below 100 nanograms per deciliter, which is crazy.

That's like lower than an 80 or 90 year old man. And you might be thinking, dude, you're shredded. You look great. How do I look like that? To look like that on stage, it comes with collateral damage of feeling like absolute garbage. That's the truth. You're never going to find someone who steps on stage being 6 to 7% body fat feeling like

Hercules. Naturally. It's not going to happen. It's just part of this process. And it affects your brain in the way you think, and it affects the way you perform in the gym, out of the gym. You have no libido. You have no sex drive.

You can't sleep. You think about food all the time. Like I said, it consumes your entire life. And it not only affects you, but it affects people around you as well. So I share those numbers to say that. if you're going to do a bodybuilding show or going to a prep, I at least want you to have the knowledge and education and know what's coming along with that

so that when you start feeling like dog crap, you know why. What was also interesting about my blood work in February, so the day before I got blood work done, or the day before I got blood work done, I did this big bike workout on Zwift. And I wanted to do some high-intensity interval training. High-intensity interval training can be very beneficial for fat loss

because you can get a very effective, difficult workout done in less time as opposed to low-intensity, steady state. Low-intensity, steady state would be like an easy jog or walking on a treadmill at an incline or a hike. your heart rate stays lower. It doesn't jack up. High intensity interval training is when your heart rate is going up at massive efforts and it's coming down and recovering and it's going back up.

There's intervals, right? So I wanted to do a hit workout on the bike the day before I got blood work done, which was probably not the smartest, to be honest. And I put out a massive effort on this bike workout because I hopped on the bike on Zwift and I was using my FTP, my functional training power from Iron Man Prep a year and a half ago when I was an Iron Man shape. And it had me doing some of those intervals for a minute at 430 watts, which destroyed me. It was one of the hardest workouts I've done of this past year. It showed in the bloodwork the following day.

So creatine kinase is an enzyme that mainly exists in your heart in skeletal. muscles with small amounts in your brain. The cells in your skeletal muscles, heart muscles, and brain release creatine kinase into your blood when they're damaged. When you have muscle damage, you will have high amounts of creatine kinase in the blood. It's a byproduct. When I got blood work done in March of 2022, like I said, I get frequent blood draws done. This was during marathon prep.

and the normal range for creatine kinase is between 44 and 380. My reading came back at 525. This might have been, and I don't have notes on this, but I possibly did blood, a blood draw like after a tempo workout or a big workout in late March, which is probably why there's an elevated cretine kinase reading. When I did blood work the day after the bike, the high intensity bike interval training workout, my creatine kinase was 1,035.

Like I said, the normal range is between 44 and 380. Now, this was a clear example of me overreaching while in a deficit, while depleted, while not being able to recover effectively. I mean, the blood work shows. So after I saw this blood work, I decided, no more high intensity interval training during prep anymore of this bodybuilding prep. So all my cardio now, since I've got these results back and up until the show, is low intensity, steady state.

Easy runs. Like right now I'm running between 35 and 40 miles a week and just easy runs. The next thing I wanted to talk about was the difference between over-training and overreaching. Now, during a marathon prep, for example, if you have a really strong training program and you work with a good coach, like, you know, I've worked with Jeff Cunningham for my last two marathons. Jeff is really good at programming marathon training preps where he adds in these workouts that allow you to overreach. But then there's workouts that follow up that help you recover so that you're continuously making progress. But as I was doing some research in preparation for this podcast, I pulled some notes

that Lane Norton made on a Facebook post in 2015, actually. But these comments, you know, eight years later, are still very accurate and true. And whenever I need some firm guidance and information on training, nutrition information, Lane Norton is, one of those guys that I reference frequently. I trust Lane tremendously. And Lane described the difference between overreaching and overtraining in this context right here. So I'm going to share it directly from his Facebook post from 2015.

Overreaching is a period of time during a training block with the accumulation of volume and fatigue that causes an athlete's performance to temporarily decrease. It is often accompanied by decreased drive to train and increased soreness. It is easily rectified by a short tapering or rest of volume by one to two weeks during which time performance should go back to normal. And in many cases, above normal be a supercompensation of recovery. So during training blocks and good programming of workouts, we see this with Jeff's programming all the time, we would do these overreaching workouts,

whether it's 18, 20, 22-mile marathon-paced workout, or overreaching, and there'd be two weeks of recovery before we do another hard workout like that. And what that would do is that super compensation of recovery in between will allow us to make gradual progress throughout a marathon build and prep. Now, that's overreaching.

That's not overtraining. Overtraining, as stated by Lane, is think of overreaching gone too far, but now you start to get changes in measurable physiological outcomes like disrupted hormone levels, decreased immune function, changes in heart rate, et cetera.

Another objective data point that I measure as well is heart rate. If I'm ever in a training block and I cannot feel like I can recover. I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm getting slower. An objective data point that I will see in my resting heart rate

is my resting heart rate will start to increase. That is a sign of overtraining. So what we're seeing right now in, you know, this bodybuilding prep, for example, is with chloric, this chloric deficit, and maintaining a high level of training volume and intensity with reduced recovery because of lack of sleep and nutrition, well, we now start to see disruptions in hormone levels,

changes in heart rate, decreased immune function. A lot of people in the back half of a bodybuilding prep will start to get sick easily. Lane also goes on to say that what overtraining is not, it's not feeling bad, tired or sore. Also, many people have the notion that overtraining is catabolic to muscle, that you can train a muscle so much that it actually becomes catabolic.

There is zero scientific data to support this. Also, most athletes that actually get overtrained are endurance athletes or those who do competitions like Iron Man because they do such an enormous amount of volume being work. and work is forced times distance. I mean, during Iron Man prep, I was 100% overtrained. I saw disruptions to hormone levels. I saw disruptions to sleep.

I saw disruptions in performance. And, you know, working with Natasha, we actually decreased intensity and volume for a few weeks. I was able to dig out of that hole. But when it comes to overtraining, there's things that can add to these disruptions. So in a perfect world,

which I don't know anyone who lives these conditions, maybe some professional athletes, but in a perfect world, you have no duties, responsibilities, obligations, but to train. Eat, train, sleep. Boy, then you can control those variables very well to get more effective and efficient

without overtraining. But what is a normal person like you and me have to deal with? We have daily stressors, we have family, we have chaos and destruction and loss and work and family issues and all these things that compound. During my Iron Man prep, yes, there was an increase in stress from physical training and volume, but it was the peak of me building the business.

I just got married. There's lots of things going on in life and that all can contribute to, uh, an accumulation of stress on the body. But those are the differences that I wanted to point out between overtraining and overreaching, because overreaching is necessary. It's progressive overload to get better, to get stronger, to get faster,

but it does not necessarily mean you're overtraining. Next thing I want to talk about is the future of my training. Now that we talked about all those things, I know that high breath at training, the combination of cardiovascular conditioning and strength training, is the way, 100% the way. But now my training moving forward after this bodybuilding show,

the questions I want to ask and answer is how can I, how can my training supplement my new chapter of life as a founder, as a leader, as a husband, as a father? How can it supplement and not take away from those priorities? How can training push me through ambition and overreaching goals? You know, I still want to hit PRs and marathons. I still want to do triathlons in the future.

I still want to run ultra-marathons. I still want to hit PRs in the gym. But how can my training push me through ambition, but it will also optimize the way that I feel and perform? You know, right now in this bodybuilding prep, some may say that I look my best that I ever have, but I'm probably the unhealthiest I've ever been. I might be the weakest I've ever been.

A five-mile run right now at this level of leanness and on this amount of calories is challenging. It is. So how do I push myself ambitiously? but also optimize the way I feel and perform. And one thing I'm going to prioritize after this bodybuilding show is getting my hormones back to a normal range naturally through training, sleep, recovery, and diet. I mean, right now, my dietary fats are so low. That's a huge driving factor in my hormones being tanked.

Chloric deficit, lack of sleep, not nearly enough calories, not nearly enough fat. Dietary fat is essential for regulating and optimizing hormone levels in men and women, but very important for men. My dietary fat intake is so low compared to what it normally would be at maintenance or in a surplus. At maintenance, my dietary fat intake would probably be anywhere from 90 to 110 grams. In a surplus, it was probably at between 140 to 160 grams a day, depending on how many ribeye steaks I eat in that week and how often we're going at the dinner.

But my split for post show, because I am a big fan of forward thinking, backwards planning, this is my split post show. I'm planning for. Mondays is lower body strength. Tuesdays is an easy run and core. That's probably like a seven mile run. Wednesday, pool strength. Thursday, easy run and hit high intensity interval training.

So it might be like three easy miles and some sprints or some hill sprints or some a bike workout, something like that. Or I might just switch it up and do something crazy. Friday. a long run, so anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes, Saturday off, and then Sunday, push strength, and core. That is my training split post-show that I'm planning to incorporate, and I'm super excited for that.

And what I've learned through this bodybuilding prep is this is not the way that I want to eat and train and live, and that's okay. I respect the sport. I respect the people that train this way. I really do because it takes a lot of time, a lot of dedication, and a lot of sacrifice. But for me, for the chapter of life I'm in right now, bodybuilding, competitive bodybuilding is not for me. Performance goals and total optimization is what I'm aiming for,

to support my priorities in life being business, family, being a father, being a husband. and I'm really excited to share this next chapter of training with you guys, where it honestly might not be as much training volume as I'm used to doing or that I've done the last six years. That training volume will probably, most definitely, decrease. Intensity might actually increase for some of these training sessions. But I'm going to share and document this with you guys. As I know, many of you are in life training.

transitions, you're getting married, getting new jobs, growing up, starting families. And we can't necessarily train twice a day at the volume and intensity that we used to. So documenting the next phase of the hybrid athlete and I'm looking forward to taking you guys along for that ride. So that is the episode. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And we'll see you in the next one.