The Shintaro Higashi Show - 💉 PEDs in Grappling? Training & Recovery with Vinnie Mancuso

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

In this episode of The Shintaro Higashi Show, I sit down with my longtime friend, elite grappler, and judo black belt Vinnie Mancuso to dive deep into the world of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), testosterone, fitness, and recovery in the grappling world.Whether you’re curious about TRT, trying to optimize your training, or just want to hear unfiltered gym talk between two grapplers, this episode is a must-listen.

like oral steroids, the cholesterol's gonna look terrible. Yeah, but let me say something though, right? With the Sashron, there's a risk of hematocrit increasing, hemoglobin increasing, blood pressure increasing, all this stuff, you know what I mean? And then there's also the psychological side of, man, I feel freaking great at this dose.

Let me freaking increase it a little bit. All of a sudden, I put 20 pounds of this guy, who was 200 pounds, now he's all of a sudden 220-225 He's getting jacked in the gym. He's Alright guys, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show today. I'm here with a very special guest my good friend Vinny Mancuso What's going on Vinny? We don't doing good, man So why don't you give us a little bit of a rundown on your athletic career some? Highlights that you've had

Just kind of show that buddy like oh, yeah, I'm not just some random jacked dude Um, you know, well, I started my life wrestling pretty young age seven years old Got into judo at what about 21, I guess. Yeah pretty late in the game Yeah, could you grapple your whole life? Yeah. Yeah, so I did that So I'm a second-degree black belt in judo also I'm a national champion in the Pan American champion in Sambo I'm a national champion and a world silver medalist and I you WW grappling nice. That's awesome They have quite the record and you're heavyweight. I'm a heavyweight. Yeah, how was your way now?

Maybe on the 240 so really not much a little small for heavyweights kind of like an in-between weight No, I don't really not really fast. So yeah, Cameron to be 220 nice Well a lot of sacrifice probably a performance and yeah well being yeah Yeah, 20 pounds to cut is not easy. See when you have a low body fat percentage like yours I mean have a job and work and the job Can't be like I got to cut 18 more pounds. Yeah, pick up this guy, you know like his work. Yeah this guy. Yeah. Yeah nice, man All right, so we're gonna talk today about performance enhancement What an interesting topic? It's an extremely interesting topic. Yeah, it's gotten kind of mainstream

I feel like a lot of people are talking about it. Yeah, so what happened? You know back in the day, right you watch I like I remember we wrestled in high school together So like we go to the AC will grapple and then we were obsessed with being jacked. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and then the path was reading muscle and fitness Yeah, and these guys are selling these over-the-counter supplements Yeah, it's like hey buy Gacchik and increase your bench by 70% Muscle yeah, I'll take it. No just like man. I just can't I think the cell tech work Yeah, practice to put weight on you. Yeah, I mean that it's loose scene and this BCAA

like Those days are all long gone where it's like there's a mysterious thing. No one knew about it. No one's talking about it Now everyone's talking about it. Yeah, you know know let's talk about the shift in the way people perceive some of these enhancements I mean it's probably due to the social media yeah I would think because I was kind of like secretive at that age I don't know anything about this no yeah I didn't know anything about it until I was like in my 20s yeah you hurt people like oh yeah this guy did that or that guy did that but you don't you don't know anything. No you really don't. It's all hearsay like in the gym right? There's nothing mainstream

information out there. Like I remember I joined this gym called Pump and Iron. You remember that? 91st Street in New York? Yeah. It was like a bodybuilder. That's like kind of like a hardcore style. Hardcore. Everyone in there yoked out of their minds. Yeah. You know and then you're... There's a couple of those places in Manhattan like that. I think it was that Mid City Gym. Oh yeah, I remember that one. I used to walk by all the time. Yeah, I remember asking one of the jacked up dudes, he was like boarded up to 45 years

old, like jacked up. Yeah, I know. I was like, hey, what do you think the best creatine is? Should I get this micronized stuff? And he goes, fuck yeah, we gotta be taking this testosterone I'm like what? Tell me more But now it's not like that like you could go on YouTube and watch this stuff and Consume this stuff and now the mainstream has a different view of it. Yeah

Like what's uh, how has it shifted throughout the years? Like what's uh, how has it shifted throughout the years? Well, it's probably shifted I guess because there's more information yeah, and there's a lot more people doing it plus It's going from a gym level all the way up to Like a medical level medical level. There you go. Yeah, so there's people that are old, 60 and 70, and they're functioning not only physically, but mentally like somebody who's, I don't know, 20 years younger, 45, let's say.

Yeah. So it trickles down. And then, like I said, you have like gym to medical. Well, then you also have those guys who are just like just taking it because, you know, they want to feel good on the golf course or like at home with their wife or whatever.

And then there's maybe guys that just do like a little bit more than that who are like in the gyms, but like, you know, keeping it low, kind of nothing crazy. And then you got these guys that are like in the magazines that are just like, pfft. Yeah. That are doing probably like insane things. So we're things. So we're talking about you know, obviously testosterone You know so used to be this is one thing right? Oh start a cycle

200 milligrams a week that was kind of the gold standard for everybody you do ten weeks on well That's like your basic like yeah, basically a lot of you have TRT. That's like your basic kind of Basically, a lot of you have TRT, that's like your basic kind of prescription. Yeah, it is. But back in the day, it was cycle-oriented a lot of these times. Yes, yes. You go on, you go off, but now with the medical stuff... I don't think anybody does it like that. Anymore, right?

No, I don't think so. Yeah, it's really interesting how medically now it's like, all right, man, if you're 40 and you're in good health, this could make your life better, 50, 60. Because the thing is, especially as you age, it is probably, I'll say, so you have doing nothing, you have doing a little bit, and you have doing a lot. But from a little bit to a lot, there could be like three or four other categories there.

So it's probably healthiest for most people or a lot of people in that little bit. So it's probably healthiest for most people or a lot of people in that little bit. So it's probably definitely healthier to maybe be replacing your, especially your bioidentical hormones than not doing anything just because of the metabolism and the insulin resistance and the cholesterol and keeps the fat down. But then if you start going overboard, obviously, if you're leveraging it to like be humongous and get weight What happens is a lot of the guys end up getting side effects because they're just Leveraging the stuff to be too heavy or too big. Yes, like you shouldn't be like

45 and decide I want to gain 30 pounds true. That's a lot of people do that's not gonna No, that's probably not gonna yeah and well But that's taking a lot more than just like somebody who's doing a hormone replacement, then they could be doing some other things that aren't necessarily like, not necessarily as safe or maybe bringing in things that might have some toxicities.

Because in that realm of medication, because they're all medication, right? Some of them are prescribable today, and depending on, you know, certain diseases or certain physical states or post-surgeries or whatever, and then other things are just not, or they were discontinued, and they're not discontinued for a reason.

Yeah, like what's a discontinuing anabar? They're not discontinued, right? No, no, no, they, no, no, no, that's actually available. Okay, I don't know. Something like, I don't know, Dianabol or something.'ll change it on something like I don't know Diana ball or something Oh, yeah, okay. I don't be I'm not gonna find out no from Yeah, yeah

Yeah, it's so interesting how like this hormone replacement therapy kind of like started happening and people's doctor We're gonna place. Yeah home replacements really really just generally supposed to be testosterone Yeah, and there's a couple other things that can be used for other reasons. But generally in most cases, that's really usually what it is. Yeah, man. It's a wild thing. We know so much more about it now too, right? But I feel like a lot of people are misguided in this way.

100%. I mean, we have to remember we live in America. And in America, it's a controlled substance and there's basically It's a basically like I guess like a prohibition yeah in a way and You need to really you know you have to have a prescription. It's a schedule for a controlled substance So it's not like if you go to certain countries where you know you could just buy it over the counter it's not that's crazy it's not a big deal yeah there's some countries they think but they would

think this they would think here is crazy that you need a description for that yeah but then again these people there maybe they're not like abusing it they're not like on Instagram looking at like whatever that's true that's sure maybe this maybe just a guy you, just needs it so he can Get up and work and feed his family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, maybe maybe we exercise a little bit maybe yeah, maybe some old lady needs like You know a derivative of some sort in a low dose So because she lives in a building and she's 80 years old and she's an elevator And like the only way she could make it up and down the steps to get groceries

Yeah, is maybe by taking um a little something like never two weeks or something. Yeah Interesting interesting, but it's by feeling very difficult for the majority of the population to do it, right, you know, very yeah And because you have to monitor your blood work first and foremost And it's not like this is the normal range to give you this normal range was a huge range the range So what's interesting about the range is that the range of an intrinsic testosterone range? Yeah. Yeah, your body's Total testosterone free to shower. Yes, of course. So like what's funny about the range is that? Say you take a big company like a corp somebody you know quest whatever every five years or so I don't know if it's five years, but it's around that. Yeah, they kind of

take an average of what the testing is that they've been getting over those last few years on what the total testosterone is, and they usually kind of dump out bottom 5%, they dump the top 5%, and that's how they come to it. So the levels of people have gotten lower over the years. I remember when I first started going to the doctor in my early 20s or mid 20s or whatever and you'd get a testosterone test, the levels could go up pretty high, like 1500 or something

like that, 1600. And then I believe, shortly after that I think I used to see them go up to about 12. So right there they were considering that there were actually people who naturally walked around with that. But now it's much lower. It's like maybe 8 or 9 depending on the level. What's the low end? It's usually between like 250 and 350 I feel like.

Well 300 to 800 is kind of the range generally. I believe in 2025 most slab ranges are gonna be somewhere in that, maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower. I think it's misleading too though because like if you take a guy that's naturally 300 his whole life and then you go to the dock and like oh you got the low range the optimal ranges You know you just let's get you to the high range six seven hundred to get up 300 extra total T for a guy that's been at 300 his whole life. It would make a difference

Yeah, for sure. Oh huge difference without a doubt, but that could potentially be detrimental to that guy self No, if he was operating at 300 and that's his baseline and you know He's not because he doesn't really need it because his whole life He's been there. Well, I don't think it's not his whole life. I don't think it'd be detrimental Yeah, if he doesn't do blood work I also isn't right as it's still it's still like a fairly on the lower and and now will be better because When he came in at 300 was he overweight? How was his blood sugar? how was his cholesterol? So if, for example, if he was 300 and he was just,

I don't know, he's five foot 11, he's 220 pounds, he's gonna be soft in the middle. If by going on it, if his body shifts, little more muscle, little less fat, maybe say he drops 12 pounds or something yeah so I don't know maybe did his blood sugar improve you know what you're right yeah there you did the 12 pounds make him going from a blood pressure of 130 over 85 to 120 over 70 yeah so in that case obviously it's healthier oh for sure without

this right because a lot of times testosterone drops are triglycerides but that's kind of the best case scenario for this theoretical guy. Yeah, and that's a guy taking testosterone. Now if a guy's off on the street and he's doing a lot of anabolic steroids or something, I'm talking about these healthy reverses I'm talking about. Some of those other steroids don't do that and some of them actually reverse that and make it go in the worst direction. So if somebody was taking oral steroids,

their cholesterol's gonna look terrible. But let me say something about it, with the Sashone, there's a risk of hematocrit increasing, hemoglobin increasing, blood pressure increasing, all this stuff, you know what I mean? And then there's also the psychological side of, man, I feel freaking great at this dose. Let me freaking increase it a little bit.

All of a sudden, I put 20 pounds on this guy who was 200 pounds, now he's all of a sudden I put 20 pounds of this guy who was 200 pound now He's all of a sudden 220 225 because he's getting jacked in the gym. He started picking up weights, right? Yeah now You know, I'm just gonna touch it just a little by little and it could be a slippery slope. No It's possible slippery slope as possible the hematocrit thing I mean, how do you handle like most guys like feeling like this soft weak guy? majority of my guys to be honest Yeah, my experience when guys go on like TRT or testosterone

I don't usually see weight gains when I guys are on like just like the regular amount I see a shift in the composition, but I don't really see it changing the weight so much Oh, yeah, I mean they lose fat gain muscle. Yeah, I don't really see a huge change in the so much. Oh yeah, I mean they lose fat, gain muscle. I don't really see a huge change in the weight. If a guy came and did it and he gained like 20, 25 pounds, I would think he would probably be doing something else with it. True, true. So in that sense, something else with it causing the weight gain, like you mentioned, blood pressure, I really think the only time

you would see an increase would be with a weight gain. I don't think it would necessarily be the testosterone in itself. I just think you're leveraging the testosterone to be 25 pounds heavier, and if you just decide to be 25 pounds heavier, I think even if the end result wasn't high blood pressure, I think you would still be a little elevated for a while until you got used to that weight, I think. And it depends on genetics on the person for short. But like the average person should monitor bloods, should do this, should look at the

estrogen, should go frequently into the thing to get their health checked and look at the biomarkers. Don't you think most people won't do that though? I think more people are willing to do that now than like back in the day. Oh back in the day without a doubt. People just go on and off on and off and never even check their bloods you know. Yeah 100%. But some people... I'm still of the camp of like most people shouldn't do this you know.

Most people just because I feel like it's just too much for people to monitor. It just complicates things. And then you're not sleeping right, you're not eating right, and you're using this thing as a band-aid and then it messes them up even more. Well, I think you should be committed. I think you should already have a good way of eating. I'm not going to say a diet, like you're on a total like at least good habits and you do go to the gym and that's like part of your life like I just there's no need for like some guy was like a fat guy yeah it doesn't go to the gym yeah I just wants to take it cuz like feels like everybody

else has taken it that's just kind of that guy there's a lot of weight too it could I have seen it I have seen people who didn't work out at wall And they just were so low that that dose made them lose. Yeah, I've seen guys lose like so obviously that would I honestly think that a 20 30 pound reversal say guys like 270 and now he's like yeah to 35 to 40 I think it's automatically gonna improve some of his health markers, 100%. For sure. We're gonna talk about how this can affect

performance in grappling. But before that, I want you guys to go to Patreon.com to the Shintaro Higashi show and support us, right? We're doing chat with me stuff, video chat stuff, one-to-one mentorship stuff. So please check it out, Patreon. We're gonna link it down below, thank you so much. My editor is gonna put like a little graphic here how to find it whatnot Performance enhancement in grappling is it a thing of course we all of course

How can it help Grapplers and do you think it's prevalent enough to say a lot of people are on it in grappling? So when we're talking about grappling We're gonna assume all Forms we're gonna talk about jiu-jitsu wrestling judo Just so the four majors judo wrestling Samba BJJ. Those are the four major grappling sports Yeah, right between those. I mean, you know, so here's the difference. So here's the one thing, right?

All of them are tested except jujitsu I Mean they're kind of little by little doing it depending which segment well in jujitsu I think they test like at the IBJJF. Yes the worlds, right? Yeah, but I Don't even know if they do much else to be honest. Yeah, it's only a couple of guys. Yeah From what I've seen, I don't know cuz I'm not really in jujitsu like that. Yeah Yeah, I mean it's definitely a thing so I guess Like they have a lot of people Doing it and it's there's a lot of recreational guys and then there's a lot of pro guys. Yeah, and I feel like they both

Are kind of doing it. Plus I feel like for jiu-jitsu is a little bit older Yeah, that's true. Okay. Yeah for sure without a doubt Yeah, so a lot of guys over a certain age. You're not gonna be able to train the way they would want to train Probably unless they were on at least some sort of like replacement. Yeah because To train really hard at any of these sports. Yeah Without anything and say your levels are a little low could actually like have some detriments to your health. That's true. And it could affect you in other ways of life. Yeah.

Also though, it also depends on which weight class you're at, right? If you're cutting friggin 10 pounds or 20 pounds and you're lightweight like you're I don't know 60 kilos. So we were talking about a fat guy taking tests and losing weight. If you're a lean guy and you go on like some kind of anything, you're definitely not losing weight. No. So it's going to be hard to get down in the weight class. And let's just say you're- Like I said, you're going to change that composition, but you're certainly not going to lose weight.

Yeah. And then if you have a very long person style because you cut a lot of weight, you know, you're, let's just say you're like 5'10", wrestling, 66 or 60, and you're just a taller guy out here doing the kind of thing and now all of a sudden you get jacked and go 81 you could have a hard time because that same style is not gonna work totally different So like it's not like either this like you're not just gonna like start taking stuff. You're gonna be like amazing You still have to be good at All these sports is a very technical sports. Yeah, you know, I mean like so heavier weights tend to be on it more I would think yeah, I would think so. No, right and certain countries

Yeah, I have more For sure. Yeah. So how do you think it helps? Obviously makes you stronger Recovery is better. Yeah, so also like recovery is better, right? So let's just say let's just say we went and did it around very last time. This is not a commercial to go out and do roids by the way. No, no, no. It's kind of just like an intellectual conversation. Yeah, it's a good conversation. Yeah. Because it's kind of like in the dark kind of thing. Yeah, it really isn't. And I'm not saying, and you don't really need to be on something to be really good at any of these

sports. It's not, not at all. No, look at the Japanese, man. They are very stringent with this kind of stuff and it's not that accessible in Japan. Like you can go to a doctor's office and buy this stuff or get a prescription in Japan. There are certain places that you certainly can. I mean, yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've seen, I don't know.

I mean, you've been there, so you've seen, you probably know, but I have also seen some Japanese guys that Were like in a certain weight classes and winning and now they've retired and they're like they're much lighter Yeah, that's definitely a thing You stop training six hours a day that you lose 30 pounds I'll tell you I'll build this case for Japan's madness. Real quick before we go. This is the thing.

Japanese judo players lift a lot. I'm talking like, I was used to go to Kokushikan High School, which is like the birthing Catholic of judo in Japan. They got 100 guys in the mat, kids, high school kids. And there were 16, 17 year old kids there benching 150 kilograms. Yeah, I believe it. Ridiculously strong. Even throughout college and then their pro career of judo, they're benching 150 kilograms. Yeah, I believe it. Ridiculously strong. Even throughout college and then their pro career of judo,

they're lifting weights usually, 99% of the time. I don't wanna say 99, but like majority of the time, right? And then afterwards, people don't continue to lift weights. When you're a civilian in Japan, you don't go to the gym, you don't work out, you just work, you're a workhorse. So is the gym culture a thing in Japan? Nah, man.

Not even now, in 2025? No, no, it's not. Not a thing. Really nothing really you get the average person like you go to the gym No, they don't so you gotta be basically like an athlete or sportsman be lifting weights or Japan pretty much And there are people who do it, but it's not like the US where everybody goes to the gym So I'm like, so it's probably like here in like the 80s where there's just probably like a couple like little basement gyms There's some hardcore guys. Oh, yeah, but it's There's so many more fit people in Japan because people walk and they're active Solo they have a they have kind of like a good diet by design. Yeah, 100% You know fish rice vegetables, I mean not everything's like super squeaky clean

But a much higher percentage of it is yeah Yeah So I think I still think like you look at these guys who are jacked at Kukushka The heavyweight University right tons of heavyweights you get like 30 40 guys above 230 Well, you know in the room right sometimes and then you look at those guys and they're soft, too They don't have the massive traps and they don't have a diamond Genetics. Yeah, but you know, there are a lot of receptors there and then you know, it's a classic look with the frickin Yeah, you know what I mean? They don't have I'm saying some of those fast strong guys they could still be

They think super strong. Oh, yeah, without a doubt Could they potentially some of them be on it? Yeah, of course But if you look at like, yeah, probably Japanese versus like another country that is over the ocean to the westside To the northern that region You know what I mean? Like those guys it's much more prevalent over there. Yeah So how do you think this stuff helps man? Well, I think it'd be like the way it would help would probably be for example, like let's just say Let's just say we did like a bad like a really hard practice last month

We did like an hour and 15 minutes around Dury or something to top it off. Usually you'd be crushed, but like probably you'd be able to get up the next day and do your weight training. Yeah, if you're on it. Yeah. Whereas like before, probably would need a whole day off. And then today, like if you had to do some weight training

and maybe like another session later, you probably could get that done as long as you're eating and sleeping. That's true. That's true. That's true Yeah, especially some of these places where these guys are doing like two a day training. Yeah I think yeah, and you know what as you're on it for a very long period of time taking that Shorter recovery period and do it much more volume that adds up And even if you go off it and you're much weaker that time you spent on the mat You've spent that time developing a skill and that skill never goes away. So it's always like an advantage, right? Well, yeah

I mean how many times did you have like a totally bad day or you feel like crap or you didn't sleep and you go to Dojo like you're still smoking everybody. Yeah, even though like you don't feel half as good as the one for sure Yeah, it doesn't matter. No, yeah, because it's a skill-based. Yeah. Yeah, so there's like a combination a little bit You just think you just know today. I'm just gonna counter all these guys want to foot sweep all these guys Whatever whatever it just comes to mind. Yeah, you can do it. Yeah I'm just gonna wait till this guy turns like this Yeah, yeah Wow, so I mean you think like you saw that and water are doing a good job testing and weeding it out

What do you think about that? Should they just go away from testing period? I? Don't know like I feel like it's not really an even playing field because I've Wanted one that water that's the world and then you have you saw that which is like yeah here in the US Yeah, so I guess they're like kind of like intertwined, but it's not really the same thing. Yeah, I Feel like I feel like in America, like you saw this definitely actively, they're obviously actively trying to catch people. That's what they're in the business on. I feel like in other countries, not so much.

I feel like, in fact, maybe their anti-doping agency may even help. Yeah, yeah. Plus, I do think that I wouldn't be surprised if certain countries paid money to the Federation to like have little testing. I mean the Russian scandal. Because I don't think it would be like oh here's money don't test our guy. It would just be like okay this is our gift this year and like almost it would be like kind of like an onset. Of course. Because I don't think I don't think it'd be like, oh, here's money. Don't test our guy It would just be like, okay This is our gift this year and like almost it would be like kind of like an onset of course Yeah, I think this does go on and some other federations and other sports totally not even related to grappling

So I'm just saying why wouldn't it happen in one of these grappling federations? Oh, of course that without a doubt, you know I mean I hear stories like hey, you know, we're gonna do random testing at you know, so-and-so training center Just so you guys I've just seen random I've just seen random testing to at certain events and like the only guys in there like Like 30 40 pound guys from like Venezuela and like Nick The first off they're like to the like these little countries like come on Where's the guys from like, you know the obvious place is like really I like this one It's like we're we do random testing at this tournament, you know, and it's gonna be completely random But they'll pick from the pool of people on the podium, right and then the random selector comes in and goes, okay

Let's see. He looks soft. He looks weak. You've been randomly selected the gold medalist He's like all jacked up like a randomly. I just got selected like that's not random Yeah, yeah, there's definitely flawed. I think I think there's guys too that know how to like yeah Oh for sure and in the u.s. It's much harder to because now there's so in competition testing out of competition That's not easy. No, it wouldn't yeah, it would not be easy I mean, there's some ways to circumvent it too, right? You take yourself off the competitors list you retire. Well, yeah here guys do that work with UFC, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I mean does that help? Take it two years off and just getting juice to the gills and coming back. No, I don't think it would help. Why not?

You're just gonna return back to what you are. Yeah, I mean when you go off it. Yeah. Right? But you could train twice the volume maybe. I know, but now you're not on it, and now say, I don't know, you're in this training camp getting ready for a fight, and you're doing two a days,

and you're hammering hard every day, and you're trying to hammer hard every day, and now you're getting all these, maybe you're getting nagging injuries because you're trying to train at the pace to get ready for such an event. Yeah. I mean, it takes a lot of training

to get ready for super big events, whether it's a UFC fight or a world championship in whatever sport. It takes a lot. I always wonder, I always wonder I mean I Feel like when you watch those wrestlers when these wrestlers point the 90s and stuff I feel like there must have been like very little testing Yeah, it's like a bold like worlds or something from yeah 30 years ago. I think there's a lot of guys doing stuff. But now

I'm not saying I have no idea like wouldn't even know the first thing but like I don't know I think like a lot of our guys from like USA wrestling. They look pretty clean to me. I don't know Yeah, they don't look like yoke top anymore I think you know, but if you looked at like a world from like the 80s 90s some of the guys look pretty jacked Oh, yeah, you watch like, you know, you'll remember I'm not saying he's on anything But like guys like that guys were like he's also like a freaky freaky guy Yeah, I mean genetics have a role. I've seen some I've seen some of these guys at work I mean from them and maybe some of our coaches now that you see so I'm like coaching

Yeah, you know for the other countries. Yeah, and you go like and then you see an old clip or an old video on YouTube Thank you. I was huge back there. I was huge. That's what that guy looks like now. Yeah. Yeah sometimes Yeah, oh my god, but then you look at like Eliadis now and he's still jacked more than ever. Eliadis is still young and he's still trained. Yeah, how old is he? He's younger than us. Is he?

He's in his 30s? Gotta be. He won the Olympics in 04, right? And then he was 17 at the time. Yeah. Also, he's like two years younger than us. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy.

All right, so is it cheating, what do say to do some performance enhancements if you're a grappler I Don't know Talk to the park to say yeah. Yeah It's hard to say I mean not everybody's born the same either. That's true. That's true And you have zero control over that, you know, some people might argue like now you got to do what you got, you know But it's tough and I'm not just talking about physical attributes. I'm talking about internal attributes to know like how Just like well a lot of the physical we see on the outside is due to what's going on on the inside like that Just the overall metabolism.

Yeah, sure. You can start showing your thyroid, your IGF-1, your insulin, all these things. Just also like your makeup muscle fibers. Yeah. Also just because, say, a certain guy might be a beast of an athlete, like say on a football field, definitely doesn't mean he might be a beast of an athlete like on the judo mat either. Yeah, man, it's a totally different thing.

Because it's two totally different things. Yeah, 100%. Where like, a football guy might be more fast, like kind of like gazelle type. Yeah, yeah. But like that guy might be really easy to throw because he might just come in and you just like pick him up like,

or an agium to the ceiling because he's coming in with so much. Yeah. Where like a good wrestler, judo to the ceiling because he's coming in with so much. Where a good wrestler judo guy, he might be so in tight and he's got you in and he's grabbing you and you're just like, whoa. You know what I mean? And then you're trying to get out

or you're trying to do this and that's when they could hit their moves. And that's obviously your feel and your technique and stuff that you develop from doing randuri and going to live wrestling and rolling a jujitsu or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Because it's like, especially too, like a lot of those guys you see like say, play football, play basketball, they're really tall. Yeah. But they're like built differently than say a guy that's like a tall guy in a judo mat. If you see a tall guy, like if you're like a Worlds or a Grand Prix in a judo,

you see a tall guy, but then they're also like might be like stocky and tall too. Yeah, yeah. Where like I feel like in America, we, might be like stocky and tall too. Yeah, yeah. Where like, I feel like in America, we have maybe like shorter, stocky guys and then like tall, skinny guys. Yeah. But like over there, you see like something like different

that you haven't seen. Yeah, yeah, they got thick wrists and big bones and all that stuff, yeah. Exactly. Or you might get a guy, or you might get a guy who just like never had an ounce of fat on him in his life. So maybe he has 81 keys,

but like when you walked in the room, you thought like maybe he was in hundreds Yeah, cuz you get those guys with no body fat. They're just like lean and just really jacked Yeah, maybe he's really lean really jacked and maybe maybe he's like a little big up top and he has a little skinny legs or Something so you don't know so like the weight because you saw him maybe just walking and you look at his upper And you're like wow guys pretty big 81 like how and then maybe you saw him and his legs were a little Yeah, that's the whole thing right like that guy's jacked for 87 82 81 or like that guy's a huge You know 63 or whatever it is you know not 63 for men yeah for women obviously for judo

What are the wrestling weights now? Wrestling weights wrestling of Olympic. Well, we have Olympic weights. Yeah, and there's not Olympic weights the non-olympic weights I think are great. How many of that I think comes out for like 10 not on big. Yeah, and there's not Olympic weights the non-limbic weights. I think are great. How many of that? I think comes out to like 10 not on back. Yeah, but the Olympics The Olympics only six pretty pretty slim that is slim Yeah, I think judo's got to figure it out with the weight class and that's pretty good I think she knows good to like honestly 66 out of three like it gets a little bit wider as the weight classes go up Yeah, no, it's done really well. I think I think so too, especially with this 198, then a 220. Because in wrestling, they go from 189 to 213.

And then you have heavyweights. I think that more people, I think it'd be better if it was a 220-ish. It used to be. Yeah. I think 30 years ago, I think it was 220. I think it would be better. I was like a 220-ish. It used to be. I think like 30 years ago, I think it was like 220. I think it would be better. I think more guys would fit into there.

And then just the big guys would be the big guys. But what was interesting, UWW, or actually it was Vila still when they did this. I remember at one point, they raised it back up a little bit, but remember at one point they cut the heavyweight limit to 264 and a half. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah now it's 125 But it used to be 130 way better when Greco still 130 because I grew big guys do not go But think about that they wanted everybody like friggin trim man. Yeah, so my guys like lean and trim fit

That's gotta be brutal cut and that was one way and that was when that guy Tomas off was winning Gold medals. Yeah, do you like that better than the unlimited in judo? I'm a bit it's kind of interesting. It is right. Yeah, you know sort of body shapes. Yeah, it's pretty interesting I think those guys the best thing best thing here before I answer that the best thing I think would be Unlimited and leg grabs a heavyweight Oh cuz with no leg grabs yeah the unlimited it really favors the guy that's like really tall and heavy it does it does hundred percent but I could easily probably dive in and grab a guy's legs who's like oh for sure and like yeah

yeah he's not even to see it come in he even if he does is he probably not even to get there fast it's unfortunate. They didn't bring it back Yeah, I think everybody's disappointed everybody Heavy weights must help Definitely you're being outweighed if someone outweighs you by 40 pounds 100% 100% more heavy weights. It makes you stronger, too I've also seen guys obviously like what I can name names names or countries don't do that. But how many guys did you see? That I mean so you fought minus 100. Yeah internationally. Yeah, so how many guys?

Say when you phased out and were minus 100 ended up being heavyweights Yeah, but not only were they heavyweights they weighed like 260 265. Yeah, like yeah, I'm gonna give you an example Lucas Kripalak. I fought him at hundreds Yeah, and he's you know, obviously won a lot of stuff at 100 plus and he was like, what do you think he weighed? Would I know no heavyweight not 250 maybe to 40 and there's some there's some other guys to do boy to 60 There's some other guys I saw that were like in there. Definitely like I'm so battles are close to never They were pretty heavy like a mess Definitely look like you did when he was 100 and like how does a grown man put on 40 50 pounds of straight muscle? At the age of like 30

Growth straight This little like little suspect I think yeah, it really is interesting how this whole thing is man But I really still believe to this day man. It's really not for the average person You know, I think it's just really is interesting how this whole thing is man, but I really still believe to this day, man It's really not for the average person, you know, I think it's just too much monitoring You know, like you gotta look at Hormitization and how much your estrogen is and like when you're all these different things just too much for people to It's a lot. It's not as easy as people think no and you know what the problem is It's like they do it because they believe it's a shortcut

But it actually adds so much more work to do it properly. Listen, I think anybody's doing if anybody's doing anything I think you need to know exactly where your blood work is I'm not all those like hormone markers and I made and they may even be things that the doctor might not even be Thinking of testing. That's why I like if you're gonna do that You need to go to a doctor who like what's an example of that? knows what they're doing so that Not mainstream to monitor Thyroid oh yeah, okay Which they may test they may just test for example TSH the TSH, but the TSH is not a thyroid hormone

No, it's a signal. It's a type thyroid stimulating hormone. Yes, it's a signal from your pituitary. So you got a specific gas, measure my T3, T4? T3, T4. Free T3, free T4. Reverse T3. What is that one? Reverse T3. It's a little bit complicated, but it's essentially like when the free T3 thyroid, the active hormones, reverses instead and kind of goes out the other way instead of working for you and going in your cells. Interesting. See, because T4- So you can physically ask the doctor, like, yo, can you test this thing?

Yeah. Because what happens is normally the way a normal thyroid works is brain sends TSH, sorry, from pituitary to the gland. Yeah. All right. Gland pumps out T4, inactive. Yeah. Goes in the liver, turns to T3, active. Thyroxin. No, well thyroxin is a name for T4. Okay, turns into T3 is? Looks like tri-io-thyroid. We're not doctors. But it's pretty close. Anybody who knows the actual term would recognize it. But I'm just trying to say. You got to monitor this stuff. Yeah.

So like does a person have Hashimoto's? Is it an autoimmune disease? Does your thyroid gland work? Is it going to work properly? If your TSH is high, which means that your gland isn't producing, that's why it's pumping the signal so high. I've seen people go to their doctors, or even doctors, be totally confused and be like, they see the TSH high and they think the thyroid's high.

I'm like, oh my god, do they learn anything? It's like basics. But generally, TSH is high doesn't mean your T3 and T4 is low. So therefore you have a low metabolism, therefore you're getting kind of fat and fatigued. Yeah, but I mean it's... Because it regulates metabolism, right? Yeah. So how does that interact with the performance enhancement testosterone stuff?

Does it? Yeah. Yeah, I mean because like we said we're about metabolism. And basically thyroid hormone synthesizes proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. So it puts things in the right places and the energy in the right cells so we can perform. And just, if you have a very low thyroid, you'd be extremely sleepy.

You know? Yeah, it's a common thing, hypothyroidism, you know? Yeah, a lot of people have that. But a lot of times people are thrown on that medicine actually very easily. Lots of people are on that medicine. But a lot of times they're not really given something. They're just given the medicine but they're not really like improved from the medicine because they're not either not given enough or they're not really like improved from the medicine because they're either not given enough or they're not given the right type. Yeah, interesting stuff.

That's why you need to do all those things I just mentioned to see what it's actually turning into because you may have an issue with actually converting in the liver maybe. Yeah. Because you're bypassing the whole pituitary to the gland thing. Yeah, maybe Mmm, maybe it's not converting. Yeah

What are some misconceptions about juice do you think? misconceptions, yeah some big ones especially like Well, I don't think it's not gonna make you like an Olympic champion just because you don't juice number one. That's true That's how you present you still have to be good. So be good at judo Yeah, like I don't think like I see sometimes you see these football players and I'm like in high school And their parents have them like doing like growth hormone or some crazy shit. Yeah, it's in high school Yeah, are you kidding me? Yeah, your T levels are naturally so high here at the dish

Yeah, and like even if we're talking about I'm guessing like I don't know but I'm sure like it's pretty prevalent like football. Yeah It's yeah, I'm guessing, I don't know, but I'm sure it's pretty prevalent in football. I'm not sure, but it's pretty prevalent in football. I don't know, listen, I just want to be respectful of everybody, right? Yeah, good. If you were at that level, you can go to the NFL or whatever, if you are gonna play that card, wouldn't you wait till you're at that level?

But you know, the problem with a lot of the football stuff like like doing it in high school because I think I feel like I've seen kids wrestle in high school yeah and maybe like their dad was a little crazy and maybe have them do something or maybe they went to a doctor that something whatever and they were like one like some kind of state title or this and I got to a good college and then with the college and they're like terrible. Yeah. And I'm like, does this guy go to college and now he can't do XYZ and I'm like now he's getting, he's in like the Big Ten. He just created himself a disaster because now he won a state, he went to a Big Ten school and now he gets the camera.

Yeah, yeah, I mean. Because a lot of those kids, I don't think you're going to find much athletes that are in much better shape than a good like division one, especially big time wrestler Yeah, yeah, and probably a lot of those guys probably take anything Yeah, and probably someone would do probably some of them don't but I mean there would be I mean I don't think I don't really think it's that many demo wrestling wrestlers in college. Yeah, the college there's one wrestler Yeah, I mean you don't think they do anything golf season. They might I think they might nothing crazy But I think they might do a little bit. but it's hard to say yeah hard to say but I see

you're very protective your wrestling community no no no I'm just saying I see a lot of talented kid I see a lot of talented kids thing is in America we have so many wrestlers we do Thompson so like obviously the best guys like go to the top yeah I think you know we get misled right because if you're in high school and you do this stuff and you get 30 40 percent I don't think anybody I Would be very shocked. There's a lot of guys in judo doing in America be very shocked Oh, no, yeah American judo who's you know, but let me ask you something

Like we all do judo, right? Yeah, like our countries have their styles, right? But it's all like we all do the same moves, which is different ways. So no grabs. Yeah like do you think that some of these countries have it so easy and laxed, and they're able to put these guys, like, remember, some of these countries pump a lot of money into their guys. Yeah. Right? And some of these places have, like,

real literature about performance and everything. Like real literature that was done in places, like in universities. So the technology and the program, they know what to do. Here, these guys are literally paying for a sweatsuit probably to go to the world, you know what I mean? Meanwhile, these guys are showing up. How many times did you see these guys showing up?

They got masseuses, doctors. Why do they need to bring three doctors to the world? Instead of getting vitamin B12 shots and they're not before they can be. What do they need it for? Maybe I would see like bring an orthopedic surgeon yeah right why would you bring like an internal medicine doctor to like the world championship I mean you just want to like you just want to hang out watch the judo like let me know but our guys

in America so okay yeah you could argue and say like okay not all our best athletes are judo players or whatever. I don't know. But there's plenty of good athletes doing judo. But there's just not many. Where in certain countries where judo is so popular, there's just more people doing it. Yeah, like Georgia. Yeah, exactly. So, if you have a place, like one of these countries, and somebody's telling them how

to do this stuff, and they maybe have doing like little regimens and little courses of things on and off or whatever through their career and like some of these countries are having a lot of success like do you think our country would be having similar success if they were kind of like playing by the same on if they're on the same playing field let's say we're like they didn't have a guy like knocking on the door at five in the morning like like watch to take a leak at any time. Yeah. Yeah, I've been out of competition tested I showed up in my school. I was waiting for you in the driveway. Right? Yeah Hey, man, you've been randomly selected So I gotta go do this thing. It's like you go do that thing, but you know, they're gonna be a strike, you know

Yeah, I do this right now with you. You gotta go with me, I'll come with you, I can't pee yet. All right, we'll stay here all day. Now listen, especially judo, there's definitely guys where there's advantages. We could be in a big country where there's judo going on, and like, we can go any night of the week, and there's gonna be like all this randari and all these guys, like obviously you're gonna skyrocket.

You need that too, you need that too. You're gonna skyrocket, right? I think that's the big difference, the major difference. I'm just saying that's like a variable, like a piece of puzzle like let's just say let's just say there's more guys doing Judo and whatever but let's just say Would it help Bring say American judoka to that level some of those other guys because you know Yeah, please like you know some of these guys doing stuff like it's pretty fucking parent

Yeah, I don't think they're really testing You know we're gonna do next episode to we're gonna wrap this one up. Well. Let's talk about lifting also Yeah, because I did like a little lifting video thing you saw that one Yeah, working out in the thing you know I kind of messed that one up because I did other exercises that I forgot to include You know it's the first time kind of messing around with that format. But you know, you have some good insights with lifting. But I also want to thank you for our sponsors. Let's wrap that up.

We have Elijah, Drew, Jason, Levan. Thank you very much. You guys too can be a sponsor of the show and help us keep making great content by going to my Patreon page and supporting us thank you Vinny I appreciate it what can these guys find you I'm on Instagram yeah you can type me in just my name Vinny B-I-N-I-E Mancuso M-A-N-C-U-S-O I'll pop up, I don't know those after 20 30 years I don't push it. I don't push it on people. Did he make us? Well, that's it. Yeah, it's my Instagram and Usually I teach a day class at Kamal

No, New Jersey. So anybody ever wants to come train in the afternoon? We usually their Mondays and Wednesdays usually about 1130 and they don't test Be yourself years, usually about 1130. And they don't test there? No. No. It's time to be yourself. Whatever you've got, whatever you've got, we take it all-comers. Thank you, Vinnie. Thank you. Thank you.