The Uneducated PT Podcast - #35 John Carroll - The Art Of Bodybuilding

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

In this episode we speak to John Carroll R.I.B.B.F Sanctioned prep coach, 4 times overall R.I.B.B.F National bodybuilding champion I.F.B.B European Champion Member of Irish Bodybuilding hall of fame and R.I.B.B.F Senior Judge. Expect to learn the mistakes and misconceptions about body building and how to coach from experience. 

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support, and I'll see you on the next episode. John, will you just start by telling us a little bit about what you do for a living and how long you've been doing it? Yeah, well, I just, as a personal trainer, coaching, I initially was,

I'm with the committee of the RABFS or the Republic of the World and Bodybuilding Federation. And that's what I've been that since, since past 40 years, first time I was a competitor. And now I coach a lot of the summit, some of the teams getting ready. We're sending a team away as part of the Federation. We're sending a full team a bit 20-od, competitive way to the European Championships next month. So that's what I've been involved as part of the RABF as in as a competitor. In front of the camera going away to the European World Channel, all that stuff. so now behind the camera

directing them as part of the committee coaching the bodybuilder and getting ready for shows and something all that there my wife is the president of the federation so that was heavily involved in that so I love to be just

basically as a promoting bodybuilding for to help it's okay with what it is and what he dispelled myths what he thought it was and then that okay so originally I was a brickler starting off

really yeah apprenticeship and then then I get into the bodybuilding then I had my own gym my my oil club for about 15 years and then we had a sunbed salon so there was all that kind of stuff so that's what we used to do have you always been based in bray oh yeah oh yeah I was born born born in brain and um what was so you you were a bricklayer up until what age were you were you doing that 20 22 17 to 22 and what was your first what was your first like uh introduction into bodybuilding yeah I would have to go back to uh it's like a little bit of an indoctrination I was only about maybe eight, nine years old.

Oh really? Going to a big, this big movie with my brothers, like a Saturday matinee, and then the movie was called, actually googled it a few months back, it's called Samson and the Seven Miracles, and there was a bodybuilder back down, but he was a film actor, like a lot of actors, like maybe the rock, but he's back, he was a body buddy,

buddy, Scott, big tall six or three, Hercules comes out of the scene, and when I was seen, I'm only eight years, I didn't know, bodybuilding and what it is, but I see this big, giant Superman in real, but in real life, and I was just going like, oh, my God, And then it was kind of little that was stuck in my mind for years and then probably 14 and then it was kind of It's actually seen Steve Reeves at that time as a bodybuilder or whatever missed the universe and then was just but then I had a better inclination of what bodybuilding was lifting weights and

All kind of stuff and then it was just okay. That's what I want to do so were you were you in you? You were almost nearly interested in bodybuilding But bodybuilding before you even like experienced what it was to work out in a gym. Oh yeah yeah yeah because I just seen that and that was just started I sit down to a bodybuilding course and was training my bedroom and lifting bricks and bench pressing the bed and all kind of stuff. All kind of stuff.

Just make up. I was kind of very kind of improvising. Yeah. And so then I was 16 and then I joined the gym the first time. And then pig in my barber

had done with real life. That was like, it was like discovering Jesus. I play every athlete in any level. It's like that. Soccer player picks, he's only 10, six,

seven years to pick the ball up but that gives him a ball. And then he thinks he's going to be the next mess of the year or whatever. ever next Ronaldo and just that's a dream and hopefully they just take it from their words yeah everybody and what um so so essentially from 16 years of age up until now in a gym nearly nearly every day of your life more more less yeah as competitor and then as a trainer when did you

when did you when did you were you when you first competed i was 21 i went to compete i was i just coerced then i didn't think it was ready and didn't i didn't die do nothing and then yeah guys the owner of the GM said to me, look, yeah, should go for you. It was the novice Mr. Ireland. And I just, I gave it. And then I just gave him, okay, I'll do it. I was shitting my pants. And then I could play on stage and went through it.

And I won. And you won't. Yeah, I went to give you unanimous decision from all the judges and I was just kind of first place votes. And then I said, okay, maybe I could do this. Then the following year, I went in and I entered the intermediate national championship. I won that.

And then the following year, a little bit bigger, so on, so on. And then with the actual national, the real national championships. Mr. Ireland. I went in and again I got, in that decision, won that. Did you have a coach for all this or were you kind of just listening to yourself? No back then, no coaches. No internet, no Facebook, no Instagram, no coaches, nothing. By the bodybuilding magazines, go to Eastons

and they get all the American magazines, the English magazine, pull them all and go home and just study them, study them, read them twice, three times. Here's a question for you. So like, what wisdom back then is still relevant today in terms of how you would coach people for a bodybuilding? Well, it hasn't changed, not, it hasn't changed. not, it doesn't change really get as much

to all it. The only, this here is like, this is like Star Trek. This is like Star Wars. Were you all for you? Were you all for you? It's back then. Free with barbells, don't with no pulleys. We do chin-ups and push-ups and pulleys, no pulleys. All like the Flintstones

compared to now. But we worked it and we've done it. And we've done it's like if you go back to watch the movie Pumming Iron with Arnold and you watch it and even that's like the Flintstone compared to this. Yeah. So that was them guys. and so everybody at that time which is barbils

done most real stuff maybe had a few pulleys but what does that what does that teach people it teaches people that you don't need specific

specialized high tech equipment and the car it's kind of sad to a certain degree because all the advancements in what the guys have now should be easier yes

and it's all there to think they know how lucky you are with all the advancing in technology equipment the knowledge the internet yeah YouTube coaches, Facebook.

It's all there, but he don't seem to... Do you think there can be an overkill in terms of receiving too much information or thinking about things too much and not actually internet? There's too many, the blind leading the blind. And they're going to... There's a lot of kind of internet YouTubers

and they're there giving advice for this and that. But there's no background in their knowledge. I say, just... Suddenly, Stutz said, I could do this and do that way. might as well who told you that so I wonder who told you that it's going from the source

so somebody watching those guys watch the real guys because there are guys and they have super knowledge or some credible go to YouTube like Charles Glass

these kind of guys these are the top left Charles Glass was a former National Paralifting champion he was a former American gymnastics champion and then he got into the bodybuilding and became national bodybuilding champion

and then he won the world championships and now he won the top level, bodybuilding and just general coaches in the world. He's going to get. He trains athletes, bodybuilders, movie stars, everything. So watch him, watch his channel. He'll give it the dance from the source. I said these other kinds of guys, whatever.

What? Do you think that bodybuilding has evolved a lot in Ireland compared to when you started? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, when I was, when I started, it was just, it was in the closet. Yeah. I lived in Bray. Yeah. I lived in Bray. We were too many brothers. We were too many. The only bodybuilder in the town. They walked around and see if he was in the two. who was downed, whatever.

And so it was like that. And then we had to go into Dublin, some of the body wasn't there. And Limerick was a big thriving kind of bodybuilding in Ireland. But in general, it was... But then we had... It creeped out, dwindled out, because we didn't see it.

And then we seen Plumming Iron. Arnold Schwarzener, even in the world, it was kind of an underground kind of low-level sport. Yeah. And then he'd probably been pumping iron. And then was this amazing character, whatever. And he dispelled a lot of the myths, the muscle bound.

turn the family and give up and these big do, and this is intelligent. So that changed to face the bodybuilding, brought it out. And so back then, people didn't know what a bodybuilder was, the idea, a guy that was up in his posing trunks or his knickers.

Pose and flexing, what was what's all about. But now, you see guys walking around, everybody's working in the gym, you see walking down, are you a bodybuilder? So it's all changed.

He really revolutionized the average show kind of. Brought it out, yeah. What do you think before that, like when you were doing it, what were some of the misconceptions that you would hear from people? always I'm gonna still prevail today but more so then it was uh now why would you lift body

but won't it all turn the fat when you give it up yeah that's like turning the wood into the plastic no no it doesn't explain the physiology yeah but they still think that and then but uh would don't make a muscle bound no well back then coaches would not sporting coaches whether it be a soccer or basketball whatever they would allow their athletes to lift the way so it'll slow you down now it's the opposite yeah now they saw mandatory part of of their training. In the gym, strength training

and they have to do it. It's part of the Ronald was watching being in the field and people are supposed to do strength training and so everybody does it so now it's all changed

where it's been revolutionized by evolve like I think it people are it's like the science is catching up to what people were doing

before in terms of knowing that muscle muscle is going to be beneficial for all aspects whether it's sport whether it's health everything yeah what they're doing now

and realizing now what bodybuild is new we're doing 80 years ago. We knew that. That's what we were doing. Like the so-called Atkins diet. The fat and the protein, low-carbs.

We were doing that 67, 80 years ago. That's what we did. We'd done with low-carb diets and ripped up. We understood the whole physiology, eliminating carbs. Then it creates to cannibalize on your body fat, and you get ripped and except. What can the average person learn from, you know, implementing even some of the kind of lifestyles of a bodybuilder?

Well, it's overall, we used to always term it back then. Eugene Sandel, which is the Sandel trophy, the Mr. Olympi, the Olympic trophy, not Mr. Olympia, but the Sandal, the throne of the bronze statue. That's Eugene Sandel. He was a strong man back in the late 19th century, and he was the one who coined the phrase bodybuilding. He was promoting the lifestyle of bodybuilding.

building, lifting weights, exercising in general for longevity. Yeah. So it's a lifestyle. It's called physical culture. Okay? So physical culture basically is bodybuilding. Everybody he works out, goes into a gym, lifts the weight. It's on the umbrella of bodybuilding.

So it's evolved to push that. So it's all about just strength and health, slowing down the Asian process. And unlike a lot of athletes when they hit a certain age and they can't do it anymore. But bodybuilders can keep doing that into the way. So we're sending the team weight to Europe. I would do the Europeans last year, but several times the world championships, and in those competitions,

you will see the over 40s masters, over 50s masters, over 60s, over 65s. And I've seen guys in there, and they're the 70s competing, lifting weights. It's a lifestyle. And these guys are amazing, she wouldn't see these guys.

That's something I think people don't think about when they think about bodybuilding and they think about it from an aesthetic point of view, which is fair, because that's what you're getting into it for, But then a sprinkle of that is your longevity. It is in its own way. And so many physiologists and anybody knows it about it.

At this stage, we're now more popular and more studies into it. If you want to talk to Fountain of Youth, it is genuinely because the body building, lifestyle is maintaining muscle, tone, condition. Because as we get older, we hit 35, 40, 40 is the one. We start losing testosterone, et cetera. And that's where the metabolic stenor comes in. The muscle kind of degeneration. the muscle holds the skeleton frame together.

So once the muscle starts to deteriorate, the skeletons and the body... Yeah. 75 and you're like this. And we want to stop that. We want to slow that down. So we want to be when you're 70, 80, 90 years of age, be able to get out of the bed in the morning,

tie your shoelaces, go into show, by yourself and get dressed, all that you just go for a walk. Yeah. Rather than... It really is the only... Strength. It really is the only anti-aging thing,

isn't it? Yeah. And it's like that, always say, you cannot cardio yourself into shape. So other people kind of misbeliefing they'll do it they're doing aerobics and aerobics. It's great, course, we have to do aerobics, cardiovascular. I have an older guy and I'm a 64 years of age,

so that plays a big part of my training. I do the weight training because I want to maintain muscle, but then I want to do my cardio, but that's the important. But if you were to pick one or the other, we don't have to choose that, but if you had to choose one of their strength training, because that's going to stand to you as you get older, it'll maintain your robustness, your strength,

it includes your bone strength, everything else. But a lot of people will just do, consumer tells me on the road running and you ask what do you know I'm trying to get in the shape trying to lose weight except that's probably a big misconception in terms of people who don't understand the training of getting in shape if you're coming in from an aesthetic

point of view like you essentially there's not getting around you're going to get strong good to fit healthy and maintain your your lifestyle get older play strong you say strong as you get older and your robustness and that's important why do you think people avoid it do you think people are just they're anxious, they're intimidated.

Why do you think people avoid getting into the weights area when we know that there's so many benefits from a, even aside from an aesthetic point of view, longevity and so on. Well, the old thing is still, the gun-indled lifting weights are so hard compared to going out for a run or the swimming six and there's a kind of exercise.

Weight train lifting weights is all. It's harder. So that old, probably was talking about a while ago, they'll all turn the fact when you give it up. They don't like your muscle bound, it'll slow you down, all the stuff. So a lot of people do want to believe that. But if they can push that continuum today and if they convince themselves,

that's what then will give, that will justify them. Mark out that you don't lift weights. Because if that takes the guilt away, but they realize that that's all the myths and we can get stronger, get more muscular, toned, build up there,

and get fit and healthy by lifting weights. Then, so hard, it's guilty. You talk to people, when you go to the gym start lifting the waist and it's kind of a oh god

almost kind of shock oh god panic because you are they going oh my god lift oh I don't want to laugh do you think it's

they they panic because they don't know what they're doing so when they go into it's like headless chickens to walk around gym and I mean like if you look around

at all this equipment that you've never ever stepped inside a gym before you're like you said at the start it's like space but you don't have to use them yeah but then

if you and then they find it kind of boring and there's a huge fall off rate in in the gyms because they go into the gyms and they're without any proper instruction they're trying to do this and do that do a bit of and then they're in the year for six months a year or whatever they get frustrated they're not making any gains or any kind of progress yeah they get bored pissed off frustrated then they leave but when they come into a gym and they're shown how to work it properly and I give in showing how the technique in the form and you should do it right structural training

structured the whole program the diet and nutrition get it all started out and then all of a sudden they see the same as the body was coming down muscle tones change and they're getting stronger then they get excited

then they want to do it well that's what I was going to say like the most motivated factor for people to keep them engaged is progress progress yeah but if they get the progress other than that they're walking around and they don't want to do it

it's like the guys went into Robin to the Mai Tai there walk the end they start going around slapping the bag and going this and that Robert have to say them look hold on thank you're not going to do anything stop don't touch anything yeah come over here and I'll show you how to yeah yeah and that and that and also in these they're trying to punch and kick and get the foundation then they get excited for now they're maybe doing competitions and doing fights and not so excited they're excited the progress there's progression through that yeah yeah if it's instructed and thought and then he see

then he see the results and then they get excited so here's a here's a big question then so let's let's talk about that what are some of the comments mistakes that you see newbies come into the gym and make when trying to grow muscle? They walk in, there's a lot of guys who swim walking in and they have maybe, they're coming with a friend and the friend has been maybe what he thinks of training for a few months

and he's the expert. He's showing them what to do. See all the school kids coming in and he's the... Five of them around the machine. Yeah, yeah, I've been training for the past three months, so I'm not sure, and the blind leading the blind. Now I would go out with me, just look a whole second. Correct them. So it's that

going on instead of walking into a gym and say okay if you're walking in a swimming point you're going to jump in the deep end you're drown so are you walk in some place and just nothing's going to happen so walk in and then see get an instructor sit down and then explain what you want to do because when I had my own gym I probably trained several thousand people over the years so the first thing I do just like when you're with me I sit down to have a little individual chat what are here for what your goals what do you want to do what you want to achieve from this and then he says I want to get to share

like a little bit of some bit of body fat. When they're toned up, get stronger, get fitter. Okay, then we know, then we know, how's your plan? And I sit down with them and then come in. We're going to train for maybe three days a week. To get that, if that's doable, then might be able. It depends what their level, what they want to achieve.

And then, but I've worked around their lifestyle, they're married, they have kids and family and their work. So it's all that. So we see what you can get in. But anybody can fit in three days a week. there's no excuse for that and then you sit down and then we can structure their program

and their training and all that that's what I would have done all those people years ago so people need to have a goal in place so you have direction and then after that structured directions and then after that it's like okay

we know what you want to achieve now it's about following a plan and having progressions in place to do that yeah so it's a plan it's like going to the jungle without a compass around it just get a plan and must have struggle now you have on a front of it and then just learning the

the basics, the biomechanics and the physiology of how exercise, what happens when you're exercising. And then, so when you walk in the door to the gym, do you know, okay, this is what I have to do, and then you can just get to go. Rather than randomly, headless shaking, walking around. Let's say, right, they have their plan in place. You know, they have the direction in terms of where they want to go. Let's say they want to build muscle, right there,

but they have a lagging body part that just doesn't seem to grow. What advice would you have for someone in that situation? situation. You don't sit down, sometimes it's not a stubborn muscle, sometimes you know how to train it right and some exercise they're doing maybe it doesn't not hitting it properly and then you have to prioritise. So some guys, one muscle might respond very quickly. Yeah. Okay, so that's not it. It's going to do, it's going to work anyway, but then another muscle might not respond because we'll prioritize on that, take it aside and we specialize on that muscle group and then see how that response. Good. And then

it's all been the technique in the form. You might be doing it wrong, use the problem the wrong type of equipment, whatever, and then we just fire it and just push it, just push it. See what goes. But you're tweaking things as you go. Yeah, so you want to make sure, first of all, exercise selection is on point

in terms of doing that, but then after that, it's like, okay, prioritize it. What do you mean by prioritise it? Would it be like just increase the frequency of the time? No, sometimes less. Okay. Sometimes the mistake I'd make is they're doing something, maybe a chest, the pecs aren't responding good.

So I'll do more. I'll train it twice a week, three times a week. But that's sometimes the opposite. They're over-training the muscle. Because when you, when the body, the reason body will reason why it gains a bit of muscle, even just kind of toning your muscle up is what we're going into the gym. When you're doing your work,

all you're doing is creating micro-trauma, micro-brusing, micro-tares to the muscle fibers. You're actually damaging the muscle. So we have to go in and hit it hard, like the sprinter versus, the marathon runner. See the physique is using boat as opposed to Mofara. So we're sprinted we have to get in and we have to bang the shit out and the muscle to train it intensely hard, create that micro trauma. So then when you go back and you're resting, now the muscle is

resting and it's recuperating, it's recovering and repairing. So it's like if you break a bone, when it resets, usually sets a little harder than it was previously. So it's very likely, extremely likely to you to break that bone in the same spot. And then, in a lifetime. So muscles kind of like the same thing. You create micro fiber tear to the muscle, you're damaging muscle. So now when you're feeding all the amino acid of proteins, you're resting, sleeping at night, any reason, testosterone, growth home, the muscles are repairing itself. So when it repairs itself, it repairs itself by knitting back that minutely stronger and harder and bigger than it was previously. So you're creating like a little mini evolution. It's adapting to the stress. So the muscle

in the continuous constant state of muscular adaptation adapting but you never let it adapt because once it heals you're back in the next week

do it all again so you do it once and you hammer it's like you know to stick a dynamite you can do this all day long once through three times a week

going in and bang boom so less is more but you have but when you are doing that it's intensity intensity train harder not longer

yeah yeah so you think that's a big mistake that people make when they're trying to build muscle, but they hit that bit of it. Like, they get their new begins when they first start off,

but then they hit a bit of a plateau. They hit a bit of a plateau. Is that intensity? Yeah, yeah. At the beginning stage, any stimulation is going to be stimulation, so they're most going to respond. So they get a little bit of a kickstarted

the first few weeks, months, and it'll get this up, but then it'll stagnate. Yeah. Then you have to fiddle it down to specialization, and then you have to get in and you have to intensify it. Guys don't know.

out with test for the workouts unless you have somebody who knows how to do it push so that'd be like as a boy but you watch bodybuilders training in a gym as opposed to general recreational lifters in the gym whole different ball day it's just like any athlete i say it's like like you go out and there's tells them it tells me about running they're just joggers they love they love the recreation or the feeling all the little good hormone the endorphins kick in you feel great after a run it's part of their day and they do that so great, just recreational run, they love it. But then you have another guy's

out beside him, and he decided I'm going to train for the Dublin mini marathon. His level mentality is going to step up a little bit. He's going to train a little harder, a little different. Then another guy who's actually won it, he's getting ready for the national marathon championships. He's on a different level.

Intensity, training, so on, recovery, more potential with recovery. So now he's like an athlete, marathon. Then the guy who's actually won the national He's a national champion. He's on a different level. He's getting ready for the world championships or he's being selected to compete at the Olympics.

He's qualified for the level. Now he's different level. So his intensity levels is on a different level. Whole different level. And that's what like when you're working on it. So it's just, but anybody who's in the gym, we're not trying to be missed the universe. Yeah.

They're just trying to get into great shape. But just to get into great shape, that's hard work. Yeah. So you have to double level of intensity just to get into shape. the biggest mistake people do is to come in

oh I don't want to get too big okay so the rationality is you watch the journal documentary and he says I don't get to oh don't worry you never will I'd like that but it's what he can be asked

so the rationality is no one accidentally got too big yeah yeah but the rationality is if I train too hard I might get too big if I train too heavy I might get to because

deludely instantly God love them they think they got these magic super incredible whole genetics. By the end of the month, they will metamorphosize into this big that you don't want to be. So what happens is,

if only was that easy? Oh yeah, that's what they don't. And then they come in. So they lift little lightweights, little dumbbells and, but to make 100 reps, and they don't train too hard because God forbid if I train too hard

they might get too big. But then what happens? Nothing happens. Zero zilje on dilly squat. Because just to gain a little bit of muscle, just to tone your body, You have to put it in.

Again, he put it as a person like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would be considered like a damn homadalea, bodybuilding, usually a genetic freak. They come along in a generation. So he probably had the ability to gain more muscle quicker than 99% of the planet. But in his own words, we all seen him when he was at his peak, this big Mr. Olympia.

But he trained about five, five hours a day, six days a week, and took him like 10 years to look like it. Yeah, yeah. So us mere mortals. It's not going to happen. What's going to happen? Yeah. So I would say,

way if you get into the GM, get your rationale, get into the GM, lift as heavy under supervision, warm up and then once you know what you're doing, so I get the basics

out of the way, crawl before you want, now you're running. So train as heavy and as hard as you possibly can consistently, three, four times a week, get in, get in,

whatever, and if you're, have just average mice genetics, you actually tone your body up. Yeah. Do you think that intensity is something that you get better at

along the way? Yeah, you have to learn it. When you're learning it, the most important emotional body is up here. You can have around thrusting genetics, physically, physiological genetics, but if you don't have the mentality to push it to, it's not what's going to happen. But if you have the brain power, it's all those D-words, the desire, as in you want it, okay? How about you, what desire, discipline, determination, dedication, drive,

that do-or-die attitude, to push it, and it's all up here. That will do whatever this tells them to do, but this has to want and just know how to do it. Because I find when I'm in the middle of a set, like I might do a set and it might be, you know, a heavy set, and then I'll finish it. And then during the time, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is me pushing intensity and this feels difficult.

And then I'll get out of the set. And then my brain would be like, you know, your little bitch, you probably had territory left of the tank. Everybody's saying, yeah. So it's learning that kind of the lactate gas burn's in. And then people, at the beginning, say, particularly lactate gas bills in.

It must have seemed like it was burning. straight away the mindset oh put it down and then there's another kind it's called the gall guy

tendon organ okay what that is like a switch off button yeah evolutionary it's part

the muscles and it's you can actually Google it and what it does when you go to a certain point you're pushing it

sometimes it sometimes you're switching too early and it just like that it just switches off the muscle goes dead

but then what we do once it goes dead we switch it back on again because or switch it off rather so we

rest like a rest pause or a drop set. Rest 10 seconds. That goes away. Most of the record, maybe two, three, so you're back in, you're pushing another reps.

And you're going to failure over and over, and then you learn to actually turn that off. So it doesn't come on any time. And then the harder you train, you turn that off, and then the harder you train, the lack of gas,

it comes less and less and less, and then you pushes up more and harder and heavy, and then you keep progressing and growing. By the beginning stage is, straight away, the brain says, once you get a little burn and then then you're like oh you turn it on too quickly

because you haven't pushed it gone and then oh yeah so I just said like an analogy or the definition of a set muscle growth because when it's just say for example you do your train your chest and you do some incline bench press or dumbbell press you do as you flies you pullovers or whatever fly machine and you do say 10 sets

so imagine say you go to failure in each of those 10 sets. So you've got to failure 10 times. So at the beginning of the set, you've got 10 reps, for example. The first 4, 5, 6, 7 reps, you're only kind of warming up. You're only using maybe 50, 60, 70% of your muscle fibers.

It's not for that last 10th rep. Then you do this all 100% of muscle fibers. Then muscle I can't recruit any more muscle fibers. So it's dead. You've got to failure. I always say it's like, the failure is, hypothetically somebody would go to your head and said, do one more, I'll shoot you.

Yeah. You'd have to. physically get. But most guys, maybe they might go to it, that 100% to failure. Most guys don't. They get to the ninth rep and they'll stop it. They could do one more, maybe two. But we go to total failure. Gone. No. And we put it down. And if you have a trainer partner, he'll do maybe one or two fourth reps. And that's pushing 100% second and a third, maybe a fourth time. Or if you're by yourself, put a weight down, rest 10 seconds, pick up again. The muscle recovery, that 10 seconds, recover so fast, two, three percent.

You pick it back up, you might get another one or two. And that's like going to a rep nine and ten over again. Or you might drop set real quick. Or you might do a couple of partials. So you don't have to rest, pause, failure, failure again, drop set, failure again. A couple of parcels, failure, failure. So after your one set, instead of getting one rep at 100%, you've got maybe that two, three, four, five times.

So now when you do your 10 sets, instead of getting 10 reps at 100, now you've got maybe 50 reps at 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, now, now we're really causing micro trauma to the muscle fiber, damaging it. Now we're giving you something really to repair too, to grow to, unless a body build gets.

Yeah, because it's not going to grow unless it gets to that stage where you're just off a... Right, tapping it. The dynamite, when you're tapping it, having bags, so that's why bodybuilders or even just someone's getting into shape. Because we're talking about tone.

Tone, you see anybody, a guy or a woman, anybody, they say, oh, they're really toned. Yeah. The reason of tone because they have a little curve here, curve here. They have this thing going on. It doesn't have a big, big glass, but just

that little V shape. The glutes for a woman, it's nice round and full, curved and the quad, maybe a little sweep to the quad. It's a kind of curved to the hamstring where it ties into the glutes. You're creating sculpting shape and tall. That's the toned look.

But in order to get that toned look, the muscle has to create a curve. Yeah. So in order to get that curve, has to get bigger. Yeah. Okay? your biceps is straight and when you there's the belly of the muscle right in the middle quad the belly is right here

so you create a curve and that creates that toned shape so the reason anybody looks toned because they're a beautiful toned curved shape muscle yeah bigger muscle that's where a lot of the general population made the mistake of thinking oh if I pick up weights I'm going to be bulky but I just want to get toned but what you're actually saying is I want to get

toned means I want to build muscle so I need to lift them weights yeah yeah so just a little bit of muscle and if you gain maybe one or two kilo and then you have the metabolism muscle is metabolic so increase that's the flow short term when you're doing kind of aerobics type exercise you're burning you're born twice many calories in an aerobics workout that they would in the weight training but the calorie metabolism goes up but only goes up for as long you're doing the exercise yeah when you stop the aerobic session within 30 40 minutes an hour goes back to no baseline goes

But when you lift weights, you build a bit of muscle, stick maybe a kilo, maybe a couple of kilos of muscle onto your body over a period of time, that will raise a metabolism of maybe 3, 4, 5%. Now it's permanently raised. So, for the example, the example, the experience that is, you have maybe a big Mr. Universe type physique. Arnold's kind of, they're maybe weighed 120, 130 kilos. When they're just lying in bed at night,

they're burning more calories, they're boarding more calories than every first walk around in a 24-hour period. Because there's much more muscle loss. So you increase the muscle, you increase your metabolism, you're born more calories. Just supposed to sit in here. More muscle in the average person, you're burning more calories. And you just put, you're just... Body fat comes down.

Yeah, and you're just improving your overall shape as well. You're always in your body fat, muscle increases so on. And the more muscle you put on, the metabolism stays up, lower body fat, etc. Can I have a question? So, like, obviously then when you're getting someone ready for competition and so on and so forth, you know, you're getting them down to lean levels of body fat. let's say someone doesn't really do well in a competition can it be because that they haven't put enough work in the offseason in terms of building enough muscle so does that happen yeah yeah it's any athlete at any kind of level particularly when you get to the competition level yeah now you're an extreme athlete yeah so me as a competitive bodybuilder I would be a anybody's at that level you're an extreme bodybellers a whole different level so when I would come back from a world championship I'd probably take it maybe a week

off. Just again, just chill out. I'm just going to rack. Forget about you. I'll do it for so long again. Getting ready. 60 weeks of cardio and pre- and train three, four, five hours a day.

Double cardio session. All that. Takes over your life. Oh yeah, yeah. So now those months. But before that, I'm prepping as well. So I take a week off. I'm back in the gym, a week later.

I'm getting ready for the next year of the World Championships. So it's 11 months and three weeks I'm getting ready for the next one. Now I'm going back to go abroad. So off season is growing. wing season. So the on season for me or anybody but at that level is three, four months out. Then you increase your cardio. Then you start going on a low carb diet and you can

lose them to carry down to lose the body fat, get ripped for a competition. We're bringing our bodyfall down to the low single digits. Now the average adult male is probably maybe 12, 15% average woman is 50 to 25% thereabouts. That's normal. We're bringing our body fall right down to slow single digits but it's only temporary for that kind of competition but as soon as it's finished i'm back in the back in the gym again so as a competitor body builder i've stood on the stage with like 60 odd competitors in a big lineup on stage and each one of them is a national champion like me from their own country so they're have the same mindset as me so when i'm off season getting ready for next year i can't slack because i have to know because every one of them

is probably, well, you can be big in bed on it, they're training like a crazy person for the world next year the world as hard as me. But I have to know that they're not training harder than me. And without being arrogant, they're not. Can't be. So possible for anybody like that to be training harder than me because I'm putting so much intensive.

But it's off-season. So it's a whole program process right through the whole year. There's no off-season. Off-season is just getting bigger. back into new game plan and then on season I come to the deadline point maybe 60 weeks out

would be normally for me and then I have to make a weight limit of weight class and then to make from ripped and shredded then it's just the different structure more cardio more fat part of the so on etc etc can I get to a stage

where a bodybuilder ends up putting on too much weight on the off season that's body fat yeah you have to watch it yeah yeah and it gets difficult then to be able to put on 20 kilos and scuba smells a bit off-s

season, balking up, and then makes us harder for them too. So generally, proper body builders, we're going to maybe, maybe 10 kilos there about their competition of weight, depending on what weight class does. Obviously, there's a heavy waist. They're competing at 100 plus kilos. For someone who hasn't ever dropped down to them levels of body fat, what goes into being able to get to that level of leanness in terms of preparation? I would, it's a combination of, obviously, the weight training is building most

and the muscle is metal. So it's a little easier because you're so much muscle in your body. Yeah. So your muscle would respond better. Your body would respond better to any kind of exercise. Yeah.

Because your metabolism is more efficient. The metabolism is like a nasty like a waisthorse. It's that way it's too much muscle. So all you do then at that point is the diet, nutrition. But if I would rather do a lot of cardio, I would do sometimes double cardio two

an hour and twice a day. Yeah. All the kind of stuff. So, but it's the best time. It's not about how much cardio do sometimes is when you do it. So the two times best to do fat burning cart. Now we do cardio as in cardiovascular exercise for the cardio, your heart, your vascular cysts, that's cardiovascular aerobic conditioning aerobics on that. But if we're doing body fat cardio, but then the two

times you have the body has to be in, we're burning fat. So to efficiently burn fat, your muscle has to be in that what's called a glycogen, the pleated state. So your body likes carbohydrates to with to exercise but if you doing fat burning cardio well then you'll either do fast cardio in the morning because you went to bed at the eight hours previous probably eight in there beforehand so you've been asleep six eight hours but you haven't eaten any carbohydrates I would recommend for that kind of carbohydrates maybe at the last carb meal maybe six seven o'clock in the evening now you have no carb for maybe 12 or more hours yeah so when you get up in the morning you're the muscle cells even like a thing glass fuel glass

that's your glycogen glass stored up in the fuel tank so as you're sleeping for that length of time the glycate store the fuel the carbohydrate stores are gone down so we can wander down here either very low or depleted so when you get out of the bed in the morning

you can maybe have a little bit of protein and protein you just to set it up with water so when you start doing your cardio you start burning fat straight away now if you and then the second time is when you do an intense weight an intense weight training workout emphasize then you're burning

that use them primarily glycogen because it's anaerobic that burns glycogen carbohydrates so when you would go to an hour hour and a half of heavy art weight training again your glass will be the muscle cells depleted of carbohydrates so then when you start your cardio jump onto the treadmill the stairclam or bike or whatever cardio you're going to use you're going to have born fatten's right away the mistake most people do is they do their cardio or in robies class or a key fit class later in the day they've had maybe two or three meals under the belt the glycine levels are high the muscles are maybe a few crab fruits and whatever

they're going to be junk okay whatever so when they start their fitness class the aerobic fitness class with hopefully and that's what I mean most people do it they're born fat but then you spend maybe good so maybe 20 minutes or even as much as 30 minutes just burning off the glycogen stores for even start it happy to the fat stores so you do an hour of keep fit aerobics as you only on half an hour okay so you have to be in a glycicine, the pliant state strategically to efficiently burn the fat. When you go into a cardio to burn fat, your body's looking for an energy source. But if you're preferably looking for carbohydrates, because that's what he likes.

But the carbs are right down depleted. Then there's nothing there to, like a hybrid engine, electric, petrol. So it switches off the carb button and switches on the fat button. So literally starts cannibalizing his own body fat for an energy source. you start losing body fat when you're dropping that body fat for prep how important is it to have like a regiment routine throughout that process

well you have to analyze where you were if I'm I'm very kind of strategic in it I have it all planned out so say I have to hit 75 kilos on World Championship Day to weigh in I know when I get that I'm going to be ripped but I have to trace back

So I'm saying, I'm 75, but say now I'm 75, 85 kilos. Yeah, so 10 to lose. Yeah. I've been putting over 90 kilos back in the day when it'd be nice and heavy. So I've lose 10, maybe 15 kilos. So I go to, so I'm going to lose maybe 8 of the ground as a day. Sorry, a week. When it lies on the slaughter, no money, take two pounds a week.

And that'll bring me back to maybe 16 weeks plus theirabouts. Then I know how to start. Then every, therefore, I just cut out all the jugs, straight away, even though it wouldn't be a lot, but they just detoxify. The first week, I might lose a few pounds or a kilo, right, right, and thereon now, I'll lose 800 grams every single week. So Sunday to Wednesday, I half eat down 400 grams.

And I weigh me there every single morning, a bit a bit of a gram a day. I get up in the morning, look at myself with a mirror, do a little pinch test, see where I am, weigh myself. And the five, I have to lose, say, come Wednesday, I should have lost maybe 400 grand, but then maybe 200 grams. and behind

then I'm going to do an extra 20 minutes or a half hour on the cardio What about meals Are your meals Very precision, yeah Yeah, same everything Same thing I make a little,

I'm a little decision Okay, I'm a little behind So I'm taking another 20, 30 grams of carbs off My day If I'm Kitt Wednesday I'm down 400 grams, I should be But I'm 600 grams Or 500 grams, that's too much

Yeah So therefore it might not I'm going to do maybe 20 minutes Less of a cardio Yeah And I might maybe stick on 20 grams, I should be the carbs just to hit that target so it's all precision all plant structured and they can't

you don't want you know you don't want to go too fast too soon no it's like a cruising in physiologically that's proven years ago is poor science and nutritionists have proven beyond a shadow of doubt if you lose any more than two pounds a body weight which is 800 grams in one week you can guarantee 100 something that is muscle yeah which you don't want obviously you work through half that muscle yeah just body fat what else is important in terms of maintain as much muscle as possible going through that prep? You have to just so when I'm, you're actually about your strength levels

I see a lot of body levels a hundred years ago I would say when I'm halfway in and I get closer as I go down my strength goes down and that shouldn't happen because if your strength goes down doesn't mean you lost muscle. Yeah. So I'm say 90 kilos off season we get them out of the competition

and this is the same weights. Yeah, yeah. So if you, so we So if you're getting, if your weights are decreasing, your lifts are decreasing, you're getting weaker because you're losing muscle. Yeah, yeah. So muscle built, or so the weights that you do, the training you're doing, the training you're doing, built the muscle. So the training and the weights is going to maintain the muscle.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Is that a misconception people have that, oh, just because they're losing weight that they should get weaker or that their lifts should go down or they should stop hitting like personal bests. Oh yeah, well, so yeah, we just don't forget about the personal best. That's another thing because you might do a little strength conditions,

my strength training. Yeah, I've got a lot of heavy power lifting. Yeah. In that, I got very, very super strong. I was pound from pound, kilo, kilo, kid I'm very strong. Yeah. 150 kilo bench, press for 10 reps, 220, 30 kilos squats.

It was very strong, but they were to maintain. So I got strong, but I would get. But then before I'm doing it's pure bodybuilding, I'm not interested in and see much where they can lift. Yeah, yeah, you're just preserving. I'm doing repetitions.

Bodybuilders are better at repetition strength than weightlifting strength because you have maybe a body but it was a big thing went down years ago and it was seven two of the greatest

leg training was was Dr. Fred Hatfield he was the world Pearlton Shah. He was the first man squat a thousand pounds okay, it was like five

or close 500 kilos. Yeah. Then I remember Tom Platts? Yeah, yeah. Tom Platt, quad, quarter. So he was renowned for us. So the two of them had done a big leg training seminar

on squatting and techniques and that was pewing when the people that is pretty quality, I should see it. But anyway, Fred Hadfield could do a 1,000 pound. At his best, Tom Platt might squat 750 pounds. They're both, he wouldn't do a one rep.

But they don't have, what's called squat off. And they have put 500 pounds on the bar, which is probably 230-odd kilos, and see many reps they could do. But Fred Hatfield, who was a world 1,000-pound squad, he'd done 50 in reps with 500 pounds. Tom Plast done 25 reps. Because he's used to the higher rep range. Body bells are stronger in repetition.

Yeah. Move and stand. Do you have a, do you have a, like a go-to rep range that you would use with clients and use with yourself? sets to that there. So we'll go to failure, near failure for the first part and then pause 15 seconds, then do another five or six reps, pause. Therefore, at the same weight, you can pause and pause and pause and get a higher volume of repetitions and then the muscle response better and grows. Upper body, sometimes a little less weight. But then it's all depends on, for example, you could do, say, triceps through experimentation, learning your body, your tricellular

respond better to maybe 12 reps 15 reps but your bison might respond to baby six or eight reps yeah does you have to kind of figure it's like a chrylic homestine process elimination experience and training is prementation see what works for you because your body is your body's your body's not your body's not your biceps not my biceps your body's not arms swast me your biceps so you have to focus and study how that works you have to self-diagnose yourself to a degree and then you get that to experience yeah and that will only come from experience of then trial an error and pushing it and training training training and learning the whole process you're always always learning yeah 50 years i'll be trying 50 years next year i'm still learning always

always learning if you think you know it all you know nothing yeah yeah so you're always always learning then with you're as a trainer you're work with people and you see how they're response you're learning yeah yeah because everybody everybody's physiology is different to whatever you're picking up things all the time yeah um speaking of almost 50 years training so and 50 years in the bodybuilding industry What are some things that you would change about the body building industry, if you could, or what you see that they could make improvements on? Well, for me is Arnold Schwarzen brought it up a couple years ago, the Arnold Classic.

After the competition, they have an annual seminar with Arnold, and Bob Chigarillo, who's involved with him, and he would sit down and have an indie with Arnold, and he was saying that they've been competitive volleyball, they kind of lost the plot. where back then it was always kind of, it was the beauty of it, the symmetry, the aesthetics. Yeah.

And it'd be big, big guys, Arnold, it was a huge 250, 250-60 pound bodybuilder, but he had a 34-inch waist and an almost 60-inch chest was like that and went down like that. Yeah. And like that, the symmetry aesthetics. Now they've kind of got heavier,

haven't got better, and they're more kind of square-looking. Yeah. So they lost the kind of, they've forsaken the beauty and the aesthetics and the symmetry for just pure muscle mass. For sure size, yeah.

Yeah. And for me, it's, he said the same thing. A lot of people are still agree with it. That it's got more kind of mass quantity over quality. But that's just in the competitive end. But the beauty, the better thing is

the positive. In general, now people have accepted bodybuilding. And now you walk around the street, you see guys, shape girls working out. She said, that's great. See, the women working out with the weights. Huge. Yeah. And so that's all positive.

That's better. Approved. And the whole idea, there's so many people doing it now. There's millions of people in the energy of working out. So it's a big culture. It's a big, big, big, it's explosive. And because it's so popularized now,

there's so many people doing and so many young people doing it. Like, what advice or wisdom would you pass down to any of the younger generation who want to, you know, aspire to get as much as the can out of bodybuilding? Yeah, I would just, well, Just thinking about the future, it's kind of a, it's a longevity. It's a lifestyle. And if you're in it, you're in it for the longer. Life.

Don't do it. Just get in and just mess around in the gym. Everybody knows somebody who used to be a bodybuilder, train in their bedroom. They were just somebody. The word bodybuildings kind of bantered around. So there's different between guys who just train their bedroom or train the backyard and whatever. And then they do it now and then, of course, he used to be a bodybuilder.

he gave it up and now he's all fat he's never a body butter he's a fat guy who just lift a few well okay so it's all that everybody knows a body he used to be a body body but he took it up blah blah blah blah so real body was still giving up it's part of your life 50 years on yeah

still doing to maintain still you need it when you get like that you're not going to need it why would you want to give it up so it's a lifestyle so when you start off at every at a young age get into it get a structure structure your training don't them say the blind lead the blind

go to the source get to see someone first of all who knows what they're doing and they can instruct you and supervise you and structure your training plan and give you a diet program to follow one and the technique and so on and then start off hit the ground running I've made every single mistake that you can take

and we made at the beginning stage is that nobody did count I overtrained in my enthusiasm I overtrained yeah but get me out of the gym I run to train the time the more I trained the bigger I get but it was the opposite I just had to learn how to train and then trade harder and the harder you train you're not able

to train long so you have to learn all that. Well that was the last question I was going to ask you I was going to say if you could do it all over again what's one thing you would do differently or do more of? Well I didn't know what I was doing back then and if I did if I had somebody like me training myself

I could instead of maybe I could have won the world championships place fifth on two occasions top ten several times but you're so close but yes so far and then maybe I could have won Europeans five, six years earlier

could have won the world championships could have Trump so I didn't it's all hypothetical so it's all but do you look around now at like the younger generation and think Jesus

if I had all this information and all this type of equipment what I could have done with it yeah well it was several years back I was more and he was another bodybuilder he was my mentor

my kind of inspiration Sean Bullman he's from Lemmrick a couple years older than me and he was at the time top of the, he was Mr. Royal in him at him at that time. Yeah. And I look at him, my God, that's why I would have. He was my motivation.

And eventually he got up and say with him and that was going away competing with him and all that. But at that stage, he was at the top of the right, top of the gate. But I didn't know how to do it. But it was just kind of that. So it's a motivational factor to push itself to that level. But at the beginning stage is if you have that as a goal setting, but we didn't know how we're doing. So they're about to walk into the gym and they're just kind of.

Guess so. but I take and they'd walk around the gym like hell chickens and so you have the little motivate okay I want to look at but then go to him then learn from him but I remember two of us at a world show it was probably our last world shamming together in 1998 two at the world shambas competing and then I remember we sitting at hotel rooms having a yap and chat and he said to me no we've been we were competing for about going on maybe 30 years at the stage and we would have we would have taught at this stage to be so many younger guys come coming up and be better than us.

Yeah. And so we said, oh, we can't get people anymore. We said, here we are. Two of us were still here at the World Championships. And then he said, do you have all this advantage of all the technology, the nutrition,

the information, the gyms, compared to what we had, and he still can't fucking do it. Well, I think that's, that goes to show that it's passion that will take you a long way. Yeah, passion, and there's a matter you'll get barbells or your rocks and be, They have a home bench and pressing the bed.

Yeah. Like that. If you know what you're doing, you will make it happen. Yeah. So you have all the technology, but unless you know how to use it. You need to have that. You need to have the wheels.

There's all your tools. But you don't let you know how to use the tools. But then, again, it's all up here. You can push. You get, you get over here with a few just doing basic barbers and dumbbells. Showing how to train properly, hard. And this guy's over here and he has.

Now, this is even low tech compared to someone in the gym. go to America's going to place oh my God and they could have all that but he'll get a better physique there's a great quote and it's like I can't remember who said it but it's like you don't need more resources

you need to be resourceful exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah John if anyone wanted to reach out to you in terms of asking you for advice or maybe to get you to train them or to you know coach or anything like that

where could they find you yeah well they get me on either Instagram or they get me on that email whatever yeah there wasn't close to instagram thanks for watching if you like that episode and you want to see more content like this make sure you're subscribed and i'll see you on the next one