Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
7x Mr. Olympia 212 Champion Flex Lewis presents Straight Outta The Lair, the podcast that aims to bring you vital information for your life's ambitions, providing valuable insight from interviews of the many many different faces that walk through our doors at The Dragon's Lair Las Vegas and a few from the man himself.
Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
Science, Humor, and Bodybuilding | Dr. Mike Israetel | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast Ep 87
Unlock the secrets of achieving your peak physique as we welcome Dr. Mike Israetel, the powerhouse of sports physiology and strength training, to our electrifying conversation. Get ready to shatter fitness myths and carve out the science-backed path to your ultimate bodybuilding goals, with humor and wisdom from the trenches of gym culture. We reminisce about the old days, debate the evolution of training, and tackle topics from virtual vs. in-person coaching to the ideal training frequency for serious athletes.
Strap in as we dissect the transformation of bodybuilding physiques over the years, from the mass monsters to the reigning champions who balance size with symmetry. Discover the subtle art of crafting a near-perfect training schedule that caters to your individual needs and the wisdom behind the all-important rest days. Dr. Mike's insights will guide you through the nuances of workout techniques, while we share personal anecdotes that lift the veil on the lives of top athletes and the challenges they face.
Prepare to laugh, learn, and be inspired by our dynamic exchange on the psychological effects of taking breaks, the value of long-term health over short-term gains, and the power of regret as a driving force for better choices. With Dr. Mike's expertise lighting the way, you're sure to walk away with a fresh perspective on fitness, a dose of motivation, and the practical know-how to elevate your training to the next level. Join us for this journey into the heart of bodybuilding, where every rep counts, and every laugh is earned.
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----- Content -----
00:00:00 - Intro
00:10:43 - Virtual Coaching vs in-Person Coaching
00:19:42 - The Evolution of Bodybuilding Physiques
00:25:47 - Muscle Competition Standards and Evolution
00:37:47 - Science-Based Fitness and YouTube Banter
00:44:02 - Debunking Bodybuilding Training Myths
00:53:33 - Bodybuilding Training Styles and Diversity
01:01:46 - Designing a Perfect Training Schedule
01:07:28 - Bodybuilding Workout and Athlete Rebound
01:17:17 - The Importance of Taking Breaks
I'm not going to get your podcast canceled, fomar. Only your dick for half an hour, which may feel nice, sounds terrible, but I can explain. They were having sex with each other, having myself look at lots of people make it and hopefully that's for your dick, isn't it? This is the best place in the world to see me naked. If you're dicks lean, you're good. Are we getting canceled yet?
Speaker 2:Straight out the left. Today, we are joined by the core founder of renaissance and petriization, a PhD in sports physiology and a beacon in the realms of strength training and nutrition, with his groundbreaking work guiding athletes from the gym to the podium. My guest breaks down the science of peak performance into clear, actionable advice Today's year to challenge the misconceptions and enlighten us with his expert insights into building muscle, losing fat and everything in between. Get ready for a transformation conversation with Dr Mike. Is retail. Did I get your last name right? You did, wow, matt. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having flex here, John.
Speaker 2:Matt, it's been a minute since you and I met. We met you at the Dragon's Act, correct?
Speaker 1:I only know of you to exist in the dragon's layer. It's like allegedly you've won Olympias. I've never seen them. I know that a dragon gave birth to you at some point and in that birth place was a gym, also that built around it to house you and to make you the most Welsh man alive, I could say you're the second yeah, with that accent that you have been working on very hard. I have a Welsh accent, I can try on.
Speaker 2:Let's just get it off. Kick the show off with the Welsh accent. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Just a quick preface. Yes, when I do my flex impression because that's actually what it is I don't have a Welsh accent, I have a flex impression and I make you a lot angrier than normal because it sounds cool and you say irrational things Like, for example you come to me fucking gym, you got to fight me fucking dragon, and I like, but what do you mean? Shut the fuck up, you've got to have some fucking sense. Coming in here, my name's flex. I've won fucking 100 Olympias or something. Quite old, didn't it?
Speaker 2:They keep on getting worse. Every time I say that Isn't it terrible?
Speaker 1:It's getting cockney at this point.
Speaker 2:Scottish who cares A little brave heart in the mix in the ball. I thought a brave heart was Welsh, no Scottish unfortunately. Who was? Cool that was Welsh, other than you, tom Jones.
Speaker 1:Who the fuck is Tom Jones? Come on, random name. What's up, pussycat? Nope, no, nothing. Not registering.
Speaker 2:Catherine Zeta.
Speaker 1:Jones Yo, what's up. Is she Welsh for real? Yo, flex, there we go.
Speaker 2:You got to get a connect. I can name about 100 cheap too, but you won't go down the road. We're kicking off this podcast on a high note. You've been here for a number of years now, correct At the Dragon's Lair.
Speaker 1:Every time we come to Las Vegas, nevada, which is a few times a year, to film for our P YouTube, the Dragon's Lair tends to be at the very top of the list of the gyms we go to film at. Tend to be. Tend to be Because every now and again flex. To be completely honest, the dragon fucking scares me. That's my wife.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sorry, Jeez.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, you said it, I didn't say it. It's just really difficult to beat. A couple of things about the Dragon's Lair. One is the physical availability of equipment. It's fucking awesome. Also, after you expand to that leg room, it's insane. Another thing is there's just so many hardcore lifters that are here. It's like one of those gyms where almost the average member is an IFBB pro, which is strange and super, super motivating and inspiring. And because you're here and you have such a positive attitude and you're such a I don't know, a lot of people have told me like they don't know who you are or they know of you and there are nobody's quote unquote and you just come up and chat with them in the middle of the workout and they're like what the fuck that?
Speaker 2:was amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, we had flexes like a fucking nice guy. And then they say, oh, you proposition them for rude things pictures, text messages. That just keeps going, I know, but at least at first you're super nice. It goes downhill fast, very fast, just like when you met me. Well, just when I wanted it flex.
Speaker 2:No, it's a big arc. I don't know why you'd meet me in the gym, but it's great to have you. You're a med and you were a member. You had one point of time just before.
Speaker 1:I remember currently every time we show up I buy a month at least. But during the end of the COVID era we were here for a year because my wife was a sports medicine doctor and she was doing her fellowship here and so we were here training basically almost every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was sad to leave. You came to me because we just became friends at that point in time. You said I'm leaving and you had just opened the jam really. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was coming to the gym a little bit before the official opening because Jared snuck me in through the back, as he tends to take me to any places Back door. Oh, I've been to the back door with Jared many times. No wait, I said that wrong, or did I? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:So obviously there's been a lot of changes here in the gym. You mentioned, you know, the leg room, but talking of change on that note, you know, with the fitness industry there's been a tremendous amount of change and with yourself, in the last decade, what have you seen the most from the science perspective in regards to athletes and bodybuilding?
Speaker 1:So from a science perspective we could take this a few different ways. One is training, one is nutrition and one is supplementation We'll say the nice term. I think it was for a long time already established that real high level guys will have a supplement coach. Otherwise it's confusing, peeking is very difficult, so on and so forth. Right around the time, maybe a few years after people really got to understanding that a supplement coach is someone you need, they also realized the diet coach is a big part of that, because supplements and diet are so closely aligned and professional and competitive bodybuilding, so a lot of guys would have diet coach, supplement coach. I hear I'm thinking someone like Chad Nichols, for example.
Speaker 1:Then only later, but in the last 10 years, are people really starting to move over into trying to be coached into and formalizing their training. Because it used to be like your athlete, you run their farm, you run their supplements, you run their diet and then they're training. You just know the split and you arrange everything to that. But it turned out we know enough in the scientific community to really inform about training because there's kind of two roads in training. One is the road of doing what you like, what you want, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with that. The other road is of doing what you have to in order to get your best possible results.
Speaker 1:I've taken second place, enough time in my life to know that it's important to try, if you want to do the thing, that is more formal, more official, more ingrained, more written down, more manipulated, potentially coached by someone else, because then you can really go to the show, know that your supplements are in line, you're eating all the right things at the right times and you did everything like you were supposed to in training. Because if you look back on your training for a couple of months, you could be like oh man, I could have pushed it harder, but hold on, maybe harder would have been too hard. You've seen guys overdo it and then show up looking flat and fucked up or injured. So there's this balancing act of how hard do I go, how much do I restrain? It Very tough to do yourself easier to do with the RP hypertrophy. Up down.
Speaker 1:Load down Link in the back, link in the back, but very easy to do with a coach, and so over the last 10 years in the fitness industry, I feel like people are paying attention more and more to technique, to periodization, to progression. People like Justin Shire, people like John Jewett, real meticulous about how they execute their training and I think that's really starting to catch on. And my best informational source for what it picks stuff like that up is TikTok One 15 second reel and I've learned enough for a lifetime of training. That's actually people say Dr Mike, it's more of a nickname. I actually got my PhD on TikTok. Did you know that if you watch 10 million reels that just send you a PhD in the mail? Come on, they have to be training related reels. Oh dumb. That's why I went wrong. Yeah, you probably have a few nutrition in there.
Speaker 1:You're like a couple of reels shy of a PhD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's much. Actually it's not even in the genre. But wait a minute.
Speaker 1:I thought TikTok was a Christian platform with family values. Oh, where do you go with this? We started off the show in a bad direction.
Speaker 2:You're pulling me back in. Listen, you know, pulling me back in. No, you're talking about the coaching and nutritional coach too. You do everything yourself. Right, it's all pretty much. I know you jokingly said about the app, but truly that app is has been incredible for so many different people and not, and I remember, find her up at this app, probably about You're going to have to go. Yeah, that's when it came out and it's blown up.
Speaker 2:Obviously, nick Walker is part of it, of each other. They're big contributors to the app, but you put daily content on that from the mistake.
Speaker 1:So what I do is I stay in touch with a team of engineers and we're always evolving the app and making it better, so I do that all the time, yeah, but most of my daily work is really just posting to my only fans. You know, responding to people back there.
Speaker 2:You request? Sorry, that was fast.
Speaker 1:No, the app's been awesome. And the app basically allows you to train yourself however you want. You put in all the exercises you like and then it gives you a certain number of sets to do with certain weight, certain reps. You can change them anytime you like, but then as the weeks progress, the app strategically adds a rep here, adds a five pounds here, adds or takes away a set here, depending on how you're recovering and progressing. So, for example, if you're smashing it and you're getting fucked up and really tired, the apple pulled back for you, based on how you rate it, of course. Because if you tell it like at the end of shoulders and say, could you have done anymore, and you're like, no, that was fucking nuts, next time it'll pull back on it.
Speaker 1:If you're, everything's going steady esteem, nothing's the problem, it just stays the course. And if it seems like you're not being challenged enough, it'll increase the amount of work you do for you. So it keeps you in that middle line that everything is just. What do they say? Like you've been in a bunch of preps, everything's just clicking Right. That's what the app is trying to get you to, because how much to train and how to train and how to progress is not an instantly answerable question. There's so much variation. Some person needs four sets of chest. They get fucking super sore. Some person needs eight sets of chest and that's what gets them going. Some guy will get to 12 sets of chest and be like I can absolutely do more and still recover. The app detects that, based on your feedback, and it escalates or de-escalates how fast the progressions go.
Speaker 2:Not the short age but coming from the old school, having Neil Hill, it was very hard for me when I moved to the United States to work virtually just sending pictures.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So working with him in person. That's how we were able to change different things. The technology has grown tremendously. Now, where we're talking about the details in the engineering that your engineers put into this app alone, where Miniscule of Change is based on honest feedback, yes, it has to be honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you lie to the app. I don't even know what to tell you. It's just going to assume you're like oh, you're immortal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's 10 sets of everything, yeah you're going to put yourself into a also keep lying to, you're not going to make any progression. Who knows? I think too Absolutely. But you've also mentioned two names earlier John Feather both I've BB pros and Nick Walker.
Speaker 1:that advanced athletes.
Speaker 2:Very. Even people of that stature can do a work with this up to correct 100%.
Speaker 1:I use the app for my own personal training as well. The thing is, another coach can look at how you use the app and help guide you in its use and also be. The app doesn't look at you naked and tell you where to push and pull the carbs. And I'm working on it. I've been coaching the app by having myself look at lots of people make it and hopefully the apple absorb some of that wisdom. But yeah, the app is a tool you can use in conjunction with personal coaching to get the best experience. But I will say nothing's really going to beat the Neil Hill looking at you in real life. But Neil Hill probably doesn't cost $30 a month. So if you want to get your pro card or when the Olympia a few times, give Mr Neil Hill a call. If you want, if you have a little less money and your aspirations aren't exactly mega medical, then I think the app is great.
Speaker 2:That's the evolution of where the fitness industry is going now. Working with an app, working with a virtual coach, like I'm seeing earlier, it was only one way for me and I was working in person with Neil on me, living in a town which was one hour away. I had to drive every time Neil give me my in person check in, sometimes twice a week. So it was one hour there, one hour back, two hour on trip, just for Neil to be like, okay, you're on point, but that's how I worked and I wouldn't have thought of any other way. But again, now, when you came I've come to the United States pretty much everybody has a virtual coach.
Speaker 1:The US is so big man. I like it when European friends come to visit the US and some of them are like, oh yeah, we're going to see New York and then DC and then Chicago, and then don't do it. Someone didn't look up the driving time. They're like, oh my God, it's 11 hours to Chicago. Yeah, even flying time it's like even flying time, Six hours from New York to Vegas.
Speaker 2:You're like what the fuck? I thought this was the same country. Yeah, I thought I could drive that three minutes away.
Speaker 1:I will say there is something if you can, if you, if you, for example, if you live in Las Vegas and you're prepping for an important show and you have a really good prep coach and let's say you train all the dragons later you guys have two posing rooms or something at least one, yeah, and also the rest of it really is a posing room, to be honest, because the lighting is so fucking sweet One, and one big one.
Speaker 1:Yes, if you want to see Dr Mike half naked, this is the best place in the world to see me half naked randomly. But I will say, if you are in that position where your coach lives in Vegas, you live in Vegas. For example, having a coach look at you in real life it's better than in pictures because, first of all, the judges will see you in real life. Flex, have you ever had it to where someone looked amazing in pictures and then you see him in real life on show day, a competitor or something, and you're like, yeah it's a high percentage.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie to you. Sure, there's a lot of fucking filters. I underhand lobbed that one too.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, even if you don't filter your coaching communications, the placing of the camera, the lighting, what's behind you, blah, blah, blah If your coach can see you in real life, you also know the following thing probably flex better than I do when you're there there for conditioning, you've arrived, there's a different look to your body, grainy, whatever the fuck you want to call it. That shit is different, and sometimes it is clear from pictures, but sometimes it isn't. One of the things I've heard about Sean Clarita, for example, Jared was in the back room with Sean. That sounds terrible, but I can explain. They were having sex with each other. No wait, that's the opposite of what they were doing. Sean was getting his tan finished and Jared was like dude. Every picture you've ever seen of him winning the Olympia does him a disservice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because in real life the shit just doesn't look human. He looks nutty, he has like veins in his upper glutes. How, where, what, how, why? So I think that when you drove all those times to see Neil, was it a huge fucking use of time. Yes, is virtual coaching amazing for tons of people? Yes, but is there something special to see in a human being who knows what they're looking at? By the way, absolutely. Another thing I'll say while I'm ranting really quick. Neil has, like a good Jillian fucking total number of athlete years of experience.
Speaker 1:A lot of people pretend they're good coaches. I don't even coach, I fucking suck at coaching. A lot of people pretend they're good coaches. A monkey, see, monkey, do. What does a good coach do? You fucking seize the guy in real life. Man, he goes yeah, man, that's really good. Try to open up your fucking left a little bit. What is it that you're really looking at? Somebody like Neil could give you the real deal, but like yeah, you're three bigs out. He could be like we need to push it harder. He'd be like dude, chill out, fill out a little bit, because you're getting really depleted. A lot of people just don't know what they're looking at, so they play the pretend game of I need to see my athletes check in all the time. It's shut the fuck up. No, you don't even know what you're looking for. Yeah, that's me talking shit.
Speaker 2:Listen, there's a lot of truth to it. And again, unfortunately, the doors. I feel like like the border right now If there's a flood of people who have placed eighth place in there. If I can show, I know that a coach right, and they're ripping protocols from the internet and changing them. However they want to change them. There's like it's so far from where I started in the simplicity of everything. Sure, you know, keep it simple. Stupid, right, kess? But Neil plays that game. And how always play that game? There's never been any type of crazy concoction week or any type of shit loading or everything else.
Speaker 2:The same foods we ate in prep is what we're carving up on. We're taking every issue out of the equation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've. In my own bodybuilding journey, which has been lackluster, I've gotten more and more away from last minute bullshit, because I used to think, oh, there's a science to this last minute bullshit, which there is. But complexity by itself is a stressor and you can't track all the variables at the same time. So what I'm doing more recently is just my goal is to get on in stage shape two or three weeks out and then just eat the same normal meals, eat the same meal I normally would, in the morning, go up, go on stage, because then you know you're going to look how you're going to look, because if you're trying to peak, there is absolutely some chance that your weird protocol is just going to make you look fucking absurd way better than ever.
Speaker 1:But there's also a chance. It's going to make you look worse For all that shit that you're doing in your protocol. That's a lot of risk. And look, I'm a fucking amateur competitor. I'm just trying to get at Masters Nationals a few times before I hang it up. Somebody like an Olympian. I mean fuck man. Can you imagine looking like the man the day before and then taking fucking fifth at the Olympia the day of be fucking disaster? So that simple approach has a ton of merit behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the most the top five guys that I know of I would say maybe into the top 10, they've all changed their ways over the years. It's gone back to simplicity. There's no kind of Hail Mary at the last end, unless they're looking like shit right and they're trying to read something drastic. So it's been, I think, through trial and error for a lot of these guys. Thankfully, I've had the same coach since I was 19. We've not done anything wild. But when I see or hear some of these guys that have that's just water, it's not bro, it's not you. That fucking four weeks out, yeah for sure. But again, it's who's around you and what is your standard of competition shape? Sure, and a lot of these guys are so skilled thinking they have to be a certain weight.
Speaker 1:I did that for years. Yeah, the thing people forget about bodybuilding is that the judges are simply not even availed to that information. They don't know what you weigh and they don't really care. It's a purely visual sport. So if you weigh 230 on stage but you got a little bit of loose something or other going on in the lower back upper glutes, you look great. If you weigh 215, but you're dry as a fucking shit and your waist comes down even more.
Speaker 1:The judges are going to be like you show us your number there 14. Got it Middle of the back. Who gives a fuck? And a lot of guys I've actually. I'm a little bit friends with a few IFBB pros Few of them. I'm like that girl knew when you have a hookup buddy and she's yeah we're friends. She's like.
Speaker 1:that's like that I please you, I come to every other Friday when I don't have anything else. But I've corresponded with a few of them and one of them won a pro show this past year I believe, and I hit him up and I was like, dude, out of just sheer curiosity, what do you weigh? This is a guy who was like fucking enormous, and I've weighed 225 on stage before. 220, looking like whatever lean and big but not quite contest Dude, he was like I weighed 226 and it blew my fucking mind because this guy's 20 fucking winning charms something totally insane. You just you'd look at it and you're like that doesn't look like 226. It looks like 250. But that's exactly the point. The judges will fucking rank you wherever the fuck you're supposed to be. Dexter Jackson won the overall Mr Olympia before. Who gives a shit how much you weighed? Ask the person in two seconds if it fucking matters.
Speaker 2:I think it's like 220.
Speaker 1:I want to say a variety of claims have been made. Flex, let me ask you a question Actually, is there even a fucking scale back there when you guys are fucking pumping up? So when people say I weighed XYZ, it's like earlier that morning on the hotel scale, maybe an idea. I swear to God, half that's fucking made up, I just did. If I ever turn public yeah, man, a turn pro at 290, I'm gonna really try to turn it up and get to 308.
Speaker 2:You know, when I think the 2000s really put a spork in the works.
Speaker 2:That because remember they were weighing every being at the Iyayaman and every would go in. Some people were peel off and then the bigger guys are peel off and then kind of the you know the Hamid Haidas and stuff would go in with their shoes on the clothes, on fucking Shanklira. I love it, but I think that really put a kind of something in people's head was like, oh, if you're not this weight in the open class, yeah, you know gonna do not to talk shit.
Speaker 1:Oh, here we go. But the 2000s, the late 90s, in the 2000s, produced some unbelievable physics. They also produced a small but notable handful of physics that were like, hey, you figured out how to really fill that fucking vile up and push it into your body including synth, all I might add. And then it was like the mass monster freak era did a lot of good, just for the fucking soul of the sport.
Speaker 1:Everyone wants to see. Marcus fucking rule, I don't give a fuck who you are, but there was a bit of that where a lot of guys were pushing that size game so much that they lost track of conditioning to some extent, definitely lost track of shape. And at some point, I think in the 2010s plus, there was a bit of a revival that I think still continues to this day of you have to bring the whole package. And who won the Olympia last year? Derek Lunsford. That's fucking wild. That look. His waist is the same size as when he was like 170, except he weighs like 220 or some shit like that. That is a fucking look.
Speaker 1:Even big Rami, like for how big he is, quite good aesthetic side will say. And that's the future of the sport, because I think back in the early 2000s and late 90s and stuff not so much the champions but a lot of people that were doing well, it was one of these things where you're a bodybuilder, so that's right, but you have a huge gut. Yeah, comes with a territory as it, though I get you could be a pro with a huge gut. Like I have a fucking giant, got just dog shit genetics. I'm not trying to say I have a very good physique. If you want to be an Olympian, I think you probably have to have it all, including a tight waist, and then your scale weight isn't the same as it used to be. But again, who gives a shit? You're supposed to be jacked, it's all visual.
Speaker 2:Think the PD's back then were just ballistic. It was like more of the better that caused these physiques to go up, because we said, listen, you mentioned the couple and we're not the main names, but Ronnie was the king, right King Ronnie and generically I have an awful Ronnie impression, by the way, oh, you can do that too, but I know I had to be chasing Ronnie, right, so it was. It was that error of these sites and you see, guys who had beautiful, symmetric, symmetric of physiques, who just destroyed the waistline and, as you said, barely so it was trying to chase the king and, as you mentioned, the revival now, I feel, is coming into its own Classic physique has helped. Yes, going back to my question, do you think it was that era of chasing the goat that caused the physiques to go out of hand? And more is better?
Speaker 1:I have to imagine that's a big part of it. At the end of the day, people will look sooner or later what the judges are reward. I remember even back then a few times the judges were like made a statement like the IFBB, no offense. Made a statement like, hey guys, we're going to be looking for more streamlined physiques. And then the very next year, like they still rewarded the mass monsters, and people are like oh fuck, the only way you can make a statement is by picking who is champion, who is top five, who is top 10. And if a lot of the guys that have the size and they have the conditioning but they don't have the symmetry, so to speak, the small waist, etc. The lines you should see those guys placing out of their usual spots. For example, some guy places third and fourth all the time, let's say, even at the Olympia, fucking, just jacked, monster freak, got the whole thing. If you're serious about the Olympia becoming more aesthetic in the next year, he has to play seventh or ninth or some shit. And then he's going to be like what the fuck? His fans are going to be a fucking rub bro. They say that about everyone. And then after that the IFBB be like yes, we are absolutely serious about rewarding aesthetic physiques and of course it's nice to give the guys a year ahead of time so they can fucking drop the growth hormone dose down a little JK, why would anyone drop that? But yeah, flex to your point.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely an effect of chasing Ronnie was the scene where the judges are rewarding Ronnie and they're rewarding other fucking huge guys. And then everyone has been in the game long enough knows that a lot of body weight comes down to milligrams. You take more milligrams of gear, you will be heavier and most of it will be muscle slash fluid in the muscle. And so guys were like Look, if I'm competing under 250 pounds, not fucking placing the given fucking Olympia's to monsters and top fives, that pro shows to monsters Time to go up. And then if they go up and they successfully place better, what do you think they learn from that? They're like shit, but I'm still not dead. My cardiologist still says hello to me when we meet at the store. He doesn't just shun me because I don't want to be seen with that guy I guess going to die tomorrow. Then up it goes again and then you get that kind of spiral effect and the only way to bring down the spiraling effect of kind of excessive gear use is to bring the conditioning and symmetry standard such that it reflects it like. Is if Seabam took more gear he looked better? No, absolutely not. He would look fucking weirder and his gut would be a bit distended and that's not a look he wants. So it turns out like if you put the standard of the best physique to the kind that doesn't look like everyone's on a boatload of shit, that's the best way to set that standard. But you have to. But you have to stick to it.
Speaker 1:I will say I was at the Olympia this past year and I saw a. I saw the Miss Olympia which they had back this past year. Right, the actual bodybuilding, female bodybuilding, and the fuck is her name? Michaela, something or other. Yeah, michaela shredded. She looked like some kind of cyborg experiment, unbelievable. She had glutes, striations walking back from the posing area and I was like what the fuck? Totally different level she took like fifth or something. Because they straight up told the girls and it was common knowledge, we are not pushing a conditioning standard Really, that's what I heard. They're pushing a standard of balance, of symmetry, of femininity, of beauty and of muscularity. That's actually on the PDF. That describes the division. Personally in my heart, of course, I want fucking McKayla to win. As soon as she walked on stage I damn did shit my pants. I was like crystal. I told my wife look at that.
Speaker 1:She's like how am I fucking God? But if you have a conditioning standard and a judging standard, you gotta stick to it. So I don't think she was surprised. She was probably just like fuck it, I am the fucking leanest person of all time or some shit. But there's a different standard than all the other ladies know. This is where we're going. They're not gonna push that extreme, blah, blah, blah. And so it's easy to say the guys take too much gear and then you reward the guy that weighs 290 all the time. What do you think everyone else is gonna do? But if you know the guy's taking too much gear and you reward Derek Lunsford who weighs 220, then it starts to be like okay, maybe I don't have to weigh 280 to beat the guy.
Speaker 1:And then the sport evolves.
Speaker 2:The 212 guys are rocking the fucking show right now, both Hardy and Derek moving up into the open, having that trademark conditioning in the 212 and bringing it up. I think that has definitely helped the new perspective of what that champion should look like. Again, not that Derek isn't a freak of nature, because obviously he is on that frame at five foot six, five foot seven, what it is, and looking what he's done since moving up from the 212 class and obviously Hardy too both guys, I would guess, in the 220s. Do you think so?
Speaker 1:I flex you much better at this than I am because, I hear things and I don't know who to believe. I heard that Hardy was like 245. But when you see someone that jacked, I could believe a lot of shit. I like right now you're fucking super jacked. I could believe he weighed 180. I could believe he weighed 230. 180, I'm fucking 180.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna turn the broadcast into a different direction.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, flex, I met 150. Fuck, I'm just fucking with you at this point. Shut your fucking mouth. Fuck sake, you're fucking fuck.
Speaker 2:But going back to what I was saying about the Olympian and the judging standard for me, obviously, coming from a completely different upbringing, I was never gonna be the biggest guy in the stage. Conditioning was always something I had to suffer from. And then I see some of these open class guys, especially competing as a 212, placing in the top six and in my world that I come from six weeks out, four weeks out in some cases and then you think to myself if they're awarding this in one category and then they're going for another, look in the open. It was very confusing for us, Super confusing, Even though we're both bodybuilders. Right, yeah, You're not talking about men's physique or classic, which was introduced later on. We're talking about bodybuilders. So keeping one class in that guideline judging guideline and then seeing the open in another guideline, it gave no 212 a reason to go up.
Speaker 1:Why would you? You say, okay, I'm having trouble making the 212, which means I'm possibly, if I run my prep a little differently, I could come in and step on stage at 225. That's pretty common, you fill out more, you don't pull all this, certain kinds of gear out, et cetera.
Speaker 1:If you come into 225 and nobody below 260 wins the Olympia you're gonna be like what the fuck Is this just for shits and giggles that I'm doing this? A really great recent example was John Jewett. Actually John was making he's five, seven for real. Like I've met him in real life. He's taller than me, amazing physique. But you can tell man, 212 is a long way for that motherfucker to go. He's jacked. I know how he made it. I have no idea how he made it, neither does he.
Speaker 1:He's talked about that a few times, but at some point he was like you know what? I'm gonna try going for an open show and I think he either took second or one an open pro show. I think you're looking first or second, I believe First or second, and to his credit, no, I think he qualified for the Olympia and to his credit, he's now taking another year to really fill into the open pro ranks because it turns out, yeah, like 230, 240, he actually can slay a lot of motherfuckers, and that's true because they're looking for John's physique. They're looking for someone with crazy mass, of course, but he also has lines, he's got detail, he's got it all, whereas before I feel like maybe in the late 90s you could have been pretty lean, but if you didn't have that masser size. You were like eh.
Speaker 1:And I think another thing is that was the time of the magazines, and in the magazines reports of body weight mattered Flex. You remember that reading this shit? That's why Z weighs 280 and you're like fuck. You step on the scale and you're like 230, you're like fuck 280 exactly, yeah, and it's, I think, nowadays, with social media.
Speaker 1:Something that surprised me is I was expecting bodybuilders, who post a lot of social media physique updates, expect them to post their body weights more, and they don't often do that. True, yeah, and they post mostly just their physiques, and I think that's actually pretty fucking sweet for the culture. Now, as a fucking nerd scientist artist like myself, I wanna see the numbers right. But the numbers are great if you know how to contextualize them and see. This is what this person weighs. It's cool to know. But they can fucking warp your mind if there's no context. And if your context is 280, it's just. People have to wait to win this thing. And here I go, plus five daily tabs of anadrom or some shit like that. Just kidding, that's a lot of anadrom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wouldn't condone in any of that right, Okay, but if he is, that's on him.
Speaker 1:I'm absolutely condoning it. If you wanna really take your health and just kick it in the gut when your health is coming back from the bar, like holding it's stomach, throwing up every three blocks, that's you.
Speaker 2:That was my, without the anadrom. That was my stomach every day, going into every one of my Olympias too. It's horrible, that sucks, man.
Speaker 1:It was, but did it reduce your appetite so that you weren't starving for prep?
Speaker 2:I had zero appetite.
Speaker 1:I woke up, you got a superpower. No, no one. You wake up with zero appetite nausea on stomach issues.
Speaker 2:It was like the straw, the boat that comes back. I stayed in there long enough, but it was not long enough.
Speaker 1:Then what did you win?
Speaker 2:seven, it was, threw it out to seven and then went up into the open trying to force feed myself. Three to four blended shakes a day of chicken breast and rice.
Speaker 1:Fuck that. Were you a big eater when you were growing up. No, do you not like food or talk? I?
Speaker 2:hated food and I end up in a fucking sport that revolves around the dinner table. Worked out of it.
Speaker 1:That sucks.
Speaker 2:At least dieting is not as hard as it could be for you. Dieting was easy up until probably six to four weeks out, and then there was a couple of changes that happened for me more. I just got exhausted. Yes, it wasn't the appetite problems at that point in time, it was just getting through my day, especially six weeks out, because I was sitting ready and I'll show you forters off the show 224, 226, and I was ready.
Speaker 1:Oh, I remember those photos. I remember flex, way before I knew you, way before I had a fucking PhD. We were looking at pictures of you a few weeks out from one of the Olympias. You're like, yeah, 223 here. And I was like where the fuck is 11 pounds supposed to come off this man's body? I provided the numbers for you though. No, yeah, see, you spoiled the shit out of me.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, man, I just left it to the master in control and, thankfully, like I guided me in. But I still had my cheat day once a week too during that period, just to keep them metabolism spiked. And what did you eat during your cheat day? I ate, excuse me, same tried to test this stuff because of my glute, my issues just now.
Speaker 2:I'd have sushi and sometimes I had to force my cheat meal in me. Whoa yeah. I was like, oh, I'm gonna go to the psycho Neil Hill loving the death just to clarify that when he was living in the UK and myself and Ollie was dating, I'd get to my cheat day. I made my numbers on the scale, which was two pounds a week, and again, I'm a monk, I don't cheat, I didn't miss anything. I wanted to see that when I woke up in the morning I'd get up early, jump on that scale. If I still wasn't on the scale, I was like trying to force a shit out or something. And then it's ah, yes, the numbers there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would text him and he was like, okay, I want you to have a fuck you cheat meal tonight and that is whatever you want. Or you tell me whatever you eat to cheat meal, yeah, and then a couple hours later, because I'm a basket case, I would look forward to this cheat meal for six days. On that day I would talk myself out of it. So I'm texting him hey, can we push it back to tomorrow? I think I can go one more day hard, just to prove to yourself that you could Couple of versions. Maybe it was just I'm a crazy fucker and prep, but yes, not to Along with. I like suffering and I felt like I didn't suffer enough. Even though I did, I didn't suffer enough. Or I could have pushed hard and trained and I was sore in my own head in all my preps. I didn't really enjoy much of my Olympia wins, to be honest, but I was still fucking. Here's an Olympia.
Speaker 1:Who the fuck are you Flex your on stage, oh shit, finally it's here, did I win? Yes, there's your trophy. You're like oh God, I got cardio tomorrow morning. That's all.
Speaker 2:I actually don't I was a madman and I did, I did. I got up in the morning the next morning Because I had some sort of cheat that next day and I felt because I also had to be at Korea the next week. Yeah, showing off, and three weigh in again Of course Against different athletes who couldn't get visas in the United States, so I had my own bottleneck.
Speaker 1:Because Koreans are 212 or fucked up. I'm a legs Dangerous motherfuckers man.
Speaker 2:But this is how crazy Neil was. He'd have Ali, my wife, take a photo or video to prove I was eating that cheat meal all the way in the UK, send it to him all in the UK and then he wake up, look at it and say, OK, good, and go back to bed she takes a picture of you with a bunch of sushi.
Speaker 1:You're like you got it, honey. She's like yep, send it, just throw it away. I never did that bad.
Speaker 2:I was already committed Because she was like oh, can we eat something Nothing but sushi after this Olympia play, because every fucking cheat meal was a sushi meal. But yeah, that's what I used to have and I made the wait. That's the bottom line here. But listen, we've talked about bodybuilding and everything else. But what I love about you outside your great sense of humor is you put so much information out there science based and you love to debunk a lot of the bullshit out there, but you do it with such a it's a very tactful, funny and educational way. You can say something and then you'll go around it and then land the plane where it's like how can I not like this guy? He just talks shit about me, geez.
Speaker 1:Black, you're bumping me up too much. I am, I'm dropping the ball here Live on your podcast. You're like, hey, do you mind if I do this? I'm like bros or idiots. I just sit there. You're like, oh, very well, that's OK, that's Dr.
Speaker 2:Mike, finish it up. Finish it up with some funny no, but that's true, though. You definitely have this ability to deliver a message science based, and also have a little sprinkle of fun. On a serious note, but then there's some reels that I followed you on and watched over fucking last year and a half, maybe longer, more than that where there's great humor, which, as a Brit, I truly love that.
Speaker 1:I love it. There were some folks visiting, of course, the Dragon's Lair two days ago and they were from the UK and I instantly was like the funniest person in the room to them because, dude, no joke, real talk, like I meet regular American people. Ok, so here's my personality. If you meet me anywhere and you talk to me for the first time or the 50th, there's a very high probability I'm going to try to say some shit to make you try to laugh a little bit. I can't, I don't even fucking stay serious for so long. But with Americans, with many other people, man, it's just so easy to step on toes when you're joking, and I think my philosophy is if you're joking, it's all good.
Speaker 1:Just to put this in perspective one of my training partners in Jujitsu is Jenae Croc. Do you know who that is? So it's formerly Matt Krokoleski, best power lifter ever. Now female Jenae trans.
Speaker 1:As I started training with Jenae, I was a Jenae real talk like what's cool to joke about? And she's if it's a joke, Everything. Wow. If it's serious, we're gonna fist fight. And I was like okay, yeah. So I look around the gym a little bit like Insert joke here that I only said to Janae I'm not gonna get your podcast cancelled. And she's laughing. And then she layered on other jokes at her or expenses like this is fucking dope. So they can think of sometimes Americans are the nicest people in the world. They're so fucking nice that sometimes humor they maybe forget that jokes are jokes or they just don't know. But man, the British people of the British Isles, everything's fucking humor to them and there's no bottom. It's just totally see who can say the most fucked up shit and it's all jokes. And as soon as you get me in that, just make sure there's not a fucking piece of camera equipment around, because I'm Getting everything cancelled crew is key.
Speaker 2:It's the best way to go, but unfortunately we can't be on this podcast cuz, yeah, we've had a couple of guests that have put us into the different lane for fucking YouTube. They like you, though. I see that I like you, by the way. What are you up to on on?
Speaker 1:YouTube. I know, I don't know. I think it's an adult film platform for me.
Speaker 2:No, but what's up, right?
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, I thought you know what we do there. Lot of various shaped objects going in me. Huh oh.
Speaker 2:Just that extra couple of thousand subscribers looking for the wrong things of course flex, we will do anything for views.
Speaker 1:I don't give a shit. My body is simply a vessel for YouTube views. I don't care how sore I have to be the next day or if I have to go to the gastroenterologist to get things that we lost up there taken out.
Speaker 2:I hope you tumbled yourself off. What's it? None the fucking soul for today flex.
Speaker 1:I'm. Fortunately I'm always covered in my own Phil's. It's terrible. I usually have butlers follow me around to clean that up, but they're in the helicopter.
Speaker 1:Today, youtube 1.27 million or something. Listen, the YouTube thing just blew up on us like in the last year, and I gotta say there's a lot of people with dog shit taste out there, because if you think I'm funny, holy shit, you have no friends. It's awful. You probably don't see people day to day because anyone's funnier than me, just don't have anyone to talk to you in real life. So you turn me on. Who turned me on? And then, yeah, mr Nick Shaw, the CEO of RP, just ends up getting all that YouTube money, flex. Do you know that I don't get paid for YouTube? What I get? Nothing at all. I don't even get paid for the apps at RP. Nick will send me lunch money sometimes to make sure that I'm fed enough to go on the channel, but other than that he says, hey, what's all for the big play later, and I believe him. So I'm still here working really hard. It's been ten years, but I feel like he's gonna reward me soon.
Speaker 2:He's probably just putting in an off-seat overseas bank account, maybe, yes or a retirement plan for us.
Speaker 1:Yes, for me hold on to that thought he cares about me, right? I think so he must. Sorry, that's a YouTube.
Speaker 2:It's good. It is good, but this is what you bring. It's a true version of yourself. What in the gym, Outside of you screaming at something, training?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure we do a lot of know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what do you see when you meet you? You, if it's something in the, you meet somebody in the store or you meet somebody at an export, this is who you are. When you get a camera on you, I think that it's just. You have an ability. More the same, just more the same. Yet you put down, this guy would do something different. But the science element of things, that's truly what's been lacking from a lot of this YouTube. Every's a YouTube coach, and go back when I said earlier every's a trainer now, but every's now going using their platform to put information out there. And it's so fucking skewed from the reality of things and, as your science based, evidence based. That's the difference between you and a bro chat guy, right? No, I'm sorry, it's the fucking foot podcast.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about my god Started the fucking Jedi versus.
Speaker 2:Jesus, come on. That said bro chat in the gym. I should have said, right, wait for what?
Speaker 1:you fucking listen up. You come to battle me any fucking time. You got yourself a fucking dragon. No, you fucking don't.
Speaker 2:You're leaving, so you're gonna shit talk and you fucking off back to what's he gonna do.
Speaker 1:He's gonna show up in the dragon. I'm gonna fuck him up, flex, come on now.
Speaker 2:No, but the science based is what defines you, right. This that's, be honest, all jokes aside, it's, yeah, it's something that you got a PhD for doctor next to your name. You got true letters, sure, and something has earned. And when you get in and you're around, all this nonsense as somebody's highly educated, how much does it piss you off to your son?
Speaker 1:Well, I gotta get answer for you. Flex part of it doesn't piss me off at all because science only knows so much and the grand truth of the world how things really work. It's like science is a flashlight and the grand truth is this whole room again Put the flashlight on the room at the same time dark room. So sometimes when I see bodybuilders especially thoughtful people in the know Doing things that look like science doesn't know what to say about them or Sciences said something different about them. But with recreationally trained undergraduates that weigh 70 kilos no offense, I know that's your current body weight like Fuck.
Speaker 2:I gotta build these questions up enough to this problem you need to pull me back in.
Speaker 1:Sorry JK guys. Right now I'm with Lex Lewis. I think he weighs 280. As far as I can tell. It's just so much of him. I will say you are unreasonably lean for being retired. Like, why are you jacked and lean still? I can't even get any smaller. I've you tried smoking cigarettes? No, but not. No, but you're European. Never got into that. By the way, dennis Wolf, are you one of the only Welsh people that doesn't smoke cigarettes? Or VIP?
Speaker 2:That's the new cool thing right, that's right.
Speaker 1:You can vape. Vaping doesn't take the pounds off like cigarettes did in the 80s. The model diet cocaine and cigarettes. Are we getting canceled yet? No, but I do want to return to that actually.
Speaker 1:But yes, first question, yes, so Sometimes when I see stuff that's unscientific and people are doing it that seemed to have good effects, seemed to have thought it through, it makes me very curious and I hope slash RP funds a lot of science to study that some someday to see if we can learn a lot, because a lot of what the bros slash pros had going in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s they were just right about a lot of shit and they have fucking science. They're just reasoning about it and using their experience. If this kind of curl gives me a fucking gnarly pump and this kind of curl hurts my elbow, I'm telling you what man I'm doing. The first one. You fuck what science says and if science got nothing to say about it, I won't give a fuck. So half the time they look at people doing things that are not scientific, I'm like dope. That's interesting, it's very interesting. I wonder if it works and maybe it does the other half.
Speaker 1:This is especially a problem when people do things that are directly contradicted by science and they don't even make any fucking sense. Like you guys will see, people will do like one-armed dumbbell rows. They'll do the mid-range only and they'll use like the fucking 200 pound dumbbell because it exists in their gym. Nothing wrong with that doing for the soul, because sometimes you've got to live a little bit. Fuck science, fuck reality. I'm trying to rip my lat off. But outside of just fuckery, which is fun to do with your friends every now and again, you can't tell me this is a serious attempt at hypertrophy training. What you're doing we already know. The fucking stretch is awesome for muscle growth. We already know that full control of the load is awesome for muscle growth. If you don't follow Nick Walker on social media and watch a two hundred ninety pound person train with full control.
Speaker 1:So like, what the fuck are you doing? And if you ask someone, maybe not at the right time, they'll be like, yeah, man, just go in. Like, fucking, fucking, shut up, shut the fuck up. You didn't think your way into this. There's no reason to explain yourself out of it. You're just doing dumb shit. Yeah, you don't ever get them to admit that. So when I see a lot of fuckery on tech, doc, etc. If it doesn't contradict science or if it contradicts up in a different circumstance with thought, I'm very curious and it's awesome. The other hand is when I see unscientific things and they're just dumb as fuck. I'm like didn't we solve this problem already? So to your point. Yet is a little frustrating sometimes.
Speaker 2:Why does the intrigue meet fuckery though?
Speaker 1:Think a very thin line is a trigger fuckery.
Speaker 1:Sometimes different hand positions and foot positions and various exercises, different flaring of the elbows. Some people will be like this is the only way to train your rear delts, which is such fucking nonsense. There's a tons of different ways. Now this could be maybe one of the best. They rarely couch it like that. On the other hand, there's people like, hey, I like this, this works for me, try it yourself. Maybe a little bit of anatomical reasoning behind it might stretch the delt them at more. And that's on that side of is this fuckery? Is this real shit? If there's some reasoning behind it or some decent attempt to not pretend you know everything. And this is the ultimate exercise I'm in, but there's a very short walk from that. To be like this is a man. I only trained delts like this and that's okay. Very well, go, go ahead, make things up.
Speaker 2:So there's any type of outdated advice that you think should not have become a kayak such as I've? Got tons flexed yeah okay, since you've got to, I'm just gonna give you an. Okay, let's go.
Speaker 1:Go heavy to grow muscle, go light for pre-contest to burn fat. It turns out that what you want to do in muscle growth training is train anywhere between roughly five rep sets and 30 reps. That's. There are no wrong answers. If there were really wrong answers, how much more gear are Milo's guys taking to be able to show up on stage bigger than damn near everyone and fucking ripped? I'll text him on. Don't mean to bother you, but he's got his guys doing mega triple drop marathon sets of fucking 25, 30, 40 reps. They're growing goddamn just fine Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fucking awful but it fucking works.
Speaker 1:And so it would be weird to have someone who weighs 150 pounds Watch you personally or one of Milo's guys like fucking one of these jacked animals do a 20 rep workout, 20 rep sets, and be like, yeah, man, so it's pre-contest, right? Meal section is peak off season there. Yeah, but do you want him to go heavier, to grow like you? Didn't think Milo's thought that through you, fucking asshole. A Lot of the thing is so. That's a big myth, right? And also, you don't burn fat much by training with higher reps in the gym. Your diet burns fat, your cardio burns fat. If you were to walk up to a regular person at the fucking shopping mall, to a bodybuilder, your regular person and you're like, hey, man, did you get those? Fucking he's lean. Let's say he's really new. You etched in the strations with fucking high rep concentration girls. Right, he could be like, yeah, that's part of the equation, but like, how much talk? Is their backs an agent approachable? And then really edge those details with high reps people like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:Yes, I needed sets of eight before the Olympia. You dumbass what you eating over there.
Speaker 2:That's normally. My conversation is seven. That fucking shit.
Speaker 1:Give me the pizza.
Speaker 2:Second, vascular gets in vascular. Oh yeah, there you go. But yeah, so the myths, the myths that, that, what is the kind of them, the biggest myth, that pisses you off the most out of all? It's gotta be a question of like today, cuz it changes. Okay, give me two, then one of all, one of new.
Speaker 1:I would say the extreme emphasis on Training to failure. Yeah, the thing is, your muscles will grow very well if you train close to failure, within three reps away from failure, and Time after time it's been shown that the distance between three and zero reps to failure almost doesn't matter, or very nuanced.
Speaker 1:Science based, science based, yeah. And so if you stop all of your sets one rep shy of failure and you stimulate the muscle enough for it to grow, you're gonna grow incredibly well. If you're gonna go all the way to failure, there's probably not a damn thing wrong with that. There are some nuanced critiques you can make of both that and doing three reps and reserve, but on average is it very similar. There's a reason people like to Exalt training to failure because it makes them feel manly, because they want to go into the gym and do two things. One is grow muscle, make sense. The other is to push themselves hard for that cathartic psychological effect. There's not a goddamn thing wrong with that effect, unless you're training to failure so often that your fatigue is becoming excessive. And then your need to beat yourself up in the gym is gonna cost you Po, is gonna cost you rounds in the bodybuilding stage and it's gonna cost you placings, because if you look fucked up and beat up and super tired, you have enough high cortisol that your glutes are watery. Nobody gives a fuck how hard you went.
Speaker 1:Again, remember, like earlier conversation, the judges have no idea a couple things. One, what you ate that morning or your whole problem To how much you weigh and three, how you trained. Can you imagine if likes a judge me like, oh, looks like you did lateral raises One rank for me, what? So? A lot of people go into the gym with kind of Pretend. One purpose but it's really to one is to get the stimulus they need. What was that Lee Haney quote? Stimulate, don't annihilate.
Speaker 2:Stimulate, don't annihilate.
Speaker 1:Yes also applies to masturbation, although on some days you really do have to annihilate that's a touchy something, but okay literally touching. Is there a video to this? Are we on video? We're on Spotify on video? Oh perfect. Sorry Spotify viewers, but you don't get to see what flex and I actually did. We're actually naked. It turns out they're like we actually have Spotify videos. Sorry to lie to you, we were not naked.
Speaker 2:But, by the way, spotify is big for us. No way, yeah, it's yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're the top 3% of all everything on Spotify.
Speaker 2:Only shit 3% should have prepared for this should have Doing well for a. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Two thumbs for about usually two thumbs in my industry means something totally different, and it's on.
Speaker 1:Spotify, so it couldn't what mean, whatever it wants to perfect. Guys go into the gym with seemingly one goal To fucking train for, let's say, the bodybuilding event but ends up either. You can bifurcate it into two goals. One is to do a good job, stimulate, not an eyelid, and the other is to get some fucking demons off your chest. Now, fortunately, or unfortunately for me, I had so many demons to get off my chest I actually started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu to get them off, to get off. But to me it's not enough just a bodybuild, because if I only bodybuild it to do demon shit, I would be doing triple drops out all the fucking time and it would beat me up so much that it wouldn't be the optimal.
Speaker 1:Remember, there's two facts to growing muscle. One is stimulation, the other is recovery. And if you just go high volume all the way to failure all the fucking time, you may not be able to recover. So go hard in the gym and if you want to train a failure, slow clap, okay, awesome. Don't pat yourself too hard on the back about it, because is it more hardcore to train to failure? Sure, little margin. It's much more hardcore to stick to your diet for 16 fucking weeks. It's much more hardcore to beat the logbook and track all your weights and reps and sets. It's much more hardcore to be super consistent if you want to try real hard in the gym and go all the way to failure dope.
Speaker 1:There are many contexts for that. Just don't pretend. Like everyone who doesn't train all the way to failure sucks. Like you may remember this, but the vast majority of the 90s greats did not go to failure. I don't know if I've ever seen flex wheeler approach five RIR or whatever that was. And people just be a good man. So fucking genetics they look really because the modern guys don't have genetics. What are you fucking crazy? That okay, fine, fuck. Here's another thing that fucking pisses me off. Here we go. Last one, I promise. Oh, no, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, keep it going. When people selectively cite a few bodybuilders that they know over that there are their favorites that embody their way of training, to say this is how the top guys train.
Speaker 1:Justin so much so that people still cite Dorian, Ronnie and Jay often. That's all you fucking really got to do it. I'm like first of all, Dorian trained you Just fine, but didn't do a ton of volume. Ronnie did every muscle group twice a week with a fuckload of volume and he went so heavy it was unreasonable for everyone except for Ronnie to do it. So shut up, you're not Ronnie.
Speaker 1:Third of all, Jake Cutler is quoted literally on YouTube as saying he's never gone to failure. He always used a real controlled style. He was never like a psycho in the gym, he was more of a meticulous guy. So when you cite those three guys as like this has been cited to me a ton on Instagram this is a fucking pussy, fucking RIR shit. You gotta train like these guys, you said. But actually Jake Cutler says he's never gone to failure and they just don't have anything to say because to them there's this four horsemen of the apocalypse Ronnie, Jay, Dorian and Branch why not Right? And Branch is everyone's spirit animal because he's just like Texas, writ large. He's. Texas is a human being. I don't give a fuck what happens.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, oh, which is sweet, but then when you have people that are also fucking unbelievable, that there's four training in a style that isn't oh, I don't see this isn't a sexy just bros, it's just who big Rami, how much of his training lower? Have you heard?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard a ton. I've seen him do six plates on a high bar, squat deep as fuck for eight reps, but I guess it just doesn't cause he didn't bleed out of his face. That just doesn't make the reels or whatever. Usually he uses a really large range of motion. Usually it's under good control.
Speaker 1:It's plenty of exercises that are pretty conventional or whatever they have that oxygen gym that's like super fancy and shit. So another one is Sebum. Sebum's the best current modern bodybuilder. Here's another one, derek Lunsford. What is he really known for in training? Yeah, man, you got to go hard like Derek. Oh, how hard does he go? I'm not sure. I've seen him do some rows or something. No one talks about that. So there's tons of guys that are just straight up as good as the greats are superior to them. Oh fuck, I got another one for you, bro, and no offense. Man, he's gonna punch me in the face when he never sees me in real life because I'm irrelevant and he's a God.
Speaker 1:Phil Heath how many stories about him just going crazy with steel have you ever heard, going psychotically beyond failure and yelling? There is nothing of him on the internet as far as I've seen of that. Why are we still citing Ronnie and Jay? Ronnie and Jay are gods forever, but why are you citing them and not citing Phil Heath? Did he just disappear into thin air? What about Sean Rodin? I haven't heard anything about people again. Man, I fucking train like Sean dude Joe up, punch my card and go to work. Dexter, Dexter, dexter, dexter.
Speaker 1:That's the top of the tree for me, Dude. So Dexter, seemingly his entire career has been choosing exercises for you intelligently, controlling his range of motion and cadence intelligently. And I remember being a little bit honestly demotivated reading about him when my early days, early 2000s, beginning websites, Flex Magazine type of shit, Because a lot of the other guys had some hardcore shit to say. Like you watch one branch, one training video, you wanna run through the gym wall to your next fucking session Might make you jacked. When you look at how Dexter Jackson trains, there's nothing in there that lights a fire under you. But there's a reason. Dexter's competing for 30 fucking years. He never fucking broke. How are you supposed to break if everything's that meticulous? It's not sexy. So just to fuck with the bros. And people like, yeah, man, I don't know like, I'll post a video of me doing some stupid shit. They're like yeah, man, I don't know, I'm going with Dorian. You're like all right, I'm going with Ronnie. And they're like oh, I'm going with the Branch Warren. I'm like Branch Warren isn't as good as Ronnie, you lose. It's like a fucking Jenga where you pull the long thing and everything falls down.
Speaker 1:Why doesn't anyone say Phil Heath? Why isn't anyone saying Shabron? Because there are two elements to training. There's how the top people actually train, which is, believe it or not, quite diverse. You've been around, you've seen it. All Guys train differently. And then there's the pretend shit. We want them to train so that they hold up the spear, that bitch at the front of a ship. Our monumental training should be Not everyone's there, man, and you can't. You don't get to selectively cite people. What you can do if you're a fucking bro and you like to train Doreen Yates style, bloat and fucking guts. You're fucking fatty. Is that okay to say or are you too bad for that? They think, oh, fair.
Speaker 1:We're already too deep into this. That's what she said. I've never heard that, personally, I'm not backing. If you want to train like fucking Dorian, just say that. Shit, bro. You don't have to say cause Dorian was the best, cause there's eight other people that were also the best. All of them train differently Arnold, lee Haney how much have you heard about how Lee Haney trained Haney? If you look at the metrics how much he weighed, how tall he was, and you look at pictures like this, oh my fucking, can you imagine Lee Haney at 20 years old with his exact genetics? Today it's just be a matter of time until he was Mr Olympian and be like everyone can feel free to quit. He trained not in that spiritual style of psychosis and I'm not even dogging on that style, bro.
Speaker 1:That fucking coming into the gym I remember coming to gym for my leg workouts. I still do nervous, I could get hurt. And if I don't get hurt, I'm still nervous cause it's going to be so much pain and worse Flex towards the end of especially a set of legs where you know you have another rep or two left, but the pain is screaming at you so much and the fear of injury screaming so much that you're like you have to do everything to grab those leg press handles, be like shut the fuck up and just do this. That makes me nervous to think about. But is that the only effective way to train? No, it's just fun and it works. But it's not for everywhere at all times. So if you want to train like that gritty mentality, just own up to the fact about it.
Speaker 1:I love Dorian's physique. I love a ton of other guys. I want to train how Dorian train, cause it really fits my mojo, like that's what gets me going. But you don't have to talk shit about other people's training styles, cause there's at least as many examples of R&R winning Olympia as a fucking Dorian.
Speaker 2:The training of failure, an element of things I see, I truly feel. Number of years ago there was the team not sleep, train the failure.
Speaker 1:Team not sleep. I know that. I know that too Exactly no days off.
Speaker 2:But you see, these guys who are pushing that narrative, they didn't do nothing on stage, they were going crazy in the gym, they were picking up injuries and they were making a comeback, whatever else the biggest connector on the dots for these type of guys. Now that I know these people, they didn't take enough recovery days. I would train five days a week and I'd spend the two days one being a Saturday, one being a Wednesday just on recovery. When I say recovery, I was literally having deep tissue. I was having anything that to do. That's going to bring me back to the. I was close to that 100% version of myself on that Thursday, on that Sunday and obviously Dorian training three days a week or four days a week, whatever it was. He spent more time recovering. That was his hypothesis. I spoke to him when I was like 19 years old and I told him I was training six days a week with a badge of honor. He would tell me you only need to be in the gym like three or four days a week, damn dude.
Speaker 1:He did you a quality service by telling you some shit like that.
Speaker 2:What? Obviously, I grew up with a blood and guts too. So seeing that style of training, I also thought that was the only way to get to the top right, because we came from that kind of that generation. So hearing that you have to train that style and take more days off the gym when I was a gym rat and I loved the gym it was very difficult for me. So over the years I created my own style of training. Obviously, neil's got his Y3T training style, but for me when I was training before Neil, I had a hybrid style and I'd done that most of my Olympia until Neil took the realm and obviously I followed suit. But with my style he was a little incorporated heavy high reps. So I don't know what your thoughts on this and please obviously forget the trophies but I would go in and you can dissect this I would go in training shoulders, for example. I would have, maybe I'd warm up and that's something I always would do warm up my shoulders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, warm up that's a word that Norby fucking knows these days and I would stretch and then I would build up, probably get some blood in the muscle with some high rep stuff and then I'd probably end up, without getting too much into my glycogen storage, in a press of some sort on the second exercise and I would go up to about five plates aside. I saw on YouTube Mike Donner and then I would follow that up and then going over to the dumbbell rack and I would chase higher reps 20s to 30s, and that pump, that pump, that burn was ridiculous. I would bounce around, though I would never have a consistent style.
Speaker 2:Now, when I went on the road and I would train with Branch on the road or I train with Ronnie or I train with whoever it would be, did the tops of the top of the tree. They had their set style and that was unbreakable. They wouldn't even think about doing high reps or they wouldn't think about doing eights to tens, whatever it would be. But what is your thought of the perfect training schedule, regardless of what you've got on an app? If you were to just say somebody who's not a beginner maybe more towards the advanced level, what would be a perfect trainer system that they should follow for how long? And even what I just told you, is that something that is applicable to something you would be at science best?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really good question. I think the first way I look at analyzing training splits and styles is my first pass analysis is can I find something very wrong with this Right? So if you're, there's an old pick on the internet somewhere where this lady is taking a bathroom selfie and she's just getting cleaned up to look my best for the day, but if you look really closely, on the fucking bathroom set up there, there's like a meth pipe. You're like you forgot to take your meth pipe out of that picture, young lady, and so it's one of those. I'm looking for the meth pipe. Are you doing anything super fucking stupid? Let me give you an example Meth, no, that's just smart. How are we supposed to get energy for the day if you're not methed out?
Speaker 1:of your fucking mind Jesus, jesus Christ. So, for example, if you are three weeks out and you're rocking 20 migs of halo and it makes you feel a certain way like Superman must feel when his eye lasers are turned on and you're like you know what I feel? Great, let's do a double on the incline barbell bench press and your old pecs are like wait a minute, pop, that's it. So if you're doing really ultra low reps, that's concerning because you might not have thought through the injury risk. If you're doing exercises with a dog shit range of motion, clearly for ecotistical purposes, I'll be like that's fucking stupid. Another one is if you have a very strange arrangement with body parts. For example, excuse you, my apologies, if you are doing Monday back, tuesday biceps and then no other pulling for the rest of the week, I have to ask you Do your biceps feel their best Tuesday? Because they back training fucks them up and it wouldn't it be smart to move your biceps to Wednesday or Thursday? Also, do your biceps take five days to recover or six days, because until the next back workout and you might be like, no, okay, so I guess I'm still a professor.
Speaker 1:It was to say when I was a professor, but when I was doing more professorial work and now it's a little bit of a part-time thing for me. I would actually have a program design exercises on class, and one of the things I would grade students on is like programmatic symmetry Whatever muscles you're training, do you think there's enough time for them to heal for next time, and do you think there's maybe too much? So you should you increase the frequency or spread things out more? So I would look at stuff like that. Nothing I would look at is total amount of training. If you're training three times a week, unless you're genetically very far outside the realm, it's probably just not enough to hit your best physique on stage. You said you train five.
Speaker 1:Our thing we say at RP is for advanced athletes to get the best results, we want them in the gym four, five or six plus times a week. Six plus means some days you do two a days, so some people can recover from that sort of thing. I'm Jared Feather does nine sessions a week. So that is another thing I'll look at. And then the real question I'd have for the person whose Program I'm evaluating, because it's a very easy to evaluate a program or a system Just when it's written on paper. But I want to talk to the person that's doing it, because if you looked at some of my training, you'd be like that doesn't really make a lot of sense and I'm like, actually you know this pec injury from a long time ago, so I have to do biceps first. It warms me up more before I do chest. You be like, okay, that makes sense. So before we go critiquing any pros plan is a really good idea To have the context and there's no better context than speaking to that person for your particular approach.
Speaker 1:I actually said a lot of really good things. One is you warm up first. If you come in and just go heavy without a warm-up set, I'm like you're stupid or something right. How critical warm up. It improves your performance substantially. I don't mean getting on the fucking treadmill for an hour or some shit foam rolling your dick for half an hour, which may feel nice in your own home or in the gym. If you have enough clothes on and you're not making weird faces, the people like that's for your dick, isn't?
Speaker 1:it oh Always every time so you don't have to do this crazy warm up outside of your training. But at the very least, when you get your weights in your hand, go light for high reps rest a little bit.
Speaker 1:Go a little heavier for lower ups, rest a little bit, do one more set of like pretty close to your working weight Maybe you're working weight, rest a little bit and then hit your first work set. So if you have five plates on a hack squat, do two plates for a set of ten, do four plates for a set of eight, do five plates for a double. Everything feels great. Then it's five plates for sets of eight to ten. If you just go in and put a bunch of weight on the hack squat, you don't really know how everything is working order.
Speaker 1:Your muscles and tendons or connective tissues are more cool Not cool, but on sunglasses and fuck the hot girl. Cool. But like physically lower temperature and it's just not rocket science to know that lower temperatures increase the Fragility of various objects. Right warming up is essential to being safe and the nervous system wakes up more and more as you warm up and it can recruit bigger and bigger fractions of your muscle fibers. So warming up is a really good idea and that's on your checklist.
Speaker 1:The other thing you said is at first you do some kind of higher rep work for a while, which is cool, because when you get as strong as you have been at your prime, just going straight to the heavies it right away is so much systemic fatigue. When does not simply incline or shoulder press five plates without feeling it? If someone asked you like where'd you feel? Like you're like, I don't know man, everywhere my toes feel that shit. I used to be a pretty decent overhead presser, so I've done.
Speaker 1:It's on YouTube. My best standing overhead press from clavicles all the way up, no lag drive, is 125 kilos, 275 for a set of eight at 240. That made my abs and quads cramp at the same time. So if I want bigger shoulders, which I do, I haven't standing barbell pressed in years Because first I'll do some higher up dumbbell stuff that I might go to pressing. That's not as impressive anymore, but because you've pre-exhausted, the target muscular chair is still stimulated, but you don't have to fuck your joints up and shit. Imagine if, instead of squatting high bar, very heavy first, someone like Ronnie Did some work to get in there.
Speaker 1:Some leg presses hacked, what's like extensions you might not have had to go on that heavy and might not have cost as much systemic fatigue, so on and so forth. And Another thing that you said was right on is once you get your heavier work out of the way. By the way, there's some very small amount of literature. This seems to show that if you train both heavier and lighter in the same session, you actually get a little bit more growth than just training heavy, heavier, light. Yeah, of course I found the literature my man.
Speaker 2:I believe, you actually did the dragon wrote it.
Speaker 1:He just breathes fire and then all of a sudden she's science-tent, fucking magical.
Speaker 2:No, there is some truth to it, to be honest, but it but we won't go down. Okay, this is your show.
Speaker 1:Oh, please, jesus Christ. But yeah, I think that once you have done a good job with heavy stuff, there's that maybe additional benefit of going lighter. But also you can't just keep going heavy because then you're too fucking tired. Dave Tate some said something really smart many times, but back in the day one of my favorite quotes of his is something to the effect of he's a powerlifter right, powerlifting coach, great, actually a big part of the sport. And he said something like you only have two exercises in one session on which you can truly go heavy, like squats and good morning, anything you do after that you can pretend it's heavy, but it's such a small fraction of your fresh one max You're just wasting your time. However, after you go heavy, what used to feel a little heavy to you in the higher rep range sets of 15 it feels so much lighter. You just pushed five plates over your head. The dumbbells are gonna feel that heavy and you warmed up and your fresh and your tissues feel great. Then you can crank out the high reps.
Speaker 1:A very not the workout, but a very good workout style is to show up, warm up, go heavy. Couple exercises, sets of five to ten, five to twelve reps, and then a couple exercises after for sets of ten to twenty, even fifteen to thirty repetitions, and the last thing you do can be like a drop set, super set or something. But the last thing you do should in some sense be your hardest cardiovascular and fatigue thing, because you're not doing dick after that, like sometimes in the RP videos will have people do a bunch of leg presses. Then they'll get out when they're really close to failure and they'll do body weight squats to failure and they'll fall over. There's nothing planned for after that because you're so fucked up there's nothing else to do. So let's say, your plan that you described to me lines up very well with a very effective way to train.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we have a lot of similarities Ideologies and because we're both short. Just kidding, I'm sure if I can smile as hell, but I. There was a lot of body weight stuff that I done to oh.
Speaker 2:Well, and yesterday I was gonna bring this up to yesterday I seen you doing hamstrings, I believe correct, and then you done some body weight lunges and you done some Squatting with the wedge. With the wedge terrible, I'm sore myself. You can go back and see all the footage of old. We would go ballistic in the gym and outside Bucca return my old dragon's location. We do walking lunges outside, followed by, followed by in the calling the pocket, whatever you want to call it. Short range of motion. It's like a super center sense where it would be you squatting, but I asked a grass but you're only coming up. It's maybe a foot and a half off time and attention on that is there's after If half of what you tell you. It's probably about a hundred. Meet the walking lunch, maybe more in the heat, and then followed up by that kind of little squat me, john Del Rosa, frank McGrath, half-air brando. Well, so I bring in for camp Kamal Ilgani the last, 2018, 2017.
Speaker 1:Seemingly immortal. He's like a hundred years old met so off the point.
Speaker 2:But coming on the point, kamal was the first gasp, was at my very first show, wow, and he was the world champion. So they brought him in. He wasn't in a pro but because he wanted to stay on the cheese actually Responsed by Bahrain, I believe. I hope I'm not wrong with this, but he was sponsored by the country to stay armature Weird, he was making more money as an amateur six figures as an amateur. I hope Kamal doesn't mind me talking this business years ago anyway, so hopefully it's wrong. I know that they were given condors and cars and everything else.
Speaker 2:Sam, sam, yeah, dad, yeah, he was paid to stay armature for the longest time and obviously the 212 came, class came along and Kamal had his procad oh, he actually lost it and had to petition for it again. Really, oh, it's a rigmarole. And that I was involved with that to it. This is a guy who I thought what a beautiful story, right, kamal Algani was banned by the IFBB in the European. There was a lot of bullshit. I was, I succumbed to that to. To be honest, I won't pop that cherry, but he fell under that old regime and I was helping him get his procad back to compete in the 212 class, which ended up being his first year run. I think he came second to me. Yeah, I don't know, fuck that, what it mean. If I got him the brocad, he beat me like a Rock.
Speaker 2:Ronnie flex wheeler situations. But yeah, I saw I was sitting back Seeing this guy who was not even training at this point in time. He brought me over to his gym and, great guy, I Done an appearance, that loads of people came out and he was tiny, like he just wasn't training and I go come out, are you gonna get back? I'd love to get back. You know the situation. I'll go I know I don't and Band what I said you start training, start training, start eating. I'll work on the back end now. I didn't think it would take as long as it did, because it took over a year and a half maybe to get this guy.
Speaker 2:We ended up speaking to the boss man, jim, and the gym granted the IFBB procad, and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:How much you speak to Jim on my behalf. Doctor Mike said that good at bodybuilding but he doesn't have any friends. Just watch this tech talk please.
Speaker 2:That's a nice tech talk on Jim and I'll send it to I should. There we go. But yeah, this is how much of freak Kamala's bounce back within two years of not even being good but better than what he was before. So my question is some of these guys who are masters athletes, who have taken their time in earlier years looked phenomenal. They've had some time away, family business, whatever it is. They get back into the sport. I Personally have seen Such as Kamal rebound back to not only be better, but that muscle looks fresh, it looks young. Obviously, in some circumstances they're coming with the territory of whatever. They left the sport with the injuries and stuff like this. But what is it that somebody that's in the realm of Kamal has taken some time away from the gym and then to bounce back and look like the way he has? Generics, or is it more than?
Speaker 1:Middle-Easterners are just better at bodybuilding. Leave it that just kidding. Specifically, arabs are just fucking awesome. Believe that is also true, but it turns out we've known in sport science circles for a long time Not specific to every sport, but bodybuilding hasn't been formally studied a lot much, though that's changing that. It's two things. One, it's really hard to make elite level gains For the first time.
Speaker 1:You don't just get Kamal's physique or anything like it by just good genetics right, because he also has good genetics and he trained for a fucking lifetime to get that physique. However, quote-unquote, muscle memory is really a thing, and the part two of this is that it's really powerful In a way that's almost unjust To people that think you've got to keep grinding to keep the gains you don't now. Proximately you will look much smaller if you don't train. You don't train for six months you look like he's sick or something. Can you handle it psychologically? If you can, you start training again. You thread the supplements back in again. You start eating again. Your body will regrow to its earlier size Quick. I'm talking about months, not years.
Speaker 1:Kevin LeVarone used to do it every fucking year the big example and people used to think Kevin was an outlier. But here's the problem almost everyone can do something like that. The number one reason why most of us don't is One some of us just aren't in this for a long haul. Like you're quitting by age 38, let's just fucking do this and get it over with. I'm not trying to be 50 fast, fucking savanna winning mr Olympia talking to me. What did you quit her 38?
Speaker 2:Yeah there you go.
Speaker 1:There's a good message because if someone told you in the middle of your Olympia run, we'll take a bunch of months off, like the fuck you, fuck me. Fucking. Looking at me eyes and saying that I'm on a fucking mission. If you met me fucking dragon and they're like I don't want to meet the dragon, good.
Speaker 2:Oh, that dragon.
Speaker 1:Have a weed dragon any. I'm kidding, that's been legendary. Thank you, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:You're redeem good you make it good.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. On the one hand, it's you lose six months, you lose six months. However, people think that if you back off and you stop training for six months, they get paranoid. You could just all gone, I'll never get it back. And they think Understandably. They look back and go how hard was it to get this math last time? It took me 15 fucking years. It took me 15 years to go from 180 220 pounds. Let's just say that I'm back to 185 after six months, not training and say broke my fucking leg or something. There's some people quit forever because it's I don't have another 15 years to get up to 220. The. The reality is to get up to 220 just as lean and musculos before my tiki six to eight months and that transformation is so fucking baffling. It's impressive to see yourself go through it. It's awesome. The vast majority of the reason that people don't ever take some time off Is because they are straight up addicted to looking their fucking bastard damn near all the fucking time in a hoodie.
Speaker 1:Three hoodies lay on them in. I don't want anyone to do to think I'm small. People do that, I know. Yeah, and it's one of these things where one thing I can tell about Kamal having never met him, he's a guarantee he's psychologically pretty fucking sound, at least in the respect of he's totally cool to not be super jacked. Talked to him, he's probably just live my life and doing this and that and you're like, aren't you in Constant existential pain from not being as jacked as you were before? He's been. Oh, actually, I quite feel quite fine. And then he picks up the sport again and he also feels good doing that. Lastly, the fact that he's had such a long career is not unrelated to the fact that he could drop the fucking ball every now and again and not train In especially Eastern European sport, science, joe, east Germans, russians, things like that.
Speaker 1:They knew that there's only a certain amount of hard training any athlete had in them in their entire lives and they knew that they needed them to be the best for the world championships and for the Olympics. So after the world championships in Olympics, every time they would have one to three months almost completely off of all sporting activity. They had a few months of general physical preparedness where they just make you basically back in shape to train, and then for six to eight months they were trained really fucking hard. I peaking, winning, and then going back, what I've tend to notice from because back in the old days and in the old country it was coaches that told you what to do. There was a completely coach system. There was actually no literal personal freedom so you weren't just doing shit by yourself. There were no bodybuilding gems, right, but in the United States, in Western Europe, wales, etc. And people are totally free to do what they want and the people that are the best of bodybuilding, the most addicted to bodybuilding and they almost never give it up. Ronnie Coleman took one to three months away after each Olympia to just do Diddly Dick, right, and people be like, yeah, ronnie could do that because he's a freak. No, almost everyone should be doing that. I got a YouTube video coming out in a little while on our channel Titled something clickbaity, but true, like everyone should take a month off per year and that's just gonna fall on not a lot of deaf ears, but a lot of upset ears, because you know what I'm upset about?
Speaker 1:Flex. I don't want reality to be like that. I love training, I love looking my best. It's hard for me to put it down by it the needle, but also the dumbbell, but it's, it's. It flexes. Tough to look at yourself in the mirror and be like Imagine, like someone doesn't know you. You go and sit on a plane to go to Australia for a seminar and they start chatting you up and let's say you're like not training or not on shit, and you weigh like 190, right, and they're gonna be like oh, so what are you doing? I'm actually a professional bodybuilder. I'm like oh interesting, I have a little brother. He's like a little bit bigger than you, but nobody's fucking bigger than me.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, you're right, can't you, wouldn't you? Didn't you hear it? Oh yeah, oh fuck. But so it's tough to even exist in a suboptimal form. But true athletes have one thing that many other people do not Vision for the long term. Give a fuck how I look right now. It'd be funny for me to talk to someone who didn't think I was that jacked. And then they see you six months later and they're like, oh my god, but yeah, we turn it up and we turn it down and we know when and how to do it to Kamal's Life legacy like that'll keep you around a long time, especially not being pumped full of fucking gear. All the guys I know, guys that not only do they never come off, which is fine if you go to TRT, their idea of TRT Is measured in grams instead of milligrams and then I'm like yeah.
Speaker 1:You're just not really long for the sport, because your body can only take so much of a beating until your liver Smokes its last cigarette and puts it out on your heart.
Speaker 2:There was something I wanted to mention, and I know we're restricted on time what have you got left that you can time-wise? Yeah?
Speaker 1:sure, I'm here all day, baby.
Speaker 2:No, you got a five minutes like that, okay. Firstly, thank you, dude. Of course you mentioned oh, this is where we align. Also again, every year, I would take off a month. Longer a good idea and it you know why, and I use this analogy and I put it on to any people who's around me Now I don't coach anybody for a reason because I'm a fucking psycho when it comes to that. It's like I don't coach either, because it drives me nuts.
Speaker 1:I'm not allowed to request athlete photos anymore. Dude, I'm misunderstanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's not kiss.
Speaker 1:Jill in Massachusetts. Just your court. Unfortunately, I just don't understand. Humor is what I'm still to pay the. I wanted the athletes to be bottomless because Dix-triations are important, not because the judges will see it, but if you're.
Speaker 2:Dix-lean, you're good again, something we align on again, but a hundred percent something else we align on. Yes, I took that month and a half off. Many times spoke to Ronnie, me Ronnie done a three a Month tour of Australia, so him and I were together for the most part that month, or we meet up periodically. So we went to Australia.
Speaker 1:New.
Speaker 2:Zealand as flying in fucking prop planes together, just as to it, together, with no seats inside.
Speaker 1:I was.
Speaker 2:I got the stories. But, I had the chance to not only train where on he granted he was post peak, but the knowledge that guy had and it was truly Wasn't asked of anything. He would just tell me stuff. I need to ask me is are you taking a break? No, etc. How long do you take a break for? And I would ask you like no, yeah, I was, yeah, I won't again. It's Ronnie right, he's like, yeah, we'll take a month off. I'm not gonna do his accent.
Speaker 2:You want to try Flex, you better take a month off cuz, technically speaking, you don't look so good to me. Man, that's a little Mike Tyson stroke on it a little bit of both. My accent is awful, but we but Ronnie told me that and I was like you took a month off and he goes, yeah, but just travel guest. Pause. I said you weren't worried about being not in shape, because no.
Speaker 1:There's not.
Speaker 2:They're not giving awards out for no, and he was getting paid regardless every seeder there to see Ronnie, and Ronnie obviously would just blow up into this fucking creature walking on the stage casting fucking shadows and the clips in the lights. But this guy truly Said he prolonged his career by taking that time off. So it's very interesting that you're bringing this video out, because I won will stand next that and say I done it too, and not only that psychologically. See, I played a lot of psychological warfare on myself. Now, girl, guy, wife, girlfriend, whatever it is, if you're with somebody, every fucking day you become complacent. You do you like? I see her, I see him, whatever knows I love her. You go on the road for X amount of time. You go for a week, weekend, month. You're gonna miss that and that's what the gym was to me. I started missing the gym, for all its pros and cons. Did you get sick of the gym towards the end of prep? Oh, I made. I was just.
Speaker 1:I was turning up for work in your parking lot in the car, just like talking about.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean I know we run in the podcast but we've talked for 90 minutes, but I did want to talk about the mental element of things because I'm a big mentalist. I don't know if you have time to talk about, I do.
Speaker 1:I can say a couple quick quips. I'm so fucking new today. Some some real wisdom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mentality element of things. Psychological warfare yes, I would truly talk to myself. Go into the gym yeah, I would have this. Moments of the day was like I can't. Before the storm, I wouldn't allow anything to aggravate me. But when I was going to the gym it was, yeah, if somebody was next to me I probably like a psycho rock myself, I'd listen to the music. There was this buildup and then there was this implosion and then I put it all into the box and turned it on in Pandora's box. Mentally, what was? What is something that you do that separate the pack and what is something that you like to Put upon your athletes that may have the genetic potential but they're not happening? Mentally, yes, what you demand from them, yeah, one of your athletes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can say a few things about that really quick. One is if you're always laser focused, super hardcore, you're gonna burn out. Because If you don't burn out you're just chronically elevating your cortisol, which we know is so good for bodybuilding results JK, it's terrible. So there's no reason to listen to death metal every waking second. That you're awake and just go through bodybuilding means show up, train and then go Through more bodybuilding means the death metal. That's definitely a mistake. Another mistake is being relaxed all the time. Guys in the gym training for the pro show what the fuck somebody fuck. What the fuck are you trying? Is this long warm-up on nothing?
Speaker 1:It's fine yeah yeah is exactly a DM and hose and shit like that was just nothing wrong with that. But at least do some fucking hard work sets. Some people just can't turn it up. True champions have that combo they are chill during the day and during the evening, chill as could be. Did you could punch me in the face Outside of my fucking gym sessions. I'd be like, oh hello, you seem to have misplaced your fists. You should be so fucking chill, because chill means you are in a state of nervous system activity which promotes recovery and adaptation. Isn't that what the fuck you want? And when you start to do your ritual for going to the gym, the closer you get to those work sets, the more you Winnow it down into a fine laser point of violence. You want to see that in real life. Joe Sullivan trains at your gym, one of the all-time greats in powerlifting. I took a video of him meditating in the middle of the gym. I love it. He's not meditating for peace, he's meditating for war. And that zone in turns Joe Sullivan, who's normally a cheery, cool guy, into a person. I don't want to walk between him and his hex squat when he's about to go.
Speaker 1:Being a champion athlete means mastering your psyche to be chill almost all the time, except for right before that violence set. And If you can really lead is as soon as your work set is over your back, chill, chatting with people and everything. Next work set, headphones go in, or bad dreams from childhood go in and you go back to fucking crazy Psychosis. That ability to go in and hit it but also retract and withdraw and be super chill Gives you the most stimulus in your workouts and the most recovery outside.
Speaker 1:There is no superior way to do things. Just being chill all the time doesn't fucking work, because you got a train and just being super psychotic all the time usually just me lands you in the mental hospital, but if it doesn't, it'll drain you of everything. My last prep Went total shit because I was trying to do the hardcore laser focus every waking second and I accomplished some things in work and my physique looked okay, but I was fucking tired, flex and it showed. And then recently I've been trying to live more of my own advice of Get crazy in the gym and then take it easy everywhere else and like I'm in on track to be the best over done and I just wish someone would have hit me over the head with a giant hammer to remind me the shit.
Speaker 2:Well, 20 years ago so I was gonna say, and when the questions was that anything that you wish you could turn the clock back on, but but we could probably land the plane on that. Test it ease what I'm not.
Speaker 1:Turn the clock back. So I'll say a couple things. I generally don't like to dwell on that kind of stuff because we actually just time machines are not realistic. I think people tragically go through things in their head that they could have done better. Mate, you've got a fucking time machine somewhere.
Speaker 1:I like to say that people are a little bit depressed about shit that went bad. I'm like listen, I'm working on a time machine, but until we get one going, you can just stop thinking about this shit altogether. But what I would say is my probably biggest regret, so to speak, is I gained a lot of weight, chasing ultimate size as a Natty. I was five foot six, lifetime drug free in a way, 270 pounds to 70. Now I was strong as fuck, squag 550 for abs and also shit benching whatever 365 for eight. But I just put so much.
Speaker 1:I had probably 30 32% body fat and I still have to deal with the body water issues and causes. I still have, fucking love, handle skin. I would say if you're gaining weight, do so slowly so that you never lose sight of your abs. That's my only kind of regret. But to be honest, anytime I get a regret I just have my butlers pile on the hundred dollar bills into my shower and I shower and money and I tell you, flex. There's no way to get over regrets better than that. That's a great feeling too, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I lost my butler to you, but you were paying a lot more. Listen. I know that we could go on for another 30 minutes. This is a genuinely intriguing, fun and entertaining podcast which is science-based. Some occasions but we definitely I, selfishly, I'd love to have you back on for a part too. I think that I know the fans will be demanding this too.
Speaker 1:I would love to send me a DM of something I like and maybe we'll get back.
Speaker 2:Did I send you several last time.
Speaker 1:I did like them but I like them to completion, and now I need more. Oh my god, mike, did I say that too?
Speaker 2:All right guys straight out there from myself and this crazy, funny fucker with science-based and Evidence based, we're gonna get him back for part two and Truly a pleasure man. I really enjoyed this podcast. I know that I have a lot of questions that I done my, I do, my Dadella John's I really do, I really do. And this is one that I really didn't even have a look at, look at my notes on, because it was so organic and so fresh. But next time I'm gonna be prepared for a lot of these. No, with my jokes, because I felt short on my fast fucking reactions today, but I thought, you know, I thought you did great.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I thought you don't know it too. On that note, we are out.
