Steve Cochran IFBB Pro: Gear. Divorce. Disease. Death.

Steve Cochran, classic IFBB pro, coach and savage training partner to myself and Larry Wheels.

Competed since 2016 and has dealt with a culmination cluster fuck.

My kidneys, my liver, nothing could keep up.

I couldn't go over 100 grams of protein a day for a year.

Y'all know what diazide is.

Usually that's a last stitch effort.

I was on that for over a month.

Whoa!

What?

On top of that, I was taking four pills of

four times a day.

I was on two and a half hours of cardio and no carbohydrates for almost four weeks straight.

I almost didn't have a career in bodybuilding.

I almost didn't have a career being physical at anything anymore because I didn't ask the question.

And I could just see her crying, but she couldn't even have the heart to tell me that the one person that was kind to me, the one person that stuck up for me when I was getting picked on all those years, the one person that was always in my corner was gone.

I cannot take sustenance, it destroys me.

250 to 300 a week.

But my body still couldn't handle it.

That blend was just too harsh for my system.

And I also can't take NPP.

So I end up staying with test, vaccapoise, and training as my.

right.

And then for me, that

she just goes, I'm just so sorry, Lexi, but uh

just fucking seeing Lexi's face and her entire fucking face just suddenly turns red.

Because I remember my boy Diona and I got the call about Ryan.

When I saw it happening to Lexi, it was like 10 times worse just seeing it happen.

And for the first time ever in two years, she was going to train clients after 4:30.

She asked me on a Monday if I was training Tuesday and made sure that I was training at one gen on Tuesday.

Then she made the mistake of also telling me what clients she was training that evening, and I know that none of them trained past 12 in the afternoon because they're older, they don't have the energy to later meet me.

So in her 70s, I got out of work a little early, went and got some flowers.

I went to her work, and they told me that she already left.

Well, how?

She can't drive.

She's epileptic.

She's disabled.

She doesn't have a car.

The only thing I switched was Trent.

I went and used the clinical name, it's called Parabolin, but it's Trent Hex.

And a lot less of a chance to have an adverse reaction.

I was never here.

I wasn't lifting properly until I met Ryan and my buddy Jason.

Those two combined have helped me change my lifts drastically.

And it's given me a better shape, a better density, and it's also helped me be able to engage my back, even with my nerve connection issues.

And it changed my physique.

I was way more 3D.

How?

During that whole time, I didn't change my stack from 24 to this year's 25.

My stack was the same.

My end-of-prep stack is

my last name when you screwed up.

Like, that's just fucking weird.

She wants to keep your last name.

Yeah, it was literally on the divorce paperwork that she was still because so part of the FL161 and the FL 1800 or 181, I can't remember what it is.

It's like part of it's declaration of assets, where everything's going.

And then the other one is like what you're keeping.

And part of it's like, are you keeping your last name or reverting back?

Because that's the paperwork you need to get your last name back from before.

And

so

she wrote on there, keeping last name.

I'm like, that's fucking weird.

That's a little bit concerning.

Like, that's cool.

Whenever they announce you, just feel, it'll remind you of me.

Every time they announce you for a show.

That's crazy.

I find it funny, to be honest with you.

Like, upped up to you, I guess.

Yeah.

Is that something that you want to keep a secret, too?

What, that she has my last name?

Yeah.

I don't care.

That's kind of nuts.

It doesn't bother me.

It's kind of wild, bro.

It's so wild.

I don't even know what to think about.

That's weird.

I mean, obviously, I have to, like, I'd love to fucking know what all happened first.

Like, what would she do?

She would revert her last name, right?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she would not keep my last name.

Yeah.

Hypothetically, basically, if we were ever to like divorce or something,

wouldn't that be weird if you kept my last name?

I would not.

Yeah, my ex is keeping my last name.

How freaking weird is that?

That's fucked.

Every time you get announced at a show or anywhere, like, you're going to be reminded of me.

So that's all for you, whatever.

It's confusing.

She's a a

narcissist, though.

She likes to still have that ability of control, even though it doesn't affect me at all.

Interesting.

See ya.

Yeah.

Have a good workout.

Got a big butt.

This is all going to be in the podcast, by the way.

What's up, guys?

Yo.

I'd love to keep it organic.

Also, if you want to do Joe Rogan style, you can use these headphones, but you don't have to.

I like them sometimes, though.

Everything.

Actually, I like this.

It's kind of cool.

Yeah.

hey guys who are listening all y'all doing your cardio while you're watching do you guys hear this like kind of like

like kind of electric noise

because that's what i'm curious about because i hear it sometimes but i don't ever really hear it go through in the uh final podcast export so

i think it's there but it's feedback all it is is just actual feedback right either the camera itself or the aux cables but the the problem is it has been in the podcast before i did a podcast with genetic our second podcast with Genetic Anomaly.

You can hear it like the buzzing a little bit.

I think we had to noise cancel some of that out if we could, but I don't know.

Anyways, I think it'll be fun.

Yeah, I barely.

They'll let us know.

Yeah.

I trust my boys.

So, Steve and I were actually just talking about how we both have insomnia, but for different reasons.

Yeah.

And luckily, I had insomnia last night, but he finally didn't

after three nights in a row.

Yeah.

I actually met Niles back at Pacific USA's almost a year ago now,

very first time.

And

so I just appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast and share a little bit about myself with you guys.

Yeah, I saw this guy at the Young League Jam and I was like, Jesus fucking Christ, his bro's fucking shoulders and arms are massive.

And he was like, yeah, I'm going to compete soon.

I'm a pro competing in classic.

And I was like, well, fuck me.

I'm just going to drop out then.

It's cool.

But you got to remember we all bring different pros and cons to the sport, right?

I just look up what shows you're doing and then I make sure to avoid those.

They're the same.

Cool.

Go with the same.

We can go back to if it's like go back to the board shorts, then we'll go to the same show, you know, have fun with it.

But I was just talking with him about how, like, because we were trying to discuss, I'm going to be just, I feel like this is just a good opportunity to be transparent and tell the audience about what we were explaining.

But what I was trying to explain to you earlier when I was texting you about the insomnia is like, I really like to give my best

during these podcasts.

Like, obviously, this is raw, so it's all me.

But, like,

you know, I don't want to wake up after like four hours of regular rest and then not be able to like even be coherent during the podcast.

Like, I just feel like it's not, um,

I feel like it's like almost selfish or something to not give my best to the content I'm trying to create.

Yeah, you want to be attentive.

And I want to be attentive to my guests, too.

So I've had a few podcasts where I will,

where I do have insomnia that I don't expect the night before.

And it normally makes it extremely difficult for the first hour of the podcast for me to even like coherently respond or even pay attention.

And it's the worst thing in the world because I'm just like, I need to be able to pay attention to my, to my guests because I want to, but I just don't have the capabilities to.

So maybe the warm-up earlier, you know, just us chatting when I first got here was that first hour.

Yeah, that helped.

Kind of helping like open everything up to see how much energy you did have.

Right.

You know,

because if you didn't, I mean, obviously we can always reschedule.

I'm, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I'm in Brentwood pretty much four or five times a week.

So I'm like 25 minutes from here.

Do you want to reschedule right now?

It's up to you.

It depends on how you feel, man.

It really depends on how you feel.

I'd rather go off of how you feel, especially since you're bringing it up.

And I definitely know how detrimental insomnia can be, not just to how you physically feel, but the mental and emotional instability that it can create.

Because you haven't had enough quality sleep.

You haven't had enough time to recover mentally or physically from whatever the day was prior.

And now you amplify it with maybe multiple days of not being able to sleep, you know?

And then there's the frustration behind it as well.

So I definitely understand

what it can do and the toll it can take.

Yeah.

Especially the trend frustration.

Yeah, yeah.

When you got the trend on top, and then you get the hot flashes at night.

It's like, oh, that's crazy.

You're like, yeah, it's like 60 degrees in my house, but I'm sweating.

Like, why?

Yeah.

You need to punch windows for some reason.

So doors for me.

Behind a thick door.

But essentially, basically, yeah, that's that's a long story short.

Is yeah, since 75%, at least of my podcast tour in person, I don't have that little warm-up situation that I can't have.

So that's where I'm trying to make sure that

I'm going through my own journey right now as well, as I'm sure a lot of the people are online of trying to like biohack my life and figure out how to be on top of my shit as much as possible

and that's had to do with like me going to sleep doctors and figuring out what's going on what's wrong finding out that i have upper airway resistance syndrome um figuring out what supplements prior to bedtime are actually beneficial for me and um at first i didn't think melatonin would be okay but after working up and titrating up dosages to a high melatonin level for like an antioxidant benefit as well yeah it's been pretty nice because my my sleep schedule is kind of erratic anyways.

So, um,

and then obviously the last things, which I don't don't think are the best to take long term, but there's a lot of people that have taken it long term anyways and find it better because sleep is it's better to get some sleep and no sleep is like these anticholinergic drugs like doxylamine or even trazodone or any of these other things that some people do have to use um

in titanes

yeah which we were just talking about you know the fact that i was prescribed traznodone and i can't even handle half a dose of it

and it's

just for you viewers it makes me feel drunk the next morning.

I feel lethargic and like run down.

I might have slept anywhere from five to eight hours continuously, not even woken up.

And

I just feel like crap.

And,

you know, it's all about finding that right concoction for you.

I found that like a nice little sleepy time tea with like five milligrams of melatonin.

It works really well for me.

When I know that I'm going to have a hard time, that's what I go to.

So I don't ever create it as a habit.

It's like when I know I'm like wide awake, I'm like, Yeah, I need to make some tea and take a one-pill of melatonin.

And I usually can very quickly relax enough to actually let my body kind of chill and go to sleep.

So, I actually did last night, and that's one of the reasons I actually got some sleep.

So, nice, yeah.

One of the other reasons I really love talking to you, man, because I feel like a lot I learned so much every time we talk from you because I feel like you really know your shit and you've studied a lot.

I have had to,

yeah, even though he uh

doesn't look as much like it as me.

To the core.

So

what got you started with bodybuilding and lifting?

Like, what started this entire journey?

Because I know you were in the military first.

Yeah.

So

I've always been in sports my whole life.

And

even though I was a jock, I was really small.

I was picked on.

relentlessly from third grade all the way until I was a freshman in high school.

I even got picked on when I was a freshman in college.

And,

you know, the next physical thing after wrestling in college was, okay, well, you know, let's go to the military.

You know, I went as an engineer.

And there was nothing very challenging about their physical fitness that we were doing.

It was running, push-ups, sit-ups.

Like I needed something else that was just way more engaging.

And I ended up doing their combatives course, which is a hand-to-hand combat.

They have four levels of it.

And I ended up getting certified all the way through.

And I ended up fighting MMA at like Fort Hood in tournaments against all the other branches.

And that was like that next thing for me.

But I got hurt pretty bad in the military and I ended up getting medically discharged and

I didn't know what was next.

And I was already lifting while I was deployed when I was in Afghanistan and everything.

And that's when I like found the passion for actually working out.

I just didn't know about like bodybuilding.

I didn't know about shows.

I didn't know about any of that.

How long ago is this?

This was back in 2015.

So 2014, 2015 is when I actually was like heavy into working out for the first time in my life.

Okay.

And

I ended up in a dungeon of a gym.

It was called Diamond back in New York.

And this big dude, man, I always looked up to him.

He was massive, like 260, and he was like 5'10.

260.

Yo, he was a brick.

So he could fight Bradley Martin.

Yeah.

He was a beast.

And he came up to me one day and said he wanted to train with me.

And I'm like,

okay, this is cool.

Like, he's like, I want you to do a show.

I'm like, what do you mean, a show?

Like, he's like, bodybuilding.

I was like, I'm already lifting like a bodybuilder.

Like, that isn't this bodybuilding.

Like, I'm creating something different.

He's like, no, no, no.

There's shows for it.

And he whipped out his phone, showed me.

I'm like, oh, that's cool, but I don't like being in front of people.

Like,

even when I was younger, I would do musicals in high school, but I was always made sure I was a background person.

I never wanted to be the forefront on a stage.

I hated it.

Made me very nervous.

I'd I'd get clammy.

I would just freak out.

My heart would just race.

In a similar way.

And

he finally talked me into a show.

And

I ended up getting cholecetitis right before it, which is

gallstones.

Oh.

Yeah.

So I actually have a blood disease.

It's called Gilbertson syndrome.

Basically, my bilirubin is a lot higher than most.

So I have a lot more of a

chance to have gotten cholecititis.

I had it when I was 23.

And so I ended up having to have my gallbladder removed, which threw me out of my first show in 2015.

But I was able to come back in 2016 and I did three in my first year.

Luckily, Classic came out in 2016, so it made sense.

After the first show, I just fell in love with it.

I beat 16 other guys.

I didn't win the overall, but like I found out that

I choreographed everything for my first show.

I had like a posing coach.

I had music that was just perfect for how I like to do things.

And it just felt like I was able to show

like a personality of myself through bodybuilding.

And I love that aspect, especially if classic.

You really get a chance to pick everything you want for your finals routine.

Yeah.

And

you get to show the crowd, you get to show the judges who you are with how you pick your music and how you pose.

Right.

And I love it.

And I fell in love with that.

So I did two more shows that year, had no idea about nationals.

I didn't know that the NPC would lead to the IFPB Pro League.

I was such a noob.

And,

you know,

I ended up having a coach through that time.

Another reason why you think I'm very well-versed is because this one almost destroyed my kidneys.

I was on so many stinking diuretics that it was just

my kidneys, my liver, nothing could keep up.

And 2017, I had to take the entire year off because I was very, very close to having one bad blood test and going on dialysis for the rest of my life.

And

creatin was through the roof.

Liver enzymes were just trashed.

And I wasn't able to have any supplements at all.

I couldn't go over 100 grams of protein a day for a year.

Jesus.

And I kind of wasted away.

And I was already getting big.

And I thought I was, you know, back then, I thought I was big.

Yeah.

And

2018 rolled around.

I changed coaches to one of my buddies.

He's an IFBB pro in men's Zeek.

Before you start talking about this new coach, can you drop the diuretic program?

Oh,

I was on, not so you didn't copy it or anything.

So I was on, y'all know what diazide is.

Like, usually that's a last-stitch effort.

I was on that for over a month.

Whoa,

what?

Yeah.

On top of that, I was taking four pills of Expel four times a day.

Okay.

That's an over-the-counter.

Like for a month.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

I was on two and a half hours of cardio, and I was on no carbohydrates for almost four weeks straight.

It was like 23 or 24 days straight that I had no carbohydrates besides what was in my greens.

What?

Yeah.

And obviously.

Not even Jack Nichols would do this shit.

Right.

And then I was also on like Clenn.

I was on Anivar.

I was on Winnie.

I was on Proviron.

I was on all these other orals on top.

Right.

And then on top of the diazide, he had me take,

I can't remember the name of it so long ago, but it was like a little brown pill.

And

man, that

messed me up.

Messed me up bad.

Like, I was very irritable.

I was.

I was really angry.

It was a little brown pill?

Yeah, it was a little tiny little oval brown pill.

What did you say this was?

What?

What did you say this was again?

I have no idea what the pill was.

All I know is it was another diuretic.

He just gave it to me.

And that's the problem with, I feel like,

that's why I always question why I'm doing what I'm doing now.

Right.

Yeah.

Because

I almost didn't have a career in bodybuilding.

I almost didn't have a career being physical at anything anymore because I didn't ask the question.

And

right.

And it's like,

so

something I want to say is in

hindsight, I want to be like, dude, that was so stupid.

Like, right.

I've done this too, and I should have known better.

Like, what the fuck was I thinking?

But when you really think about where a lot of people are when they are in this position,

normally a lot of us who are getting into bodybuilding are looking for some kind of guidance and hopefully from someone we can trust.

But there's not always a lot of people that, you know, sometimes

like we are gifted to know a lot of people now.

Correct.

Back today, I wasn't.

I didn't know anyone in bodybuilding.

And I'm sure there's so many people like this, especially people who live in more rural areas that have zero connections in this field.

And I think

it's the hard thing is like some of these coaches too, not all of them, a lot of them are really amazing, especially these days, but especially back then, a lot of these coaches are so fucking intimidating, bro, and are just like, just do what I say.

Trust me.

Yeah.

And they don't let you.

They look at you in my eyes when they say that.

Yeah.

I'm like, trust me.

And you're like,

okay.

You're fucking scared shitless, bro.

You're like, all right, well, this guy's fucking massive.

So he obviously knows what the fuck he's doing.

His clients are fucking insane.

So he knows what he's doing.

And then shit like this happens.

And then it's like, but how's the health at the end?

Yeah.

How long, how long can you do whatever this coach is having you do?

And so after that,

that's when I was like, I got to do all the research on my own.

Not that I don't trust, you know, even my next coach that I had or even the one after that.

It was just

A, I was searching for what fit me, right, when it comes to a coach.

But at the same point in time, I wasn't going to let someone put something new in my system if I didn't know what it was, how it reacted, and if it like messed with my chemicals, you know, I already have a chemical imbalance with depression and anxiety.

How is this stuff going to affect the medication I'm on?

How is this going to affect just my hormone imbalances or is it going to keep me balanced?

You know, and so that's when I started to do a lot of research, finding out what compounds actually work well together for me specifically, you know, that I found that work for me.

And,

you know, after

years, I'm now with a wonderful coach, you know, and I don't have to ask the questions.

The information is willingly given before I even need to ask the question.

And that's the type of coach, in my opinion, that everybody needs, where you don't have to ask the question because there's always the information there from them.

And if you do have a question, they're willing to give you the answer.

As a coach, our job is to educate.

It's not to keep the tips and tricks to yourself so you can maximize your profitability off of your clients.

You treat the clients with respect.

You give them the information.

You teach them.

they will bring more clients to you.

It's just, it works better if you do it for the people instead of, you know, the checkbook.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

And I think normally,

normally it comes up and bites them in the ass anyways at some point.

I've seen a few coaches that it's actually,

it's ruined them,

you know.

And I've also seen coaches that are very good with in-person clients and they can't do online.

And do you have happen to have any examples of that?

Obviously not names, but yes, I do.

My coach before I had the one now, his clients always looked amazing, always,

but they were all back where he's from.

And I looked great.

Don't get me wrong.

I did really well, but I always felt like I wasn't hard enough or dry enough compared to what I was seeing him with his clients in person.

And to test the theory.

Before a show, I went out two weeks prior to the show

and I stayed with him.

And my body was drastically different.

I won my first overall.

I destroyed everybody.

I was full.

I was thick and I was lean.

And so it was like a little trial that I was doing without them knowing.

And

I would have stayed with them.

Even when I moved to California, I would have stayed.

But

just certain things happened and I ended up having to go a different route.

And I'm actually very fortunate for everything that's happened since I've moved to California.

The connections I have, like meeting you, Benji, everybody.

I would have never had that if I never moved here and if I didn't step foot in the gym that I step in now.

Yeah.

So there's always pros and cons to everything, but if you can see the positive out of it,

it's always going to outweigh it.

You just got to lean into it a little harder.

Right.

Do you believe in

this might sound a little bit woo-woo, but do you believe like when you get a gut feeling, it's like almost like

a sign from God or the universe that like this is the path that you feel like you should go on.

You ever felt drawn to a place or moving to a new place?

I have.

My gut intuition is

kind of scary.

It actually,

not just gym-wise or feeling like I'm at home or feeling like I'm at the place where I'm supposed to be, right?

Which is my gym at now and with the coach I'm at now.

And

But it also helped me navigate

multiple relationships that were failed and catching people in the process of cheating on me because my gut just was going off.

And

I'm heavily ADHD and OCD, so pattern recognition for me is pretty easy.

When I see someone communicating differently or

operating a little different,

my gut starts to churn a little bit.

There's either something wrong or something's going on, right?

It's just logic.

And

with my ex, it's

my gut was just churning

relentlessly.

And

I ended up

planning something to actually

hope I was wrong.

But I was right.

It led me to getting a divorce.

But I will attribute this.

If I did not have her in my life,

I would have not had the connections I have.

She's the one that set me up with my coach now.

She's the one that helped me with all of

every connection I have up until the last year.

And

so, like I said, you got to lean into the positives.

Yes, something horrible happened and my marriage was a season instead instead of the rest of my life.

But I got a lot more benefits out of it than I ever could have hoped for.

And

so I just lean into those moments.

It's a very great way to look at it.

I think that's a very powerful perspective.

And one that's like, um,

one that's uh

opposite of victim mentality, which I think is an important thing for many of us to have, especially guys like us and competitors like us.

Maybe it's just uh maybe you're giving giving her the gift of letting her keep your name in exchange for that.

Yeah, maybe.

It's going crazy.

Hey,

tweet your own man.

Like, if that's what you want to do, that's more power to you.

I just think that, like, you know, if they're going to step on stage and everything or go somewhere, like, you're still going to have my name.

So,

um, there's, there's a question I have in my mind, but before I ask it, I was wondering, um, would it be too much if I asked like what exactly happened?

Oh, yeah, you can ask.

Um,

so um,

I probably should start at more or less the beginning because I wasn't the greatest husband to begin with.

And it wasn't just a her failure thing.

I struggled a lot with like pornography and even before my marriage, it was just something where

I ended up finding that it was the only place I could control things.

And so anytime I felt like emotionally distraught or depressed, I turned to that because I could control what I was doing, what I was looking looking at.

And, you know, if I was communicating with some of them, like I could control all of that and I could get a little bit of gratification out of it.

Right.

But that stemmed into my marriage and it ruined a few things.

And trying to come back from that, like I went through therapy.

I went through a bunch of stuff to the point where I never have picked up porn since I was caught at all.

And I attributed that to honestly to God because there's no way in my own willpower could I have done that on my own.

But I basically went through like an AA for pornography.

And if any of you guys ever have struggle, I have no problem talking about it.

I use an app that's called Covenant Eyes.

So basically, it's an accountability partner app that if you try to type anything in, A, it stops you from even going to the page, but it also sends an alert to your accountability partners.

Oh, whoa.

And it continuously takes screenshots of your phone all day.

All All day.

Wow.

Yeah.

But on top of that, it has a sister app called Victory.

And Victory is like that AA program, right?

And helps you diagnose why you look at what you do, why you have the addiction you have,

and better ways to basically overcome them and finding alternatives to doing that.

And so I went through that for over eight months and I was, I felt great.

You know, I started journaling every day.

And

I just unfortunately never got the full forgiveness

from my ex.

And

there was a guy I used to train with at my gym on a regular basis.

And

he ended up taking my wife right out from under me.

So,

you know, I'm, I'm like a, I was a pretty trusting guy, you know,

and I never thought I would have to worry about stuff like that, especially being married.

But I also look at the fact that I might have put something in her brain with me not being that same stability, that same safety, right?

And

what else would I expect from someone that's human?

If they can't forgive, they're going to move on, right?

And unfortunately, that's just, that's just where the cards went.

You know, I ended up going to her work one day on purpose because I told you my gut was churning.

And for the first time ever in two years, she was going to train clients after 4.30,

which she's never done.

Mess up number one.

Number two,

she asked me on a Monday if I was training Tuesday and made sure that I was training at one gen on Tuesday.

Absolutely made sure.

Screw up number two.

And then

she made the mistake of also telling me what clients she was training that evening.

And I know that none of them trained past 12 in the afternoon because they're an older couple.

They don't have the energy later in the evening, especially after 4:30.

They're in their 70s.

Mess up number three.

So,

not wanting to believe what I thought was happening,

I got out of work a little early, went and got some flowers,

and went to her work.

And

they told me that she already left.

Well, how?

She can't drive.

She's epileptic.

She's disabled.

Like, She doesn't have a car.

So I called her parents.

She wasn't with them.

I called her.

She hung me up.

I called her again.

I heard a guy in the background.

Damn.

Yeah.

When it comes to women doing things like that to me, I'm batting a thousand.

I've never been wrong.

And as unfortunate as to say,

I'd rather not be wrong and be able to move on and learn from whatever mistakes I brought into that relationship, or in this case, a marriage,

and make sure that I never do those things again

or bring that type of instability into a relationship.

Right.

Yep, 100%.

And I also want to make sure that I'm good enough after that relationship to not bring

the hard baggage that comes with that, like lack of trust or, you know, all those things that come with someone not being faithful, right?

And

so, if it takes me

six years, it takes me six years, you know.

Um, if it's five months, it's five months, it doesn't matter, you know, healing is not necessarily linear.

And I hope that men understand that it's okay

to honestly say it's not okay, that you're not okay, you know.

Um,

but yeah, it's just unexpected uh change in life that's how my 2025 started

so uh

yeah

hidden blessings though in in the long run i was able to

um

i was able to leave my job and train people full time

because i didn't have all the overhead ahead before i didn't have nearly half the bills i had before

so i really could focus in on taking clients that I can help.

Because I'd, like I was telling you earlier, I'd rather help someone

instead of charging them out the ass.

Because if I'm helping them, eventually they're going to point me in a direction to help someone else that they know that needs help.

And I'd rather have,

you know, the mentality when it comes down to it of actually just truly working for the person.

Because the paychecks come.

The money comes.

And you can always make more money,

but you can't remake connections all the time with people.

You can't always start off on a new foot with people.

So I find that presentation and attentiveness and, you know, even giving clients emotional and mental stability is huge.

You're basically a therapist when it comes down to coaching and training.

It's true.

The amount of times I've heard this.

I know, right?

I guarantee because it's always true, though.

I mean, everybody's like, oh, yeah, man, I had to hear so-and-so.

Yeah, but did they want advice?

Did you give it to them?

Were you an ear when they needed you to be an ear?

Whatever they need

at the end of the day.

If someone needs me to be an ear and they just want a vent, have at it.

I'm going to bust your ass in the session, but have at it.

I will listen attentively, but I'll also keep you focused.

Try to get that frustration or that pent-up aggression, whatever it is, or even sadness.

Or you just had a really good day.

So let's pump.

let's pump it, you know?

And that's what I like.

I like getting the joy from watching people excel.

I like watching people change.

I like watching people just morph into better human beings.

And if I can help and be that little seed, that little light that they have in the day,

that's all I need.

At the end of the day, that's it.

Yeah.

Because that is so much more precious than any amount of money.

Yeah.

just some new experiences i've been having with my uh the new coaches well kyle was amazing as well um

i think it's i think it's uh almost i'm not sure if it's maybe my own

like what kind of person i am but uh working with patrick has almost felt like a perfect fit because like i have talked about with my uh with ian valier on our pod is uh he he does seem to be like this father figure where like i feel very proud when I make him proud when he's happy with the work I put in, you know?

It's very motivating

and it's very fulfilling.

And I think the fulfillment is probably one of the strongest drivers.

But in regards to your situation, man, I think there's nothing better that a man can do other than taking accountability for any possible things that may have led a certain

situation awry.

Yeah.

And

obviously, you did not make your cheat,

but

I think the fact that you were taking accountability for all these things, and I'm saying this from the, from honestly, my own,

I'm literally like projecting this for my own life.

I've been in the exact same place with my last ex.

There were a lot of things that I needed to take accountability for, such as actually giving her attention and giving the relationship.

the attention and responsibility that is required

I prioritized myself.

I prioritized my content.

I

prioritized my work.

I was always in this state of anxiety, like I was going to lose everything.

And social media was kind of hard because I was just at the whim of the algorithm or however much people like me.

So even though I wouldn't try to like change myself to make

numbers better, It was always like, man, I need to work harder because I could just lose all of this in a second.

You know, there's people that fall off every single day.

You reach a peak and then you fall.

Um, and that anxiety I use as an excuse to not give attention to my relationship.

Wow, and same thing, similar thing happened.

It's a long story that I don't really want to go into.

I have a, I think it was the second podcast that I've ever done was with her, which was crazy when I look back.

I feel like I sound like a different person.

Um, it was just an experience that I wanted to have because I was young.

You know, we started dating like when I was like, what, 22 or something?

So, um, started off where I was being

I'm just gonna be real bro I was like 22 and I just wasn't ready to be in a relationship and we met and I was like damn this girl is awesome but like I'm just not ready and it was one of those same situations that I'm sure a lot of the guys can relate where I was just like fucking around and I'm just telling her like I'm not ready but if you want to keep hanging out with me I love hanging out with you um

so you know if you want to keep hanging out with me then I would love that but try to be as honest and transparent at the same time yeah but this is how I am.

But the truth is, right, exactly.

I'm fucking tailing her along, and she's sleeping at my place every single night while I'm seeing other people.

Obviously, it just started a whole toxic

cycle already.

Yeah.

Then we went into a monogamous relationship and then we slowly opened it to an open relationship.

Obviously, since I wasn't giving her the attention at the end, what does the woman do?

They try to...

They find the emotional connection that they're missing.

Exactly.

You know?

Yeah.

So, and I understand it.

She ended up going away with another guy as well while we were still in the relationship.

you definitely feel it.

Yeah.

But I do realize that there's a lot of accountability that I could have taken.

There were also a lot of moments where I actually could have, I remember that I actually could have kind of patched it up.

But I think what I really realized from the beginning, just like you have, is that

I started it off already on the wrong foot.

And I can,

I can.

become a better man from here on out for my next relationship and make sure that that doesn't happen at all for the beginning because I know what to do now.

Yeah, you just don't want that aspect like sticking with you

because you know how much and how detrimental it was to your mental well-being, your physical, emotional, everything.

Why would anybody want to bring that?

That's why I don't understand people that

can't see their own faults.

Like, more power to you if you can.

And I commend you for that, especially being able to acknowledge them.

But like, if I just thought I did nothing wrong,

I am never going to be a whole

man for someone.

If I'm always continuously just thinking, I'm right, there's nothing I do that's wrong.

I'm the perfect spouse, right?

Or I'm the perfect boyfriend.

But that's not the case.

We're all human, right?

There's no such thing as perfect.

So there's always a chance to grow.

There's always a chance to learn.

And I think people forget that even in dating or becoming engaged or getting married, it's a lot like school.

If you think about it, when you're dating someone, it's like kindergarten and y'all finger painting and crap.

When you get married, you're going for your doctorate.

Like you got to keep learning about this person because just as much as you're changing, you got to remember they're changing too.

Right.

And I think that was part of my problem is I knew where I was changing to.

I knew what I was gravitating toward.

I finally had the surroundings of bodybuilding that I've never had because, you know, I lived in a no-man's place in New York, and then I went to Maine, like after the military, I was in Maine.

There's nothing there.

I was the only bodybuilder in all of Bangor.

It's like 90,000 people, and I was the only bodybuilder there.

There's only one golds in the entire state.

It's not even golds anymore.

And

so, having all of what I have now, like, you know, what I have now.

And

I never thought that that was attainable.

And once I had it, I focused a lot on that.

I focused on a lot of giving myself to my coach, to my gym, to my friends in the gym, to potentially new people coming into the gym, you know, and I didn't leave enough left for myself,

let alone my marriage.

I was very, very closed off and very cold,

especially at the beginning.

Honestly, I don't think I was ready.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have fallen into the things that I fell into.

But I would literally spend hours playing Call of Duty instead of dealing with what I didn't want to deal with.

I'm a big advocate of always trying to find a solution to arguments and whatnot.

And when it gets shut down enough, I shut down.

So if someone's not looking for a resolution or learning how to not do something again, whether it's me, that person, or both, I shut down.

And I basically become a recluse and I would play Call of Duty until I play for three days straight, no sleep.

And I mean, granted,

I mean, I was making mad money.

So, I, yeah, I won my PS5 in a kill race.

Like, I, uh,

I won so many tournaments.

I put myself and my ex through our first year of bodybuilding in 2022 when I was out here with Call of Duty money.

Damn.

That's pretty sick.

Yeah.

It was four shows.

Four shows total.

Yeah.

And since, like I said, she was epileptic, so she didn't really work.

So I made sure that if I'm doing a certain amount of shows, I'm going to give her that same opportunity,

you know, because I don't want to, and I'm not going to lie, she has a crazy physique.

Like she could easily go to the Olympia and more power to her.

And I really do hope she ends up being extremely happy.

But at the same time, like I just didn't want to be so selfish to her, like, yeah, I'm doing five shows this year, you're doing one,

yeah, you know, like even when she got a pro card a year before I did, I didn't stop her from doing shows

because she was already a pro.

I just made sure that we could do the same amount or at least close to, you know.

And

I just,

it's just different now.

Everything's different different now.

I was never thought I'd be in the position I'm in right now,

let alone like being here with you on a podcast.

It's just that's, I feel very blessed, especially with what I've gone through.

I feel extremely blessed by the people that are still in my life, the people that know my character, know my integrity, you know,

and

they understand that I've made mistakes in my marriage and they still are my friends, you know, they're still close to me, they still care.

And that's something that's foreign to me because usually when something happens, everybody just blames everybody and just leaves.

That's what I'm used to.

And for that to not happen this time, I end up having more support in this than I have any other relationship.

And it allowed me to literally bounce back within a month.

And I was happier than I've ever been.

I still am.

That's awesome, man.

Other than the depression.

Right.

Right, brother.

Me, man.

I used to just bounce back with new relationships.

So I used to do that.

I would go from one to the other and find fill that void, right?

Yep.

But the thing is, I was never giving myself a chance to grow.

Yeah.

I wasn't giving myself a chance to actually learn from whatever happened prior, whether it was me or not.

I still needed to learn.

And it was either communication, it was attentiveness, it was, you know, giving them

basically a feeling of safety.

There's a lot of women I know, they've had some really rough goes when it comes to the men they've been with.

And their biggest thing is feeling safe.

You know, and

if a guy can't give you safety or at least make you feel safe when you're around them,

next

guy.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And the same thing with men, though.

We want to feel cared for.

We want to feel respected.

And if we don't get that, next girl.

And

I find that

in today's society, you know, and even earlier,

the societal pressure for men to just be this hardcore stability all the time, never wavering, not having emotions or being just hard, right?

It's how I grew up.

I was told not to cry, not to show emotions.

And,

you know, it led me to burying everything.

And the first instance I had was when I lost my best friend when I was 13.

He, um, he got hit by a semi-truck trailer while he was on his bike.

Jesus.

And

I didn't talk for months.

But I don't remember this.

I don't remember any of it.

I just remember going to school.

I don't remember not talking.

I don't remember not doing my homework,

but everybody else does.

But I buried that, you know,

and

I never really dealt with emotions the way that I thought I was dealing with them.

I always thought that I was getting better and things weren't like hitting me as hard.

But I literally had not dealt with any emotion when it comes to loss.

I don't know how to deal with it.

And that's what ran me into end of being diagnosed clinical depression anxiety

and

because my emotions were out of play out of whack my chem i had a chemical imbalance you know and you know it wasn't just my friend that i lost i literally lost one of my close friends in afghanistan

and

he was killed by an ied

and

This very next month, I lost someone else.

These are all different years, of course, but from basically May until July, I lost three of the closest people to me in my entire life.

So those three months for me are just absolute dog water.

And

I really had thought I had healed enough from my best friend when I was 13.

And

don't make fun, guys, but this is actually really,

really intricate.

I was actually watching the Moogen train

for Demon Slayer.

And

Rengoku is one of the Hashura.

And he reminded me a lot of my friend.

Never complained, always happy.

And just like this light spirit, right?

And then he died.

Yeah.

And it hit me so dang hard.

And I'm like, this is a cartoon.

This is anime.

Why am I like in tears right now?

Like, I'm bawling.

And

A, I realized that the day I watched it was two days before my friend's anniversary.

And it was the 21-year anniversary.

And on top of that,

both of our favorite numbers were 21.

So subconsciously, my brain just manifested a lot of extra.

But it also showed me that I hadn't dealt with it.

And

I literally became a recluse.

I didn't train for seven days.

I didn't go to the gym.

I didn't go anywhere.

I instant carted everything to my house.

I didn't drive anywhere.

Like,

and I realized that it's,

it's not healthy.

And no matter how depressed I am, or no matter

how much anxiety or stress I feel about this,

it's not going to make it better if I'm by myself.

Right.

And

I

got up one day and I was like, I need to surround myself with the people that are closest to me.

And so, where'd I go?

I went to the gym because that's where all my friends are.

So,

life of bodybuilder.

We don't make friends anywhere else because we don't go anywhere else.

Unless it's like recovery.

Recovery.

Recovery specialist.

Yes, you're my favorite, even though you beat the crap out of me every day.

But

yeah,

I realized that

I had never given myself the chance of saying that I wasn't okay out loud.

And I would even try to stop myself from like crying when I was feeling things because

I shouldn't cry, you know.

You know, my dad used to mess around with me and call me weak because I was very in touch with my emotions.

And

so I tried to be as hard as I could, right?

Because my dad's my hero.

He still is.

And,

but I realized it

had a different toll.

A much

more different toll.

I would find myself angry, frustrated, which was just

a deflection of actually feeling sad.

But I would put it on anybody around me.

For years I did that.

Whenever I had some sort of instability in my life or some sort of thing that made me sad or upset, I would project the living crap out of it.

And everybody in my path was getting it.

And I didn't even mean to do it, it's just how I was.

But I didn't want to settle for that's how Steve is, that's just how he is.

No, I want to have

wow, Steve's changed a lot.

He seems happy, he seems bright.

I want to be around him more because he just seems a lot lighter, seems a lot more of a happy person.

And so I made that choice

to find ways to

combat my depression and my anxiety.

Granted, one of them is medication,

but

the other is a choice.

Medication only does so much, especially for depression.

You can monitor it.

You can mitigate it.

You can't stop it.

So there's still going to have to be a conscious choice of allowing the chemical imbalance to win for the day

or allowing myself to win for the day.

You find,

I'm going to go on a side tangent.

You find that people, when they're having a really good day, the day flies by and they never want it to stop.

But they also choose to keep letting it be happy and happy and happy.

So that means we have the same choice on the opposite.

If you had one bad instance first thing in the morning, does that mean your whole day has to be crap?

No.

You can choose to let that just be the one instance that happened today.

Attitude's a choice.

Turn it right around and find somewhere to put that that is positive for you and maybe people around you.

My biggest fear is being all down and out and having a negative effect on someone that day or

my emotions feeding onto them because I'm not okay.

And

it's been like that for me where people have been just down and out and I end up getting their emotions, and I end up feeling like crap the rest of the day.

And I don't know why.

I was having a great day, so I never want to be that in someone else's life, especially training people, personal training, or coaching.

I don't ever want to bring that aspect

into my work and be to the people that trust me to take care of them.

I can't show them,

you know,

me being all in my feels all the time, right?

But I find that you can get a really good

connection with your clients if you really care.

And I feel that it can be more than just one-sided when it comes to the therapy aspect.

I've had times where people have asked me how I am and I'm like, oh, I'm not good.

And I didn't think about it because I wasn't good.

And they're like, oh, do you want to talk about it?

I'm like, no, no, no, this is your session.

We'll talk about what's going on with you.

And they would turn around and be like, no, if you're not good, let's talk about it i'll still train let's talk about it

but i had to have built some sort of rapport with this person for them being willing to listen to me even though this was all about them it was supposed to be all about them

and

those are the moments i just thank god for yep you know whether they're the one venting to me or they're allowing me to vent to them Like that is a crazy connection that you just don't get when

you're just a coach for the money.

You know?

Real quick, guys.

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And this way, I can travel to other guests and also upgrade an equipment to make this podcast bigger and better for you guys.

I really believe in karma, and I think

that karma really shows up when you care.

So,

the more you care about somebody, as you care about people around you,

that seems to come back.

It's almost tenfold.

And I can name so many good people that were examples of my life that were just like that,

who, in the weirdest way to me,

which I

still process,

are no longer around anymore and have passed away.

And when you were talking about your best friend that passed away and those numbers and the things that were just so uncanny about it,

it really reminded me of a situation that I just experienced a few weeks ago.

And I briefly talked about this on my pod with Justin, but I just feel like

what you're saying right now

really relates

harder than any conversation I feel like I've had recently.

And it kind of just makes you wonder, why the hell is it always the best people in the world that just seem to pass away?

Why is it always the nicest, the best, the most good people that you know that care about you that seem to leave early?

So I lost my best friend, Ryan, four years ago on 7-Eleven.

And just like you, I remember that.

I guess I just looked up, I looked it up recently.

Apparently, it's called an angel vsary.

I would always call it an anniversary as well, too.

But it was always my remembrance, you know, the day I would remember him, the day I would respect him, the day I would

focus on him, his existence, and what he had done for me, because he made me a different person.

Just by solely being such a good person, he became one of my greatest role models.

He became one of my greatest examples.

He became one of the people that I think is the reason why it's easier for me to be a good person when I feel like shit.

And

I was telling Lexi about this, that 7-Eleven was coming up.

It was going to be his angel virtue here on Thursday or Friday,

just this last month.

And ever since I met Lexi a couple of years ago, you know, obviously when we got to know each other, we would tell each other our stories.

and our histories and she would find out about the people that are closest to me and she learned about Ryan.

And whenever things about Ryan would come up or things about things would remind me of him,

she would say

that

I can't even fathom what that feels like.

But I just know that I'm just so lucky and blessed that that hasn't happened to me.

That I have my best friend live, that I get to talk to every single day, that sends me a good morning every single morning before i even wake up

that checks up on me goes to all my shows with me is the only person the only friend that goes to all my shows with me

that's always there for me like i'm just so blessed to have her and that this has had happened to her or my family

and then um

7-eleven rolls around

it's ryan's angel virtue and we're sitting on the couch And I'm being transparent.

She got me into watching Love Island.

We're finishing up this episode of some shit where I'm just like, I can't believe, I can't fucking believe people are like this.

Right.

And then she gets a call

from

like a friend that she's not very close to, but someone named Hannah.

And it's just kind of surprising because, you know, she's not very close to this person, too close, like she knows her.

But it's like...

Like a random call out of nowhere, right?

Yeah, it's very random out of nowhere.

She's just like, I wonder if she's about to talk about Love Island or something right now.

Yeah.

Like, what's up?

Yeah, I'm just like watching this too.

What's going on?

She has Hannah on the speaker.

And

I don't think Hannah really knew what to say.

But she was just saying that Liv was,

she was just doing fine all day.

You know, she had broke her foot two weeks ago at a hiking trip.

So she's been recovering since then, as anyone does whenever they break a bone.

But for some reason today, she was feeling a little lightheaded.

And while Hannah and her were having a sleepover, she suddenly passed out.

And she just goes, I'm just so sorry, Lexi, but uh

but like Liv just passed away from a blood clot.

She was in the ER and they couldn't revive her.

So

and um

just fucking seeing Lexi's face and her entire fucking face just suddenly slowly turns red.

And uh

I gotta tell you, man, like it's so weird because I remember when the 4th of July was coming around and my boy Dion and I got the call about Ryan.

I remember that so fucking vividly.

Like there was just so much confusion and shock, but when I saw it happening to Lexi, it was like,

it was like 10 times worse just seeing it happen in person.

Seeing like, there's no way that this is real.

You pray it's not real, but

it just doesn't make any sense, you know?

It doesn't for someone so young.

Yeah.

And

so I just like,

you know, I've.

I spent the last couple, a couple weeks after that being really kind of confused because I'm just like, you know the last two years

lexia has had a good childhood that i haven't had

like um

i've talked about this before and i don't like to go too deep into it because i feel like i'm wasting people's time and i i don't know i sometimes feel like i've talked about it enough but you're not wasting my time man i'd really have to appreciate you bro talk from the heart um

I have a lot of things that I go to therapy now that I still need to work through because of my childhood.

My family doesn't, we don't really have a relationship.

My mom was kind of like you.

I wasn't really allowed to show emotions.

I wasn't ever good enough.

I always needed to, I was always failing.

And I just had the worst relationship with my parents, and especially my mom, unfortunately, which is really strange because normally it's a little bit, the role of my parents was a little bit switched compared to normal.

Normally, it's like the dad that's hard, the mom that's showing the emotions, the loving.

Unfortunately, it was switched for me.

Except that my dad,

you know, he's a super smart, nerdy guy.

He's a professor, makes the money, but he answers to my mom because he loves her so much.

He has a lot of empathy, but it's like this kind of empathy where it's like, whatever your mom says is right.

So.

And he was also gone about half the time because he was traveling.

So he wasn't really present for half, maybe, maybe maybe a third of my life.

But that's only because of work, so it's not a big deal.

But

Lexi, on the other hand, has had an amazing family that she got to grow up with.

And these people fucking

are awesome, man.

They loved her.

And now that she's living here in California, she cries thinking about how she's not at home.

Like, she can't bear it.

And I've obviously, you know, there's a lot of things that I'd never expected to happen in my life.

And I thought I was going to live in California for the rest of my life because obviously I'm running away from racism.

I'm, I created distance from my parents.

I went to a place where I was like, maybe like this place seems like a place I would love.

It's got a lot of acceptance.

It's got a lot of diversity.

There's other Asians here.

Fucking just random shit, you know, reasons to be in California.

But

like you, I'm like, I found a new relationship.

I'm finally being the man that I always wanted to be.

And it's creating a very good and healthy relationship.

So I'm realizing if I want to keep this going, I have to make a sacrifice.

I have to move to Kentucky with her, probably for the rest of my life, if I choose to stay in this.

So

this entire time, I'm thinking, like,

I have to switch around a majority of things around in my life to reorient a completely new future that I didn't envision before.

But if there's one thing that I knew that I always wanted to do as a man in this relationship is to protect this girl at all costs, as much as possible, I don't ever want her to have to see or have to experience

the fucked up shit or the pain that I've had to experience throughout my life.

And when I saw this happening in real time,

I got to be real.

I'm sure that other people have felt this.

And I think I work hard to adapt a new perspective now around it.

It's a lot easier now that time has passed and some time for healing has happened.

But man, sometimes you just feel like cursing the fucking universe.

Yeah.

You're just like, how?

Why this person?

Why did you decide the one thing that I never wanted to happen

to have to happen the exact same way to her on the exact same day?

On 7-Eleven.

Why do we have to both lose our best friends?

This is the closest person to her.

This is the person she would tell me stories of every single day.

This is the person she would tell me that she wanted to see, she wanted to be with, she wanted to move to Kentucky for.

I met Liv in person, and she was the best fucking person, bro.

She was so fucking supportive.

She was awesome.

I fucking got to know her.

And even to me right now, even though obviously I'm not Lexi, I wasn't her best friend.

It's just mind-blowing that, you know, you get to know somebody and they're gone the next day.

and um

the one thing that I feel

and this is something I talked about with my friend Henry because we both lost I lost Ryan and I also lost one of my closest friends Nick but Nick was Henry's best friend

this was a year after Ryan passed away

and um

crazy because Nick and I were just fucking raging at splash house the weekend before he passed away it was so uncanny how that shit just turns.

Sideways.

Yeah.

But

Henry told me, and I truly believe this, is that if you look at any religion, whatever you believe in, you know,

Christianity, Hinduism,

a majority of these religions, there seems to be this end point, this end goal that you are working towards.

Whether it's heaven, which is in a lot of different religions, whether it's enlightenment, whatever it is, you're working towards this point.

And it seems to be the good things that you do are the things that attribute you to being able to make it to this place.

Now, the phenomenon to me is, why is it that all of the best people in your life seem to be the ones that leave the soonest?

They're ready the soonest.

They're ready the soonest.

Hard to grasp.

It's very hard, but you know, it's.

They've done a lot of good things.

I'll tell you.

They've made a fucking impact, man.

That's what I was literally going to tell you.

When Pat passed away,

7-10, actually.

So one day before yours and Lexi's.

And

they had his funeral at one church and it was packed.

to where they postponed it for an hour so they could televise it to two other churches.

This kid was 13.

He filled up three churches.

People were standing in all three.

So,

yeah, he was gone way too soon.

But at 13, if he can have an impact like that,

that's my goal.

I want to have an impact on people that is so positive

that that's what I aspire to try to do.

That's what I talk about when I talk about my clients and the people in my life.

I want to be a very positive light in people's life.

And that's why I get so much joy out of it because I feel like I'm getting closer to having the impact that he had.

And granted, I'm almost three times the age that he was when he died, but

it's a goal and it's a wholesome,

healthy goal because it continues to like push me to be the best person I am.

And it always continues to push me to give the energy that I need to give to people, even when I'm in prep.

Because those last few weeks, I am dead, like dead, dead.

And I still want to bring that energy to the people that are in my life.

And so I kind of like save my energy the best I can throughout the day.

But it works though.

And,

you know, I find that we're never really going to understand why people leave us early, why we're still here.

But for them to have the impact that they did on us to feel so

deep for them,

it just attributes to their character.

And how truly kind and genuine they were.

And

I try to remember all the good stuff.

I wasn't fortunate enough to get a call.

I was actually coming back from Bible camp, and I was supposed to hang out with Pat that night.

And

my parents made me sit in the back of the van.

It was like my turn to ride shotgun because there's four of us kids.

So I was like, what in the heck?

My mom couldn't even look at me

because she already knew.

And I get home, and

she makes me wait to get out of the van last.

And she's like, You need to go talk to your father.

I was like, Dang, like, what did I do?

I was at Bible camp.

What could I have done to like?

And

my dad was sitting on a

like one of those couple swings,

and

he sat me down and

he told me that Pat was hit by a semi truck and

he got starflighted to Buffalo

and he's probably not gonna make it

and I broke down and my mom was standing

on our porch and I could just see her crying.

She couldn't even have the heart to tell me that the one person person that was kind to me, the one person that stuck up for me when I was getting picked on all those years, the one person

that was always in my corner

was gone.

And I had no protection after that.

Middle school sucked.

And

I'm never going to forget how that felt.

And I don't know if we're meant to.

I think

that, yeah, the feeling is always going to suck and it's always going to hurt.

But knowing that you had people in your life that were that close

to have a true friend,

no matter how long it was, you had one.

You had someone really good in your life.

Yeah.

And someone chose you

to be your friend.

And those are the things I like to hold on to.

Out of everything,

Pat chose the guy that wasn't popular

to protect, to sit with every day in lunch, so I didn't get picked on.

He chose that over all the popular kids who were picking on me.

And he still maintained his popularity because he was so kind.

but he chose me

why

instead of asking that question

i'm thankful for it

i appreciate that someone had

even that you know since he was seven we've been close since he was seven yeah

and uh

Just to choose me as the friend, you know,

that's special.

I just want to make a tribute because it's because I thought about it and I feel like he deserves it as well.

But

another person that

my and many other buddies, Josephetix,

I don't know how many people knew him personally, but he was actually just, it's crazy how a guy with that much popularity.

will give you that much time and presence.

The guy cared about me, man.

And I I feel like I, like, we didn't even have, we hardly had enough time in person when he visited America.

Like,

only got to hung out a couple of times, do a podcast, work out a few times.

But, like, just from us messaging each other prior, like, the dude has always been helping me out, man.

Even from the beginning when I was growing, he'd be like, oh, try this.

Like, I found out that this works.

Like, try that, whatever.

And he would just slide in the DMs randomly, like, take that time.

I remember during around that time, and I think before Ryan passed,

like I told you, how I didn't really put attention into my relationship.

I honestly feel like I really didn't put attention into a lot of my relationships because I was so focused

on myself.

And I think realizing now

I didn't have to be, you know,

I regret not having had given the people I cared about and I loved more presence.

And I think that's something that

I think for the rest of my life,

I'm going to try to change.

Because

it's like if someone like Jose Addix can do all that he does, his fucking crazy one to two hours of cardio every single day and all the content he does,

all the posting he does every single day.

You and I already know how hard it is just to get content out, a little bit of content.

Yeah.

Which is crazy because it's like content should be the fucking easiest.

Yeah, the best fucking most fun skip in the park daisy of roses and shit yeah and then you're never happy with anything you don't ever post it you never post this sucks i look like crap today

but uh

if someone like that

cannot can like

give people the time of day

i have a lot to learn man

I have a lot to learn from him and from Ryan, from all these people that would go out of their way to help others when they already had a lot of shit on their plates.

Especially Ryan, who just didn't even have any money or didn't have anything, but he would still give people things.

It's just like

his soul.

Yeah.

The genuine soul.

So

I will tell you this.

I think you're going in the right direction because I've watched people come up to you.

They know your podcast.

And you give them the time.

You say hi to them.

Take a photo with them.

And that little bit

might be huge to them.

That's the impact that you're making.

You might not be able to see the impact that you have on the viewers.

But the thing is, you do impact people.

You impacted me when I started watching your podcast.

Everything was just genuine and wholehearted from you and the other party.

That is going to create a still and long-lasting impact on people.

Whether it has to do with fitness, whether it has to do with men's mental health, lack of sleep from insomnia,

it all will have an impact on someone that it fits.

And then on top of that, when you do meet people,

you give them that time.

So you're already heading in the direction that you want to head in.

You're already doing the thing.

I just wanted you to know that.

Thank you very much.

Just from what I've seen.

I feel like what makes it easy too is not just Ryan and

Joe and Nick.

These people who have had

such an amazing impact on me, Liv.

But I think

honestly, it's just the people that do listen to the podcast and the people that do come up also is

it's a blessing.

I feel like uh

yeah, it's a blessing.

I feel like it makes it that much easier because um

I gotta be real, man.

I meet a lot of dope ass people,

and I end up becoming friends with a lot of them.

You and Benji are both.

I was gonna say that's how we met as well.

So that's how we got right.

Me just being a weirdo.

No, no, bro.

Well, you're being jacked.

That's what you were.

I was fucking fanboying.

Wait, what?

You looked insane, bro.

You're on prep.

I was in this fucking fat ass off-season state.

That's the worst thing.

When you're in the off-season, and the guy comes.

I'm just crime at right now.

Like,

his abs are gone.

I have serratus still, but I have no abs.

That's the one thing I got to say.

That, like, God, dude, I am more blessed.

I feel like sometimes I'm more blessed than anyone in the entire universe

to be able to just have this platform because I got to meet people.

I got to meet people that I like.

So, and I got to meet people that are fucking cool and that are good and that are dope and that care about others.

So,

it's the greatest blessing.

The thing is, you show that care, you show that attentiveness, you show how genuine you are, right?

You're going to get that in return from the people that actually genuinely like watching what you have to put out.

So, the people you meet, nine times out of ten, they're going to be quality, or at least on their way of becoming quality, right?

And

you know, it was really ironic.

I went to Ireland for the Bullman Pro in May

and I got stopped in Canada on the way actually back from Ireland.

And

the officer knew Larry,

knew my coach,

but knew me.

And I'm like, I'm with these powerhouses.

I am nobody.

And he actually pulled up my YouTube, which has like four videos on it.

I haven't posted in forever.

He's like, this is you.

You're a cap.

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, can I get your autograph?

I'm like, wait, what?

But I impacted someone all the way in Toronto, Canada.

Didn't even know it.

And

the thing is, with how much content you put out,

imagine how many people you're actually reaching that you'll never know.

but you've had a positive influence on them.

You were able to help somebody that maybe someday they come up to you and or they message you and say, thank you for this and this and this podcast, or thank you for talking about this.

It really helped me through a dark time.

I've gotten that recently

from one of my YouTube videos, and it's not something I was looking for.

You know, when I do my YouTube, I do like a vlog style with working out, but I also talk about the struggles that I go through, like mentally and emotionally.

I go through a lot when it comes down to prep.

And I find that

Instagram and social media itself shows this

one entity of Steve, right?

I want everybody to know that I'm not always happy.

I'm not always

in the best mind frame.

Well, I would like to know, man.

I feel like

here's like, so

during my prep journeys, I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of situations where both emotionally, mentally, there's been struggles that have been both from relationships and situations outside from money, um, lack thereof.

Yeah.

And then

exacerbated on top is what happens during prep or what I'm taking during prep.

And I feel like when I heard, when I went to San Diego, bro,

I didn't really have many like bodybuilding friends

in my, I guess, I don't know, I guess my entire life past college there were a few people in purdue that would i would lift with uh my boy scott um

who amazing created immense physique pro a lot of these guys but none of them ever talked about the things they were going through because also a lot of them i guess none of them really talked about pd use

um

and i think a lot of them were natural for a long time i don't know when they decided not to turn i don't i don't really know the situations

I went to San Diego and everyone was pretty fucking real about the shit that they were doing.

I feel like at least 90% of them were to me.

So, and a lot of my closest friends, Nathan Brooks, who I did a majority of my YouTube videos with in the past, and who I did my very first episode on my podcast with, who I want to fucking continue doing everything with, but he's off like focusing on his life right now.

Living life in Dallas, Texas.

Yeah.

But he, for example,

God, dude, genetics.

Fucking like some of the best genetics I've seen.

And he trains hard.

Like, screw you genetics.

Like, like, got two.

Like, I'm a fucking gorilla.

Like, I'm actually Ramon Dino, but Tanner genetics.

That's that's what Nathan Brooks is.

That's awesome.

I know some of my

homies here that have been here with me for a while.

And you guys know Nathan.

You see his structure.

He has this small waist and just tapers out to this fucking big ass shoulders and arms.

And then his legs are ginormous.

And the bro just squats like, what?

What was it?

Like six?

Fucking five plates for reps.

Yeah.

Like freak normally just casually and it's and it's fucking close dance uh high bar squat yes knees over toast fucking animal animal bro has quit bodybuilding he's quit prepping because his first prep the mental health he just he couldn't

it just wasn't it for him

like after it was over he won overall he got the sword and he's like bro i just can't do this anymore like it wasn't i didn't sleep a single night um

everything that was within me the things my thoughts were they were spiraling downwards and um

yeah i do believe genetics vary per person and how you can tolerate certain drugs but i also what i truly do believe and i don't want to pin this on any coach or anything i don't want to put anyone on blast but

again

the thing that i think is so cool about bodybuilding is that we are we are our own subjects and we are playing with ourselves to figure out how to optimize ourselves.

Correct.

But you have to play and you have to write down the data because otherwise you're just throwing a dart.

It's a dartboard.

Yeah.

And the less you know, the more your eyes are closed while you're doing it.

Correct.

This is Nathan's first prep ever with a coach that basically just gave him a, and I hate to say this, but when I compared it to my other friends that were with the same person or a similar person, whatever.

Yeah.

It all looked like the same thing.

And I'm just like, dude, this guy's first prep does not need to take this shit.

Yeah.

I don't remember the exact dosages, but just hypothetically, I'm like, bro, your first prep, your first show ever.

Like, I don't even see any reason why you would have to take 400 megs of trend for that long on your first show.

Yeah, I didn't.

And, you know, not like, I would say maybe like...

Just hypothetically, like half the people respond good to trend and feel great on it.

Half the people get insomnia night switch from it.

Like, you got to figure out what kind you are and then you got to change your program based off of who you are.

Yeah.

And you got to look at the data though.

Like bodybuilding is data collection.

Right.

Whether you're winning, losing, your body's always changing, right?

Yeah.

Your body's always going to have things that get introduced well and your body handles it well.

And there's going to be some things that just absolutely tank you.

I cannot take sustenan.

It destroys me.

It hurts so dang bad.

I could microdose the living crap out of it and it just, my body does not respond well.

I will get a hot patch every single time.

Damn.

And so I don't take it.

But I had to find that out by having a coach tell me to go on it.

Right.

Right.

And it wasn't even a lot of a dose.

You know, at Susanon 400, I was taking like maybe 250 to 300 a week, but my body still couldn't handle it.

That blend was just too harsh for my system.

And I also can't take NPP.

I don't really react very well with NPP.

So I end up staying with like test, echipoise, and trendy as my bulk.

Right.

And for me, that works wonders.

And the trend, I don't have a negative or an adverse reaction to.

And I know that's not how everybody is,

but I also was a hothead.

I was also a very angry child.

And so I still have that potential, right?

There's still

that aspect that's still inside of me that wants to beat the crap out of a wall, right?

I'm serious.

Like you just want to go ham at a wall for no reason.

I get you so much, bro.

Like you just want to sit there and just, oh, and I'm like, but I learned how to control it, right?

Or at least to the best of my ability, control it.

And I use certain things throughout my day to gauge my irritability level or my frustration.

And you also have like a level of self-awareness that increases as you grow older.

Correct.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I use, first thing in the morning, I use my dog.

If I'm taking him outside and he's going to the bathroom and I'm happy, go lucky, today's going to be a good day.

I'm chill.

But if I take him outside and he's instantly under my feet and it's already up frustrating me, I know I'm extremely irritable and I need to get some food in my system.

I need to get some water in my system.

I need to regauge myself in a couple hours.

If I'm still the same way, it's going to be a rough day to me and I need to be a little bit more quiet.

I need to be a little bit more reserved.

And that's how I combat.

that feeling of like needing to get aggression out, right?

And then I wait for the perfect time to let it out.

Yeah.

and I wait till I'm working out.

And it's usually a day that I choose to train by myself because I can get in my own headspace.

I can start to, you know, play things over in my head to get me out of that mindset to use that energy in a positive fashion.

I believe that the strongest and the best body believers in the world are the ones that have the most mental strength.

And this is the same kind of mental strength that you fucking see these monks talking about, right?

The things that are required for meditation, the things that are required for control over your mind.

And it's almost like even like a,

I feel like even I was reading the book meditations by Marcus Aurelius because one of my buddies, one of Liv's friends,

who I have befriended, obviously,

he gave me the book because

I just needed it at the time, to be honest.

And the dude, when he spoke, during Liv's funeral, said all the things that I like knew in my heart and that I knew I remembered after Ryan, but I could not remember after Lyd passed away for like two weeks.

I could not feel, I could not remember, like, I just couldn't align myself with them for some reason.

Um,

maybe it was just because of the normal loss and confusion that

we feel, but this book, bro, like just reading that, for example, gives so much direction and you

realize like it's not

like you said, it's a choice, but it's not an easy choice.

It requires a lot of effort and it requires practice.

It's like a muscle that you have to exercise.

And

having that self-awareness that you have where you've created like a protocol and a plan for you to execute to be that man that you want to be and that you know you should be

is literally a prime example of that mental strength that you need,

I think, to win, honestly.

I mean, the other, only, the only other side of that is like, say, that you have the best genetics and you react well to everything.

And that's like Devin Bernardo.

For some reason, Devin Bernardo feels great on fucking everything that exists.

So must be true.

I'll tell you this, but you know, it's

whether someone reacts poorly or, you know, positively to something.

I mean, we all, like I said before, it's a data collection, man.

Yeah.

And

I had something in my head where I was going, but my head said no.

So

ADHD.

I got it, bro.

Same.

But

yeah, I'll figure it out in a minute when it comes to me.

Well, going off your thing, I just want to, like,

y'all, if fucking, if you see one of these comments again where dude's just like, nah, they all lie and fucking everyone, everyone needs to take Trend for bodybuilding.

Or nah, they all lie and fucking, Trent is the best.

Trend makes you feel like a fucking God, dude.

Everyone does.

Like these fucking people are just pussies or whatever.

It's like,

you got to remember that everybody reacts differently.

And man, like, not everyone's going to experience the same thing as you.

Correct.

And it also.

How many examples are there, right?

Like, and for, for example, like you, like, you don't work well with MPP.

You don't work well with sust.

And there was another one.

Yeah, there's,

I don't really react very well with test anethate, to be honest with you.

I have to run test C.

Well, that's interesting, actually.

Holy shit.

An ethate just instantly spikes my estrogen levels for some reason.

I switched to C, I have no problems.

And it wasn't like the oil or the...

I changed brands.

There was a bunch of things.

I brands and it was the same thing and it was the same thing every time i would every time i'd use test t man it was just

like a good reaction having this podcast bro i've learned to like not doubt anything or not just like because there are so many small little exceptions that happen

same reason why someone gets a random blood clot and passes away small exception same reason why joesthetics after he gets his blood work done and it's pristine he does two hours of cardio all the time well in his genetics his aunt had passed away from an aneurysm a few years ago.

How are you supposed to know that Josephix is going to experience the exact same thing now?

Yeah, it's in his genetics, so maybe he should look for it.

But do you know their genetics?

Now, everyone, a lot of people in comments who will say like everybody feels the same way on trend or everybody should take trend assumes that everybody has their genetics.

And that's the problem.

It's like a projection.

So

me,

I feel great on MPP.

I fucking love MPP, bro.

Fucking you.

I love test E.

I can do fine on sust.

I fucking love halo testing, bro.

That shit's okay, man.

Halo test is the shit.

I love it.

I can take literally any PED

and I'm Mastron, Primo.

As long as I'm making sure that my blood work is good and my estrogen is within a good range,

I'm fine.

Except for Trend.

Trend, I'll take if I go longer than a certain

allotted time, or I go over something such as 150.

I go over like 200 milligrams per week or so, something, for example.

Yeah.

Immediately, like, I'm fucking pissed off at a lot of the cars that are around me while I'm driving.

If I wake up with insomnia or if I have insomnia and I wake up, that day is extra fucking aggressive.

And I feel extra prone to wanting to cut relationships off.

There's like a lot of things that just like, it's like, bro, I mean,

you can't really

just say that someone can't experience

something

because maybe they react better to you with all the other things.

Yeah.

If you call them a pussy with one thing, maybe you're the pussy with NPP.

Maybe you're the fucking pussy with fucking test E.

You should be able to suck it up, right?

Right.

Or maybe it's just in your genetics and

that's

a smart, conscious thing to understand.

Yeah, there is a thing that

it also depends on blood type

when it comes down to you know PEDs.

obviously you're not injecting in your blood, guys, but still, like, your blood type

can have an actual reaction on how you absorb, how you aromatize something.

So

some people that run like trend, I'm O negative.

My blood's O negative, right?

I can give to everybody, but I can only receive from O.

And I can run trend year-round, right?

That doesn't mean O-negative is specifically good for, you know, trend year-round.

Obviously, that's part of my genetics.

It's part of everything else else that's in my system as well, and how my body, you know, absorbs it.

And you could have someone else that's a completely different ethnicity be O-negative, and they can't have trend at all.

But I have read a little bit about blood types do have an impact on it, and it's not like a guaranteed this is what it is, you know, but they have had an impact on certain PEDs with certain people.

And it's the same thing with like, uh, look at like the

COVID.

Yeah,

I'm O negative.

I never got sick.

And I was around it all the time.

I used to sell cars back when I lived in Maine and I'd have customers in front of me that got diagnosed with COVID the next day.

I didn't feel nothing.

I was fine.

Isn't that so fucking interesting?

Yeah.

Like you just literally sometimes never know because our bodies are just that complex.

But as soon as I got the vaccine,

I was sick two weeks later.

Full COVID, almost ended up in the hospital.

I'm like, yeah, that's the last time I take anything

from the government.

They can screw off.

I did all that when I was in the military.

18 shots in less than 30 seconds.

Sucks.

The worst one was a penicillin.

It's like peanut butter in your ass cheek.

18.

18 shots in 30 seconds.

Literally you walk in a line, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab.

And then they tell you to drop your drawers and they make you bend over a little bit and jab freaking penicillin right in your butt cheek.

It's crazy.

Dude, I had like band-aids all over my shoulders from being pinned.

That's when you realized.

I was like, I can handle drugs.

That's the day when you realize you were going to be a bodybuilder.

Oh, that was 2011.

That was a long time ago.

I didn't even start PEDs until 2016, actually.

Yeah, it was like right before I turned 26.

I'm 34, if you guys didn't know.

We can talk about

COVID still, right?

Or is that going to be?

I don't think I got a fucking shadow bananas or some shit on YouTube.

I don't know.

I don't know.

COVID's COVID.

We love you, YouTube.

But

yeah, I never, I didn't want to go to like the dark side of bodybuilding.

You know, I didn't want to.

I got stuck at like 160 pounds.

I was eating stupid amount of chicken and rice, and I could not gain weight.

Kind of the same scenario I'm at right now.

But I couldn't.

You have to eat 900 grams of carbs right now.

Per day.

Yes.

900 mat.

That's wild.

I love it.

A lot of shakes.

There's me where I'd literally

have to eat 150, 130 grams of carbs to get lean.

But then I can bulk on 450.

That must be nice.

It's nice.

In the next few weeks, I guarantee I'll be over a thousand.

I got to be real with you.

I'm going to be straight.

Bodybuilding was the hardest fucking thing for me because of dieting because I was a fat ass.

But now that Reda Trutide exists.

Red is a freaking glory.

I got such a fucking advantage over you, bro.

It's crazy.

Must be nice.

The problem is like I'm not hungry.

So if I take Reda,

it's going to make that even more.

I also have hypothyroidism.

So basically I have an underactive thyroid.

So I have the potential to actually get really fat.

Why don't you just,

why don't you just take thyroid, like armor thyroid?

So I actually take levelo-prescribed.

Well, I get level thyroxen or synthroid.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, but the problem is it's an appetite suppressant

because it's the idea to not make you get fat, right?

They need it.

So it helps optimize how your thyroid is actually working.

But it also makes it sure you're not as hungry as you normally would be.

And so I have to literally force feed myself all the time.

So when I'm at this many carbs, A, I have to run insulin every day because my pancreas is not going to be able to handle 900 net carbs every single day.

Right.

But on top of that, I do like mask gainer that is just pure complex carbs.

I make sure I get that in.

I use cream over.

Why did you find that from

complex carb mask gainer?

Sounds insane.

It's so it has a little bit of simple.

It's like a was it three to one ratio from I believe it's a Dragon Pharma has has one.

It's really

so good.

Gotcha.

And I'll tell you this.

I've had mascaters in the past and they always have like that little chalky taste to it because it's just a lot of, it's a lot of powder, right?

You know,

but their vanilla milkshake, I mixed that thing with water, dude.

It literally tastes like a milkshake.

And it makes me want to like drink more and more and more, which instead of my brain saying like, oh man, you're full, like I can actually go have another shake like two hours later.

I'm like, boom, there's 200 net carbs done out of the nine, you know.

And then I use cream of rice for everything else because it's easy for my body to process.

Have you looked into doing armor thyroid?

Because I don't know.

I haven't.

I don't, I don't really know.

I haven't looked too much into the mechanisms between

levothyroxine.

I can never say it right, even though I fucking ticket it.

Levoxyrocin.

Levo.

Levo.

Thyroxine.

Thyroxine.

Levothyroxine.

It's it's

literally exactly how it's spelled with the y, but I can't say it, bro.

Levothyroxine.

Oh, you said it.

You're good.

I just like to say,

like the same levo.

Yeah, so I think, I think, if I'm thinking correctly, armor thyroid does not really have that appetite suppression.

That'd be nice.

There are some people that I think do actually experience an increase in appetite because their metabolism is moving faster.

So I don't know.

I would just maybe take a look at two of that.

If Levy...

Yeah.

If Levo is fucking suppressing yours, yeah, it definitely is.

Yeah, because my um

I uh I have had hypothyroid thyroidism too, and I uh

I think I just never really thought about really talking about this because I think this is the first time I've really really discussed it, but um, I was always like, I wonder if this is because I just dieted for four years to stay shredded for like fucking Instagram or something and try to make some fucking money finally.

And then I randomly, when I went home to visit my parents for Christmas, um, after like three years or something, fucking saw thyroid medication on the counter and realized my mom has it.

I didn't know it runs in my family.

It's hereditary.

Yeah.

So I have,

I guess, potentially hereditary hypothyroidism too.

So I got put on armor thyroid from

Transcend.

And ever since then, I just take 60 milligrams.

You're good.

Or 60, yeah, 60 milligrams, which I believe is equated to like

38 micrograms of T4.

And I don't know.

It's interesting how it compares to Levo, but it's just, it's so

nice.

And I feel like it really fixed a lot of hypothyroidism issues with me.

And I do also think it has the potential for less side effects than Levo does, at least from what I've seen.

Yeah.

So, I don't know.

Pick thyroid.

I'll definitely give it a go.

Yeah, I'll definitely give it a go yeah if you feel like any of the medications that we spoke about today may benefit you such as bpc157 gh acretagogs such as tessamarellin igf1 oxandrolone chrochee semic glutide then you can obtain these from transcendent hrt and the link for that will be in the bio if you feel like you're experiencing symptoms of low testosterone such as depression anxiety lack of motivation as well as lack of sex drive then you can get this checked out as well by getting your blood work done at transcend and they will provide you expert medical analysis Transcend HRT has worked with many professional bodybuilders and pro athletes, such as Thor Bjornsson, Phil Heath, and Jeremy Bundia.

And if you feel like this podcast has any relevancy to you, I do believe that this clinic will provide of great benefit to you as well.

I heard Andrew Huberman potentially does not drink like 800 milligrams of caffeine.

I felt a lot better about what I do.

So

I've been checking that shit up.

It's been fire.

Like today.

How much are you at today?

I think

a cup and a half of coffee and a ghost.

So, I don't know, maybe closer to 300 to 400.

Yeah, but I used to keep it under 150, so it's definitely a change.

150, that must be nice.

Hold on, all right, one picture real quick.

Yeah,

Cool.

I gotta make sure that iPhone.

So, Alexi told me the secret that apparently, if you do Instagram stories, or if you do the Instagram story camera for your pictures, they come out more detailed and sharper.

Really?

Naturally, yeah.

What?

Because I did that when we were at the expo.

Like, when I was taking a video of you guys, like, I took it with my

Instagram camera, but I also took it with my iPhone, though, instead.

Because I have a, like, I have the brand new iPhone and I have the brand new Samsung Galaxy as well because I use the iPhone for my

my work clients

The problem is I don't have a still

It's a caffeine, bro.

It's a caffeine

Oh the trend

I have no problem talking about trend.

Let's talk about trend the methamphetamines Yeah, the opioids the opioids the kratom Yeah the excessive use of kratom.

How does that affect you?

Ah, it makes me great.

What about being natural here?

Not using substances.

Yeah, we don't know what substances are.

What is the wrong substance?

To cheat.

Who is drug?

Are you talking about Doug?

No, drug.

Drug Miller.

Just kidding, just kidding, guys.

Also,

I feel like this is necessary for me to say, but regarding my comment about Chad Nicholas earlier, Chad is actually such a cool guy.

Yeah.

I fucking love listening to his podcast.

He seems like such a down-to-earth guy.

And he just talks about how, like, he attributes a lot of his success to like Ronnie and these guys being, and

Big Ramy being like genetic freaks and everything, too.

Yeah, because which is very humble of him.

Yeah.

Because I know he knows his shit.

It's just so interesting that he's known for also just the craziest shit, too.

Yeah.

But I mean, hey, man, he fucking

got them there.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

So, bodybuilding and prep and stuff.

How many shows have you had so far?

18.

Oh, shit, that's a lot.

Yeah.

Well, you beat me there.

So

I remember us discussing, you just, because you just told me that this prep was the best prep that you had, right?

Yeah.

There's a reason for it.

I don't ever have a hard time cutting, but I also don't deviate from my plan ever.

And this is the first year where,

you know, going through my divorce, I had a hard time.

Like three weeks out from Fit World, I was still eating like a box of Girl Scout cookies a day.

A day.

Yeah.

A box a day?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Of the peanut butter and chocolate ones.

I'd freeze those things, man.

Oh my gosh.

Holy shit.

But the thing is, this year was the leanest I've ever been.

I was at 2.91% body fat with a Dexo scan.

And I have

only seen that one other time.

And it was my other coach I told you about that I was literally on like two hours of cardio and I was on no carbs for over three weeks.

Yeah.

I was still eating over 200 grams of carbs a day.

Can I say something annoying real quickly though?

Yeah.

Just for the audience.

I think Dexic scans are really awesome for you to get checked to compare yourself to before.

Yes.

But that's given that you were enhanced the last time you did a dexic scan too.

I was talking with them, Dr.

Pat.

I fucking forgot his last name.

Anyways, Dr.

Pat was basically stating that like it's hard for you to really compare dexicans with people that are natural versus those that are enhanced because of the osmosis and water retention.

Yes.

It really skews the graph on that.

But regardless, even fucking being on shit and having that 2.10 is pretty nuts.

It was insane.

And even Ryan was like, this is the best you've ever looked.

Like it was the most detailed my back has ever been.

Which that's my genetic disposition is my lower back after i got hurt in the military like it's very hard for me to feel the nerves in my back and actually get that mind muscle connection for my lower back

and why did you say genetic genetic disposition yeah why genetic though um because

my dad actually has hereditary degenerative disc disorder so it's continuously

Basically, his discs are continuing to flatten.

And, you know, people get short when they get older anyway.

But like, the problem is, it creates that friction of almost bone on bone from vertebrae.

And I have that hereditarily.

It's fucking painful, bro.

It doesn't feel good.

And when I herniated my disc, it pinched onto my sciatic nerve.

So I couldn't even like walk for over three months.

I had to use a cane everywhere I went.

I couldn't put a sock on.

I couldn't put shoes on that had laces.

I was literally in like flip-flops all the time.

God damn it.

And like, if I was seated like this, I would literally have to roll to the side and like try to stand up like from the ground.

It was, it was bad.

But neither here nor there.

Back to prep.

I was trying to figure out how I was able to eat what I was eating, not being 100%.

I didn't do half the cardio I was supposed to do, which is not like me.

But going through a divorce, I kind of was trying to give myself a little leeway.

I knew that I could have done better at Fit World if I had 100% normally been myself.

But I was the leanest and and the biggest I ever was.

And going through my divorce, I realized that I didn't have like that extra stress to like be accountable to someone else.

Right.

I didn't realize how much like just

normalized stress was.

My sleep was jacked up when I was married and

it was like better.

during that time frame after.

I felt like I was more relaxed.

I was more just really at ease and at peace with myself.

I feel like not a lot of people can say that,

especially regarding relationship situations.

Yeah, I wish it wasn't the case.

I wish it was easier the opposite.

But in this scenario alone,

it was beneficial for me.

Right.

It feels that you need to find your peace where you need to find it.

And unfortunately, if it's not the relationship, then it's a sign.

Yeah.

And knowing how much.

happier I was outside of it and how much more I felt like I could be myself, a ton of stress was like off me.

I felt like I was Atlas holding up the world all the time, trying to be on my A game everywhere I went.

And I realized just being me

happy and like relaxed,

I was so much better off for myself and everybody that's in my life.

And I think that that lack of stress that I had from, you know, feeling like I had to be Atlas all the time made it easier for me to cut this year.

So me not staying 100% on my diet, which I'll never do again,

was actually showed me how much farther I can actually go with being 100% on it and not messing up, not going through what I was going through for next year.

Right.

And when I say it's the best prep, I mean in the sole fact, it really showed me

who I was.

I was

on my own doing things for me.

I was able to be selfish for the first time when it comes to bodybuilding.

And I know we all talk about selfishness, but like I was only accountable to me.

So it wasn't selfishness in a sense.

It was just being able to really focus on what I wanted for once and how much I was willing to put in versus me trying to put in so much into my relationships with people or my ex, whatever it was.

I kind of focused on me and let myself be me, which increased my relationships I already had.

And

so it wasn't exactly selfish, but it allowed me to be a better person, a better man, and I ended up being better for the people around me in the process.

And during that whole time, I didn't change my stack from 24 to this year's 25.

My stack was the same.

So my end of prep stack is usually Trend A, Mass P, Test Prope.

Clenn, Winnie, Anivar, and Provirin.

And this year, the only thing I switched was Tren.

I went and used the clinical name is called Parabolin, but it's Tren Hex.

And

a lot less of a chance to have an adverse reaction.

I was never irritable.

Zero.

What do you feel about it?

Gives you...

You said just experimenting with that

gave you...

a much lower chance of having an adverse reaction or is that something that's like known or known for Parabolin or Parabolin?

Yeah, the Parabolin amps, right?

But I don't even understand how to get those.

You're talking to me.

The problem is with the tariffs right now and everything.

Obviously, all the raw product comes from China.

So, Trend Hex is kind of like a blend of both trends

from what I've read.

And

say you have a 25% chance of having that side effect that nobody really wants,

the rage, right?

From trend, you take that 10%.

So you're like 2.5% of a chance with hex.

And I am a living testament to that.

I ran it all the way through prep.

I was on it from November last year all the way through

May 11th.

Holy shit.

What dose?

So Hex is 100 per CC, 100 megs per CC.

And I was taking it every other day.

So I was on 300 to 400 a week.

Oh, a CC every other week or every other day.

Yep.

Wow.

And I had

no

negative reactions.

I find that I have more reactions when the carbohydrates get low.

That's when I get irritable.

That's when the chemical imbalance for me is the worst.

That's actually, that's, I don't know if I've clarified that, but for trend, I feel fine when my blood sugar is okay and when the carbohydrates aren't too low as well.

It's by the time that, like, and this is obviously,

this is made obvious by the end of prep, right?

The last three weeks, you have no choice.

You're rock bottom, basically, um, for most people.

So that's always where the

irritability just comes out.

And it's just like, you can't really handle it unless, like, say that, like, I took some sugar, which I'm not allowed.

Like, you can tell that you feel better.

Or at least just a decent amount of carbohydrates.

Or,

I mean, sometimes it could even be in the form of fats, but as long as you have enough energy sustained where it's not like you're feeling that crash and shit, that's where I noticed the exacerbation happens.

Yes, is during those moments where I'm just very, very low.

But

how was your blood work?

It actually looked like I didn't have anything in my system.

Can you explain?

Like, what were the values like?

So, my creatin is always going to be elevated because us as bodybuilders, the creatin's always a little elevator.

That's only 0.01 up,

which is nothing.

So instead of it being like 1.27, it was 1.28.

Liver enzymes, it literally looked like nothing had done anything to my liver.

It was just normal levels.

Low 50s.

Yeah.

And my estrogen was right where it was supposed to be, which usually it's elevated at the end of a prep, especially when I go off.

So I get my blood work done usually about a month to a month and a half after I've been off of everything.

Because I want to make sure there's nothing in my system so I can get an accurate reading of what is actually going on with my blood.

And

my testosterone has always been low.

Even when before I started, you know, PEDs, my testosterone was like below 300.

And so I was at like almost like 195, I think, is what I was after, which is pretty average for me after prep,

which also has a big impact on my depression, to be honest with you.

Testosterone and estrogen levels actually have a pretty big

impact with clinical depression.

Can you explain?

So if you don't have enough testosterone in your system to accommodate for a normal level of estrogen, for people that are clinically depressed and actually have not just symptomatic depression, it actually enhances your depression.

It makes you more prone to suicidal tensions or thoughts,

just being really down about yourself and just not okay.

So I do way better when I'm on.

I do a hundred times better than when I'm on.

and

so for me, that's why I was talking to you earlier about like micro-dosing, doing four weeks on, two weeks off.

Um,

obviously, that's not the end-all be-all, and it's not like perfection, but for me, it works for me.

Micro-dosing and getting the same dose every week, and having my body be able to absorb everything a little bit better because I'm micro-dosing, it works.

And then I take two weeks off after four of injecting.

And this is all with my slow esters because it still stays in the system, right?

But it works wonders for me.

I don't ever have that ability of dropping low to where I don't have enough testosterone in my system to where I'm like really sad and just absolutely just demoralized.

I mean, if you just ran it year-round

like most bodybuilders do, honestly, wouldn't wouldn't you still never have that drop?

Correct.

But I want to give myself a chance to have my receptors kind of reset.

That's why I take those two weeks off.

Yeah, this is the interesting, this is the interesting thing we were talking about that I was like very skeptical of yeah

in that skeptical place so this is not a whole backed 100 research um it's just from learning from multiple people and doing a little bit of reading myself

um

but four weeks on say with tessanethate right it's a four week full life two week half-life

i go four weeks on that last shot before my two weeks that one's still in my system right But my receptors don't have anything new being introduced to the system.

So it gives my receptors a chance to chill for two weeks without having anything new or any continued product being put into my system.

And so

after those two weeks, though, it's already halfway through its life.

I pop another test E.

And by the time that one's out of my system from the prior two-week break, I already have the other one in my system again.

So I never drop,

but I do give my receptors a chance to chill.

The whole like receptors a chance to chill thing is what's so interesting to me.

You know, It's why I want to do more research on it, right?

You know, we have no science on

does it really receptor.

Yeah, it's all just theory that we've all, all of us

have discussed, right?

Like, is it even necessary?

Does it actually help?

Do you need to give them a break?

Or is the, is the, the chance for having a health phase purely for the perspective of improving your blood work?

Yeah.

Because, because your receptors are just, you can just fucking take it year-round and you're fine.

Yeah.

You just titrate up doses very slowly based off of how you gain size and shit.

But, um,

or do you need that to reset your blood?

You know what I mean?

Do you need that to reset everything that that health phase like you were talking?

Like, do I need to be off for 10 weeks, you know, or even 16 weeks after my show season is done in order to like really reset?

I'll tell you right now, I'm way more depressed when I'm off.

My medicine only counteracts so much.

I mean, can you not just take a TRT dose during that health phase?

Just be off of everything else?

I mean, I could, but I'm not prescribed TRT.

For my age, I'd have to be under 100 on a blood test.

And I've never been under 100.

I mean, could you just like, you know, take your normal test?

And

you could low.

Yeah, you could.

But this year I was actually told to go off.

Oh, by a coach?

Yeah.

So

when I went to Ireland, it was supposed to take about 15 and a half hours to get there.

Okay.

It took us almost 40.

I had cut sodium on Tuesday because that was the day that we were flying, so we didn't want any unnecessary water retention.

But I ended up putting myself in a very

dangerous position.

My body started rejecting everything.

Do you know why?

I felt like I was, I got so sick when I was there.

It wasn't just jet lag.

I was only waking up to eat meals.

That was it.

And I could barely keep them down.

And

my coach thought it was like potential dehydration, low blood sugar, because on our way from Toronto to Ireland, when we finally got a flight,

I crashed.

And I was texting Larry in the front.

I'm like, hey, like my blood sugar is tanking.

I am sweating profusely.

I feel like I'm going to pass out.

And all I was doing was sitting there.

I was still drinking water.

I was still doing what I was supposed to do.

I was eating my chicken and rice.

And they're like, try to get some orange juice in you.

Thank God the guy was walking right by to do our breakfast because we took a red eye.

And he gave me like four boxes of the breakfast, which all had an orange juice in there.

Nice.

And I drank one.

And I was instantly,

I felt great.

I was like, I felt more leveled and I felt like I wasn't going to die.

But as soon as we stepped into Ireland, we got into the hotel and I ended up just crashing.

I felt like ass.

And

I weighed in the heaviest I ever weighed in for the show was at 200.2 pounds.

I had a

bacon burger from five guys and two things of the large fries

for my day before the show.

The day of the show, I woke up at 191.

What?

Yeah.

And I moved the scale like eight different places just to make sure it was flat.

Like, were you like, I was dying.

Were you like shitting your brains out?

Yeah.

From like Wednesday all the way through the show.

You don't think it was, I mean, I don't know.

I'm just throwing shit out there, like some kind of fucking food poisoning or something from.

It potentially could have been, but everything I made myself.

Right.

And I.

The only difference was that you were on this like long red eye flight or something.

That was the only like, well, that and I cut sodium a day early.

Usually I cut sodium on Wednesday.

So I don't know if I pre-cut myself too, too hard.

Because I usually don't retain a whole lot of water when I fly.

It doesn't matter how long the flight is.

I retain more when I drive long distances.

You don't think that had anything to do with like blood sugar and blood pressure?

I think it definitely did, especially with my blood sugar wood, and it tanked.

I mean, you drink one orange juice and you feel good.

Okay, something's wrong.

Yeah.

Right.

And not just feeling something wrong, like something was wrong.

And when I stepped on stage, I had looked like I had what was like water in between my skin and it had pulled out a lot of the water in my muscle tissue to feed my skin to hydrate it.

And so it looked a little watery, even though I was extremely lean.

And so after seeing that, after going through what I was going through, and I couldn't even fill out, like when I woke up for the show day, it looked like I didn't eat shit the day before.

And Ryan's like,

bro, we need to get food in you like right now.

And I had pancakes.

I had eggs.

I had, damn, I had, you know, syrup on my pancakes.

And I freaking hate syrup.

Just trying to fill out.

And I could not fill out.

Yeah.

And so after that, that's when he's like, you need to go off everything.

It's too late, honestly.

Yeah.

And he's like, after that, he's like, you're off everything.

He's like, you need to, you need need to not just cold turkey like we went on uh chlomophene hcg and that was it no no test this time

i wonder if he was just trying to like play this like um

i don't know i don't know what the word is just to be like like fucking careful card

it was a careful card it definitely was a careful card depending on if my levels were all jacked up so um

but yeah i just recently went back on for my bulking cycle

um

it's just uh yeah trenny test c and Echo Boys.

Gotcha.

I fucking love Ryan, and he knows his shit, man.

He's just one of the best and coolest guys for sure.

I just have to say, like, the only thing for the audience that I would say that if anyone was ever having to make some decisions themselves, sometimes I just don't feel like it's worth it to come off the test.

Like, I really don't think it makes hardly any difference.

Same.

Like, I just, like, if you need to come off of everything, come off of the gear.

The gear gear.

The gear gear, yeah.

And

run a TRT dose of tests or something.

And like 125 or something.

Some of those are just going to feel like it's worth.

So I don't know.

But I definitely think that.

Every coach has its different perspectives.

There's literally, I've met so many coaches and athletes that do one and then so many that do the other and say it's not worth it, et cetera.

So, yeah.

It's just, I think, honestly, it's finding what works for your body.

Right.

To be honest, at the end of the day, it's what works for your body and maintains your health the longest, right?

Yeah.

I think that's, that's the whole idea of like a coach learning you what you can handle, what you can't handle, right?

And how long you can handle what.

Yeah.

And that's the whole idea of like actually doing the work, not just the gym and not just the food.

You need to get your blood work done.

You need to get regularly checked.

You need to get an oil change, aka

donate blood.

Get rid of the old blood so you can get some new blood in there.

Or

not donate, but

you guys get what I'm getting.

Fucking brain parting.

Don't donate.

Yeah, don't donate.

Just get rid of it.

We're all natural here.

Yep.

Gotcha.

Well, you're talking about,

you're also talking about some of your craziest preps to me.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Worst prep ever.

Oh, worst prep ever.

2018.

Also, I just want to say, bro, like, I mean, as crazy as some of these theories can be, like, I don't fucking know how you gain all that size from starting gear at 2016.

You're fucking massive.

I appreciate it.

Like, you've lifted for

like 11 years total, but I didn't, like, start bodybuilding until truly 2016.

Like, lifting like an aspect to actually perfect and like sculpt the body the way I want.

Yeah, that's surprising, bro.

So, appreciate it.

It's less than I have for sure, but you're definitely way bigger than I am.

Maybe one day.

We're all in here, remember.

Did you spend all the years from 2016 like doing off-season cycles and growth phases?

Like, bulking?

I never did an off-season right until this year.

What?

Yeah.

So what the fuck was all the rest of this shit?

Like, how'd you gain this, this fucking, these big-ass arms and shoulders and chests?

Because you know that shit's dominant on your frame, bro.

You got massive chest, shoulders, and arms.

My arms and my forearms, especially,

it's genetic.

My dad has massive arms, always has.

Real.

I also grew up in the sticks.

I started splitting wood with them all when I was 11.

Everybody's like, how'd you get your forearms so big?

Like, you must be like, no.

I said, I, I, that would have been fun, but no.

So fucking Paul Bunion.

It's literally, I literally had to spend like, that's how we lived.

We had a wood stove.

That's how we stayed warm in the winter.

Like, we weren't very well off.

So if we wanted meat for the winter, we were hunting.

Just how it was.

Tough.

And we grew a lot of our own food.

It was, and that's one reason I attribute, and I love my family for that, because it kept me healthy when I watched every other get like really fat eating like normal processed food.

And

my body hates processed food,

which is awesome because it keeps me away from eating dumb stuff.

Um, don't get me wrong, I still love my sugar and my candy and your girl scout cookies.

My girl scout cookies, bro.

But

yeah, I uh I literally grew up in the sticks, man.

Like hick of all hicks, like uh grow big beard, have my flannels on, go out and split wood.

You still do?

I just don't split wood anymore.

I just go to the gym and pretend.

Just in the morning.

But I did that.

I was always doing something manual, labor-wise, to help my family.

But I was also in school.

I was also doing sports.

I was always doing physical, physical, physical all the time.

Okay.

And you feel like that probably helped create your foundation.

Correct.

Because I'm a lot like pound for pound, I'm a lot stronger than a lot of people.

Me and Larry have actually talked about this, how strong he is for his size, but Larry's 285.

I'm talking about Larry Wheels, by the way.

Oh, yeah, Larry Wheels.

He's my boy.

So, like, pound for pound, he's so stinking strong.

Yeah, it's crazy.

In one of the videos that he had, we were going against the world's strongest woman on a bunch of lifts.

And he allowed me in that video.

And

he said, pound for pound, I'm probably the strongest guy in one gen because I don't weigh that much.

I was 205 this morning.

You know, what are your lifts?

So, my biggest bench was incline.

It's 415

for reps.

How many reps?

I've gotten six out of it.

Holy shit.

And then, like, right now, on our incline hammer, I'm up to five and a quarter plates on each side for reps of 10.

Jesus.

Yeah.

But that's just my chest, and that's not even like the most dominant thing on me.

You know, if it comes down to arms, I can curl 225 like nobody's business.

You know, and I can curl 50.

And, like, uh, my max squat, fact, when I actually barbell,

50 barbell, just the Olympic barbell.

Biceps are literally the weakest muscle group in my entire body.

Bro, you got to train with me, man.

I, I started training at 12 by doing push-ups and curls.

Okay.

My biceps got way too big for the rest of my body.

It looked a little weird.

So by the time I was like 15 or 16 or whatever, I stopped doing curls for the rest of my life.

So because of that, like my biceps have grown with back day because of the compounds.

Yeah.

But they obviously didn't grow stronger curling.

I can't fucking curl because I don't ever curl.

It depends on the muscle fiber strand, though.

Right.

So for me, I was telling you earlier, like I wasn't lifting properly until I met Ryan

and my buddy Jason.

Those two combined have helped me change my lifts drastically.

And it's given me a better shape, a better density.

And it's also helped me be able to engage my back, even with my nerve connection issues.

And it changed my physique.

I was not much difference in weight from 23 to 24 when I got my pro card, but I was way more 3D and I was much more of a mature tissue on me.

But I was only like four pounds different when it came to stage weight.

Can you explain it?

What exactly, what's the training that was different?

So with my arms being as big as they are, they were taking over all of my back movements.

And I didn't know.

It's like Nathan.

My boy Nathan Brooks.

Yeah.

So like, I just, I didn't know though.

I thought I was just, you know, I can move all this weight.

I'm going to move it, right?

But I wasn't moving it right.

I wasn't contracting the tissue.

I wasn't feeling the squeeze.

Yeah.

So they took off like half the weight, if not more, and said, do it this way.

And I did.

And I struggled so damn bad with that little amount of weight because I was actually hitting things the way I was supposed to.

What way?

Can you be specific?

So with back day, everything's pulling from the elbows versus I would grip so hard with my hands that my forearms and my bicep would take over you would grip hard and you would the the goal would be to to pull the weight right versus versus letting my hand almost feel like it's open and just cupped on the on the handles right and just pulling with my elbows which engaged my back and i could actually feel it even with both arms i used to have to train single arm for my lower back just to feel anything

not anymore I still do to even out everything,

but I can feel it with both hands at the same time.

And that is just an an absolute miracle and a blessing that I've had the people in my life that have helped me and wanted to see me succeed.

And that's what I talked about earlier: like, don't hide the tips and tricks.

Right.

If you're a trainer, just lift people to knowledge.

Right.

Yeah.

I fucking love science-based lifting.

I love all the studies that they've got on it because I think a lot of it has been so fucking helpful to advance the society.

Plus, like, obviously, they finally gave some credit to the bodybuilders old school

bro science of doing the stretch.

But sometimes it makes me wonder when there's things like this, where it's like

you can't quantify a cue, such as

focusing on back by pulling with your elbows.

You can't really quantify that cue, or this cue isn't quantified on all of these studies.

Yeah.

It's simply just like they do the four, they do this exercise.

What is the result?

What is the engagement?

But how many different people are in this study doing something slightly different?

It's tough because then you kind of just get this overall average.

But

we're not all just the average.

I mean, everybody's body's different.

Right.

And how we contract things, you could do the same movement.

But like for me,

I can't lean when I do lap pull downs.

I have to dang near almost hit my face with the bar.

to get that full squeeze into my lower lap elbows right yeah but a lot of people they can have a slight lean and they're just right in here yeah i can't i can't physically do that and get the squeeze i need to get yeah and that makes sense and so i allow myself to like let it stretch and i let it come past the point where the bar is behind my head and then i pull down and just slightly move my head and i instantly can get a squeeze right with just the air that i'm doing right now

i um

On my podcast with Dr.

Todd and Michael DeBoo, they've all had problems activating their lats properly.

It's been one of their, it's their greatest weakness, their lats.

Michael DeBoo has

greatly improved his body and his V-taper.

And Steve Weinberger told him that he improved a lot.

So he won the Dubai Pro literally just what, like a couple months ago.

And

Michael said that for him, he had to focus on his lats specifically in the same way that you were and do specific exercises or machines in

that one gym in Dubai where

you noticed for him to get that cue that you need, he purposely had to just do underhand for every single one of those.

Same.

But

everything's underhand.

It's like when you do underhand, it just makes the cue easier where you do need to tuck your elbows in and you go in more of like a upright position.

Correct.

I mean, otherwise, like,

it's just so much easier to tuck your elbows in and like, what is the fucking word?

Um, fucking

external rotate.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something that I learned.

I was lucky enough to learn that from a coach when I was younger.

My first coach ever, he like prided himself on back.

And he would always say, tuck your elbows in, tuck your elbows in.

And after that, I like fucking just I just fucking

I drove that into the ground with every back day.

And I think to this day, that's why my lats or people like to say that like,

lats are great.

You have a big back.

I think it's just because that cue I learned early on in my career and I was able to implement that for a long time and now looking back on that i feel like the same way about you but the opposite where i've been able to focus on my bag decently well

especially my lats but my biceps have gotten nothing even though i thought they did because i've been focusing it all well your strongest tissue takes over on the back right right especially when you get tired and you get fatigued the strongest tissue is always going to take over so i need to do my bicep curls now yeah and also with me i think i've also yeah we should also do some fucking pull like fucking um back thickness days, because I think I've been doing back thickness wrong for a long time.

I don't think I've been retracting my scapula enough.

Like as on the stretch?

Right.

Yeah.

I think, I think I've been almost.

I think turtle shell.

I think I've been doing way too much of my rear delts.

Like I don't ever have to do any rear delt exercises because they're always hit by back.

And I'm just like thinking, like, maybe that's just normal.

I really do think that my rear delts have actually just overtaken all of my pulling exercises.

I haven't really been

back thickness.

I need to improve that.

That can happen, but you also got to think the rear delt's a small portion.

It's a small muscle, right?

Yeah.

So your upper back is probably taking over with the rear delt.

Like versus the mid and lower.

Like traps, like upper and lower traps.

Yep.

That would also make sense because my traps are a little bit

too oversized for man's physique.

Mine were too broke.

A big old fucking.

But I mean, that's why we're classic, though, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, um,

but uh, you want to circle back to the worst prep ever?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, move ahead.

No, good.

The tangents are always needed.

I just like

every time I can, every chance I can talk about training, an opportunity that I can, I'm always intrigued because I've realized that training is, I used to think that bodybuilders would just avoid talking about PEDs because of the sake of that, this is a drug that you're talking about.

Right.

One, you know, it's a legality.

Two,

it's not really obviously the

cliche and the perspective on it, especially in the the past, right?

Don't want to be known for drugs, even if people, even if it's obvious.

Yeah.

But I think the other thing, though, is like when you do become a bodybuilder,

all bodybuilders kind of take the same shit.

Yeah.

If you all go to like good coaches, the coaches will prescribe you basically the same shit.

The difference is if the coach cares about you, you guys learn your body together and then you adapt it slightly based off of your personal needs.

But like, how does that help other people?

You know, it helps other people when you can talk about your symptoms and if they have the same, but that's, you know, it's a one-off.

Right.

It's rare.

And

on the other side of it, it's like, if everyone is taking basically the same or similar amount of PEDs, they're just tailored to their own physique.

It's like, what's the one thing that we can all share that we can talk about where we can improve and try to beat the other person?

And

like, if we're all already trying to maximize ourselves with our PED use, as long as our blood work doesn't fucking go haywire, like, what's the other place that we can freaking maximize ourselves?

And it's just always trading.

it's a training like the diet is the same but it's always trading like training you can maybe you can go a little harder maybe you can change the frequency maybe you can focus more on a certain muscle group and that's why it's lacking you know and i feel like the training aside from the igf1 dollar three

or just igf1 in general and the high carbs on those days i feel like the the way that i changed my leg trading is probably the biggest reason why i grew legs the most in the last two years.

I need to train with you then.

That's the first year I've actually had small legs.

Yeah.

yeah yeah it was

those germans are stacked bro dude i know holy

they made my legs look totally sick i'm like bro like i have big legs and then you can also make me look tiny

like you're the same height as me and you made me look like half the size i don't want to discount their hard work because they work hard but god dude those germans have some sick leg genetics dude dude they're just you look at both urs and gestthetics and like you just Look at them, it's like a fucking diamond.

It's just the biggest in the middle, like the most perfect place you could have a fucking

And Ersk is a freak.

So sick.

Like, I'm waiting for him to, like, just peek out, like, perfectly.

Because I've always liked his physique since the first time I saw him at the Olympia.

Yeah.

I just think it's a phenomenal look.

So,

but

2018.

Worst prep ever.

I.

Let's see.

I did Mr.

Buffalo and I did my first national show ever, which was Universe.

And

prepping into Mr.

Buffalo was fine.

I didn't really have too much of an issue.

I was only off carbs for like a week before peak week.

PDs were normal, less than what I take now.

But when I got ready for Universe,

my coach had me on almost three hours of cardio.

I had an hour and a half minimum fasted.

And

I've always worked a manual labor job up until recently when I started training.

Go ahead.

You were working a manual labor job while you were doing three hours of cardio.

And I was on a crazy deficit.

I had no carbs for

22 days, 22 days leading up to universe.

And it was all to get me leaner, right?

The thing is, I was already lean.

I was absolutely shredded.

I literally destroyed all the muscle tissue I had grown in

probably the last three years.

years.

I stepped on stage

in classic

at 169.

Damn.

How much did you weigh?

Like, what are the markers to I weighed 184 eight weeks prior to that at Mr.

Buffalo, which I won.

Oh my God, dude.

Yeah.

Why?

Like, why keep going once you've already just done a show?

Well, this has been my first national show.

I just didn't realize that he was going to cut me even harder.

Yeah, like, you know, and it was pretty,

it was pretty detrimental to my mental health, to be honest with you.

Yeah.

Um,

well, I mean, I was dead last.

There's 58 guys in my class.

Oh, this is the classic show you're telling me.

It was like, was this the first year that classic came out or this?

This was the third year.

It was 2018.

But it was back when there was only like three height classes in Nashville.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is wild.

Yeah.

The fucking, what, like three inches per height class or something or what more?

Yeah, I think it was three or four.

Yeah.

Three or four inches per high class.

Yeah.

58 people in the class.

It was class B was stacked.

It's wild.

It was horrible.

And like, you know how they do like 16th repeating?

Like I was at like second to last on the 16th repeating.

I'm like, I know it's all the same score of like 48 points, but like for my name to be all the way down there with my last name starting with a C, like that sucked.

And I was like, fuck this.

Like I was so mad.

And

I came back for finals.

And that's where I met the coach I had before, Ryan.

And he's like, what food do you have on you?

He's like, you look great.

He's like, you just look flat as shit and you look small.

He's like, what do you weigh?

And I'm like, I'm like 169 right now.

He's like, your weight cap's 190, bro.

Damn.

Yeah.

I was giving up like 21 pounds.

I ate four pancakes with peanut butter and jelly on it.

I had a steak.

I went and had a burger and sweet potato fries.

And I came back on stage full.

Like full.

And I didn't overspill.

But obviously, it's nationals.

It's too late.

It's not like now where they'll do a rejudging.

Right.

You know, and it wouldn't have gotten me enough to even be top 10 anyway.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

But I had trusted him enough because my coach wasn't responding to me and told me not to eat anything.

He literally, that was all he said.

Just stay where you are.

Don't eat.

Thanks, bro.

Appreciate it.

I feel like crap.

You know, and I look like crap.

And I'm in like dead ass last.

Yeah.

I was in like fifth call-outs.

Like,

dude.

I was just talking about I was actually just talking about this with Quentin.

You know, Quinton, are yeah, I was just messaging Quentin on Instagram.

He's just got second place at this last at the Tampa Pro and Open Bodybuilding.

Trying to remember who he lost to, but yeah, Quinton had crazy improvements this year.

And his fucking structure and his shape was probably one of the most beautiful on stage.

It had to be.

Like the best aesthetic look for open bodybuilding.

Yeah, I got the small waist, big everything else.

No gut.

I don't feel like he had a gut at all.

Good.

I mean,

I wasn't there.

I wasn't there.

So I didn't get to see him in the small, but you know, small times when you're transitioning and stuff, if it wasn't.

When you like let go.

Yeah.

His improvement was so insane.

And he was also the guy that created the videos discussing his situation with Batt Jensen a while back.

Now, whether or not that's true or not, I've heard mixed things about Matt Jensen.

And

Justin Scheer loved being coached by Matt and everything.

So I'm pretty sure Matt was a great coach, but I'm sure there's, you just know how it goes.

You know, not every client coach relationship is the same.

Yeah.

And it depends on the rapport.

It depends on a lot of different things, too.

But he did say that,

yeah, like the main difference this time is he just trusted his gut and he went with it.

And I think that's something that a lot of bodybuilders forget maybe is that.

You know, you got to trust your coach, but you also got to find a coach that you trust.

And that takes time because.

it took me four coaches right obviously how would you know not to trust the first guy well you don't until you did it's the first show it's your introduction into bodybuilding and you just assume whatever they're saying is gold so what was what did other people say about that coach when you first joined him what was the um the last one or the one you have now uh i guess the worst ones um

Or whichever one was the bad one, I guess.

The bad situation.

Yeah, though.

They both were competitors.

Okay.

I don't think there's anything wrong being coached by a competitor.

But if you're in the same Indian, right?

Yeah, if you're the same league, if you're still both in the NPC or you're both IFBB pros, don't ever prep for the same show.

That is a little sus.

You know?

Like the same division.

Yeah, same division, same everything.

Like, don't ever do that.

That's a little sus for sure.

And

I don't think that that honestly had a factor to it.

It's just where my mentality went.

Like, this person's this way, and this is where they're going.

But this is what I want to do at the same time: is he giving me everything that he's giving himself?

And I didn't like having that question in my brain.

And going to the coach I had after universe for the first time, I had him for almost four years, and I was top 10 twice at North Americans.

I was,

um,

see what other one did I do with him.

I think that was actually it.

I think I only did two nationals with him, but I won a show with him.

I won the internet, uh, Indianapolis championships, won the overall with him.

So, I mean, I don't doubt him being a great coach, you know, but at the end of the day, I don't like arguing with a coach.

I don't like asking a question of,

why do you want me to eat this?

Or why do you want me to take this?

What does it do?

That's for me to learn.

That's not me questioning you.

Right.

And

it's not me questioning why you're doing.

I just want to learn.

I want to absorb things like a sponge.

Right.

And

with Ryan, I don't have to ask that.

I know I was talking to you about it earlier.

He's answered every question before I've even asked it.

And even when I do have questions, it's an easy right there.

It's answered.

That's cool because it also doesn't feel like gatekeeping.

Correct.

And that's why I talk about like, you know, giving people the tips and tricks.

Like tell them everything.

It's education.

Everything's education.

Yeah.

I like learning, you know, especially when it comes to this.

This is my passion.

I love bodybuilding.

I love watching people succeed, even if it's not me.

Like, my buddy just got his pro card, and I am so stinking happy for him.

You know, he's about to do Pacific next weekend or this weekend, this weekend.

Nice.

And

he's got a good shot, a really, really good shot.

And for me, that's like a culminating moment.

Like, he watched me get my pro card last year, and I was able to be just as excited for him this year.

Right.

And

I find that the people on my team, it's so close-knit.

Even if we compete against each other, it's really close-knit.

We'll have fun with it if we're on stage together.

And I've never known that.

Even with the camaraderie of the military, I've never known that.

Like, this is just a different level.

And it's another reason I attribute my coach's character, integrity, the way it is because he surrounds himself with like-minded individuals, athletes, everything.

That now, this entity of the team, we're all very similar.

We all have the same thought process.

We have the same values and moral compass to where we mesh so stinking well.

And we're all close with each other.

We all want to be at every show for every single one of them if we can.

What about the PED regimen during that prep?

Has there ever been a PED regimen that you have regretted or you felt like just went haywire, went wrong?

Yeah.

Excuse me.

Obviously, the first coach, because he had me on all those diuretics, that was a big regret because I thought I was literally just going to be done.

Yeah.

I can't even think in my head what the fucking reasoning would be to get you on diuretics a month out.

I don't know.

Especially diaze.

It's dangerous.

Yeah, bro.

Most coaches like a quarter.

Yeah.

The night before.

I take about a quarter of the night before.

That's about it.

Maybe half.

Not fucking for that entire month.

Yeah.

And I was taking like a quarter, if not a full tab every day.

But I think PED-wise, there were certain things.

He had to get some filthy content from that, though, right?

I was an angry, I was an angry cuss, bro.

My coach before Ryan, though,

I told him about like test E not having a really good reaction with me, and he didn't want me to switch to C, and he wanted me to do it his way.

You know, there was a, this is the way to do it, this is how it is.

And

he was having me on like almost 100 megs of Proviron a day,

100 Winstrol.

I hadn't taken Annivar at the time,

but I was on Clenn.

And back then, I used to do like 20 megs for a week.

I would go to 40 for the next week, take a week off, and then I would go to 60.

And by the end, I was at 120,

which is a lot because Clenn actually hardens your heart at higher doses, right?

It's dangerous.

So doing the research on that after I had done that, I was, I was a little upset.

You know, I told myself I was going to research everything and

I thought he took so well care of me at universe when my other coach disappeared that I like, I could just trust it.

Right.

And

so

I still do my own research with

Ryan, but he's never given me anything that's given me a bad reaction.

Yeah.

And as soon as I told him that MPP wasn't really reacting with me well, he swapped, he swapped it out the same, same day.

Ryan is, to my knowledge, I've always felt like Ryan has been a little bit more in the

word, the moderate side too?

The mild, moderate side?

Very, yeah.

I am not on a lot of stuff.

Like, I take a lot of different drugs and PEDs, but I'm on very small doses of everything.

And I'm getting way more out of it than I did when I was on high doses.

And my body responds a lot better.

My mentality and my temperament is better.

And I attribute that to him knowing

been in the industry 25 years, like he knows what he's doing.

And I really am at that point where I don't have to ask the questions anymore.

It's like, hey, man, do this.

I'm like, all right, cool.

900 cards a day.

All right, whatever.

Got you.

You know, let me jump.

All right, how high?

You know?

And that's how I feel it should be for every client coach.

Do you remember how long you were running those usages for?

100 Winnie

I ran it

for

19 and 20 season

and

21.

I had those dosages during each prep year.

Each individual prep.

Do you know how long that it was being run for each of those preps?

At a minimum eight weeks.

Okay.

Yeah.

Depending on how many shows I did, too, because it would start with eight weeks from the first show.

So if I had another show like a month after or two months after, I was still on it for another eight weeks.

Yeah.

I know everyone metabolizes differently.

So, you kind of got to figure out that dose for yourself.

Because for some people, maybe those doses would work.

Like, maybe they're, I don't know, hypothetically, say they're bigger guys or they just have a faster metabolism.

But

I've noticed for me, with every coach I've worked with, I told them, like, all right, I haven't taken this before.

So

I'm going to titrate up the doses up to your dose.

And I'll keep you updated with how that goes, if that's all right.

And

sometimes at first, they're a little bit like, why?

Why?

But

most of the time,

they're kind of just like, okay,

probably trusting that I'll make it up there, anyways, at some point.

But it always makes me feel better.

And for some of the things, for example, like I just,

I realized it was just better for me and my health and my mental health and my stress and basically

the quality and the outcome of the prep for me to keep planned slightly lower than

Kyle had initially planned for

or to keep trend a little bit lower than Kyle or Patrick have initially planned for because I know it's better for me.

And it's hard to try to say that to the coaches sometimes because, you know, it gets, it's just, it's, it's difficult because the coaches know that they know shit, like they've been in, especially the good ones that have been in there for a long time.

Like they have the experience.

They know what works

but sometimes there are some fucking weird people out there like us that just react differently to certain things to certain things even if it's just up one percent of things and sometimes that just happens and it just it requires

it just requires a little bit of balls to just fucking say it to them just be like i'm sorry but like i really feel this sincerely like i'll never go i'll try i'll try as hard as i can to get there and i'll keep you updated but i will monitor the symptoms and uh we're gonna talk about it.

Luckily, it worked out.

So everything was great.

I still took less Clan and less trend than he wanted.

I still look like I was on a ton of fucking drugs, bro.

Yeah.

I was veiny as shit.

I was doing just fine.

So

I just say,

you know,

a lot of this stuff can be psychological.

And that's something that Patrick and I talked about.

Like, sometimes I do get in my head a little bit psychologically, like, oh shit, maybe the trend is doing this to me.

Tell myself myself to suck it up because I'm a fucking bodybuilder.

I need to work harder.

I need to fucking

not every single day I'm going to get sleep, regardless of whether or not I'm a trend or not.

Like not everything is going to be pretty perfect, but

still

make notes, you know?

Yeah.

Like I'll write notes like every single day.

Yeah.

And I'll rate something, for example, like zero out of 10 or however many out of 10.

And then I'll write a little note of how I'm feeling and what I think.

And

when you look at it over a long span of time and you can see a trend line, it becomes very clear to you how do you respond to certain things and if it's better for you to honestly just leave it out or keep it at a lower dose.

I think that's conscious bodybuilding, honestly.

It's a healthy way to do it because you're not just leaving all that accountability on the coach.

You're actually taking accountability for how it's actually making you feel.

Which I think is super important.

Like a lot of these guys did a lot of shit themselves.

Fucking look at Arnold over here.

Right?

Still shredded.

Yeah.

Freaking bicep veins.

Fucking nuts.

But

and I'd say Matt, or no, not Matt.

Michael DeBoo that I have the pod with, like, he coached himself for the Dubai Pro.

His favorite coach he's ever had was Patrick Torre, right?

But he himself was going through some mental shit where

he just wasn't able to respond to the coach when he needed,

give him check-ins when he needed.

He just wasn't in a good place.

So he felt like it was best for him to just take himself out of the equation because it was becoming more of a hindrance to him.

So for the sake of his mental health and his lifestyle, and well, not his lifestyle, sorry.

For the sake of his basically his mental health and whatever else he was dealing with, he decided to take things into his own hands and try to learn from Patrick and their experience together.

Bro wanted Dubai Pro.

Fucking awesome.

And I'm sure he couldn't have done it without learning from Patrick in the first place, you know?

So there's a place for all of this, but like, man,

like we can become experts of our own bodies and we can learn ourselves.

And I think that's, that's how you become the best bodybuilder and the best, the best man that you can be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what we're all striving for, you know, we always change ourselves physically.

That's what bodybuilding is about.

But if you don't focus on like your spiritual, mental, and emotional at the same time, you're going to, something's gonna fall by the wayside, you know, and I find that that's when people have an imbalance of life, you know, they focus so much on how they look versus, okay, well, how's your mental health?

How's your emotional stability?

You know, if you're a Christian like me, how's your walk with God?

How are you doing?

And if you don't give time, that same dedication that you do to your body, and you don't give that to your mind or your soul, like

something's going to fall away.

Something's going to change.

Something's going to crack you.

You know, and that's just me speaking personally.

Like, stuff is

dropping like it's hot, you know?

And

so I try to make sure I'm always working on like my mental health, like my emotional stability, and definitely my spiritual walk as well.

And

it's been very beneficial for me.

Was there ever a time where you felt like PrEP

or anything that was related to bodybuilding and prep at the time ever affected your relationships and what was going on in your life negatively?

Absolutely.

I try to pride myself in not being overly selfish when it comes to bodybuilding, but I realized I was putting my need to get my cardio, go shopping, make my food, and do all the things that are necessary for prep over my relationship.

That happened in multiple relationships

where I thought I wasn't selfish, but I really was, you know?

That's fucking tough, though, because it's like

you still need to get it done, right?

And that's how I looked at it.

Right.

But like, I wasn't giving the attention where I should have been giving it.

Okay.

Because all that stuff still would have happened.

I just wanted it done my way, my time, and when I wanted to do it.

Okay.

Versus allowing myself to plan things more accordingly to spend time in the relationship and still get everything else done.

you know, and I prioritize bodybuilding over everything, even work sometimes.

And

it messed me up a few times, you know?

And I want to make sure that when I'm prioritizing things now,

that the highest priority is where it's supposed to be at the top, you know, versus bodybuilding be, you know, end-all be-all.

So

I feel a way where

it's always going to be a trade being in a relationship versus not.

It's always going to be a trade-off.

And the trade is that

you got a new responsibility, a new thing that has to take up your time.

And you want it to.

I mean, you want to allocate your time to it, hopefully, if you want to be in the relationship.

And that's just something that, like, obviously I've had to accept

finally knowing how to be in in a good relationship

as I have.

Whereas on the other side, I think the benefit to it is

I feel so much happier doing my prep.

Like, yeah, it gets a little, it's a little bit harder to have to,

like, there's been things that come up, you know, like

it's hard to say this.

It's so fucking hard to say this.

Relationship qualms?

Just like, given that you were in another dimension, say that you were in a relationship, all the things that happen with a relationship, all the responsibilities, things that you want to do, anyways, right?

Obviously, like, I want to go on an anniversary.

Like, I want to.

You want to run dates?

You want to go hang out?

Well, also, like, I want to go to the funeral in Kentucky when it happens.

Like, I want to be there for a week.

I want to.

Like, all of these things I want to.

It's just that the best way that I can logically describe this is, of course, these aren't going to happen if you're not with this person.

Like, of course, you're only going to be with yourself.

Yeah.

And of course, you're going to have more time to yourself because you're literally alone.

And that's when you have to choose what you want to do with your time, right?

But on the other hand, it's been so amazing to get to actually have a good relationship now.

Like, I feel like, I feel like I enjoy

aspiring for and working towards my goals.

with her working towards her goals and us supporting each other in both of our goals.

I think that's the funnest part.

And obviously it's not perfect all the time.

It just isn't.

I don't think any relationship will ever be perfect, but I do believe that the fact that she supports my goals, especially when she can, and as much as possible, and I support hers, makes it so much easier to do it.

And then also whenever we were prepping together last year was actually fucking awesome for me.

I actually enjoyed prepping together more than I did

when we didn't prep together this year.

Yeah, opposite for me has always been hard.

It was

fucking hard because I'm going through something and they don't have the mental capacity to understand because they're not doing it themselves, and then it was vice versa.

Yeah,

but even with my ex, when we prepped together, it was great.

We were probably too tired to even fight if we wanted to, right?

You know what I mean?

And you're just like, you kind of just both know that you're like,

fuck it, bro.

We'll worry about it when we're prep's done.

You both know that you're kicked off for like a reason that's not totally related to just each other.

It's really just fucking prep.

And yeah, and it's the irritability factor that just comes with it, right?

Yeah.

so but yeah um

i'm really glad you found that support

you know that's that's not always easy to find um i've been in a relationship before where it was like competing with the other person even though it was a female and they weren't even in a category that even quantified oh looks and i were competing We're not competing for who gets Olympia first.

So if she if she gets Olympia first, then we're not going to be together anymore.

Here's the thing, though.

You guys have a fun game to it.

This person was like trying to be better than me, win more shows than me.

It's like, I don't care.

Yeah, I'm going to support you because this is what you want to do.

But the same mentality wasn't given back to me.

And

that's when it's hard.

But the fact that you found someone that gives you that same support right back when it's your turn,

you know what I mean?

That's that's that's hard to find, and you got to hold on to it.

You know, if I ever find that again,

I ain't letting go.

So, Yeah.

Yeah.

I totally agree.

Anytime anything feels one-sided is when

it just burned out.

What's the point?

I feel like I can't anymore.

Yeah.

I guess you can't.

Do you ever have anything in your diet that just fucked you up, by the way?

Oh, wait, all processed foods.

You said that.

Yeah, but greens.

Yeah.

Greens?

Oh, shit.

You're one of those dudes.

I don't eat greens.

One of those dudes without fucking excuse.

Well,

I have gastrointestinal issues that don't allow me to really process greens very well.

Yeah.

Um, every time I do, I bloat really, really bad.

Damn, it doesn't matter what it is.

It could be asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower.

It don't, it doesn't matter.

Definitely broccoli and cauliflower, though, for sure.

Yeah, but the Brussels sprouts, I do know Brussels sprouts, and I can't eat.

You can't even eat Brussels sprouts or asparagus.

No, anyway.

What about like carrots or something?

No.

Oh, just greens.

Mainly greens, but cauliflower is the only one that's like, you know, not green that still messes me up.

Okay, I see.

So, so, like, kale and spinach, too, are problems.

Yeah.

Wow.

Any, any leafy thing will F me up too.

Fuck.

So I can't do salads.

I can't do like romaine lettuce, like any of it.

What about drinking greens?

I do drink my greens.

Okay, so that's how you get it.

So I have to drink my greens.

Okay.

It tastes like shit.

I fucking ate it.

But Lexi fucking gives me all her ghost greens.

It's hilarious.

Oh, that must be nice.

Hugh genius to come up with some greens or some shit because.

Yeah.

Just give me like a product so I can just not have to eat this.

Well, Hughes isn't afraid of using sucalose, which I love.

So.

Oh, I should try monk fruit.

That's why everything tastes good.

monk fruit bro no I love monk fruit it's just like it's not strong enough sometimes no I get I get you it's not not enough of that sugary feel no no no no it's too healthy finger sticks too clean yeah

um make cookies with monk fruit

what about uh

i just like how do you get in 900 grams of carbs per day and i know you did mention like is insulin a recent use for you um yeah i didn't start insulin until my 24 season

and i was only using it on my back day.

How much do you feel like it's helped?

Oh, tremendous.

I mean, if you think about it, insulin is the most anabolic thing on the market.

Okay.

It's stronger than trend, stronger than tests.

You know,

I don't know how to explain it, man.

I'm one of the weird ones that actually get like a pump off of insulin.

I don't know if that's weird.

I don't know anybody else that actually gets like pumped off of insulin.

I take five units.

That's pumped like mentally?

Like, I get like yeeted, bro.

I mean, you're you're eating 900 grams of carbs with insulin you got to be pumped even when i was on 200 huh

i get like almost like a pick-me-up from it do you feel like but i don't know if it's psychological or not you know have you ever thought of your

what do you think about your insulin resistance have you ever monitored do you feel like you're i don't know this is weird i need to get it monitored because i never have since i've started taking insulin so i want to make sure that i'm not like creating insulin resistance in my system right it's not a common thing that people check their fasted insulin.

Everyone checks their blood glucose.

Correct.

Their fasted.

How's your fastest blood glucose?

No idea.

I'm not going to lie.

I have no idea.

Like I said, I've never checked it, and I need to.

I've probably had it on a blood panel multiple times.

I had no idea what I was looking at.

You know?

Yeah.

That is what it is.

Just get the, I got the fucking fastest blood glucose monitor.

You just fucking, you pin your

finger and then you have to, you have to show me which one you got, so I can go get it.

Yeah, you can check it in the morning.

Cute tiny thing from Amazon.

Oh, nice.

But I mean, I mean, the only, the only benefit to that, in my my opinion, is like checking if you are approaching pre-diabetic territory, honestly.

Yeah, like going, you know, type two, you know, which would be dangerous for anybody.

But honestly, it's cream of rice.

I use a lot of the Gerber cereal cream of rice.

And the reason why is the box, you have to keep heating up over and over and over again for it to actually mix well and not taste grainy.

The Gerber cereal, you can mix that with any temperature water and it just mixes.

And then I just put Himalayan salt in it and it mixes up to like almost like an instant mashed potatoes kind of thing.

Okay.

And so that's why I put the Himalayan salt on it.

It's really good.

I also, if I don't want to use the Himalayan salt, I'll put one scoop of Elevate, depending on the flavor, and just put that in with my cream of rice.

Then I get flavor.

And I don't have to use a shit ton of elevate every single time to accommodate for the amount of carbs I have to eat.

So

works well for me.

And then I still eat rice and everything and oatmeal.

You know, when I'm, when I know I'm hungry, hungry, I will eat oatmeal still.

Do you do anything?

Do you take any medications, any drugs, any supplements, or do any kind of protocols or whatever to like keep your GI tract in good health, keep like your, your gut from basically extending from bloating and food volume?

Because 900 grams of carbs is a ton to eat every day.

Yeah.

So I actually, um, I had a lot of problems with my gut health through the past few years.

Um, I didn't know it was the greens all the time, but um, I was always trying like probiotics and all this stuff, trying to feel better, right?

Not feel so distended of the stomach.

And

actually,

Sprouts has a digestive enzyme.

It's not a probiotic, it doesn't mess with the bacteria, and it works wonders for me.

It just helps everything just flow a little better, you know.

I don't ever feel bloated.

I don't ever feel like my stomach's getting turned into knots from eating.

And I don't ever store anything that's unnecessary.

So, and it's like a $21 bottle.

Nothing fancy.

It works.

All right.

I've been doing digestive insulins for a while, but to be honest, one of the things I feel like that's helped me the most is just doing the, just making sure I do my normal fasted

glutamine

for

my gut, for my leaky, for my leaky gut.

And a little bit of colostrum, half a dose colostrum i've been trying in the fasted mornings which is weird i was like adverse to it because

jesus christ hello

we're going over time again um i was adverse to it because uh i'm lactose intolerant so i was a little bit scared but i mean i've been fine with it and i feel like it's helped in a weirdest way so i was advised that by austin stout who was like a gut guru yeah uh so i don't know something i definitely look into it because i'm also lactose intolerant so i kind of try to stay away from quite a bit of stuff.

Right.

So, yeah, Derry F's me up.

You down to do a few of these.

Got a couple questions.

Yeah.

Answer whatever, man.

I want to help the fans out.

I mean, actually, you have a lot of questions, but we'll try to do this quickly.

I do.

Holy crap.

I wasn't expecting that.

You beatboxing.

Chan Smith already asked, what's the best thing about Ryan?

But I think you've said a lot of things.

Everything.

Literally everything.

That man is the GOAT when it comes to, for me personally,

I've watched him drastically change so many different body types over the past three years that I've been with him

and help them excel past wherever they were prior when they started.

And that's just him having the knowledge he has, the years under his belt, and being able to understand a body.

And he can understand a body if you give him what he asks.

He can understand your metabolic rate within a month easy.

as long as you do what he tells you to do.

You know, it's all about following the plan, because if you don't follow it, that man knows.

Yeah,

like I was talking to one of my friends, I've been following him for 10 years, bro, since 2015.

Damn, since

he had like Joe Moji, yeah, Joseph Lee, and uh, fucking um

my Filipino boy, um,

with a V-taper, yeah, you know who I'm talking about.

I think so.

I'm sorry, bro.

I'm just brain parting today, me too.

Um, whatever, anyways, they're fucking killing men's physique back in the day, yeah.

Sorry, Andreas.

Strength Galley asks what separates good coaches from great, but we already answered that, so we can go on.

The Jim Reaper 735 asks, is it true?

He's been here before.

Love the guy.

Good questions.

Is it true that people build a love-hate relationship with food during prep?

I think that depends on personally.

I've never had a problem with prep food.

Um, ever since the military, everything's been very structured for me, and I love the structure.

I love knowing exactly what to eat and when to eat it.

And I don't care if it tastes like crap, I really don't.

It doesn't bother me because I know the end result is going to be better than it was last year.

Yeah, and that's what I look forward.

So, um, it doesn't also make me hate like good food either because I can't have it because I know eventually I'll be able to have it, so it doesn't bother me,

but that's me personally.

Hey, what's up?

We were at overtime.

Yeah,

what's new?

Approaching three hours per usual, Ghostbusters.

All right, we'll finish just two more questions.

Right.

Um, Kay Justice asks: In a

fictitious, perfect world, could you describe the perfect mass gaining phase protocol?

In a fictitious world, yeah,

I would say

a very small dose of insulin and

a little bit of GH and eating the right food.

You need to give that offseason quality.

You can't just be eating burgers and fries all day in dirty Bulken and expecting to look like a Greek god by the time you're done.

I would definitely say giving the coach that you have the off-season that he wants you to have is probably the best way to grow.

And whether that's insulin, HGH, or being on test, it doesn't matter.

It just, you got to give 100%.

This is a sport that's 100%

365.

It's every day.

If that's what you really want, you want to go to the Olympia, it's every day.

Right.

In season or out.

I truly believe, like, you know, yeah, you know, all the health freaks out there recently, how we're just all talking about biohacking and shit, like Andrew Huberan and Ronda Patrick and all that shit.

Yeah.

The shit that I love to listen to because I'm one of them.

Yeah.

I feel like that shit is the key for bodybuilding.

And I think people are finally getting the hang of it here in bodybuilding.

Like, oh, like, I need to listen to gut health.

Oh, I need to, I need to

even be kind of attentive to my neurotoxicity.

I mean, yeah, my brain, I need to focus on my stress levels.

I need to fucking get fucking sunlight and vitamin D.

Yeah, vitamin D12

antioxidants and everything.

I think it's kind of

it's it's literally like it's literally that on steroids, actually, like

doing extra when it comes to reducing inflammation and

biohacking your body to the greatest extent of a healthy lifestyle.

And it's so contradictory because we're taking all this shit, but I think that's why it's even more important because then it just becomes risk mitigation.

Correct.

And I also think that like recovery has a big aspect into it, like stretching and, you know, something I'm not very good at.

I never used to stretch and I hadn't torn a muscle in a long time.

Wrestling with Ryan one time, literally wrestling, I micro-tore my pec.

God damn it.

Yeah, and it's never fully healed.

Bro, you should know better after all these body blues.

I know.

That's why, like, whenever Larry says, oh, let's go do an arm wrestling, I'm like, nope.

Ryan, Ryan himself, did he not fucking tear his bicep from catching his dog from his car?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He tore his pec too when we were lifting one time.

It was just always, it's like the random stuff, but I've also found that like with my back the way it is, that is still, you know, never going to be the best and it's always going to continue to get worse.

I go and get work done on my back, my legs, my hips, and definitely my shoulders now.

So I don't have to worry about potentially re-terring my pec minor.

You know, I also tore the cartilage in my rib cage with a warm-up squat.

Just randomly, I tore in between three rib cages, I tore all the cartilage out.

Jesus.

Yeah, I couldn't breathe.

That sucked.

And I was just warming up on a hack squat with four plates.

Like I did three reps, the third rep, snap.

And I was like, okay.

That's wild.

But I find that that's, I didn't have, you know, preventative care.

I didn't do recovery.

I didn't, you know, do all the stuff I'm doing now, which has also amplified my workouts.

It's amplified how I train.

It's amplified just me in general on my physique and how I've been able to engage the muscle tissue because now it's more relaxed instead of being so tight all the dang time.

So I definitely think that's a huge thing to growth as well.

If you're always tight all the time, you're never giving your body a chance to chill and actually get work done and get things put back where it's supposed to be.

But

that's how I operate now.

It's fun.

Last question.

How's off-season approaches trade?

How has your off-season approaches changed

over time with lifting, diet, PEDs, and SUPs?

I used to never go off my PEDs before

because I had like the psychological mindset of like, it's going to keep me lean.

It's going to keep me, you know, feeling good.

I wasn't wrong about the feeling good part of it, but I was also eating like shit.

Like, as soon as the off-season, like, I'm, yeah, I'm eating blueberry pie, Ben and Jerry's.

Like, I'm eating whatever I want, cereal, all of it.

And

now it's changed to, I do have an off-season, which is off-drugs and PEDs.

And I also am giving Ryan what he asks.

If he wants me on 900 net carbs, I'm not eating burgers until he tells me to eat a burger

or whatever it ends up being.

And so I'll ask him, like, hey, man, I'm low today.

Can I go get like all-you-can-eat sushi?

He's like, yes.

All right, cool.

I'll go get all-you-can-eat sushi.

And so I'm much more reliant in my offseason to do exactly what he says because my goals have drastically changed soon as I went pro.

So I really thought it was going to elude me forever.

I feel like finding the food choices that are best for you tends to be some of the best things that you can possibly do to improve.

I really do.

But just for the sake of the few people that are probably questioning this or like curious,

has there been any change in like your dosages of PED use?

Has there been any change in the compound use specifically in the off-season for you that you found?

I find that my off-season, I respond very well with

600 test C,

400 EQ, and 300 to 400 Trend E.

I really respond quite well to that.

That's fire that you could just run trendy around.

That's crazy, bro.

I mean, I told you, it took a long time to figure out myself and kind of mitigate

those things.

But I just realized that if I want this to be part of my life and I want to bodybuild continuously

and whoever ends up in my life next,

if I want to continue bodybuilding, I really got to get that attitude part in check

or at least mitigate the ability of being irritable, you know, or how to combat that in a much more,

a better relationship-wise.

Has that changed from before, such as like, has the, has the dosages decreased or have they increased or what is the compound use different than when you first started?

Um, I would run just uh like test and trend together or test and EQ together.

I was never on all three.

Okay.

And that's kind of a recent development after I couldn't run NPP because it used to be test test and MPP, no trend.

And then I told Ryan, like, hey, I can run trend year-round, like, I'm chill.

And so he tested it.

And I ran trend from 23 all the way through 24.

Damn.

And I find

I hate to say this, but you get a lot of size then, too.

I did.

So that's honestly when my back really started to drastically change.

Not an advertisement.

No, not

a little bit.

Is there any

are there any risk mitigation protocols that you have for this like year-round trend use or any like supplements that you take to mitigate any uh deleterious blood rake effects?

Um, yeah, I actually,

the most I do is honestly, I'll go off for a minimum of a month, if not six weeks.

And I purposely plan a blood test at the end of that period and see where I'm sitting.

If I'm not okay and my blood is just even a little off, I stay off for another six weeks.

Because I just want to make sure that my blood's good before I go back on.

Okay.

Right.

So trend year-round is more like, you know,

not year, technically year-round.

Like, I probably have three to four months off of all PEDs at a minimum.

Okay.

But there goes, it's, you know, another eight, nine months that I'm actually on

all the time.

Yeah.

You know, right.

And

that's knock on wood.

I haven't had any problems with my blood

ever since the, you know, the potential dialysis BS back in 2016.

So, um,

but other than that, I've been fine, you know?

and I attributed that to the coaches I've had in the past and Ryan being able to know me well enough and know my body, how it responds.

And that's why when Ryan said, go off, I'm off.

Cool.

I know exactly why he's doing what he's doing.

And I felt a million times better when I got off.

I didn't lose my strength.

I didn't lose my size.

And I literally just went back on like two weeks ago.

So it's all long esters.

So nothing's really hit yet.

You know what I mean?

And I haven't lost none of my strength, and my shape hasn't gone away.

So, I know that last year in my offseason, I put on quality tissue and I matured it enough to where it's not going to just fall by the wayside.

And I make sure that I'm also eating my food so it also doesn't fall by the wayside.

Got it, you know.

I ask one last question at the end of every podcast.

Yeah, if you were to disappear from the world tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would the message be?

No matter matter who you run into every day,

enemy, friend,

try to be a positive light.

Try to be something that is just

different than the norm.

You know, I want people to try to have a positive impact on people.

I think that's one thing I would say if I die on the way home right now.

You know,

just

try to be a good human and treat people with respect and just care about humans.

Care about people and show it.

So,

yeah.

That was a great way to close up this three-hour conversation, bro.

All right.

The thing is, it started an hour before we even started filming.

Appreciate you for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

Where can everybody find you?

Okay, guys.

So I am on Instagram.

It's Steve the underscore Cap Rogers.

My YouTube is just Steve Rogers.

And I have no idea what my TikTok is.

I think it's just Captain Rogers.

For those of you that actually don't know me,

Captain Rako.

Yeah.

So I joined the army.

I was 126 pounds.

When I got back from the Middle East, I was like 170.

So,

no, I wasn't on any PEDs at the time.

Everybody just started calling me Cap.

My name is Steve.

I'm from New York.

So it kind of just fit and it stuck.

So, and he's my favorite superhero.

So it works.

Same.

It's fucking tough, bro.

I have his full-on replica from Endgame, his shield.

Oh, that's fucking sick.

That's awesome, dude.

24-inch.

Well, Well, thanks, bro.

That was awesome.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

See you guys.

Peace.