Durrah Won Again! Classic & 212 IFBB Pro Champion Reveals His Full Protocol & Cycle

Mahmoud Aldura, also known as her loved and her favorite dad cycled her previously on this podcast known as an extremely transparent and once 212 Olympian but has now just recently won a classic show eight years later he is now the first Arab to become a classic and a 212 champion

bro but it's fucking crazy you fucking won dude man that's that's nuts isn't it it's nuts congratulations thanks how do you feel i didn't bro you have no idea like

we'll discuss that in the podcast because i want to save the interview

we're live yeah all right we're live we're talking real i thought there was gonna be like a all right guys whatever yeah you know i always start it all right no yeah man i mean this whole thing started as uh

you know my son asking me hey dad like he's 14 now so he was like dad are you gonna compete again

and i was like, No, I'm done with that.

And he was like, Oh, that sucks.

And I'm like, Why do you ask?

Like, he's never shown interest in bodybuilding, but again, he was very young when I was competing, right?

Yeah,

so I was like, Why?

He's like, Well, I, you know, I'm older now, and I just like I really wanted to see you on stage so I can show my friends that you know what you do and stuff.

And I just wanted to see you in person.

When he said that, I was like, Oh, fuck, bro.

You know, I'm like, I'm like almost 40 years old.

I've been off for like four years.

I got the whole

back surgery thing.

Like, and I don't want to even go back on like high level high levels of gear.

Yeah.

And

I called my dad.

And I was like, your grandson wants me to compete again.

And he was like, so fucking do it.

And I'm like, Well,

you know, I don't want to do much gear, blah, blah, blah.

My dad knows this stuff.

And then he was like, Uh, well, aren't you like already, you know, on a cycle?

I'm like, Yeah, but I'm like, on it, I'm on a dad cycle.

I'm on the dad cycle.

So he's like, Well, like, you look pretty big.

Like, I see your pictures on social media.

He's like, why don't you just try dieting and training hard?

Because he knows, like,

I was training like, bro, I'd go to the gym and I'd honestly be on my phone 40 minutes out of the 90 minutes.

Like piss, like piss poor workouts.

Wow.

Didn't expect that from you.

Yeah.

So then I hooked up with a very old training partner that I used to train with.

And I was like, bro, and he competes as an amateur.

So I was like, bro, I'm thinking of competing again.

So why don't, you know, we find a show where we're both competing at the same time.

And, uh

you know we train uh we train for it he's like yeah cool his show was in uh was two weeks before mine i chose toronto pro i was like all right that's a good show um should be shouldn't be that much difficult

and uh and i started prepping like four months before the show like around february

And

I was like, you know, I'll switch to classic, even though classic, I think, is more difficult, but it requires less, less.

Well, I don't know, for me, at least, I think probably most of the classic guys are juicing as much as the open.

But I think for me,

given you know, genetics and already, you know, I'm kind of big, I was like, I'll just keep the dad cycle.

I'll train very hard and I'll diet and just see how my body reacts.

My body started reacting really well.

Like, I started changing very fast.

Do you think that's just because you've been off high cycles for so long?

Could be.

Well, no, because I was still, I was still, I was still doing the same cycle.

I prepped for all this with 625 milligrams of test a week.

And you were on, what, 500 before that?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's not much of a change.

Yeah,

maybe I increased my GH a little bit from like three units to five.

And I added a few fat burners.

I added T3 and Clenn.

That's it.

And you didn't do you didn't do anything else in there?

You didn't add like Winstrel or?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't, I don't want to mess with my cholesterol.

I don't want to mess with anything.

And like my blood work was good.

I even did a video on my English YouTube channel

where I was comparing my blood work to Alex Eubank.

Alex Eubanks.

Guys, you should go watch that video.

It's pretty cool.

And my blood work was actually better than his, which is why I kind of called him out.

I'm like, you're not, you're not on.

Either you're not on TRT.

So Greg Deusette.

Just TRT.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Greg Dussette said, either he's not on TRT

or I'm like 1% genetics, where it's like the cycle that I'm doing isn't affecting me.

So I didn't want to do anything else.

The only thing that I did do, because I don't like lying about this stuff, I switched to Mastaron, like I stopped testing completely.

And I switched to 300 milligrams of Mastaron the last week.

So I actually even lowered my cycle the last 10 days specifically before Toronto Pro.

And then after Toronto Pro, I just stayed on 300 milligrams of Masturon until Alabama Pro.

What?

Yeah, bro.

That's

how the fuck did you stay on Masteron and no test without just watching the marketing?

So after seeing how I looked in Toronto, first of all, I didn't even think I was going to get top five.

And in my head, I'm like, I'm just, I'm.

If I place 10th, it's not humiliating.

And I'm doing it for my son.

And he's going to come with me.

And it's just, you know, fun.

And that's all that there is, you know, just going to have a good time.

And as a joke, like on my YouTube, I was like, guys, if I place top five, I'll do another show.

And then I placed fifth, and I was like, holy fuck, what the fuck just happened?

And bro, Toronto Pro was a fucking tough lineup.

So

I looked at the pictures and I was like, okay, you know, I'm carrying a, I'm very sharp, I'm very dry, but I think like I'm carrying a little bit of water around around my waist.

Let me drop test completely and switch to Masteron to harden up my physique even more.

Because that's the only thing I'll be able to play with is just getting sharper.

And I also dropped GH a week before Alabama Pro.

Okay.

So I was on nothing except Masteron,

T3,

and Clombuterol.

And

okay.

All right.

I want to go back to this first because we're diving pretty deep, pretty fast.

And I feel like I got a fuck ton of questions all of a sudden.

Okay.

Let's go.

First off, I just want to say,

all right.

This is blowing my mind right now because I'm just like, bro, we know you as like real,

the real ass motherfucking dad cycle Dura.

And now you are telling me that you just won this show off of like what, like 100 or 300 milligrams of Astron and some shit.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

But

don't you, dude, I don't know if you remember this, but literally, I was listening to our Alas Pod.

And our last pod, we were literally saying at one hour and 12 minutes in, I was like, I want to see you size down and shrink your waist and go classic.

And you're like thinking, like, dude, I think I want to see myself do that too and like film it, like film it while I do it.

We were literally saying that in the last pod we had.

We were literally saying that.

I don't even remember that.

Yeah.

Dude, we can literally like,

anyone in the audience who's curious you can like go to an hour and 12 minutes in the last pod and i was literally saying we were literally planning out together because someone had a question in the q a about you potentially going to classic and we were literally planning out and devising your plan to go classic that's crazy and now you're going to the fucking olympia i know it's insane

even i even

disbelief

I saw your interview on RX Muscle too.

It was kind of hilarious.

Yeah, because he asked, he saw this coming and I was like, no, I didn't.

yeah and then you were just like uh you were telling him about how you're coaching yourself which is another like mind-blowing thing to me yeah because i i did a

two coaches because you reached out to two coaches and then they're like yeah no you you can't do classic they're like you don't have the shape for it yeah right yeah they said that i don't have the shape for it

And then he's like, well, you won.

Yeah,

something's there, you know?

Oh, that's fucking sick.

I want to know who these coaches are to drop the names, bro.

No.

No, no, no.

I'm not, I'm not.

Yeah,

I will never speak ill about anyone.

So, I mean, that did happen, but I don't.

Except for Alex Eubanks.

I don't need, I mean, Alex Eubanks, it's,

I don't know him personally, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just kidding.

I'm just teasing around.

But, um, yeah, yeah, he's not on TRT.

But, anyways.

I feel like probably like 10% of people actually believe he's probably just on TRT, but you know, I don't know.

He's on the dead side.

If I was him, I would probably do TRT and then like add like another like 100 milligrams, maybe.

No, no, he's on the dead side.

He's on the dead side.

The dead cycle.

500 tests and five units of GH.

Okay, all right.

Well, since we're talking about your cycle anyways,

okay, first off, I'm a little bit mind-blown, but I guess I want to address my question first.

Did you not feel like absolute dog shit from like no remotization from literally just crashing your estrogen on Mastron without test?

Like I understand in the beginning, you know, your test is wearing off, so you probably don't feel the effects within the first week, maybe the second, but like by the time you're at Alabama, I feel like you just, I don't know, bones are dry, hot flesh,

I'm gonna even tell you that I was using aromacin the whole time.

What?

Yeah,

I didn't, I didn't want any, I didn't want any estrogen in my body, but at the same time,

my body always retains a little bit, like at the like, obviously less than the range,

but still enough to like keep me going.

I personally did not feel like shit.

I didn't, um,

I think the biggest problem I had with this prep

was the sleep.

That was my biggest problem.

I was okay with the diet and I was, again, like coaching myself, I was eating 1,800 calories a day because I didn't even want to eat too much food.

Like, I don't want to go back to those fucking bodybuilding habits.

Like, I'm fully, I was fully done with all this shit, you know?

Yeah, plus, you had to size down a little bit, anyways, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So, uh, and I'm not the type that goes flat, like even back then, it's very difficult for me to go fully flat.

Uh, but this time I really wanted to.

So, and I had to make weight.

So, a thousand eight hundred calories was working well for me.

Obviously, the last few weeks I was getting a little hungrier when I increased my cardio,

but I didn't really feel like shit.

Only it was only the sleep that was killing me.

Like no sleep at all.

But my doctor for the last

so one week before Toronto, and then

I took a break for four days.

And then the 10 days leading up to Alabama, I was on Valmoon.

But only five

milligrams a night,

which is the lowest dose.

Valium is fire, though.

Yeah, that

really helped me sleep.

Shit's gas.

Yeah, and then I,

every time before the weigh-ins,

what really killed that, that I would say really killed me was that I had to make weight.

So I remember waking up the night, like the morning of my flight, and I was two pounds over my weight cap.

And what was that?

What number?

187.

Okay.

I was like, fuck.

So I didn't eat anything for almost 24 hours.

Like no food.

That was bad.

Like at the airport, I was like dragging my feet.

I was just like so sleepy, lethargic, like just no energy to even push my bags.

Yeah.

And

that was the only bad part.

But the second, and I finally flattened out after doing that.

Nice.

And then I weighed myself.

I was three pounds under the weight.

Damn.

Yeah.

How did you just dry yourself out?

Oh, it's there.

How did you dry yourself out?

Did you use any diuretics or was it

eating?

I just stopped eating.

Okay, what about water?

I was sipping a little bit, not sipping a little bit.

Okay.

Yeah.

Compared to how much do you usually

drink a lot of water a day.

I drink about two to three liters.

Okay.

So maybe I drank like one liter that day.

Damn.

Okay.

So

yeah, by the time I arrived with all the walking and all that stuff through the airport and all that, I was like three, three pounds under.

And in Toronto, I had two days to carve up, which is amazing.

But then in Alabama, my weigh-ins was at four.

But what was different in Alabama was that I was at my weight

before the flight.

Like before the night of the flight, I was at my weight.

So I knew I was going to sleep.

I was was gonna wake up a little bit under.

So, I started carving up

at the airport.

I remember my first meal, it's in the vlog that I posted on my channel.

Uh, I posted the whole journey start to finish, and the carb up, the first meal was at the airport.

Okay,

yeah,

and I had one day to carve up, but it was like perfect.

I carved up with um, like barely any protein, um, and dry carbs, so like white rice, uh honey mustard sauce and frosted flakes like nice the cereal yeah yeah tons of flakes half half the big box half of it

and uh what else and caramelized rice cakes

fire those guys i have i think i have like at least 800 grams of carbs that that day

yeah

I would, if I was to make a choice, if I was to coach myself, I'd probably prep, I'd probably uh carb up with hardly any protein too.

Sometimes I feel like some of the coaches put a little, yeah.

So, the protein slows down the digesting, right?

And it's like it's almost useless.

Like, what do you're not going to build muscle a day before your show?

So, you don't want anything that kind of slows the carb absorption down.

But this, this only works if you're flat,

and most people aren't, to be honest.

Most people are not that dry.

I was, I was

French-fried crispy, bro.

Yeah, I mean,

I think I've talked about this a little bit, but it's like whenever you're

the less compounds, the less food, the less everything that you're feeding yourself, everything that you're putting to your body, if you're going into a prep just to suck it down,

normally the more stringy you get, right?

I mean, there's some exceptions if you're like pushing it way too hard and then I think trying to fill back out too fast.

Like maybe like Ramon, there's some some exceptions where like the

peak just gets more and more risky, I think.

But when you're doing something like you, yeah, but if you're doing something like you or like Larry Wheels or like,

I don't know, what I've seen is

it just, it's like if you see those really, really

advanced professional natural bodybuilders like in the WNBF World Championships, you normally see more detail on their muscle bellies than you know, us PED dudes, especially the open bodybuilders.

Do we, though?

I don't really watch much of them, so I wouldn't really, I wouldn't really know.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember who I talked about this last, if it was Wesley Visors or who, but basically, like, you know, as you fill out more and more, if you, as you take more

PEDs in general, any...

Yeah, you definitely hold more water.

You hold more water in the muscle, right?

Yeah.

But as that muscle expands, it's like, dude, think about a balloon well i guess think about like some there will always be subcutaneous water when you're holding water

and it they will it will always be there it will always be there between like the brachialis and the biceps

the the the the fibers in your chest the glutes

it'll always be there so sometimes if you're really looking to gain that crispy look it's one of the reasons why i dropped test and gh

test still holds water yeah and I just wanted as least as little as possible in my system of anything that can hold water plus I was taking the aroma sim to like fully just destroy my estrogen

I still don't know how you didn't fucking want to kill yourself on literally negative estrogen no bro

it was fine and like i gotta admit man like this prep was

was like honestly the most comfortable.

The most comfortable.

Crazy.

Most comfortable, bro.

Even though I was like trying to make weight and everything, but the whole process, I think, was just way more comfortable.

I don't know if it's like other

coaches and their extreme measures.

Cause like other coaches, they're thinking, I want to do anything so my client wins.

So I can promote my business.

And you don't really have much of a say.

And then if you're not doing what the coach says, there's that psychological aspect

where you feel you're not doing what you're supposed to and believe it or not that will translate onto your body your negative thoughts will manifest itself and you will look worse and it could be because of the uh cortisol could be because of your stress levels going up this time bro i had no one to report to except the mirror and the pictures I'd make the decisions.

I'd be like, no, I'm not eating that.

And I'd test with cheat meals.

So I'd have a cheat meal meal once a week and then someday i remember two weeks before the show i decided to have a cheat day

just to see how that would look

the next day so like every junk food the whole day whole day

and then worst thing ever right i woke up eight pounds heavier and i was like

what the did i do

And then, but again, like, I'm accountable.

I'm the one who made that decision.

And like, now I know.

so fucking that day zero carbs back to 30 minutes cardio instead of 20 minutes of stare and I did that for stress yeah and I did that for like two three days and the weight went down again but it felt good because it's like those are my decisions and I am seeing the results live and I am getting to know more

than I already do how my body reacts to what.

Like let's say I was with a coach, I'd be like, I want to try having a full cheat meal a day.

He'd be like, fuck no, bro, You crazy?

Yeah.

But

I wanted to see, like, I wanted to try different things.

And there were some times where instead of having a cheat meal, I would have like a high-carb clean day.

You know, and I just didn't like, I didn't like the result after, or the result for me wasn't really worth not having a cheat.

I was like, oh, fuck that.

I got to have my Big Mac.

I'm having my fucking Big Mac.

It's not that much of a difference.

I'll keep the Big Mac.

That's fucking awesome.

Damn.

Wow.

And then here I am with fucking P-Tor wants me to eat fucking straight egg white rice protein.

You don't need to do that.

You don't need to fucking

fucking crazy.

This is crazy shit, man.

Yeah.

It's tough.

It's tough, man.

I can tell you that.

But I have the ninja creamy, though, so it makes things a little bit easier.

Whenever I get a protein shake, I just make a little ice cream out of it instead.

Or the yogurt.

The yogurt's good too.

The yogurt?

What what yogurt so i i do this thing where uh if i'm having cravings i have uh zero zero percent greek yogurt

and what i do is i add stevia

okay and then i add hazelnut droplets that you're supposed to use in coffee

and then you mix that

and then when you do and then you eat the greek yogurt i want you to think of me and pray good things for me.

Because that will be the best gin you'll ever have with very little calories.

okay

all right i'll i'll definitely i'll try that out i need to get myself some lactose free greek yogurt though yeah lactose free high protein um greek yogurt zero percent fat no barely no carbs you just add uh stevia and the droplets the hazelnut droplets and you mix it very well it's going to be a little bit less thick and oh my god tastes amazing that's the shit i used to do in college all the time and it's like one cup and three quarters is like 100 calories and high protein.

Okay, so, all right, I guess

just so

I feel like the audience is going to have a lot of questions from

this cycle and the shit that we talked about in the beginning.

So I think just for the sake of them and diving into it deeper.

Have you always felt like have you always felt like you were like a like a high aromatizer or like that you didn't require like you didn't really have problems with low estrogen?

Medium.

A medium aromatizer.

Okay.

Medium.

So you've never have you ever felt like you had estriodol, like low estradole symptoms or problems in the past?

No.

Hmm.

Okay.

Even if you're like, even if your coaches in the past would like slam AIs

before like peak week right before the show, drop your tests and everything, you wouldn't really feel any issues.

No, uh, no one ever dropped my test.

I'm I'm the first one to drop my test.

All my

yeah, all my previous coaches, we ran test, we ran fucking everything till the end of the show.

Like, I would have to shoot

extra of all the compounds before my flight.

Damn, bro.

Honestly, considering how like crisp you looked in some of your 212 pictures back then, that's kind of insane.

Yeah, can you imagine?

Yeah.

I'm curious how much you would have flattened out though, I guess.

How much you feel like you would have lost?

I think so.

I'd probably look better because I think, bro, I was like, in my, I was like 30 or 31 years old.

I still bet you would have lost like a little bit of size, though, and knowing like 212.

Knowing bodybuilding, they do prioritize size over

conditioning and aesthetics.

Yeah, that's true.

But for classic, I totally agree with you.

Like, this is something that I wanted to do for my own classic shows, too, but I'm not even in the place where I can afford to.

I still have a lot of muscle to gain.

Um, but I do feel like kind of like the thing that Chris Bumps said had to shrink down a bit for his

weight cap as well.

And I just feel like that's when he did that switch, he gained like 15 pounds for the open.

Oh, that was nuts.

Yeah,

yeah.

Was it 15 or was it like eight or something?

I don't know.

But

he played seconds to Fritz Water.

To Fitzwater, yeah.

That was pretty sick.

Yeah, I...

Wow.

Well,

so what did you do on your

off-season-ish, I guess, leading up to starting prep for the show?

I had no off-season.

You didn't have an off-season?

There was no off-season.

You doing the 500 test training like that?

There was 500 tests for summer to look good on Instagram.

Nice.

There was that.

There was was nothing else.

There was two, three units of GH or two units of GH, so I could eat my Big Macs and not get fat.

And then when my son told me he wanted to see me compete, that's when I was like, oh,

yet, I gotta go.

So I gotta diet right away, I guess.

And see what happens.

How did your son react?

I'll send you the clip and you can post it.

It went viral.

It went viral on Instagram.

No way, really?

How did I not see this?

It was crazy.

You didn't see when I went up on stage and then you hear a kid in the audience yelling, Go, Dad.

Oh, fuck.

I'll send it to you.

I'll send it.

Post it in the beginning of the video.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

All right.

All right.

Yeah, editors, if you listen to this, if you could definitely do that.

Yeah, like open the video with DocFlip.

It'll get a shit ton of views.

That's fucking sick.

How does he feel feel right now?

Your son just like, is he proud?

Bro, you'll see it.

Like, yeah, you'll see it, though.

Like, he's very, very happy, very proud.

And it's honestly good for him, too, to

have a lesson in

it.

I wouldn't even say believing in your dream.

Because I really didn't think I'm going to go to, I'm going to see the Olympia stage ever again.

But I still went for

Regardless of how defeated I felt as a guy who's almost 40, changing divisions, having to shrink my waist, having to change my structure.

I stopped training chest completely because that was giving me a very off look towards bodybuilding and my genetics and chest just like it fucking explodes.

I stopped training chest,

practicing vacuum.

I did legs every third day to balance the physique.

I had to practice a new way to pose.

And then I'm going against guys who are in their 20s and early 30s.

And I'm fucking close to 40.

I haven't competed in so many years.

Yeah, who was the guy who got second place to you again?

I don't remember.

Who was the guy who got second place to you when you won your

Olympia home?

It was Tom.

Yeah.

The dude with a big ass chest and massive lats, right?

Yeah, massive lats.

Very strong V-taper.

And

yeah, like I knew him.

That guy's physique is nuts, bro.

I've seen him compete in a bunch of shows, and I always think he's going to win, and he doesn't.

Which

he went second three times.

That sucks.

So even in my head, I was like, yeah, no way I'm beating these guys, you know?

So,

but I still, I really felt defeated

going back and competing, but I just went for it.

Like, I really gave it everything.

I gave it

defeated before the first show this season?

Just defeated as a, as a, honestly, bro, defeated as a human being.

Like, my social media was going down.

I'm, you know, kind of washed, washed off.

Like, I'm, I'm, you know,

every, every career kind of has its peak.

Yeah.

I felt like I was past my, my prime, way past my prime.

And I'm just like holding on to crumbs, you know, trying to post my Ferrari and like get views with that.

And just like, you know,

this whole thing honestly really felt like divine intervention.

And I had a few dreams like before this whole thing happened.

And I went on chat GPT and I was like, interpret these dreams for me.

And I had it interpreted in all three major religions, like Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and as well as

Native American and Chinese culture.

And they all said the same thing: that these dreams are interpreted as me going through a purification and a rebirth.

And it's really funny because before going to Alabama, I usually shave all my

beard off before

the show, right?

So my barber, just to fuck around and

we're laughing, he left the stash.

And then I looked in the mirror and then I looked at him.

And first of all, I didn't recognize myself.

Like, I really look very different.

Yeah.

And then he was like, we're fucking keeping this.

And, and, you know, it really felt like, it really did feel like a rebirth, like, just all over again.

I've never looked this good.

Well, maybe in 212, but

I still feel like

a drier package on my own.

Yeah, for sure.

And

this time I'm very motivated for the Olympia.

Like, I know I'm going to get smoked.

I know I'm not, I'm probably going to get last call out,

but I'm still very motivated to do it.

The first time I did Olympia, it was my fifth show in a span of one year.

And I was going through personal problems

with my girl back then, and it was just so unmotivating.

And I remember the feeling, I was just like, Let me just get this over with, film a couple of fucking vlogs for my YouTube so I can just go home and stop.

Like, I'm

done,

and it was sad because, like, you dream of going to the Olympia your whole life, but then the first time, like, it was almost like I just didn't even want to do it.

I was so tired.

This time, bro, fuck.

I was training.

Like, I went back legs Monday morning,

Monday morning, legs, legs and fucking motivated a shit.

And it's like, I really feel like God is giving me a second chance.

Like, let's start this whole thing all over again.

Yeah.

There's a beautiful thing, that drive and the man and the man's mental health, to be honest.

Something that I felt.

I feel like we all feel this, honestly, in.

different times of our life, but I mean, like sometimes you're driven and sometimes you go, go, go.

And sometimes you just have one of those periods where you're just like dude i feel like i don't have anything in me that i was really i was really feeling that bro like i felt i felt buried yeah you know

but then you realize you weren't buried god was just planting you in a better soil

yeah

yeah

i'm branding this uh i'm branding this combo that we're having right now in me right now because i'm gonna need to remind myself of this later later, to be honest.

Yeah, man, you'd be surprised how God works in mysterious ways.

Really?

Because, like, I'm telling you, bro, I really felt defeated.

Like, I thought I'm done.

And, like, just like that, overnight, God was like, nope, all over again.

You're in your prime right now.

Here we go.

That's fucking sick, man.

I feel like it's also such a great example, though.

Like, I keep worrying myself.

And, like, I know it's silly for me to even say this.

Like, I'm still in my 20s, but

I think,

you know, I started on social media, right?

Like, I always loved bodybuilding since I was a kid.

And I started competing when I was 20, before I, before,

like, my, my 21st birthday, my girlfriend at the time, her gift was this big box of like peak week snacks and like supplies.

Like, I got a birthday cake-flavored protein bar and like shit.

That was, like, my 21st birthday.

So I didn't end up drinking until, I don't know if it was like when I was 22 or something and then I went a little crazy again but um

uh bodybuilding was always such a big passion before I even had any like followers but um

how I grew was just social media being shredded and shit and it had nothing to do with me competing and

now I'm like this age So many years later, so many years later, and there's kids that are 10 years younger than me that are popping off on social media now.

Yeah, I see.

And it happens.

Like anyone that goes into social media, I can promise you, if you're doing something right now, like if you are growing, but you are working every week to the point where you feel like you're hardly getting any sleep and you don't have free time, that's not going to last.

It normally ends up burning out.

And the best way is to find a sustainable start that you know you can keep doing.

Because if you can't keep doing it,

the audience that views your stuff, that's expecting the same rate is going to start to drop off when you start to drop off.

The key is consistency.

The key is consistency from the beginning.

Yeah, from the beginning.

So find something that you're able to do every day.

That's so fucking hard, bro, because in order for people to make it these days, they got to give everything they got in the beginning.

Like they're like, no, like fucking

less free time.

Like I'm focusing all on this content.

Like I'm focusing all on this grind.

Think of Sam Sullek, who literally posted every single training day, even some of his rest days.

Yeah.

Every single time, a whole YouTube video.

And people were just like, How the fuck is he gonna upkeep this?

But bro kept doing it, man.

But like, that's him, you know?

Like, I would not be able to do that.

I can't post a video every freaking.

Well, it's kind of like Greg DeSet posting two videos a day.

I can't do that.

I can't do that.

Yeah, I can't do that either.

It's crazy, bro.

I can't even hire the people to do that right now.

Like, I barely fucking hired a shorts guy.

Yeah.

And

he's doing

a no-kid job.

But, anyways, yeah.

I get that feeling.

So, it's like coming back to bodybuilding now, it's almost like, damn, I'm looking at some of these guys that are not that much older than me.

Chris Bumstead, who already retired.

But

you have to see it from a different perspective.

So, like, let's say, let's take a guy like Chris Bumstead, right?

He's what, 30 years old now, 31?

I don't know.

30, I think.

I think he's 30.

Okay, 30.

You've done everything in life

at 30.

You've finished it.

You have finished life.

You found the love of your life.

You have children.

You're a multi-millionaire.

You're set for life financially.

You can buy and do anything you want.

And

this is the

romantic and the materialistic part, which is like the two biggest things.

But then you have on the passion side, you've also finished that.

So you've also finished your mission

as a man and your purpose of wanting to of winning the Olympias at six times.

At 30, you have finished everything.

You finished the game and you've done the side quest.

What do you do now?

I personally think that it is not as good as what it seems from the outside.

Because even at one point,

a couple of years ago,

I was making six figures a month.

I know, I think that was 2021.

I was making six figures a month.

Bro, that shit gets weird.

Like, okay, I've done the Olympia.

I don't want to do it again.

I'm making a shit ton of money.

All right, I bought myself a Lambo.

I bought myself a big house.

Okay, what do I do now?

Go on a bunch of dates.

And you just get really bored.

So I, and this is like on a small, a way smaller scale than Chris.

This is this guy who's like finished everything.

Everything.

You know?

So where do you go from there?

Where do you get your dopamine from?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is something

I hate to, man, I hate to say what I'm about to say because

I also understand the other place where,

you know, I'm in a position where I haven't had any money before.

And there's a lot of people out there that literally just want to be able to have a living to get by.

So

for sure.

That is always going to be first.

But when it comes to mental health of celebrities or people that have achieved so much and all these things, I'm trying to remember the doctor that was just having this conversation.

Because I think, didn't Will Smith say something very similar to what Jim Carrey said as well, to what Matthew Perry, who passed away, said?

They all said the same thing, where there is like

the top peak is exactly the same as the bottom peak,

where when you have everything,

fame and money and fortune, like everything,

they all said it's almost as bad as having nothing at all.

Because

there is nothing, you need to feel something.

When you're really poor and when you're really down and when you're really broken, The pain comes from you, you want to feel some kind of anything.

You just want to feel good.

You want to feel any kind of like good news, anything, you know, that gives you a little bit of spark.

When you're really up there and you felt already everything,

you're still in the same place where there's nothing to feel anymore.

You've already slept with a thousand different women.

You've already, you know, I have all the fame in the world.

I think that the next

chapter in that, which I think is what Chris is on, is basically family and interpersonal relationships relationships and human connection.

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If we're not, if we're not referencing resources, then and we're just discussing mental state and how you feel,

not considering like your health and what money is required to upkeep that, then yeah, I would say it's about the same because what we feel is either the rise where we're progressing, whether there's dopamine there, or the fall where it's receding and we don't feel that and it's getting bad.

But health is number one at the end of the day, regardless of anything.

Yeah, health is number one at the end of the day.

So, but

like you were saying, I think,

all right, so what I was referencing earlier is that doctor is a

therapist for,

he's been this amazing mental health therapist and also,

man, I hope that's the right therapist, and doctor focusing on brain health for over the last 40 years with hundreds of clients, many that are famous, many celebrities as well.

Um, so he does

probably a scientist in psychiatry, and he stated that all his clients, um, I think it was Chris Williamson who asked him, if you wanted to tell the world anything that they don't know about celebrities,

what would it be for you clients, what would it be?

And he said that many celebrities tend to be

tend to have

they tend to have the least dopamine

because they've kind of already spent it, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

And

it's a bit relative from your previous

kind of adaptation.

I said exactly that in my contest vlog.

After when I was having,

got dressed and went to dinner and I'm eating my

meal, like my, you know, break from the diet meal,

I felt peak happiness.

And I, and I said, no Ferrari or house or income has ever compared to this feeling.

The materialistic stuff gives you dopamine that lasts maybe a month, two months, three months.

You do renovations in your home.

Okay, you buy yourself another few months.

You change your car, okay, you buy yourself another two months, but then it's the same feeling like you if i replace my car with a better one i'm gonna feel the same thing that i felt when i got the the the car the first time but it's the the the the duration of that feeling is actually going to be less and it's going to continue to be less and less and less and less so let's say if i if i become a billionaire and i and i you know buy my dream car a la ferrari which is five million dollars

i'm going to feel the excitement the first two three months and and that's it and then i will not get i will not get any dopamine anymore from cars.

And then that's when you go to the next thing, which is why I have that thing back there.

What does it say?

That's a simulator.

That's a racing simulator.

Like, oh, no, not the light.

Talking about the whole rig over there.

Yeah, you're telling me about the racing

last podcast.

Because I love cars and I was like, I can't keep changing cars.

Like, that feeling isn't doing it anymore.

But then I took that passion into actual racing.

And I'm, bro, I got more fun out of this than driving the real car because I'm racing with other people online.

Fucking, we're talking, you're swearing, you're getting angry, there's all kinds of emotions.

Just

passing someone on the last lap, passing someone on the last lap gives me more dopamine than taking my car to downtown and everyone's like taking pictures.

I get more dopamine and adrenaline on the last lap live, where where the scores actually matter because it increases your license score to be able to drive other races passing that guy in that corner is just like dopamine shoots up adrenaline and let's talk yeah you know yeah yeah yeah yeah

yeah i agree i'd say the closure to just close out and conclude this though i i think something that i always like try to keep in mind for myself and i feel like could potentially help a lot of other people is that um in the end like there is no like like happiness is a weird measurement and i feel like the thing that really gives us the most stability and i don't know if the word is joy but is like finding us con yeah content i guess um you know finding that state of peace right peace yeah it's content being content and um

as a man though however i i think you know peace can be a little bit difficult to find throughout our journey because there's almost like this consistent drive that needs to be there in order to survive until we're i don't know retired the age of 70 testosterone drops And during this period of time, it's like what brings us a lot of joy is work, is, is, is, is,

is purpose, is growing and protecting our family, what we have.

And I think that's just something that we focus on.

And then we also focus on

hopefully at some point.

Hopefully at some point it just clicks in when we're old enough and it's like, okay, we're good.

Now we can just have peace and just like freaking go on walks with our old 70 year old spouse and daughter or something.

Whatever it is.

Yeah.

So we'll find the join the little things.

Right, right, right.

That, and I, and then the other thing I was going to mention is community also.

I think community is a lot of fun.

Yeah, community and a sense of, a sense of belonging.

Right, which is what I love about the bodybuilding industry and just being in it is it's so much fun to be able to talk about this shit that we love with each other, with podcasts, with these audience.

It's cool.

And imagine if you're 70 and you know you're feeling alone you you know you go your community and you all go on a dad cycle

yeah

i'll take you up on that in 50 years yeah just do it

um

so when you were uh

When you started prep, I remember we were discussing like trying to shrink your waist and shrink your entire body down.

What were the things that you did personally to focus on shrinking your waist?

I just did a lot of vacuum posing.

That's it.

Okay.

I didn't have,

I didn't, I kept my calories low, so my food was low.

Yeah, that definitely helps a lot for sure, too.

Over time, like your stomach shrinks.

Yep.

And I try and avoid anything that makes me gassy.

Okay, what does so fucking ice cream, bro, that I love.

But like even when I cheated, yeah, even when I cheated,

my body can handle chocolate, like chocolate bars, Snickers, and Kit Kats and things like that.

And

I'd have a digestive enzyme, but I noticed even with a digestive enzyme, my body does not handle ice cream.

Like it takes me fucking hours

to digest that shit.

Like it just fucking laughs in there four or five hours and it's not going.

So one of the things that I did was like I had to cut anything that kind of kept me full for a long time.

That makes a lot of sense.

And you did not experiment with like Reddit Shoe Tit or Zebati or any of these GLPs?

It's funny you say that.

I was thinking of doing that now

because my craving is just out of this world.

But so far today was the first day that I've had everything under control.

I've had my basic breakfast.

I didn't have anything extra.

Didn't have any protein bars extra.

Didn't have, I had my my post-workout shake with no carbs.

I'm going to have a regular meal now.

And I think I'm slowly getting it under control because now I'm very motivated to the Olympia.

And

I want to do really well.

I think the thing that I'm going to do different for my waist is I'm actually going to start wearing a waist trainer alongside with morning cardio for one hour.

So I have to buy a treadmill this week that I'm going to put in my bedroom.

The second I wake up, I put the waist trainer on.

I hop on the treadmill.

I do one hour and then I'll keep the waist trainer on throughout the whole day.

And the goal for the waist trainer is not as what most people think, where it's like compressing your organs.

What it really does is it gives a dependence of your abdominal muscles for the waist trainer.

So, what happens, or what you're really looking for, is muscle atrophy in your obliques and in your midsection.

And that's exactly my goal.

That's what I want to do.

I did not does the so the waist trainer doesn't act on the same muscles that are required for you to vacuum.

Well, the waist trainer basically makes your abdominal muscles kind of rely on it.

So you stop using it as much.

And then you kind of try and atrophy your obliques.

The vacuum is like something, it's kind of different.

You're not really,

you're not.

building your muscle.

I think what you're doing is you're controlling its ability to contract at a further depth yeah so you and and again with with the with the vacuum like it takes practice because you have to hold your breath right yeah

so like i remember when i started doing vacuums this season and i haven't i've never done that for 212 but when i started doing it for um for a classic i couldn't hold i couldn't hold that for more than like five five eight seconds eight seconds is probably better than me bro yeah but then by the end of the prep before the show, I was like doing 15 seconds, 20 seconds,

holding my breath, not breathing, and staying like 20 seconds is nuts.

I'd say, yeah, yeah, if I really like, if I focus, I can hold this for 20 seconds.

Maybe 15.

Like the kind of like hands on your knees type shit.

No, no, no.

I'm talking front double biceps with a vacuum.

20 seconds, that's fucking insane.

15.

Let's say 15.

I don't want to exaggerate.

I'd say 15.

Okay.

but then i'd have to learn

how am i gonna breathe out because after the 15 seconds i'm just like fuck and then i'm like

you know and then the stomach just kind of pops out so i've learned a trick for me that after like i'm posing and then after i breathe in the next pose is side chest So what I do is

I do like that, immediately showing my triceps, but I'm hiding my midsection.

Okay.

And then I take a breather and then I pose the side chest.

So my transition hides my breathing out.

Is that for your routine only?

No, that's for the posing and pre-judging and everything.

Wait, so how

we have front double biceps first.

And then right after that is side chest.

Fucking vacuum for as long as you can.

And then you just hold it.

You just hold it.

So I'm like that.

And then side chest, I immediately go

like fucking show my lats, flex my triceps, and then adjust my midsection.

Like I breathe out, but my arm is hiding my distension.

Yeah, I gotcha.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

And then in the side chest, I'm able to breathe a little bit in the side chest.

And then the back double biceps, I just fucking.

throw my stomach out.

I'm just like,

like trying to catch as much air as possible for the abdominal and thighs, that's after.

Gotcha.

Okay, makes sense.

So, I have to practice all that, and I had to come up with uh techniques.

Like, oh, what am I going to do on stage?

I can't, I can't hold that shit that that long.

I'm not used to this, so I have to come up with different strategies.

Yeah, that makes sense.

All right, I save that in my notes so I can copy that and practice that for the next uh two months.

Yeah, um,

uh, how many calories were you consuming in the beginning of the prep?

A thousand.

Beginning of the prep, so I went as low as 1,750.

And I would say that was my average the entire time.

I started off maybe 2,000.

No, no, you know what?

No, because I remember I got into it right away.

I got into the diet plan right away.

I created a diet plan for me and I stuck with the same shit the whole time.

The same shit.

Same shit the whole time, bro.

You never adjusted it.

You never

only think I adjusted was increasing my protein and and lowering my carbs.

Okay.

Gotcha.

And

people don't, people who say it only matter, your macros only matter, that is very wrong information.

Oh, yeah.

Because

protein burns more calories to digest.

So when you lower your carbs and increase your protein, okay, fine.

Your calories are the same, but you will burn more calories because protein's thermogenic effect on the body takes more energy to burn.

Yeah,

so that's the only thing that I did, but I was stable at 1800 the whole time.

That's insane.

I'm surprised you were able to do that that low the entire time.

Oh, I didn't fucking suck, bro.

Like, worst case scenario, I'd have another extra 150 calories from yogurt, the yogurt mix.

And I also have this trick where I do decaf coffee and I make it taste really good.

Like I use certain syrups that I found on Amazon and I have like two decafs aside from my main cup of coffee in the morning.

And bro, they're so good.

They, they, they, they taste like fucking, you know, like an actual drink that you're getting at some Starbucks or something.

I'm gonna start doing that.

My girl's a caffeine, a coffee, a caffeine.

My girl's a coffee connoisseur.

Connoisseur.

Yeah, I'll so with the drink is basically

you get the uh you get a zero cal, like a five calorie creamer.

I usually do the uh coffee mate, it has 10 calories.

I do that, and I use a certain syrup that I found on Amazon.

I'll send you, I'll send you a picture of it,

and uh, I do the hazelnut drops too, so I add a lot of sweeteners in there.

Yeah,

but it

sorry, sorry, but you what?

Oh, that's it.

I just add a lot of sweeteners in there, and it tastes fucking amazing.

And it's filling too.

Did you ever have high carb days at all?

Like high carb days for your leg days?

Because you want to make it?

No, I just have my cheat meal day.

Okay.

And I have one cheat meal.

And on that day, I will increase my carbs a little bit.

Okay.

Is that your leg day?

It's Saturday.

Whatever the, whatever.

I try and make it leg day.

Okay.

Yeah.

And if it's not leg day, I'll do legs the day before.

Like at least before it or the same day.

All right.

Gotcha.

Just food for thought thought because, I mean, you're already doing amazing, of course.

But I know you said you wanted to bring up your legs as well

to even improve your proportions further.

What Patrick is doing with me right now is it's an insane carb cycle because I'm fucking starving on the days that aren't high now.

But my leg days twice a week are 550 grams of carbs.

And then my rest days are 130 carbs.

And then

45 minutes of cardio.

And my normal training days are about 200.

But it's like up here and then it fucking drops to like a quarter right it's and um quarter to a third and uh what i've noticed though is like my upper body has flattened out but my legs have stayed really full and they look big and it's crazy because i've never ever seen it to where i almost feel like my proportions are like

i almost feel like my legs are bigger than my that's a good thing and i'll tell you why it's a good thing rather than it what it used to be in the opposite my legs used to be way bigger because in classic

well, even in bodybuilding, you get to pump your upper body backstage.

Yeah, but not your legs.

You can't pump your legs.

And I've learned that so that it's funny because in Toronto Pro,

I barely pumped my upper body.

Like, literally five minutes.

Five minutes, I've done maybe four sets.

What was that?

I did push-ups twice, and I did rear delts twice, and one set of tricep extensions.

That's it.

Didn't even do this.

Didn't even pump my biceps.

Your screen disappeared, by the way, for a second.

Oh.

Okay.

Now we're good.

Yeah.

So I didn't even

pump up for five minutes.

I didn't have time.

They just came and announced classic typical.

I was like, what the fuck?

Really?

I just asked you like five minutes ago.

You said I have 30 minutes.

So in alabama uh i stopped training upper body um uh

two

two days before toronto pro but then after toronto pro i didn't train upper body at all i just did legs every second day crazy believe it or not every third day believe it or not i felt like my legs did improve because like all the food that i ate for two days all went to my legs legs my upper body flattened a little bit but then backstage at alabama I fucking pumped for like fucking 40 minutes.

That's insane.

Full workout.

Did the blood not the blood not leave?

Full workout.

And it

what?

How did you retain that pump for so long?

Normally, I feel like it goes away.

No, so you have to have rice cakes, not the caramelized ones, the regular rice cakes.

You can put the caramelized

caramelized ones.

You can use those, but you have to add peanut butter

on either rice cakes.

So, that's the trick.

So, when you had your last meal of

carbing, like let's say three hours before stage time,

you don't have any other meals.

What you have is rice cakes.

Like every 30 minutes, you'd have one or two,

and you add peanut butter.

The peanut butter really slows down the digestion of the carbs, and that's what keeps you full.

Okay, gotcha, yeah.

well um so i guess

man insane and you said you didn't do any diuretics at all either show this time i didn't do leading up to the show no what i did was i took half a diazide

uh after pre-judging with a cheat meal

okay

half a diazide that's it no i didn't take any diuretics the night before or the morning of.

I feel like after,

yeah, I feel like I would do it after pre-judging as well.

I always get so much water in the finals every day.

Just my body always gets way more water.

Half a diazide, but you have to eat right after pre-judging with the diazide.

Okay.

What happens?

Big meal.

Big meal.

Yeah.

How come?

Do you know why?

Fills you up and at the same time keeps you full.

So the fat from the, like I have five guys.

The fat slows down the digestion.

The carbs are very high, like fucking fries and ketchup, so much ketchup.

So it refeeds all that posing and all that pump and everything.

And the refeed will make you retain water.

But you have to do it, otherwise you're going to flatten out.

So you're in a position where it's like it's going to go bad either way.

You're either going to flatten out after pre-judging if you don't eat.

or you're going to spill.

So you take the spilling route, but then you have your first diuretic, which is half a diazide with that meal.

Now,

the diazide takes a few hours to peak.

So that's why you want to do it right after pre-judging.

You will probably be on stage

around five hours later after pre-judging.

Okay.

The diazide will start to peak three to four hours later.

So it synchronizes almost perfectly.

Okay, cool.

Gotcha.

A little bit of the gear, because I know some of the people want to ask about this too, because I think the cycle is just so fucking surprising coming from dad cycledura, who just told us all of his biggest, craziest cycles of the last few podcasts.

Yeah.

That is kind of mind-blowing.

I got to give you the benefit or give him the benefit of the doubt because I know for a fact what Larry Wheels did too is something he had to do to fucking shrink weight because what?

He had to lose like 50 pounds in the beginning and he still couldn't make weight.

You know, if i fucking take more mastron if i take if i take more wind stroll if i take more halo test and if i take more trend normally gets me a little bit heavier when i came off that shit right after my show i shrunk down three pounds i also flattened out but then i also became more i got more detail in my glutes and i remember um what's his name uh fucking

uh on food's podcast way way back though uh guy guy sister nino was talking about uh

if you get bigger and you just get bigger and you get more full and everything like when you're going like to 212 to open, for example, as your glutes get bigger, they tend to have less of the lines tend to be less pronounced.

I don't agree with that.

No, you don't think so?

Why not?

No, I don't think so.

Because

if anything, I am trying to build my glutes more so the lines can show more.

I don't know if building them will show more lines.

I think it's just conditioning, man.

I think it's just exactly.

But if you have the same condition,

bigger muscle, you will show more muscle fiber.

Okay, okay.

Here, maybe I'm saying it wrong.

So

it's not necessarily just building the muscle makes less striation.

It's

filling out the muscle more with gear and carbs.

Okay, so that's less striation.

That's what I mean.

Like if you're trying to be open versus classic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because like open, you know, you want to be as full as possible.

You want to be as round as big as possible.

Classic, not so much.

Classic is a little bit more tailored to conditioning at the moment.

You know, know, fucking look at Jose Ma.

Like, I bet if Jose Ma decided to be as full as possible on stage, he wouldn't.

He'd look ridiculous.

You'd look fucking massive, probably, but he wouldn't have all those insane lines he has everywhere as much as he does now.

So, um,

plus, I don't know, it also just makes sense.

Normally, your extremities are the ones that kind of, you know, get more toothpicky when you're not.

My calves, for example.

Yeah, my calves will have a ton too.

Yeah.

So So I guess when you were on your cycle, you did 650 of tests throughout the entire time.

It was

half an ML a day

for five times a week.

Okay.

Of sust of what?

Ananthate.

Ananthate.

Okay.

Is there any reason why you chose five times a week for an anthate?

Just for the hell of it?

I just wanted to split as much as possible.

Yeah.

Instead of taking like two shots and a half,

I wanted to

like small doses.

Aromatase is less.

Yep.

Yeah.

I'm the same way.

I inject every day regardless of what the compound is.

Yeah.

What about,

I guess, as you came closer to this show,

when you were cutting down, you said the master on you didn't pop in until a week or 10 days before Toronto Pro, the first show, right?

10 days before Toronto Pro, yeah.

So there wasn't any other compound, any other anabolic steroid that you were using at all?

It was just Clenn and then T3 on top of the test?

Clen T3 test, but when I dropped the test, I switched to Timasteron.

Wow.

Fucking nuts.

The last eight weeks I was using Provirin.

And then I stopped using it when I started Masteron.

I just felt it wasn't doing much except

helping increase free test in my bloodstream.

Okay.

By attaching, yeah, by attaching to the sex binding receptors.

Do you think, I mean, I guess just to try to make this make sense for me and the audience as well, because

I mean,

I believe this can be done.

Like, I've seen this, whenever people need a drink down, they just take less.

I mean, I've told people my older cycles, which are fucking ridiculous to even talk about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I don't care.

Just to play devil's advocate there are there were some comments that were just like saying that that was pretty standard,

but I think it was for open bodybuilding.

I'd say it was it was pretty standard.

That's the thing.

The only problem is that the other guys lie

so then people think that the cycles I did were crazy.

It's like, no, bro, like you don't have any idea.

You have no idea what the guys in 90s bodybuilding used to do, bro.

They used to

be three grams of tests.

Yeah, 90s was the craziest for sure.

Good old Chad Nichols cycles.

Yeah, three grams of tests.

Just tests.

So the cycles that I was running, bro, they're pretty standard.

And even when I talk to guys now

that do even fucking amateur shows, bro, they're running over a thousand milligrams a test.

They're doing trend, they're doing Winstroll, they're doing Masteron.

Yeah, a lot of the amateurs are doing the same amount as the pros right now.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

A lot of the coaches also just prescribe them the same.

It doesn't.

It doesn't, yeah.

I remember when I was in San Diego, before I was even doing anything, I knew a few coaches that were prescribing clients some insane cycles for their first time, like the first time being with a coach.

And I'd be like, it would be blowing my mind because I'm like, okay, first off, you know that how they react is not how they would react if this was their fifth cycle.

Exactly.

But, and then that's why I would just, I would see some of my homies going through a bunch of mental problems, a bunch of sleep problems to the point where they just like quit after the show was over.

They're just like, I don't want to do this anymore.

And in my head, I'm just like, well, I told them too, but I'm just like, I felt so mad because

I wish that the coaches cared a little bit more about the client to tailor the program less cookie-cutter to their experience.

Yeah, I don't know.

It happens with a lot of coaches.

They think that all their clients are going to react the same way to their protocols.

Yeah.

Or what worked with one client is going to work with this client.

And I've had those conversations before

where, you know, the coach would tell me, we're doing this.

And I'm like, I would say, I'm like, my body doesn't flatten out.

Like, I don't need that much food.

You know?

So, how much weight were you at the beginning of the prep before you started cutting?

I think my all-time high was like

208, 210.

okay 208 210 and you're about like five six and a half ish exactly that yeah five six

I was about to say because I'm five seven and a half and my weight cap is 197 10 pounds above yours so yeah

your

weight right 10 days before Toronto Pro when you switched to compounds you remember what it was yeah I do it was 193 193 yeah and I was freaking out from that remember I told you I had a full cheat day yeah it went to 197.

And I was like, what the fuck?

And then

after,

was that the show that you said two days before?

I had to not eat.

You had to not eat, right?

Because you were still

189.

Okay.

Yeah, I was 189.

Actually, I was the night before I was 190.

So I was like, fuck, my weigh-ins is tomorrow.

So I didn't have dinner.

I did not have dinner.

Slept, weighed myself, 189,

two pounds still over.

So I just continued not eating.

Oh, shit.

What time did you go to weigh-ins?

So here's the thing.

My flight was

six o'clock in the morning.

My weigh-ins was 4 p.m.

Okay.

Okay.

So by the time I got to weigh-ins, you're

three pounds under.

So I lost like five pounds throughout this whole thing.

Throughout the day, that's fucking sick.

I don't even know from where, really.

I can't answer that question.

I'm just telling you the numbers that I saw.

I don't know where those five pounds came from.

Like, I was really surprised because, like, in my head, the morning I was 189, so I was going to step on the scale barely.

And I even, I even,

yeah, like, I was, I was so worried.

I was thinking of telling the guy who was waiting me.

I was like, bro, please, like,

I'm right on the line.

And he's just like, step on the scale.

And I stepped on, I took all my clothes off, except my boxers, and I stepped on the scale.

And I was like, 180, 183, 184.

I was like, oh, and he just looked at me.

He's like, what are you talking about?

I'm like, no,

never mind.

Don't worry about it.

Yeah.

Sick.

Yeah.

Do you follow Larry Wheels at all?

Did you follow his journey when he was like first competing?

No.

No?

Okay.

Well,

unless you guys are both lying, which I don't believe, I believe both of you guys, uh,

I feel like this makes sense because you guys both shrunk down to do the show, and probably coincidentally, you guys also happened to do about the exact same cycle.

So, really, I didn't even know that, yeah.

Yeah, like he was what, like, one, he was like 290 pounds, and I think he had to get to 230 or 240 for his show.

Um,

so he ended up having to shrink, and

uh, freaking Ryan Benson, Team Zero Gravity coach, put him on a TRT level of test.

I don't know if that was 150 or 200 or whatever the fuck it was.

T3 and probably maybe T4 and then Clenn.

And that's it.

And then I think maybe some VAR in there too.

So it was basically your exact cycle without the VAR

with less test.

And

it just, it looks to me like, honestly, it sometimes

maybe it is a benefit to just try to grow above your show sometimes, as long as it's not too fucking insane.

Like,

I mean, now I'm thinking a little differently because, like, fuck, I'm looking at the Olympian guys because, like, and I'm thinking, how the fuck are these guys making weight?

Have you seen Mike Summerfield?

Yeah, he fucking looks huge.

What the fuck?

You know how tall?

He is that, bro.

What the fuck?

Yeah, it's kind of nuts.

How tall do you think he is?

He's he's probably an inch, an inch, an inch and a half taller than me.

Two inches at most.

If he's taller than you, then I don't even understand how he's making weight either.

He looks fucking massive, bro.

I feel like he looks like the biggest guy on there by far.

I know.

I know he is.

Yeah, it's fucking huge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not really sure either.

Maybe it's just bone structure.

Maybe.

Yeah.

I don't know.

but um

well i guess whatever maybe i'm wrong i don't know what it is but uh seeing some guys shrink down for the show though whenever i do see them shrink down it's kind of cool to watch that it's just like you got that muscle mass so at that point there's no point in you trying to fill out that that muscle until after your weigh-in

And like most of these gear compounds, you got to take before the weigh-in.

You know, you can't just take one gear when fucking, I don't know if some people would would slam anadroll like right after the weigh-in or something, but yeah, most people don't do that.

People don't do that.

Plus, I'm sure that would only create more risk into your peak, anyways.

So at that point, it's just like you can't take more gear or else you risk not making the weigh-in, and then it just destroys the whole facility.

Yeah, for sure.

So, um,

wow, fucking sick.

What were your uh food choices before we go to the QA?

Out of curiosity, uh, basically

a little bit.

Uh, what is that?

It's just an energy.

Is that what is it called?

Total War or something?

Yeah, it's Total War.

Yeah.

What

is that who you're with right now?

Isn't it?

It was awkward because

I mean, I signed with Raw

six months back.

Six months?

Yeah, six months ago.

And

I don't know if I should say this

on this interview, but

on this interview.

I'm trying to get back with Redcon 1.

You signed with Raw six months ago.

Yeah.

And now you want to go back with...

Oh, shit.

That's crazy.

How come?

i'm i'm never gonna ever say anything negative or any

but it just worked that much better with retcon one so i will i i i will talk very positively um

first of all i don't think there's any better pre-workout in the in the whole market um than retcon the the the total war yeah and that's like a standard thing like except for pump serum huge supplements even even

but i mean even even

even my girl uses retcon one and even when i was sponsored with my new company i was like oh you try this and she was like but i like redcon i like the pre-workout more nice by by retcon one and she's got a big wagon huh she got a big dump truck

uh

yeah i guess so yeah yeah sign me up give me your code i'll give it to lexi

and and they're also uh they're they're like they're they're they're cheaper like they're much more retcon one is much more affordable and it's crazy because the the distributors in the middle east had retcon's one retcon one's isolate tested

and it was exactly what was on the label so like even security-wise like security-wise everything the whole thing they had it tested because they weren't convinced like how are you getting the isolate

not as expensive as all the other brands.

So they had it tested and to their surprise, the label was exactly what was on the box.

So, even all my clients were like, bro, like, we don't, we, we want to keep using Redcon 1.

Is that okay?

And I was like, yeah,

plus, I just got along, I got along with the whole team with Redcon 1 better.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not stirring any drama or anything.

It is, it is what it is, but yeah, I mean,

as of now,

I am not with Redcon One, um, but I am trying to to, I mean, I still use their

pre-workouts, I still use a lot of their products, but I am trying to make that switch again.

Now, I don't know by the time this, this interview is out

if I'm gonna be with Redcon1 or not.

Two days for now.

I'm just playing, I'm just playing, it'll take a longer, it'll take a long time.

Yeah, it'll be awkward, but uh, but yeah,

that's what's going on.

Sorry, Ian.

Hopefully, none of you guys are listening to this podcast.

Who?

Who's Ian?

I'm just playing.

Oh, okay.

I don't even know if Ian's actually with Raw or not.

Valier?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, see, I mean,

I don't know either.

So that's what I mean.

Like, there was no,

I felt like it was just about C-bum.

There was no one else kind of, you know, the show.

Yeah.

Like, I never collaborated with any of these guys.

I don't know if they're even there.

I don't, you know, with Redcon 1, it was more like

I was the longest athlete with Redcon 1.

I lasted with them for five years.

And it's like, that's a long time.

Yeah, bro.

Yeah, I lasted five years.

I've never been with a company for five years.

Yeah, I was one of the longest.

I am the longest person who was ever with Redcon 1.

Wow.

And,

bro, let me tell you, like, honestly, they treat their athletes so well.

Amazing sense of community.

The communication is very easy.

They're very lenient with, like, let's say if you want to order extra products,

like they really take care of you.

You might as well just make this a Red Con one, you know, fucking advertisement right now.

I mean,

bro, I'm praying to,

I don't want to put that out there, but like,

as of now,

we're just, we I reached out

and I was like, it's like, it's like, it's like you break up with a girl and then you realize you made a mistake.

And it's like, hey, you know,

I'm kind of missing you.

And, you know, just want to have a conversation.

That's exactly what's happening now.

Damn.

Fuck.

Well,

I hope you get it, bro.

I'm happy.

Thanks, man.

Plus, they better, because they better have the new classic Olympian on there.

Otherwise, they're just taking away.

Yeah, that should be a good thing to wreck.

Yeah.

Well, I forgot what I was going to say already.

We're about to jump into the

Q ⁇ As.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, yeah.

You look so fucking shredded right now that your Adam's apple looks like it's a fucking knife.

Oh.

About the protrude out of your skin.

What do you think of the new look?

It's crazy, bro.

You kind of look like.

Porn star?

Yes.

80s porn star?

An Arab 80s porn star, exactly.

There was a comment.

There was some comment on my freaking podcast on

Daniel Fabaud's episode with me.

The comment was like, why do all your guests look like porn stars?

I just had a bunch of other, just had a bunch of the audience like replying, like, so

in my defense, I'm not copying anyone, it's an Arab thing,

yeah, like all Arab dads have mustaches.

All right, sure, whatever, dude.

In your defense, bro, no, I feel the same about uh, I was listening to Fuad's podcasts again, I always do, um, about uh

a few months ago and i don't remember if it was a recent one or an old one it probably wasn't no i think it was an old one man i think it was like a year or two years back or something and he was saying because of chris bumstead now he swears you see in all of these mullets and mustaches everywhere i don't have a mullet yeah you don't have a mullet but i did i had a mullet and a mustache and the thing is i kind of got

I didn't I didn't do it because of well I mean I think Chris looks awesome with his shit.

So, first off, maybe it was subconsciously influenced by Chris, but I didn't do it because of Chris.

It got famous before Chris.

He just is always on the trends.

He's always on the trends.

I think

it's a trendy trend.

Oh, you're copying this guy.

It's like, bro, the mustache was from fucking the movie, bro.

Like, whoa, we can't use mustaches because

classic competitors is using it.

Like, get the fuck out of here.

We'll do what I want.

I wonder if you would have said this before you got the mustache, before the barber shaved it.

I wonder if you would have been like, no, no, even me.

It was like the barber did it, and then we looked at each other, and he was like, you got to keep it.

This looks very different and cool.

And I was like, really?

Like, he's the one who actually convinced me.

And then when I kept it, which I wasn't like, I said, I'm going to go home and I'm going to re-evaluate this.

And I'm just my shave in the morning.

But then

I posted on my story and bro, all the fucking replies, like, holy shit, that looks amazing on you.

Nice Nice stash.

I got even a couple of chicks that were fucking telling me this looks really good on you.

I was like, oh, all right.

Well, in that case, I'm definitely keeping that.

Good thing your girl's not going to listen to this podcast.

All right.

All right.

Questions, questions.

Niall asks, what did you eat during prep?

Oh, my food.

Same thing, bro.

So

same thing for the whole time.

Breakfast was four whole eggs,

two pieces of toast.

I would switch sometimes white

and sometimes whole weed.

And I would

sometimes do a little bit of yogurt, but then by the end, I would stop that.

And then I have my coffee.

That was my breakfast the whole time.

Okay.

I go to the gym after my first meal.

My post-workout shake is 75 grams of whey isolate

and 10 grams of creatine.

Okay.

meal number three always the same 200 grams of white rice and 200 grams of extra lean ground beef or filet mignon

oh

yeah i have an arabic guy close to me a butcher and he he does all that shit for me do you decide what

do you just decide between those two based off of how what you want to eat

when i eat the filet mignon i'm way fuller Because it has so much more fat than lean ground beef, than super lean ground beef.

No, does it?

I don't think so, bro.

Yeah, yeah,

flemignon, but it's like a very especially compared to like very lean ground beef, like the 93.

Yeah, okay, yeah, I guess you're right, yeah.

So, if I'm feeling like super extra hungry and flat, I would have the flem mignon.

If it's like a normal okay day, I'd have the uh the ground beef, and then meal number

uh, so that's two, three, meal number four

would be at first it was 175 grams of white rice

with 170 grams or 150 grams of chicken breast.

But then by the last few weeks, I stopped the rice and it would be just

170 grams of chicken with a little bit of the Greek yogurt mix with cucumber.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And then the last meal was another 75 grams of whey isolate.

Okay.

That's it.

Every single day, that was the whole, that's it.

There was nothing else.

Gotcha.

Okay, cool.

Jacob Ramsey00 asks, best advice you could give to younger guys in the sport using PEDs?

19 to 23 years old?

19 to 23 years old using PEDs.

The best advice I would give is take things slow.

I was going to

take as much as you can.

No, I mean, in all, I mean, there is a, a,

I don't think anything less than the dad cycle is useful.

All right.

Very honest, bro.

Like, I got to agree with you there, though.

If you go on a cycle and you're taking less than 500 milligrams of tests, like, what are you doing?

Like, you can't really see much of a result and experiment and kind of know what your body likes and what it doesn't like.

So, the best advice is:

first thing is take things slow.

I do think that 500 milligrams of test is starting slow.

Start with one compound for for like the first eight weeks, add another compound eight weeks later, such as Anavar.

See how your body reacts to that.

And then

make it a long cycle.

Don't fucking do 12 weeks.

If you're going to start cycling, make use of your first cycle.

Go 20, 20 weeks and 20 to 25 weeks.

Yeah.

I hate to say this because I want to be that health proponent, right?

I want to be that podcast that talks about health and shit.

But I think the reality is if you're in bodybuilding, bodybuilding to compete and win, there's no short cycles.

No, guys, no short cycles.

Short cycles don't exist.

Yeah.

The purpose of the health phase is simply to regulate your blood work and make sure everything is

that was my next advice, which was possible.

Yeah, get blood work and check, guys, check your fucking estradiol.

Your estrogen, because a lot of you convert and you don't use AIs and you guys use stupid shit like Novidex or Provirin.

Provirin, you need an AI.

And the best AI is aromacin because it kills the receptors.

It doesn't occupy them or block them the way Aramidex does.

With Aramidex, you will experience a rebound.

You will not experience a rebound with aromasin, which is exomestained.

So switch to aromacin, get your blood work, make sure your estrogen is in range.

And yeah, that's my advice.

I realize I need to say a disclaimer because what I said last wasn't 1000% true.

If you're running some cycles like Anadrol and shit, that does need a timer.

Like, you can't run Anadrol year-round all the time.

Oh, you can't do that.

Yeah, there's certain

extra compounds on top.

I don't think I've run Anadrol except twice in my life.

Yeah.

I just mean if it's like a base growing phase, like if the base thing, like test and primo, for example, or test and mastron or test and EQ or test and NPP or whatever, any of these things, you can run it for the duration of your off-season for as long as your blood work is in a good place.

place correct until your blood work looks a little bit suspicious or anything which i know is a little bit hard for some people to determine if they're not very um highly knowledgeable about it right now but then maybe i should start talking more about like where blood work markers look too out of range that you need

so basically watch your humocrats

uh your your blood thickness basically

um

as long as those i think those are one of the most important things uh give blood every six weeks uh if you're on something like equipoise or one of those.

I have a pushback to that.

So what my doctor tells me to do is

you actually do not have to give blood until both the hematocrit and

until the hematocrit's above a certain range.

And I think I wrote it down in my notes.

Let me see if I can find it real quick.

And so some people...

Some people that measure rises at a different range.

So if you're someone who it doesn't rise very fast, even if you're on EQ, then you don't want to give blood before it's ready.

So, I'm the type that my mine rises.

Okay.

So, phlebotomy

is a must at Hebook Globin above 18, Hamatic Red above 55.

I need to see what the actual.

Let me see mine.

I sent it to Greg DeSet.

Greg.

Okay, there we go.

Greg.

Gregging my do set

I'm do setting my Greg

So yeah, my hemoglobin is 166 which was great hemoglobin is 166.

I wonder what measurements

I need to understand

how much did you say you said 100 hemoglobin above 18 18

Okay, so that's like

it's like 16

So my mine is 16.6.

Okay.

What are the units?

I'm not so

Himatic crate.

And what was the range?

Above 55, goodbye.

Okay, so I'm 50.

Nice.

Yeah.

Cool.

So yeah.

I mean, if you're slightly below that, I think it's okay.

But normally he says it's not a big problem.

If you are flying and traveling a lot, that's where it gets a little bit more important.

Exactly.

Yeah, because then you can clot while on a flight.

Yeah.

And then

I don't know.

The other values you guys should, I mean, people will learn over time, like, when is a good time.

If you have a coach, they'll normally be like, oh, this looks kind of bad, so we should take a health phase.

So, most coaches that are good.

Patrick does that.

Mr.

Latof Atala says, man, there's nothing, there's nothing to ask.

I just want to say this is the best comeback in bodybuilding history.

Noise.

I will take that.

I would say Jay Cutler had a better comeback, but this is also great.

Oh, you already did this.

Mohammed said, when will the dad cycle update in terms of dosages?

I think you just,

maybe there's dad cycle plus.

Right.

Rambo89 asks, well, he says, yes, he's back first.

And then he asks, please ask him how he manages the fatigue at the end of prep.

We already spoke about that.

I didn't really.

Yeah, my problem was the sleep.

Right.

But I'm assuming like cardio-wise, what did you do?

Did you ever tone down the cardio a little bit?

No, I increased my cardio the last week because I needed to make weight.

Of what type of cardio?

I do Stair Master speed seven to nine, 20 minutes, and then I upped it to 30.

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

That's not, at least that's not too long.

Yeah.

I know there's some people that do an hour to two hours, which is insane.

Well, an hour, then

that would be treadmill, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Definitely don't want to do Stairmaster for that long, especially close to show.

Get your legs all inflamed.

Um,

cool.

Uh, I guess I'm just curious about asking you about sleep because I've been very

concerned with sleep recently, talking to Dr.

Dean and I'm trying to get on top of my own sleep.

And bro, I literally just paid 5k

today.

Got, well, I guess the last appointment and went there and finally got one and paid 5k for sleep clinic.

I got my fucking UARS mouthpiece.

Yeah.

Upper airway.

So they can see your breathing.

So, well, it actually pops my jaw forward so that way it opens up the airway when I am resting and when I'm asleep so that I can breathe properly.

I got some

use that.

So I am not.

I stop breathing three out of the five times required for sleep apnea.

And there's people who stop breathing like a hundred times, right?

You got to stop breathing for about 10 seconds.

The people who stop breathing like fucking 100 times, they're just like, it's fucking crazy.

It's serious, you know?

These people are literally dying inside every day.

That's funny because I just bought a sleep.

I just, when I started my sleep apnea machine,

I just bought it off Amazon.

I didn't go to sleep print.

Sick.

I was like, I'm, I'm snoring.

I'm waking myself up snoring.

That's not normal.

I don't need a doctor to tell me that's not normal.

I know that's not normal.

I'm not waking myself up snoring.

I am waking up and I'm not very, very asleep.

And I don't know why it is.

And according to him, it's upper airway resistance syndrome, which is something that I've had as a kid.

I've always had loud nasal breathing, no matter where I am.

And does sleep, does sleep apnea help with that?

No,

you mean like sleep apnea treatment?

Yeah, there's a machine.

So on the forms, there's two different types of sleep apnea treatment.

However, according to the doctor, he doesn't call this a sleep apnea treatment.

He calls it a UARS treatment.

But on the form that I got, it says there's CPAP and then there's

there's oral, there's oral application, like oral mouthpiece or whatever.

I use the CPAP.

Yeah, I got the oral application, the mouthpiece, because I don't need the actual machine to, you know, help me breathe.

I just need this thing to help open up my airways so I don't like, because it causes this resistance breathing where my breathing slows down and it's, it doesn't stop me breathing, which is what the sleep apnea really is.

Instead, it just causes so much resistance that my body has to like wake up in order for it to breathe properly.

It's causing me to not be able to sleep, basically.

So I'm sleeping like I'm in bed for the last paper I had for the last night that I had before I got this fucking goddamn ocular migraine yesterday.

I was in bed for 10 hours and 17 minutes, but I got six hours total of actual sleep.

So I have to be in, yeah, I have to be in bed for 10 hours in order for me to get fucking six or seven hours or even maybe seven and a half hours of actual normal sleep.

And it's just fucking ridiculous at this point.

I'm I'm wasting time.

Don't use that.

A lot of people make the mistake of using melatonin.

No, I didn't use melatonin for the longest time.

And now

I've experimented with on and off of it.

So I'm okay with that.

You tried GABA as well and all these things.

GABA, melatonin, magnesium, L-tryptophan,

vitamin B5 and B6 to help convert that L-tryptophan.

Methylfolate because of the concerns that I might be that third of the population that doesn't methylate properly.

And then Ashwagandha, if I I feel stressed, and then

I think I said it all.

Yeah.

The last resort is the sleep aid.

If I really can't sleep and I know that I won't be able to sleep, I'll take like a half or a quarter of the sleep aid, which is

duccanine

docsamine succinate.

Docamine.

I don't know.

I don't fucking know how to say it.

It's basically, it's a Nyquil as well.

It's just

Nyquil too.

It's an antihistamine that's also helps

refresh your Clenn receptors.

Wait, what does?

It refreshes your Clembuterol receptors.

Nyquil?

Or this thing?

Yeah.

Well, it's the antihistamine.

Benadryl.

Shit.

Cool.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, I actually have it like when I coach people.

when they're on Clenn, every week they have to use that for two days.

So I should start taking Clenn then.

Yeah, it refreshes the receptors.

I just started MyroB, which is also a fat burden that isn't a stimulant.

PP332?

It's a new research chemical that people are discussing that just it increases fat burning by a very small percentage.

And SLU is and then

myrobegrin is originally for bladder control.

It releases the muscles in your bladder.

I think it's a beta-3, which is also a fat burning.

So does that make me pee or less pee?

P-less.

So

I have a problem waking up in the night to pee.

Yeah, right.

And one, that could be partly either our bladder or two, it could also be the fact that we literally just have, no, that we literally have these breathing problems that are waking us up and it eliminates that.

I don't know if it's a hormone or whatever, but it's the signal that basically shuts off.

Interesting, because when I would take volume, that's when I would be in such deep sleep and I don't wake up to pee.

Nice.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

A lot of times it has to do with your actual sleep quality.

If it's just not great, then you end up feeling the urge.

Well, yeah, my sleep quality is trash right now.

But it's getting better.

It's getting better after I started eating.

Imagine if you're taking trend right now.

Oh, I wouldn't have to do that.

That just makes even juicier.

I stopped that shit in 2018.

All right.

Himio asks, what is your plan for Mr.

Olympia?

So at first, again, I was going in with a very defeated attitude.

So I was like, I'm going to place last.

I know it.

So let's just go and have fun.

But then I realized, you know what?

I didn't think I was going to win a pro show.

And then it fucking happened.

So I've changed my attitude two days ago.

And I said, fuck that.

I am going to do everything I humanly possibly can to make the top 10 I will bring my legs up I will train them every every third day if I have to or train hamstrings every third day and quads every third day so I'll give them their own full workouts I won't train upper body except maybe back once a week

I don't need delts.

I don't need shoulders.

And even if they shrink, it's fine.

I'll pump them up.

I don't need chest and shoulders and arms.

Even if they shrink a little bit, I'll pump them up backstage.

But I need to keep my back because my back is the wow factor.

When I come up on stage and I do that front lat spread and the back double bicep, that's where I see the judges like, oh, holy shit.

And it's like, not classic.

It doesn't look like classic, but it's like, I want to compare him to the other guys.

How did you see?

How did you see the judges react to that?

Like on a video or something?

No, like in person.

When I do the front lat spread, like I can see their face expression like,

you know, taking notes or some shit, you know?

Okay.

Yep.

And then when I look at the video, my back double biceps just looks retarded.

Like that, I can say that comfortably.

It looks fucking sick, bro.

Yeah.

My back double biceps.

Yeah.

Even when I went and had

judge's feedback, he said, he specifically said, your back double biceps is amazing.

You don't have to do anything there.

Nice.

But he said that I need to bring my hamstrings and glutes up, yep, and that will improve my side shot.

So, my back shot is already top, my abs and thigh shot is really good.

I do it in a very unique way with where I show my obliques, yeah,

the old school 212 way, yeah, with your so that's that's good.

Um, but I do need to bring my legs a little bit up and my hamstrings.

And I'm going to be doing that.

And I'm going to be, I'm going to start wearing a corset for my waist.

I'm going to start practicing uh vacuum more every single day.

And I'm going to just give everything I can for this prep.

Nice.

Yeah.

I'm excited, man.

I'm excited too.

Yeah.

I'm going to try to come to Olympia and come watch.

You have to.

I want to real bad.

I have to.

I have to.

You have to.

Yeah.

Yoked rooster.

Fucking sick.

asks would there be insulin sensitivity benefit to running gh four to five times a week rather than every day.

Not really.

I mean, if you're having it on an empty stomach without carbs, you won't have any issues.

So, no.

Who was I speaking to recently?

I was speaking to someone recently.

Fuck.

Oh, it was Vigorous Steve.

So I had, I discussed with Vigorous Steve, Patrick Tor's perspective on GH.

And Patrick says that you can have it when your insulin is up and it raises your IGF-1 higher.

It's actually more beneficial for muscle.

But Patrick says that normally this also has

a bigger negative effect on your insulin resistance long term.

So Patrick is like, Patrick likes to only do it some of the time.

So I think like every other time, for example, he'll do that.

And then the other time is on the fasted time.

I would argue, you, I would argue, do that on leg day.

Okay, yeah.

And then have your GH with carbs.

Yeah.

It will increase IGF-1,

but

long long-term, it will affect your insulin sensitivity.

But if you're having GH, empty stomach, no carbs, it will not affect your insulin sensitivity, even if you're having it every day.

It's only when you have it with food.

Yeah, I talked to

Steve, honestly, said something that was kind of surprising to me.

He's like, bro, the effect of the insulin resistance on you is so negligible.

The fact that you're going to prep and cut down anyways is like, bro, like, think about like, do you ever get into, and then he talked about, um, he talked about his A1C and he talked about another marker.

And he he basically just said, like,

insulin resistance is negligible if you're on your program and you're doing your fasted cardio every day.

And

if you're just doing what all bodybuilders do, like prep-wise, being on top of their cardio, eating proper foods like they should be,

the insulin resistance is never going to be a problem for you.

Unless you're some freaking people.

I think it's because the stigma is,

is that if you take GH

with your carbs, your body will not produce insulin at all?

But that was, I think, the old school mentality back in Egypt, maybe or the Middle East.

Yeah.

But that's not true.

Your body will still produce insulin.

If you feel like any of the medications that we spoke about today may benefit you, such as BPC157, GH acreagogs, such as tessamorellin, IGF-1, oxandrolin troche, semaglutide, then you can obtain these from transit HOT, 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.

AMR Fox1 asks, how does your religion play a role in your life and is it important?

I strongly believe in,

strongly, I have a very strong connection with God.

I don't like to discuss my religious views

in public anymore.

People react to it if it's slightly different to their beliefs, even if it's the same religion, right?

So

I was born a Muslim.

Let's say if I do one thing differently,

I've experienced an insane backlash

that I didn't even understand.

Like, I was like, what's going on?

Like, why are you, why are you upset?

And it's like, because it's supposed to be like that.

Like, but that's my connection with God.

Like, that's a very personal thing.

Right.

Exactly.

So, yeah.

So, I, you know, I honestly, without exaggeration,

like, I feel like I'm able to, talk to God.

I have a connection with him.

I feel that most

quote unquote religious people

don't have as strong of a connection.

Like, religion to me is very spiritual, you know.

And

even like some of the dreams that I've like, bro, I've had a dream a week before Alabama.

I swear to God, that's true.

I had a dream that I was looking at the scorecards and I saw my name in first place.

Oh my God.

And then I like, I kind of woke up.

Like, you know, when you wake up and then fall back asleep?

Like, I woke up right after that scene and I said out loud, out loud to myself,

I said, holy shit, I'm going to win this.

And then I fell back asleep.

And then I woke up and I didn't tell anyone.

Usually I tell my mom that I had a dream about this or that.

I kept this so close to my chest.

And then every

problem that would happen, like let's say with the tanning color, with the, with the weight,

going to US and like worrying about the war and everything,

every time any thought would come up, I would repeatedly say, in such a calm demeanor, everything will fall into place

because of that dream.

And I just wholeheartedly knew, like, I know I said on the Dave interview and I told you I didn't really expect to win.

Like, I really didn't.

but there was still that very calm sense that if God wants me to win this, or if it's destined to happen,

it will fucking happen regardless of what circumstance is going on.

And the tan was like,

I did the tanning myself.

It was, we did the base color, it was good, but then the next day,

I think I had a reaction with my skin.

And that was like three hours from pre-judging.

and we were like freaking out over there and i said everything just relax everything will fall into place

let me have my breakfast meal we're gonna go backstage at 7 30 in the morning and we're gonna connect with the tanning people over there i have cash on me i'm just gonna tell them listen i have 200 in cash please just take care of my tan all over again I'm sorry I did this on my own.

I've never tried this company before.

I didn't want to take risks.

Everything fell into place, bro.

So yeah, I think I have a good connection with God, but in terms of religion itself, that's something that I don't like talking about because,

yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to trigger anyone, yeah.

That's awesome, bro.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, um, Maze Nova asks, or well, he says, Mashallah, when proud of him in Egypt, nice, that's good.

Um,

nice,

that's good.

Thank you guys.

Yeah,

uh,

Miguel 19 asks, what age did you start taking gear and what was the cycle you first ever took?

24 years old.

I started at, it was me and my best friend.

We started 400 milligrams of test and 400 milligrams of primobolin.

After six weeks, we barely saw any differences.

And I even remember vividly the scene where we're in the gym, we're doing shoulders, and I just look at him.

I'm like, are you feeling anything?

Like, do you feel anything's different?

And he's like, not really.

I'm like, bro, let's let's fucking bump this shit up, man.

Let's start seven.

Let's do 750.

And I went to 750.

I switched the primobolin to equipoise at 400.

And then I added anadroll for four weeks at 50 milligrams a day.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

But hold on.

This was like my first like injectable cycle.

Few months prior to that, I did six weeks of Anavar just to see how I'd react.

And how did you react?

I got leaner.

I got a little bit more muscular and veiny.

My pumps were better, but not other than that, not much.

Okay.

Wow.

That's fucking sick.

I think you and I started our first injections around the same time.

Same time, 24 years old?

Yeah, my first injection of testosterone was around that age.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I got my pro card around 22, 23 years old, and then it took me about half a year to a year.

I remember.

It was.

I think it was

my 23rd or 24th birthday.

It was on my birthday.

I started.

No way.

I took my first shot on my birthday.

Yeah.

That's fucking sick.

Yeah, and I remember going to the pharmacy.

I go into the pharmacy because I didn't know how to take the injection.

And like, I bought a vial of test and primo and I told the guy, like, please give this shot to me.

He took me to the back, hands down, in my glutes, like a like a dude you knew, like a homie, yeah, yeah.

And then, uh,

and then I was on my way to college, like to class, and I remember in the car, I was like, because I, because I was like all scared and shit.

I was like, I thought, like, steroids is going to make me go crazy.

I'm just going to start raging with everyone.

And I was like, it's okay.

I remember driving.

I was like, it's okay.

It's going to be, it's going to be fine.

This is what you want to do.

You're going to be fine.

I remember that very well.

It was my birthday.

Yeah.

That's like a lit, bro.

Yeah, that's funny.

I fucking love having this podcast.

I fucking, I had this dude.

I was like, I'm so thankful for you and Vigorous Steve.

You guys got me to start

my first cycle after 22 years.

You started at like

20 to 23 years old.

That's not bad.

23 is not bad.

What does a leg day look like in Duro's routine?

Exercises, sets, reps?

Depends.

So I have hamstring focus days, and then I have

just quad days, for example.

So let's say a quad day, just squats.

I would start, I would do five sets of leg extensions,

five to six sets of belt squats,

five sets of leg presses that consists of a double set like a superset of the five so it's like 10 sets so it's like 15 reps close stance

superset with another 15 reps wide stance

and then i finish off with another four sets of walking lunges and then i do three sets of single leg extensions and then i do four sets of inner thigh machine so that's quad day

okay

leg day

is my favorite yeah leg day i will do like today for example was hamstrings focused i would start with calves i would then do glute kickbacks i would then do uh standing hamstring curls four sets seated hamstring curls four sets

inner thigh machine superset with the like the adductor with the abductor uh four sets of that and then i'd switch to four sets sets leg extensions six sets belt squats and then four sets of either walking lunges or uh like this

fuck bro yeah i hate i hate walking lunges with a fucking passion yeah but they're they're they're necessary bro they build nice good yeah legs and ass yeah um

i need to do more ass shit bro you got you have

to do more butt stuff but you got really good glutes i just have i just have striated glutes, but I don't think they're big.

They're not big, though.

Like, I would see them.

What the fuck?

Thanks, man.

You know what's the worst thing, though?

Is like as I grew bigger, and I think I started doing more injections, it started to be just the left.

Like, the right one isn't as striated anymore.

I don't, I don't, I think it's too much tissue.

You know what?

That's actually one of the reasons also why I kept my cycle small.

Okay.

I only shoot them my delts.

Okay.

Yeah.

I am never touching glutes again, ever.

I heard a lot of big guys talking about avoiding the glutes recently, too.

Ian was also talking about that, I think.

Bro, I think that caused a lot of nerve damage and back issues for me, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I

am now only just now, bro, I've injected my lats like a thousand times.

Lats are fine.

What?

Yeah.

What do you mean?

So

if back then when I do windstrol, I would inject my lats with windstroll, and it was like water.

It was like so easy.

But I've never injected oil in my lats.

I can imagine that would be very painful.

Yeah, I inject everything normally in shoulders, delts, and glutes.

Shoulders, lats, and glutes.

Yeah, me front, sides, rear.

Yeah, that's it.

You can inject in the front?

Yeah.

Is that a thing?

Yeah.

I feel like it's.

But I have big ducts.

Yeah.

It's very mean.

I have a big rear end, and the rear is always the easiest for me.

Or the rear is the least painful,

the least amount of nerves I hit.

Yeah.

So when I have a lot of veins here, but what I do fucking, bro, it's a fucking

spider web.

Yeah, it's spider web.

So what I do is

I'll find the spot with no vein, right?

Like between the veins.

So I'd have to put the needle pin first like i wouldn't go from afar and shoot i'd have to point i'd have to place it and then jab it in oh my god i need to start doing that

it's smart isn't it it's the same bro it's the same thing because when you let's say you find a spot and it's like okay there's no veins here i swear to god when you do the far thing it will hit the vein It will leave everything else and it will hit the vein.

How have I never ever thought about doing this?

Every time.

I don't know.

Every time.

Every time I'm like, all right, okay, here it is.

Okay.

Okay.

Away from it.

In the vein, right away in the vein.

There's like days where like, normally I'm just totally chilling, but there are like, like, maybe like a couple days in the month or something where I'll just be extra anxious about where I'm going to inject because I'm so fucking sick and tired of hitting a nerve or like a fucking vein.

And then just.

that I'm like, I'm aiming and I'm aiming and I'm like, don't fucking hit one.

Don't fucking hit one.

And you hit it.

I come out and then I stab it and it moves an inch over.

And then I hit like the biggest vein.

Oh, bro.

And I am like punching walls for the next like three hours.

I'm still,

always.

So, so I'm like, fuck this.

I am going to just place it and then push it in.

Okay.

I'll start doing that.

Oh, geez.

Hari Cochlin says, so excited for this last podcast with you on your channel.

It was the best ever.

Oh,

his last podcast.

Oh,

there's so many questions, man.

I know.

We got to pick one more.

Okay.

All right.

Deal.

I'm sorry, guys.

I've been really bad about Q ⁇ A's recently.

I need to do them earlier.

I know, I know.

I know, I do.

I know, I know.

We got to pick the best one then.

Pick any, yeah, anything personal that would, I guess that would be more fitting.

I think we gave a lot of bodybuilding info.

Yeah.

I can't believe you started with Primo for your first cycle.

That's crazy.

That was gay.

That was gay.

That's the gayest thing you could have ever done.

Oh, this is a personal question, real quick, but you didn't use any insulin at all.

Absolutely fucking not.

Okay.

I feel like it would only make you heavier and bigger.

Fuck no, blow.

Makes your waist bigger, makes you age.

The most thing it does is make you forget the waist and forget the side effect.

It makes you age so much faster.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I was getting skin tags that one time I used it.

Damn, fuck.

I have to go to a laser pony.

Like, I have to laser like five off.

Holy shit, that's crazy.

I swear to God, it would all come my eyes on my eyelids.

And then I chat GPT'd.

Why am I getting uh, like it knows everything, right?

And like everything I'm doing.

And I'm like, why am I getting these skin tags?

I said, it's the insulin.

Wow.

Wow.

Crazy.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to just pick one.

Okay.

Ash Ash Kettle asks,

what are your thoughts on the prize money differences between the divisions?

I think that Classic should be second in prize money.

I'm not sure if 212 still is, but the Dubai Pro just took place.

I'm pretty sure second is

classic is second.

Okay, so

dude, I think the 212 was the smallest

at Dubai.

Yeah, it was

40k.

It was 40k.

Yeah.

Classic was 70.

Yeah, it looks so fucking sick.

He deserved more.

And open was 140.

So my thoughts is

I think classic now is the most popular division.

In terms of social media.

In terms of social media, yeah.

Like everyone wants to be a classic bodybuilder, yeah, for sure.

No one wants to be opened,

but the open sells more tickets at the Olympia and usually at shows because people like to see the freaks, like a circus, right?

I mean, it is, bro.

You see what they look like, so I can

understand the justification of open being uh bringing in more money, but then for visibility and ads and everything, like growing the sport,

I think classic is

what's bringing in more people into bodybuilding.

I still think open should be more,

but I think the gap should close a lot more.

So like, let's say if open is 500K,

classic should be easily 400K.

Okay.

Just to give a little bit one of those cynical viewpoints, because we got a lot of cynicism in this world, but

what are your thoughts, though, if,

say,

you know, we were owning, we owned the IFPB and we felt like Classic already brings in a lot of audience, especially because of Chris.

What is the purpose of us raising the money if we already know that the greatest pull of people desiring to be

in the competitions is for the classic division?

That's a very interesting perspective.

That is a very new way of seeing.

I didn't think of that.

So, that question kind of caught me by surprise.

Why would we increase it if we're already getting more fans?

I mean, there's a much deeper level to that.

But I would say

maybe more

bigger checks for

classic bodybuilders will enable them to use the money to even further more

promote their social media, hire more cameramen, compete in more shows.

Competing in more shows means more people.

Yeah.

But if you're giving people small checks, they're not going to like I know a guy who competed recently

and I was I asked if he's going to do Alabama and he said he didn't have the finances for it.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

So, if anything, pay how as a pro?

Yeah.

How do you, how does he not have you because you pay for your pro card, and then that's it.

He just doesn't, he can't finance himself traveling and all that shit.

I see.

It's a pro.

Every show costs about four to five thousand dollars with the travels.

Well, okay, I fly business, but with economy,

with economy

you bro you don't go man it was just six figures a month i have to

but um

uh but even with economy you're paying because i'm thinking two people okay

okay i i don't know what i'm talking about because i'm thinking business flights for two people

back and forth so my numbers are way off um

I guess for one person, it's like maybe $1,000 for a plane ticket,

something like that.

Yeah, I mean, hopefully, if you're still in America and you're not traveling internationally, then

let's say $1,000

trip and then

the tanning, the hotel, hotel is like what, three days?

It's probably a little bit over a thousand, yeah.

Okay, and the hotel, I stay in the different hotel from the host hotel, so I guess my numbers again are way off.

The host hotel is usually $120 a night, so that's

okay.

Oh,

it was brought down from 5k to now like $1,500.

You make a good point, though.

Yeah.

Like, I feel like it would be good to help fund the people that are winning class sessions

to compete more.

And, like, when they have more money, they'll probably create more content.

More content, more visibility.

No one really likes, I don't think anyone likes watching anything about open bodybuilding except looking at them in person and in pictures just to kind of like

see that freakish you know yeah

but in terms of lifestyle and all that bro it's it's honestly i think it's disgusting like the amount of who what kind of how can you eat 6 000 calories every day for the rest for like years yeah yeah no open is insane

that's why it's so cool though bro that's like i'm i'm a fucking classic competitor and i just fucking love open too though because it's just insane yeah

uh believe it or not like i

yeah i mean i only see the results and i just see like who won i just see what he looks like and and then you have like exceptions like that neckzilla guy

jesus christ you know i'm talking about has tumors on his legs yeah he just he looks it looks all wrong i saw

come on

he looks sick he just it looks it looks dogged as like that that doesn't look like a human being Yeah, it doesn't look like a human being.

It looks like a crossbreed, a genetic crossbreed

made in a lab

between

a cow and a human being.

Imagine if he had Tom Platt separation.

I don't think he can't even get that separation.

I think because at one point the muscles start overlapping each other, maybe.

I don't know what's really going on either.

Yeah.

I could make all the speculations in the world, but they'll never be right.

They'll just be assumptions.

Of course, it's all

broken.

Yeah, oil, insulin, or I don't know, but it's probably not even true.

It's probably just genetic.

If anyone in the audience has any like um

has any pushback or any ideas that that that uh came to them regarding this whole like money money situation i'd be interested to hearing it in the youtube comments um the one thing i do have to say though is the men's physique does

i'm pretty sure i heard that men's physique still has the the greatest number of amateurs competing greatest number of amateurs paying

i made a video about that too on my english channel

I explained that and I said men's physique has the most athletes, which means it has the most audiences because each of the athletes has his wife or his girlfriend and his parents and his cousins and whoever if his friends, they come watch the show.

So every athlete brings about maybe three to eight people to a show.

That's just in the NPC, though.

No, I think it's in the pro league.

Yeah, bro.

I'm not like, yeah, yeah, it's in the pro leagues too, bro.

God damn it.

I think you're right.

The fucking, whenever I go to classes, like, bro, the last show I was at, I think the classic class was like 10, 11 guys, and the Minsk of Zeek is always closer to 20.

Always 20 in the pros, and the amateurs is like fucking 40 or some shit.

The amateurs, you said?

Yeah.

40.

Do you know how many?

Do you know how many classic competitors are there this year's Mr.

Olympia?

How many?

So far?

So far.

How many?

I don't know.

46.

Classic competitors total.

So far, the season isn't over.

That's a lot.

Yeah.

I know people are talking about reducing the

someone was talking about reducing the number of people that are qualifying for the O, so there's less competitors to the O, but I'm just like, I don't know.

If you already changed,

they already removed the scoring system.

Yeah, I know.

What else do you want?

So now it's like every pro show winner goes.

Right.

So the next option would be reduce the pro shows.

Yeah, that makes no sense.

Or, you know, be a smart money-making machine.

Two different Olympias.

Oh, that's never going to happen.

Two different Olympias.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's crazy.

One for, listen to this.

Listen to this.

One for men and one for women.

The women's going to be so small compared to the moment.

That's not our problem.

I mean, WNBA has its own championship.

I mean, won't that like literally do nothing?

Because, I mean, you have all the men and the women.

That's up to the audience.

That's up to the audience.

You don't want to go?

Don't go.

I feel like that's going to make a smaller poll.

Bo, well,

I see what you're saying, like, trying to drag.

No, because you remove all the women, bro.

You're removing all the bikini that are like 100 or something in every show.

Okay, you remove all the bikini, women's figure, women's fitness,

Women's physique.

Women's bodybuilding.

Women's wellness.

There's six categories.

There's a lot.

Give them their own Olympia.

Give us men.

We got the open.

Classic.

212.

Physique.

Thank you very much.

This should happen.

This is an amazing idea.

I love it.

I love it.

All right, all right, all right.

Okay, I ask everyone at the end the same question that I asked you twice already.

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?

So my message might have changed a little bit.

If you think the price

of going for it might be too risky and expensive,

wait till you see the price of staying exactly where you are.

Go for it and go for it with faith in God, and you will be surprised what is in store for you.

That's awesome, bro.

Say, dude,

Mahmoud.

Mahmood Al Durah.

You got it right.

Is that the same place everyone else can find you?

My Instagram, The Dura.

My English YouTube, The Dura.

Guys, please give me a follow.

It's brutal to grow an audience on youtube geez it's brutal man oh and and uh

stick to the vlogs because if you do it my way where you blow up on youtube by doing crazy videos like jesse james west and a bunch of other

and then you start the last vlogs the last vlog that i did for alabama pro

and the uh the uh the toronto pro they're sick guys go watch it a lot of detail in there with with the diazide and everything and the carb up and i'll send you the clip where with the where my son was like, go down.

That was send me.

You gotta love that.

That's gonna make you want to have kids.

Well, I mean, I kind of already do, but.

Oh, oh, that's gonna really, that's gonna be like, all right, we gotta, hey, we gotta,

fucking now, we gotta wrap this up.

No, not right now.

Oh, shit.

Let me get Olympia once first, all right?

Yeah, once.

Okay.

Just once.

That would be nice.

That's what I want.

That's what I want.

Yeah.

All right.

Thanks for coming on, bro.

That was fucking sick.

Awesome, as always, my man.

And hope to see you in always good shape and good faith.

Thanks, bro.

Same with you.

Super fucking happy for you and excited to see you at Olympia.

Appreciate it, my brother.

Take care.

All right.

You too, bro.

Get some rest tonight.

Hopefully, for once.

Yeah.

No volume tonight.

Later, bro.