Olympian Steve Kuclo: Enhanced Bodybuilding & When You Should Stop

Steve Kuklow, IFPB Pro champion, sixth at Olympia in 2019, third at the Arnold for multiple years, entrepreneur, husband, and father.

Before starting this podcast, I just wanted to say that ideating steroids for a full show is not widely accepted because it discounts the real work which is the backbone of this sport.

And unfortunately, spreads that an unsafe chemical solution is all you need for results.

Both of these are an antithetical society's understanding of the sport, and while there will always be some that claim that PEDs are all you need, I would like to deliver an honest message of what is required for achieving top performance, as well as the dangers associated with this route.

I received this comment from a user named Night Skarrens.

But just as a rock climber, The athletes undergoing this path in the sport are willing to put their life on the line for their passion, just the danger between the two sports is different.

Luckily, we do have safety nets in the sport, such as organ imaging and regular blood work.

But that doesn't change the high risk one must accept in taking on this competitive lifestyle.

Bro, you've had like quite a freaking inspiring background.

I don't really know how you did it all, but it's kind of nuts, to be honest.

I appreciate it, man.

Appreciate it.

I mean, I love what you're doing.

You know, when I, when you reached out and I was like, hell yeah, let's do this.

So, yeah.

Appreciate you,

you know, wanting to wanting to get me on.

I mean,

business is kind of one of the things, too, that I've been, uh,

I have no clue about, to be honest with you.

I've like just being in this bodybuilding space and creator space, it's like I know you know more than anybody that when it comes to making money in bodybuilding, you just have to do it yourself.

You have to figure some things out yourself.

Um, bodybuilding is not going to make the money for you.

So, that's what I'm struggling with right now.

And it's pretty rough, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, I'm thankful for that.

I'm

is your is your podcast monetizing for you?

Yeah, yeah.

So

when it comes to like

when it comes to just my income at the moment, everything has been amazing.

It's better than when I first started off as a mechanical engineer.

I'm really blessed to have everything that I have, but I think it's more so like I

maybe it's just my own personal anxieties, but understanding that I'm reliant on sponsors and reliant on the um

the uh i guess the waves of social media that are out of my control yeah whether or not you are appeasing to others or not you know being reliant on others opinions or views of you and your content that's

and i know part of it is marketing but obviously i never want to like i know some people like to create their own character um to market their own brands but uh it's just i i would rather really prefer to be myself but yeah i mean i think for me it's just like i see most success in me creating a foundation like a business like you and foowad have created these amazing brands and these amazing businesses that are now supporting you and your family and being able to support my family in the future is like my biggest goal so yeah i'm like i don't want to be just like some freaking influencer for the rest of my life you know what i mean yeah no you're doing a great job and uh like you said it's scary dude like the

Because nothing's guaranteed.

You know, it's much easier to work for somebody and get a paycheck and be like, dude, I feel that safety, security.

But when you're down your own, it's, it's like you're on an island and you got to hunt for yourself in a different,

different way.

But

I mean, we definitely could talk a little bit about that kind of stuff if you want, because it's been a, it's been a

rebranding of myself kind of moving forward, kind of shifting out of competitive bodybuilding and still involved in the health and wellness space.

But

yeah, yeah, no, I definitely, anything I can do to help you.

Like, I had some ideas, I know, like, what you're doing.

Um, you know, I don't know if you worked with any kind of wellness clinics, Merrick, or any of those companies, but uh,

you know, we definitely um could talk about how we could incorporate some of your stuff into what we're doing.

I'd love to be able to, you know, help you out in your health.

Like, we do some next level stuff, dude.

So, it's it's cool, really cool.

Cool, thank you, bro.

I appreciate that.

Well, I guess, first off, man,

I was listening to some of your past histories and your past podcasts, too.

And I guess were you like mid 280s, mid 290s when you were stepping on stage?

Yeah, my biggest was in 2022,

21 or 22,

one of those for Texas, Texas Pro,

2020, 2021, I was 291, 292 the night before

the show, like literally Friday night before the show.

And I think I was like 288 on stage

in the morning.

That's fucking nasty.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's crazy because, you know, know, I started taking the Kevin LeBron approach where it was like I would kind of downsize in the offseason and then I would grow and jump.

So

how heavy would you get in the offseason?

I would drop weight.

I would like sit around 270, kind of what I'm sitting around right now, 265, 270, because I pretty much, other than

like a TRT dose, I didn't really run a lot in the offseason just because I wanted to give my body a break and then I'd get on the gas for a pre-contest.

Holy shit.

That is so interesting.

Yeah.

So I don't feel like there's really many people that I can't really think of any competitors these days that do that, or maybe they just don't talk about it.

Yeah.

And, you know, and it's crazy because a lot of people will say you're full of shit or you don't, you know, and so many guys are lying like these old-time bodybuilders that are coming out.

They're like, all I did was 200 milligrams of DECA and 200 milligrams of tests.

You're like, okay.

Yeah.

You know, and then guys like Phil would say some shit, like, all I did was 500 milligrams of tests.

And you're like, no, you didn't.

Did you really?

There was one recent, somebody sent it to me, and he said for like the USA or where he turned pro, he didn't.

I'm sure he didn't do what he did for the Olympia, but I'm sure it was a little bit more than what he said.

Yeah.

There was one podcast, though, where he admitted that

he would never exceed 1.3 grams of tests.

And that sounded pretty reasonable to me.

I feel like.

Yeah.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

I was never a super high test guy.

Like, I don't, I've never really creeped up more than probably 800, 900.

So,

you know, structurally, I was always a big dude and genetically, so it's like I didn't,

it was just more of like, how can I fill out my muscle more and fill my frame out versus like, just, I need to try to put as much thigh as possible.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I took the long game on this shit.

I started at 18 years old.

You know, I was

2003 when I started, 2004.

So for me, it was the long game.

It wasn't like, how quick and big could I get?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are we recording?

Are we like

yeah, we're recording.

We're recording.

Do we you want to kind of roll into it, do anything or just

no, I literally just jumped straight into it.

It's pretty casual.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess I was always,

I was surprised myself when I

when I was informed by Martin that he keeps his tests at 750.

But I mean, when it, when it comes to bodybuilding, like it's always hard for people to believe, I think, just because of just the sheer mass is so impressive.

But there is without a doubt, the fact is, like,

the muscle comes from so much time, you know.

It really is such a long game.

Like, no matter how much you blast, you're only gonna build how much how many pounds of mass per year, unless you're some freaking freaka's weight, I guess, unless you're like Nick Walker in his first few years.

But aside from that, like, everyone's building what, maybe like seven, ten, maybe a little bit more if you're really pushing it per year.

So it doesn't really matter at that point.

Yeah.

The years.

I always looked at like there's a, there's kind of an equation to bodybuilding.

And

for me, there were certain things that I would only go so far with.

And this, this is where I really realized it probably

2016, 17

was I was like, you have the nutrition component, which there's only so much food you truly can't eat and assimilate.

There's uh the drug supplement component there's only i mean yes you can push yourself to really really high limits but for me personally i was only like i'm only going to go so far with that just because i'm thinking long term i'm not thinking short term about my life and then there was the training component um like how much you know that that to me was the biggest variable that could change to help move the needle for me somebody that's been in the sport for 15 plus years at that time see how do i change my physique if i if i hammer a ton of food which i already eat a lot

and I

you know take a decent amount of supplements but I don't want to go any higher because I just don't want to risk long-term health at that point what's the only other variable to me it was training and that's when I got connected with my trainer Gina Davis who's a female pro bodybuilder and you know a lot of people when I when I came out and said Gina's training me she was Everybody's like, you got a female trainer?

Is it what?

But she's an absolute monster in the gym, trained hard herself.

I mean, her pictures when she competed says it all, but as far as like what she was able to do with my physique with training, with stimulus of growth and new, you know, new formats of training, new intensities, et cetera, that's where I felt like my body really started to change and respond even more.

So

yes, the food component has to be there.

Yes, the something that component has to be there, but it really was the training to me that was the game changer for me over the last like five, six years of my career.

Bro, I mean, honestly, I think some of these women have are like the most savage trainers to be honest you see these girls doing like leg press until until they're like crying or they're like blood coming out of their nose and shit and it's fucking like jesus christ oh dude they're yeah

and there's there's girls that train in in the gym that i'm i'm at that i work out of that i train at and

you know i will not invite them to train with me or i won't train with them because they will they will you know not only cardiovascularly like absolutely crush me because they have a lot less tissue to perfuse but as far as like strength per pound, like they're insane.

I have some female clients that I do train that

rival a lot of my male clients.

So it's, yeah, by no means, just because they're a girl, are they not super strong?

Yeah.

And they'll fucking, I know, um,

I saw your wife jump on on Fuad's podcast, and that was a fucking awesome part.

And she, you can just tell, like, they just don't give a fuck.

You know, they'll just say whatever to say, especially when they're training you.

So I'll be watching like Keon's, Keon's partner pushing him and training him.

And

I'm like, just

I just feel like it's such a cool recipe for success, bro.

No, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And there's a good dynamic, you know, and

a lot of times people think, you know, male, female, there's going to be some kind of sexual tension.

Like, no, like, it's straight business.

Like, you know, Gina was straight business.

And, you know, she was like a bro where you could, you know, kind of

hit her, her fist pump her at the at the end of the workout and uh

uh there was no ass slapping so it was it was definitely hard

i feel like normally that's uh

i feel like normally and naturally the the ass slapping normally like dissipates away a little bit after several years yeah exactly um

uh when you were growing though so If you don't mind me asking,

what was a regimen for training, nutrition, for the PEDs?

Like, I'm assuming when you were growing, though, you did have to push differently than when you do in your offseason after you started doing some regular competitions in your later years.

Yeah.

So in my early years, I was I was trained and trained with Justin Harris, who's known Treponi online.

Brilliant.

Like, I remember the first time I decided that I was going to do a bodybuilding show, I went to him, I met him at his house, and I'm like, hey, you know, I want to do this.

And I just printed off like little PDF, like three-page thing from bodybuilding.com from 2003.

And it was like, how to compete in a bodybuilding show.

Here's an structured diet and I'm like, this is what I'm doing.

He's like, are you serious?

This is what you're doing.

I mean, it was a joke.

It was like, you know, something

very, very elementary when it comes to competing, what really is entailed in it.

And it was just, I competed from that naturally in my, for the first double years of my career until I was into my 20s that I start.

So, you know, I kind of built a base.

And that's one of the things he told me is like, you know, build this base naturally.

And now, if you're somebody starting in the 30s and you're like, I want to compete and you've got a little bit of time under your belt with training in the gym and building some muscle, like, okay, you can kind of get in the gas, you know, right away.

But for me, I want to, again, play the long game on this.

I wasn't.

one to just say, I want to get as big as I can, quick as I can, kind of thing.

Because you saw a lot of guys early when I was competing that did that and phased out really fast.

Like Trey Brewer was one of them.

Phenom, dude was a freak.

You know, we competed Teen Nationals together.

He was a super heavyweight and everybody's like, it's the next, the next guy.

And within a few years, he burned out.

Jason Hu was a guy, you know, and he had a good career for a little bit, but he, he kind of, you know, took a, took a, hit the brakes on it and said, you know, I'm kind of done and went a little bit more on the business route.

Guys like Justin Compton, another great bodybuilder that had an early, you know, career that he was like, you know what, had some health issues, decided to hang it up and say, you know, my health's more important.

And I, and I really

acknowledge that.

And I say that it's a smart decision, you know, if you're considering health.

And if you're going to force your body into doing things it doesn't want to do, you got to listen to it or else you're going to suffer some dire consequences.

So

I say that to say, you know, when I, when I was getting in my early 20s and I made the decision, hey, you know, in order to really go to the next level, get to the next

step in what bodybuilding is, go from state level to national level or really make an impact on this and compete with the super heavyweights.

Here I was, 20, 20-year-old kid, like, you know, pretty good base, good genetics.

A lot of people talking about me.

One some, you know, one teen nationals for two years and the heavyweights.

So I was like, hey, you know, this is a guy you got to watch out for.

But, you know, teen national guys are notorious for burning out because they push so hard just to get on stage.

I never really had to push so hard with, like, I never pushed supplements.

It was always, I just trained really hard.

Justin Harris was a freak strong.

So I just kept up with him.

And he's like, you're freaky strong.

And I just lifted weights, ate a ton of food, and I was growing.

And a lot of young kids should be doing that.

And I discourage a lot of young guys that reach out to say, you know, I want to get on a cycle.

What should I do?

And I want to get huge.

And, you know, they see a lot of the influencers that look crazy, you know, these young guys and they're claiming either natural or they take just TRT or something.

And, you know, they're not.

So for me, it was like, how do I be safe?

How do I play this right?

And Justin was a great mentor for me.

I remember, you know, literally my first cycle was,

he's like, there's two, there's two avenues you can go on this.

You can go very conservative and let your body like, you know, because you really could only work up is the

thought process on this.

Like, if you're going to start, start little, work your way up as you progress in your career, or you can go a huge dose out of the gate and blow up and all that kind of stuff.

And I took the more conservative route.

And I remember it was like 400 milligrams of EQ and like,

I think right around 500 milligrams of test.

And, um,

and like, I blew up.

Like, uh, my body just was like, what in the F?

And I was, you know, at night, was I 20, 21, and I was inclined to like 405 for reps.

And like, just doing my strength went through the roof.

And people, people thought I was, people, it's funny because people thought I was not natural competing in teens, going in my, in my early 20s.

And I was like 210, 215 when I competed.

And then the next, like the next year, I jumped on stage.

I went from like 215-ish competing all the way to like 245.

And people are like, oh, he was probably natural.

Now he jumped on.

Now he really grew.

Yeah.

Oh, that's fucking sick.

From there, you know, it was a steady progression, you know, all the way up to ultimately close to 290 on stage.

So you're looking at almost 50 pounds over,

you know, at that point, probably 20 years.

Maybe not a little bit less, maybe about

15 to 16 years, somewhere in there.

16, 16 years.

Just being consistent.

Consistency is what bodybuilding is all about.

Anything in fitness, it's consistency.

You can't do it for a week, a month, eight weeks, and expect like these dramatic changes that are going to sustain for long term.

For me, it was like, all right, we're going to be in this.

I want to make a career out of this.

I want to make this something that I can do and I enjoy.

I love this, this hobby that I can make a, you know, make a living off of.

Like, this is great.

Let's go.

Yeah.

I work with Patrick Dorr right now, and I know he's known for making some monsters, but he says to and he said to me personally, like, you got to focus on playing this long game in the year-by-year basis.

And what we're going to do, like him talking to me personally about you know, our coaching situation is like,

we're just going to, we want to aim for a seven-pound increase each each year.

That's probably what we're going to aim for.

What we're going to hope for.

Like,

go buy five pounds of steak from the friggin' the grocery store.

Like, that's a lot of meat.

That's, that's a lot of, that's a lot of,

you know, now it's, it's a little different, but that's just to give you a visual of like five to seven pounds a year is a ton of

mass for sure.

Especially when it's all the juicy places.

Yeah, exactly.

Like

guys are always saying, I want to get big.

I want to put on size.

And I'm like, well, just training arms and chest is not going to put 10 pounds of muscle on you.

Like you got to hit the big body parts.

You got to hit legs.

You got to hit back.

Yeah.

Even chest is something you can grow pretty good.

But training just arms and shoulders doesn't equate to a lot of weight on you.

Yeah, yeah.

What did your calories look like when you were pushing up this weight and you were gaining in your gaining phases?

Yeah, I would, I would eat

pretty,

it's funny.

I had this conversation with my wife the other day because

I eat so differently now than what I did when I competed.

How do you work?

Very.

I eat more for longevity, wellness.

And now that I own my own like functional health clinic where I do, you know, like gut testing and food sensitivity testing and really understanding like

my body at a high level.

So I, I mean, if I knew this 20 years ago, I could probably really dial in things differently with the way my body methylates vitamins and my genetics and all this kind of stuff.

It's really cool what I know now.

But now, I mean, I only eat three, roughly about three meals a day.

Not as much protein, you know, a ton of vegetables, a lot of fruit, a lot of,

you know, some starchy carbs, but, you know, like rice, but, but very natural, organic, and whole food-based.

You know, I try to eat minimally processed stuff.

I, I don't have a sweet tooth, never really have.

So I'm not like, you know, and, and I just, I'm one of those, I'm a salt and fat guy.

So I really, you know, now that I've really dialed in my body, and you know this, like when you compete and you eat super clean and then you have a cheat meal, like you feel like absolute shit the next day or days following because your body's not used to eating that crap, more, more or less.

So, you know, I've been eating so clean for so often, so long that it's like I really enjoy eating this way.

And that's what fitness really taught me over this: it's a lifestyle.

It's not a three, three-month prep, or it's not just because to do a show.

And then I go completely off the deep end and,

you know, start like Lee priesting it and trying to put on a hundred pounds of body fat every year and just have this freaking roller coaster up and down of,

you know, my weight, my health, et cetera.

So my thing, I'm very health conscious, very health focused now moving forward

in my life and the way I do my labs all the time, et cetera.

But

predate this, like going back to my bodybuilding time, you know, it was six, seven meals a day.

Very much like a ton of, I could eat a ton of food.

Like, I remember at one point with Hani, when I was working with Hani,

probably pre-Mr.

USA 2011, I think I added up, it was like I was eating like three pounds of chicken a day cooked and like three pounds of fish cooked.

It was obscene, the amount of protein.

It was like 10 to 12 ounces of cooked protein per meal for six to seven meals.

Jesus Christ.

And a good amount of carbs.

Like it took a ton of food to fuel my body because I'm six foot.

I was, you know, maybe 270, 280 offseason, get on stage, like in maybe 255, Mr.

USA.

I think I was right around there, 260.

And

so it just, it takes an enormous amount of food to fuel.

And it was

pushing my body much further than necessarily.

And that's what I say in bodybuilding.

It's you're pushing way past your genetic limits or what your body wants to be.

You're forcing it.

It's like you have to do these things and it's very uncomfortable with training, with eating, supplementation, et cetera.

You have to do things that are very uncomfortable.

And it's, is it the healthiest?

No, it's not.

And that's what I really say the pros and cons of bodybuilding.

Bodybuilding teaches you structure and like eating really good at times, but then you're doing a lot of things that counteract that with the amount of food you eat.

That causes a lot of stress on the body, beats the shit out of your digestive tract trying to eat six, seven meals a day.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of things can happen just from the amount of food you're eating.

Not that it's bad.

I mean, you can create insulin, you know, resistance by eating so many frequent meals, even though it's you're eating good food.

Like there's a lot of things that you have to do to

be cautious of it.

Like even a lot of my clients that want to compete, I don't necessarily push them the six, seven meals a day.

I go more four or five.

Like I let their bodies rest in between meals, let their blood sugar regulate a little bit more, spend some more time with,

you know, spreading meals out a little bit, and versus like the little bit old school where it was like every hour and a half, two hours, I got to hammer food kind of thing.

So it's,

you know, I've changed my methods and my thought process behind a lot of that now.

And something I like too about the bodybuilding industry is like there's a lot of bro science, I would say, that was low-key on point.

Yeah.

But also,

I feel like it's, I feel like the world is shifting towards more of this like middle ground where

the bro science and the bodybuilding industry that used to be very prevalent, such as like frequent meal timing and

I feel like there's so many different things

that bodybuilders pushed, including like the stretch even on the muscle when you're training, is now aligning with some science, but now they're finally like being a little bit less,

what's the word?

Bodybuilding.

Just fucking crazy, bro.

They're just like less crazy.

Like, you're not eating like 400, 500 grams of protein anymore every day.

Now it's like still higher than everywhere else in the entire world.

But now, like, people are reaching for more like 1.5 times their weight in pounds in protein.

And it's a little bit more reasonable and it's a little bit easier on the digestion.

So I think it's cool to see that there's still results coming out of this, like

slightly more middle ground.

Absolutely.

You know, I think this was a conversation I had with Justin Harris years ago, and he was, you know, we were talking about the amount of protein because, I mean, you're thinking, protein, good.

Like, as a straight meathead, you're like, protein make me big, protein, more protein, you know?

So, you know, he's like, well, listen, if you converted all that protein, you eat like 400 grams of protein in the muscle a day, we'd all be walking around like silverback gorillas.

And that's not the case.

That's not, you know, so.

is do you need that much protein?

Definitely not.

Like when you're talking, I mean, the school of thought now, when I'm understanding and talking about like longevity in some of my certifications and my training, it's, you know, it's minimal.

It's like 80 grams of protein a day is what required maybe 100, 120,

and what you need to maintain a good, healthy body for the rest of like long term, to live at 100 years old plus.

So eating the 400 grams of protein is great for transformational, you know,

states or periods of time in your life where you're trying to compete in bodybuilding show.

And I always tell people it's very much what your goal is.

Your goal is to get on the Mr.

Olympia stage and achieve certain things.

You got to push crazy crazy hard, absolutely, and do things like eat 300, 400 grams of protein.

But if you're talking about

just straight like, hey, I want to be healthy.

I want to have a six pack.

I want to look good.

Like, you know, maybe like you say, one to one and a half grams of protein per pound of body weight is sufficient to maintain muscle even grow.

And, you know, making sure you're getting other nutrients other than just protein and making sure you're getting good, healthy fibrous carbs, starchy carbs, whole foods, healthy fats, all those things.

There's a good balance that you can create

i guess what recommendations now would you give for uh competitors bodybuilders to maintain a good level of insulin sensitivity i would say um don't don't ignore fiber number one is probably the biggest thing i could say like as much as you're like why do i gotta eat this broccoli is it's not gonna help me get huge or whatever um utilizing more good nutrients like uh fruits, vegetables.

And, you know, then they say like, you know, eat the rainbow.

We're not talking like LGBTQ stuff here.

We're talking about like eating, you know, eating.

If you like to eat freaking bell peppers, eat bell peppers.

You want to eat broccoli or caliot, like, you know, but have a variety.

Fiber is one of the best things for your digestion.

It helps.

There's, there's a, I mean, fiber is one of the best things you could absolutely incorporate in your nutrition for your overall health.

blood pressure, cholesterol, et cetera.

The list goes on what it actually does.

And utilizing, you know, organic foods foods is important.

I was very much like, I don't think it's going to make a big difference.

It really does.

Just because we're bombarded with toxins in our foods, with the way they're farmed, the way they're processed, the way they are preserved, et cetera.

There's just so much that our bodies are coming in contact with.

If you could try to minimize a little of the excess stuff,

it does make a difference.

So I'm big on organic.

Grass-fed does help.

When you start adding in a lot of just say highly processed stuff with, with like, you know, high saturated fats or stuff like that are seed oils and all that, that's where you start running into some problems when people have a lot of inflammation issues.

Cause really the stemming is inflammation.

Bodybuilding is very pro-inflammatory

with a lot of its

methods, you could say.

So, you know, combating a lot of that, you know, inflammation, there's, there's good inflammation of bad, chronic, just like stress, like acute stress is good.

Chronic is not so good.

Chronic inflammation, not so good.

So you got to really be careful in utilizing proper nutrition does help with that.

So like fiber, like I mentioned, fibers, vegetables is, you know, I try to shoot for like eight to 10 cups a day.

I try to eat probably four to six cups of fruit a day right now.

And I eat,

and I don't really measure.

And I just know like what my body, my,

where I'm satiated with my food.

I still, you know, I hold 265 right now.

And by any doing, I am not trying to hold that.

It's just what years of training.

And people see me now.

They're like, you getting ready to compete?

I say, no, you know, because I eat really good.

I eat clean.

I eat

what you could consider a very like low inflammatory diet.

I eat a lot of, I train relatively smart and consistent.

And my supplementation is on point.

And I tell people right now, and just because I, you know, if I want to get on the gas, I can and I know how my body would respond.

But I do a little over like a half a CC of test a week right now, about a hundred and I think about 120 milligrams, 140 milligrams of test a week right now is what I do.

And it keeps my test level probably between 800 and 1,000.

And really, that's sufficient for me.

And I feel great.

Now, if I want to, you know, turn it up, I can do that.

But, you know, I really, I use leverages.

I lever, you know, nutrition.

I lever supplementation.

I lever knowing where my body is by testing things like, you know, I do mineral analysis and like with my hair or gut testing, making sure that I'm actually utilizing what I need to be in order to keep my body optimized.

Gotcha.

That's kind of cool too, that you

the same level of test that you take when it comes to TRT dosages, you end up having the same total level of test that I have as well.

Like about like 140 milligrams of test lands me in probably close to a thousand,

which is also crazy because I feel like you're twice my size.

You know, and that's the thing too is like TRT is not 200 milligrams.

Like, it's really more like 80 to 120.

It's true TRT dose.

I have a lot of guys that come to me and they're like, yeah, I'm taking 300 milligrams of TRT.

I'm like, that's not TRT.

Like, you're, let me, let me run your blood work and it's probably close to 2,000.

And it's your body's not even able to utilize that much testosterone.

Like, I have a lot of guys that come to me and we restructure the way they do stuff.

And they're like, I just feel so much better.

I'm like, yeah, you're not taxing your body.

You're not overly stressing it and pulling this lever too much where it's like you're creating too much uh one way your body likes balance your body likes equilibrium in things so it's usually by going too much in one way you're going to create a problem somewhere else where then you have to start correcting and then it just snowballs from there right the crazy thing about that too is i've even i don't know if this is going to change now like whenever i do jump on my health phases but i remember in the past when i did jump on the health phase or just jump back basically on trt dosages i would feel less stressed on a daily basis like actually physiologically so i don't know it was always interesting it's absolutely true.

It's, you know, again,

your body needs to break it down.

If you're just flooding your body full of tests,

it's and you're not, again, trying to compete.

What's your goal?

Go back to goals here.

You're not trying to compete at a very high level or just do a basic show.

But guys at the Green League on the Olympia stage, different story.

They're trying to push their physiology way past what it should be.

But if you're, again, just trying to get in the best shape for your life, feel great, be, you know, as an alpha jacked male like you don't need to be cranking five six a gram of test uh a week you know that's that's just way too much on your body it's going to cause way too much stress um on your system so and then like i said the problem there's going to be other other problems you're going to have to try to start fixing so um definitely less is more in that category and knowing how to utilize it and structure it and how how frequently to take it et cetera that kind of stuff i really like helping guys to dial that in for their bodies

what are some lifestyle interventions and maybe like supplementations that you would recommend for reducing inflammation or keeping it low?

At least both for bodybuilders and

real big one, it's

probably been talked about, but I really emphasize it is omega-3 supplementation, high-quality omega-3 supplementation, not the shit you buy at CBS or the grocery store.

Kind of rule of thumb on the functional side is like, don't buy your supplements where you buy your toilet paper.

And, you know, if you're buying the like bulk size omega-3 supplement at Costco, just because it's a good deal and the ratio of EPA to DHA is terrible and doesn't have real high-quality omega-3s, you're just kind of wasting your money.

In that case, yes, you know, supplementation, you're wasting your money.

But getting a really high-quality omega-3

and you can actually test for your omega-3 ratio now, which is cool.

It's actually an inflammation test and you'll check your three to six ratio.

And most Americans are probably between,

like they say, 16 to 18 to one.

And you want to be more like a four to one ratio.

And I actually tested mine and I was like between three and four to one because I just, I load up on omega-3s.

And I think that's a great, great, simple way to decrease inflammation in your body.

I notice definitely if

I eat a lot of red meat or my saturated fats really high,

I notice I feel the inflammation starting to creep up.

I start, I'll double up on my omega-3s and then I start feeling that inflammation come down.

So if there's one product I could say that works, it's the high, high-quality omega-3.

And we're talking, everybody's a little different, but probably in the bodybuilding world, you probably need three, four grams a day of that because,

you know, the average person, probably one to two grams, but bodybuilders just by the amount of protein they're eating that can trigger a little more inflammation.

Sure.

Yeah.

One of my friends actually forwarded me to, have you heard of Carlson's fish oil?

Yeah.

In the bottle?

Yeah.

That's the one I use now, and I fucking love it, the lemon-flavored one.

And honestly, I'll just fucking pour it over my salmon and rice.

It's just fire.

I give that to my son.

My son is an absolute, like, freaking nature.

He's, he's one and a half.

He's coming up to his year and a half birthday.

And I mean, I've been utilizing like a lot of the principles I use and not so much bodybuilding, but more on the functional and holistic health type world.

you know, with utilizing a probiotic for him and utilizing, really working on his gut health.

And I give him, you know, because a lot of the brain health for babies are is DHA derived and I make sure he's loaded up with DHA in his body.

And Carlson is one of the brands I've used.

I currently use.

I currently use myself.

Nordic Naturals is a great,

you know, because they're using sustained fish and it's mixed with

taco ferals.

I'm probably saying it wrong.

But that is what really helps keep the integrity of

the omega-3 through its process and it keeps the quality of it.

so a two to one ratio epa to dha for you guys out there is is really what would i would recommend for uh for the for the bodybuilder or common person wanting to be really optimized cool yeah um i like that a lot um i feel like even after like i implemented more of the uh the carlson's fish oil and higher quality fish oils i actually felt my joints hurting less when i was in the gym too because i guess i mean i sometimes i would pop open the caps before i transitioned to this new fish oil to check if it was rancid or not.

But like, honestly,

I wouldn't be surprised if some of those fish oils did

oxidize more than would have been beneficial for, I don't know,

my nutritional needs.

Oh, absolutely.

And, you know, if you're buying, even, and I'm not knocking Amazon, and Amazon's great, but they're not maintaining typically a lot of the

requirements that it is to storage on a lot of these supplements that usually require a very controlled temperature or sometimes refrigerated.

And they're just sitting in a warm warehouse.

And like you said, it's likely going to be oxidized and you're losing its integrity and it's not going to be as good.

You're just kind of wasting your money.

So

if anybody on here, you could reach out to me and I could point you in the right direction.

We kind of have a dispensary we work with for supplements on that side.

So

but it's, yeah, like

a lot of the times you like, oh, my fish oil is stored in the fridge.

My high quality omegas are stored in the fridge.

And a lot of them will say, like, once you open, you only should consume within 30, 60, or 90 days.

There's a reason behind that.

You know, it's doesn't necessarily you shouldn't be having fish oil for two years, but oh, it's still good.

Like, it's probably not.

Yeah.

I guess another one I could hit on, I think, is fantastic.

Um, NAC for you guys, uh, NAC is a big game changer.

For uh, not only does it help the detox pathways, help your body detox, especially on the liver side.

Uh, it's a product I love to use in my practice, work with a lot of clients on that, and um, a good dose, I'd say anywhere from 600 to 1,200 milligrams.

You know, if you're really beating the crap out of your liver, you can probably go a little higher.

But NHC is an amazing product.

Even you can add glycine to that to kind of

help boost some of the detox pathway on that.

And it's, it's, that one is a fantastic product.

I mean, it works on inflammation, heart health,

the liver, everything.

So good quality acetylocysteine is, is

one of the common products i put a lot of my clients on

awesome yeah i um one of my my personal protocols i take nac daily and then i'll like maybe every twice a week around there i'll like inject

around two

two milliliters of glutathione i'm trying to remember how many that is in milligrams i don't know why i'm blinking out right now but yeah anyways um probably like yeah they usually remember you two to 300 per ml on that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's 200 per so it was about 400 milligrams.

But yeah, I mean,

I feel like that just helps so much, dude.

And I honestly have, I've gotten actually sick once in, I'd say, the last four years.

And I think it's all because of implementing these nutritional like interventions and also doing the glutathione and NAC.

So it's dealt with.

No, it's it, you know, and sometimes, I mean, glutathione is a pretty expensive supplement for most people, and it's a great supplement, but NAC also boosts your natural glutathione levels.

So I encourage a lot of people, like it's kind of like, I could, the way, the analogy I could use is like the natty versus TRT kind of guy.

I'd rather kind of give my body in this case, something that will help it boost its natural levels and let it do what it wants to do with the glutathione, with the, like, take it NAC to boost my glutathione up.

I want it to kind of work how it wants to work versus like forcing it.

Like, I'm just going to give it testosterone just because it needs it.

Like I'd rather give me myself more NAC so it'll boost my natural glutathione up.

Now there's time and place where glutathione is needed under, you know, again, severe stress, super high inflammation, super, you know, if you're super toxic, liver enzymes, et cetera, like, yeah, you're going to need some big glutathione to kind of help you out, but

not always required if you, you know, you're supplementing NAC, a good quality NAC.

Yeah, it makes sense.

I think I was thinking more of like an intense bodybuilding competitor perspective.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's, you know, like looking at it now, I probably wish I had

kind of utilized more of these products.

Again, there wasn't a lot of literature or knowledge about it as there is now when I competed just to kind of help my body with inflammation, with detoxification, with giving my liver more support, et cetera.

And a lot of the sport supplement brands, they try to get a little sexy with formulas and put a lot of unnecessary stuff in there.

So it's like you're not, you're not really, it's not, you really don't need it, or it's not something that's going to move the needle that much, but there's a lot of basic things.

And that's where even more so in the recent and understanding like epigenetics and doing testing for it.

If your body's not methylating vitamins properly, it's going to cause some inflammation issues, especially on the B vitamin side.

And that's one that I've really leaned on a lot with my clients and doing some really cool stuff myself.

I mean, I stay super dry and lean, and like my inflammation is very low in my body.

And people always like, how do you stay so lean?

I was like, well, because I'm not really inflamed.

And I'm not, you know, I don't eat like crap.

Like, I do just basic things that I do and give my body what it needs.

And if you're like, an unhealthy body can't be overweight and it can't be, it can't be sick and inflamed.

So, yeah.

What would you recommend in that sense?

I actually just started implementing

vitamin B complex and methyl folate before bed with my L-tryptophan.

But I don't know if that's

not everybody, not everybody needs it.

You know, it's real popular.

Gary Brecken made it super popular with the 10X health.

They were doing all their testing and pushing methylfolate.

And he's right.

Most people have some kind of gene genetic variation where they're going to be a little deficient.

One of the tests I run on a lot of my blood work is homocysteine.

And that typically is a marker that will show elevate

where you're insufficient of methylating the B vitamin, where by taking a good quality methylated B vitamin complex, it can lower that homocysteine number, which is going to be another inflammation marker we're talking about

that will definitely help your overall health and energy.

I would shift that taking the B vitamin complex at night to take it in the morning because a good quality B vitamin complex could kind of, I mean, it's like taking a five-hour energy right before bed.

Like that idea, it's not going to be, you know, that's what five-hour energy is just loaded with b vitamins so you're going to get that like storage of energy and and being a more awake but not like stimulated the b vitamins can do that with like really good ones so that what that i would say move that to the morning uh nighttime like if you took a b6 like a good quality p5p which is um like the methylated version of b6 like that at night is not going to make but like the methylfolates the b12s like those complexes that are all put together those are best take more in the morning because they can't affect you getting uh good sleep okay I see.

I see.

I think I need to, I probably need to do a little hone down my research on figuring out exactly which B vitamins are the most beneficial for converting L-tryptophan to serotonin.

Because I think that was my discussion with Dr.

Dean about helping me sleep.

And

I think reducing the catecholamine so that I stop overthinking at night.

And I just bought a whole...

vitamin B complex.

So I should probably honestly hone that down and be a little bit more specific with my supplementation there.

But

yeah, thanks for that advice.

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This is something actually I wanted to ask you earlier because we kind of trailed off.

But

you mentioned something about,

I'm trying to remember exactly we were discussing earlier, but it popped the question in my head to ask, I guess,

would you happen to have any advice for competitors now

what they should look for when it might be time for them to,

I guess, guess, hang up the towel and stop competing.

That's a good one.

A lot of guys ignore a lot of

signs in that.

I mean, are we talking real high level or are we talking a little bit more like just in general?

I feel like I would lean towards high level, just since I feel like that's where the health consequences happen more often.

Yeah.

For what I could see, usually I have a pretty good eye.

I can see a body and I could say, you know what, that's reached its absolute pinnacle.

And if they still try to push more,

it's going to not be good.

It's not going to look good anymore.

Like, for instance, I could say when Lunsford won the Olympia, that's his peak.

To me, that was his peak.

And to try to get bigger, add more size, that frame, one, can't hold it anymore.

Two, like you start noticing guys' stomachs and midsections, midsections start to change.

change um that's there's it's several it's multifactorial on that it's not just say insulin or growth hormone like a lot of people say uh it's the amount of food that's consumed it's uh

you know they're trying to force a shitload of protein in their body and it's it's not it's not assimilating it's they're having you know uh they're beating up their digestive tract as well so um

there and then

To me, it's like when when that body doesn't have that flow or pop, they're just really, they're they're just trying to like, what else could I throw at it that's going to make it stick?

And I could see it with guys.

Like they don't have that, like their quads don't quite flare like it used to, or the midsection's expanding.

They're starting to lose a lot of that, that conditioning, or they're, it's just kind of like

it's their, they're season and it's not, their bodies don't look prime.

It don't look fresh.

And, you know, some of these guys just, I mean, freaks like Dexter Jackson can can do that, you know, know, but Dexter was offseason.

You never, you couldn't even tell the guy even worked out half the time.

I mean, he was a freak.

He was an absolute freak when you looked at him

on stage.

And he maintained that till his, in his, what, late 40s, early 50s?

I can't even remember.

Like it was, he looked incredible, but he did that by giving his body rest in the offseason, by doing things smart.

Guys that stay on the gas all year round or 11 out of 12 months are like, I take one month off.

Like, no, you need to, you know, it was showtime.

Like, for me, that's why I said when I, when it was showtime, I got on the gas six months, whatever it was, seven months.

And then I gave my body a rest the other six to seven months out of the year just to give it enough time to, you know, heal.

I do labs and, and, and not as much as I would do now, now what I know, but uh,

I think when, you know, guys got to really start taking a look at their health.

Like, what's your blood pressure doing on a daily basis?

Um, you know, what, how are you continually having to take more and more drugs to try to achieve a certain look?

Is, do you feel like you're not getting in that same conditioning and just trying to do more and more and more because your body's just burning out?

It's just too much.

And

I have had this conversation with a few guys before and just trying to help them understand like there's, there's a point and it sucks.

Yeah, you're a competitor.

You don't want to hang it up.

You want to compete as long as you can.

And that's the way you're making your living.

I get it.

But you have to think about a little bit long-term health if you want to be able to have any life after bodybuilding.

So

it's an important question to ask, an important thing to help guys to look for.

Bodybuilders are a little bit stubborn sometimes.

They don't want to admit some straight facts.

Like, hey, you know what?

I'm not looking like I looked three years ago.

I peaked.

Some guys could take some time off, come back and look really good.

Bonak is one that surprised me recently.

He took some time to kind of reset his body a little bit.

And he's not a spring chicken.

And he looked phenomenal in the last couple of shows he did so right um and i think there's something to say about genetics on that um i call it afronetics like let's just be real man like white dudes we fall apart and they you know like black don't crack rose yeah shit it's just not fair so

um so i mean there there's there's truth to that there's i mean there's clinical proof to just look at those guys so um yeah I mean, there's a lot, there's multifactorial, but we definitely, when you see a physique just not looking the same and guys are just, you know, keep showing up, keep showing up.

Their legs are getting smaller.

They're not, you know, there's nerve damage in tissue where it's just doesn't, you know, like lats are, there's one lat that's either torn or it's if it's nerve damage.

Like, there's so many things to look at and be like, guys, like,

it's, if you really want to have any kind of life after bodybuilding or if you want to be Ronnie Coleman, then let's have this conversation.

Gotcha.

I see.

I guess on the other side, I assume that it's even harder

to determine this way, but is there any, I guess, like, are there any internal indicators such as like on blood work?

Or, I mean, I'm assuming, of course, if you see things in scans and it's like, dude, you have this much arterial plaque, then it's a, it's probably time for you to start reversing things.

But, I mean, I guess it's hard to kind of dictate when is the measure that someone should look out for.

Absolutely.

I mean, you look at basic metabolic tests.

You look at stuff like your liver enzymes.

If they're always way elevated and you're not getting in the chance to get down into normal levels, that's something you got to look at.

If your cholesterol is disgustingly screwed up between your total triglycerides, HDL, LDL, like if your ratios are off, then, you know,

you could ignore that for so long.

But, you know, then you got to look at kidney function.

There's obviously the tests with kidney function, your bun, creatinine, your EGFR ratios, all that kind of stuff.

Like if your kidneys are suffering from years of, you know, water loading, depleting, diuretic, et cetera, that's stuff you got to look at.

I mean, there's a lot of internal markers you can actually check

that will indicate, you know, obviously, hormonally, we destroy our bodies.

I mean, if you were to, you know, take a guy off all his drugs and test him three months later, I mean, you look at this guy like he has zero testosterone in his body, estrogen is probably super high.

Every other hormone, like pregnenolone, DHEA is in the tank, like everything is just destroyed because it's what we do to try to achieve a certain look.

But,

you know, yes, scans would be the next thing.

You know, how go and get a

an echo on your heart.

You know, obviously, heart's a muscle.

And if it's something like if you have an athlete's heart, and I've had them, have had several done to where you're, you know, a lot of guys have left ventricle hypertrophy from years of heavy lifting and force.

And if it's, if it's starting to affect your body's ability to pump blood through the body and make it less efficient, there's an issue there.

That's something you got to look at that could affect you long term.

Now, if it doesn't, if just say you have a strong heart, that's, that's great.

But that's something that those are things to consider.

Like you said, doing a calcium score test, that's another great one that guys should start checking.

Again, a lot of these things are genetic.

Like if you're genetically predisposed to certain things and you're living a certain way that's causing these to go up, you're going to be affected.

And one of the one of the cool things that I like to tell people when we're on a call and I'm saying, you know, going over genetics, because they're like, well, genetically, I'm predisposed to having diabetes because my mom had it.

i said well just because genetics is like having a loaded gun it's but your lifestyle is what pulls a trigger so it doesn't mean you're gonna have diabetes just because your mom had it but she probably ate like crap and didn't work out and take care of herself so it's important that you do certain things on a regular basis um to avoid having these yeah

yeah uh facts Dr.

Adin and I were talking about how we both got our genetics tested.

We got our results from,

we got a raw data from 23andMe and put it in this site called Promethease.

And it gives you like this just rundown of all your

genetic coding and

whatever.

But it's kind of cool though, because then you got to see what all your genetic predispositions are, like your different risks and everything.

And sometimes it gets a little scary.

But I mean, as a bodybuilder, though, it's kind of dope because then you can like think about places where, you know, there's so many places that you have to look at in terms of your health, but then it like kind of hones down on where a good place for you for you to focus on, you know.

So, and like one of those, for example, for me is like Alzheimer's and dementia seemed to be something that are a potential possibility for me.

So now I'm like literally looking at all the most, all the neuroprotective methods that I can implement now,

just because,

I don't know, man, that's just, that's a little scary for me.

It is.

It's a terrible disease.

You know, they, they're, they're really calling it type 3 diabetes now

with that.

And, and it's not something that happens overnight.

It happens over 20 or 30 years of really abuse to your body.

So it's like, don't think if,

you know, you go through a little stressful phase of life or something happens and you're going to get it in a year.

Like, that's not really the, that's not usually how it happens.

And so the basic, probably most fundamental rule you could say for your brain is if it's good for your body, it's good for your brain.

So I, again, you know, that's where, you know, doing things like, you know, checking stuff like A1C, checking your fasted glucose levels, making sure you're not having a lot of issues with insulin resistance and inflammation in the body, you know, you start looking at lifestyle factors that can reverse and even help a lot of the potential effects of Alzheimer's and dementia and all that kind of stuff.

And there's so many, there's so much data now.

And there's like, there's a protocol I use for some people that are having some early onset stuff.

that, you know, you can get some testing done to actually see if there's some issues going on.

And then you can start looking at, and one of the basic things is, crazy as it sounds, is looking at lifestyle and really dialing in nutrition and dialing in a lot of the things that the fitness and bodybuilding world already do.

So it creates all these health benefits because you work out and exercise regularly and do cardio and are very active with your physical health.

So it's understanding, doing principles,

understanding nutrition for people and getting them more active and keeping their brains active as you age.

You know, we have have a tendency to be a little bit more vegetables, like watching TV and just sitting on our phone all day.

So it's important to kind of exercise your mind, you know, pick up a try to learn an instrument.

Doing things that stimulate your brain is important as we continue to age.

Yeah, yeah.

I was at my girl's family in Kentucky for like,

I think we were for Easter and we were playing this game.

It's like it's this game for kids.

It's called memory.

And you like put down a bunch of like um it was animals and they're all face down and there's like two matches of each animal right so you gotta like basically each person is gonna flip over a card and then they flip over a second card if it matches they get the cards if it doesn't match they gotta flip it back over and everyone around the circle has to memorize where it was right so they can get it the next time and i fucking lost the game The kids beat me.

My girl beat me.

Her dad beat me.

I fucking lost the game, bro.

So I'm like, I gotta fucking do something with my brain because this isn't working out really well, this bodybuilding thing.

That's funny.

Yeah.

I similar story.

I had recently

misplaced my, I have, I was washing my car with my son.

He was helping me.

And I had, I take my aura ring and I had my wedding ring off.

I put it in my pocket.

And then like later in the day, I'm like, oh man, I can't find my ring.

And that's, I was in my pants.

And I'm like, I can't find it.

And I'm like thinking, I'm like, am I losing it?

My wife's like, are you losing it?

You're losing your shit.

I'm like, no, I'm not.

No, I'm not.

Like, I just, you know, it's called just a little bit overwhelmed with some of the stuff I got working on the plate right now.

But yeah, it's, it's, uh,

that's always in the back of your mind.

Like, I want to make sure I stay, you know, obviously, you know, mind and body are, are very important to maintain, not just a certain look.

Like, yes, it's great to look a certain way and have a six pack and be shredded because, you know, what, you're going to win Instagram.

But hey, I want to be healthy on the inside and healthy upstairs too.

Yeah, yeah.

I wanted to ask you this in the beginning, but I got trailed off because there's like a million things that I want to talk to you about.

Honestly, I could talk to you all day.

But

if you don't mind me asking, because I know some people are familiar with your story, but I'm sure that a lot of people in my audience also aren't.

But I know that

you've experienced some hardships out there and that you were also, you know, you're also a firefighter and also had your own businesses while you were competing.

So if you don't mind me asking from the beginning, I guess, like what got you into bodybuilding in the first place?

And what,

I guess, what continued on from there?

It was, I loved training.

I love lifting.

Like that was my

drug of choice, you could say, like in my early years.

I loved, I played sports.

So it's like lifting and getting stronger.

And you'd think, oh man, I'm getting a little horseshoe in my tricep.

You know, shirts getting tighter in my arm.

This is great.

You know, and it's like that old school, like, oh, the pump.

You know, I was a teenager in the gym.

And I had, I had, not that results came easy, but I got results fairly easy from working out because I trained hard.

I trained heavy.

I didn't know any better.

I was like, I'm just going to pick a bunch of weight up and move and do some of these basic compound lifts that my football coach was telling me and all this.

So

I loved that.

And then I, you know, I started, I got a membership at a, what would be considered a bodybuilder's gym when I lived in Detroit.

It was a, it was a powerhouse gym, and a lot of people that competed were there.

So they were all like, you know what, you have a ton of potential.

Like, you need to do this because you can do really well.

So I had, I had people around me encouraging me that led me into deciding to get into bodybuilding and wanting to pursue this.

I think anything you have a lot of success in or that, not necessarily that it comes easy.

I mean, I worked my ass off, but I had a lot of success because my, so I reaped fruit of my, of my harvest of working hard.

And that's kind of the, the, like that saying of my hobby turned into my career.

And

as you know, bodybuilding is very expensive.

And when you're coming up, and this was not in the days of social media, just to get on a magazine cover that came out once a month was huge or getting or getting an article written about you was huge.

You know, there was no podcast.

There was none of that stuff.

So

for me,

I had, again, like I said, I had a lot of success early on.

I won Team Nationals at 18 and 19 years old.

And for as a heavyweight, I won a big like pro-am show at 20.

And so like, I had a lot of people write, you you know there's articles written about me this was like in the message board days of like the the muscle mayhem and all that kind of stuff

and

so I wanted to do this full-time but then it led me into well how do I friggin pay for it and I loved the body I loved learning about it so I was like I want to pursue firefighting I had friends that were they had a great schedule there's 24 hours on to get 48 hours off I'm like perfect I can I can work you know my 24-hour shifts and I can focus on bodybuilding when I'm off

so you know like that career just fit And

I loved working as a firefighter.

It was a very rewarding career.

It's something that, you know, is not for everyone.

And you do, you work your ass off.

You get your ass beat.

You get spit on, pissed on, shit on, thrown up on, see the worst of the worst.

But at the end of the day, when you help somebody, it's very rewarding.

And it also allowed me to pursue bodybuilding at a very high level.

And I had a lot of support through my career there.

And then I eventually got to a point where I was like, you know, in order for me me to really go to the next level and be as successful as I can be in bodybuilding, I need to kind of, I came to the fork of the road and I said, let's go bodybuilding full time.

At the time, I was able to support myself via bodybuilding by sponsorships

and winnings and doing the, you know, starting my own business type stuff where I was like, you know, if you're in bodybuilding, if you're in fitness, there's, unless you, you, you, you have your own brand of something, but you are your own brand.

Like Steve Kukla was his own brand.

So I was always trying to making sure I represented myself the best, always look the part, be the part.

Like, I'm not going to walk around 350 pounds out of shape and be like, oh, I'm a top bodybuilder.

People are going to look at me like I'm crazy.

Like, I want to walk around looking like every room I walk into, I want to demand like that freaking dude looks like a statue because he's, you know, I guess he must be a bodybuilder.

Or, you know, people would always sometimes say, he's a pro wrestler or whatever.

It's just because I look the part.

I wanted to be the best I can be.

And I still have that mentality today.

Like anything I want to do, whether I'm coaching or training a client or in my business, whatever, being a father or husband, I want to be the best I can absolutely be.

And

that's really what drove me into kind of being a firefighter and bodybuilder at the same time to eventually become a bodybuilder for that.

Gotcha.

I'm trying to remember exactly the discussion, but

I feel like there were some things that you went through during your bodybuilding career, maybe.

And

I'm not sure

how related these were to your other career paths while you were bodybuilding.

But

I was hoping just to ask you a little bit if you'd be up to expounding on that.

Yeah.

I mean, like in what category?

I'm going to be honest.

I'm frying this because I listened to this way back and I...

I can't remember what it was because I'm brain pointing right now.

But

I guess when you when you finished

when you were competing as a bodybuilder, I know you started doing some stuff with your business as well.

And then you

how long were you firefighting for and then firefighting for?

And then when did you start implementing these businesses as well?

So I was

actively can actively paramedic firefighter for the city of Dallas for 10 years.

Probably after right after I turned pro in 2011 is,

you know, there was only a handful of guys doing this.

And I took a page out of Jay Cutler's book because he was kind of a guy that I more or less admired and idolized as my early days of bodybuilding.

Like, man, this guy is somebody that I look up to.

He's paved a really clear path on how to be successful in the sport.

So it was him and Phil Heath.

And then I decided to make a t-shirt line myself.

And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to have some apparel that anytime I go to appearances because guest appearances, posings,

all that were very prevalent during that time, early like 2010, 2011, 2015, all the way like through that.

So I was like, I'm going to have my own apparel line, have t-shirts, you know, that swag, that kind of stuff.

And then that eventually led into,

you know, starting a

more robust.

fitness apparel line, more focused on women's apparel that I ended up on Shark Tank with my ex and all that.

And we, we had a, it was a very successful

business venture.

And that was something, again, like I didn't go to school for that, but I felt like bodybuilding again, well, bodybuilding teaches you a lot of great life lessons.

It teaches you like a lot of fortitude and working hard and being focused.

So I was able to apply these principles I learned in bodybuilding and say, hey, I'm going to apply them to business.

And I don't know every answer, but I'm going to find it.

I'm going to get a coach.

I'm going to hire somebody that knows how to maybe structure business or how to market that I don't know how to do or how to do certain things.

So,

and I think if Nick, looking back now, I would even be go deeper in that, like hiring coaches or people that are in business advisors, et cetera, where I was a little bit more like, I'm just going to figure this out myself.

I want to do this myself.

Like, but there's a lot of value in hiring people.

And that's why hiring coaches to help you with your health and competing, et cetera, is a great idea if they're good.

But for me, like I was, like, I always thought, like you said early in this,

bodybuilding is great.

Fitness is great.

I love being an influence, all that, but there's a window of opportunity with that.

And I wanted to figure out, okay, when that door closes,

making sure I have runway after that I can continue to take off and fly and do what I have to do to provide for my family and maintain a great income and the lifestyle I want to have and really having a clear vision of that.

And sure, there's a lot of struggle.

There's a lot of like when I, you know, obviously not not actively competing and pursuing that, but going more into the, what was my next chapter in life and what, how do I expand and what I know or what I enjoy.

That was, there was a lot of reinventing myself in the last few years that was not easy.

So like there was huge struggle in that because, you know, you can do a million things.

You feel like I'm the kind of person like, you know what, somebody tells me that I can start my own landscape.

I'm just going to give you an example, like landscape business and then I can own a jewelry store and I can own a gas station.

Like, I'll sick shit.

I could do it all.

Like, bring it on.

But I I was literally spreading myself way too thin and I was trying to do a million things.

And I'm like, nothing's working because I can't put the focus, time, and effort into it.

So how do I, how do I establish a good,

really dig into my business?

So I hired a coach, my coach, Matt Park, and he's one that really made me focus, say, go a mile deep versus a mile wide.

And I said, that's exactly right.

You know, and I learned to say no.

I have people reach out to me all the time, wanting to do this, wanting to do that.

Let's start this.

I could help you with this.

And I'm just like, no, I don't have the time.

And now with my son and my wife, like my time is the most valuable thing.

And if somebody's going to take it or offer, it better be utilized or something that is a great opportunity from A to Z, not just an idea that I must have put so much time, effort, and work into that, you know, it's going to be all on me to accomplish.

So learning to say no was a huge thing for me in the last few years

and really going in mile deep with my businesses that

I do,

you know, and everything kind of feeds into each other right now.

So I have like a full wellness company that feeds into, I have personal training and concierge health that I do for high performance health for guys and women.

You know, I have my bodybuilding show that I put on every year.

So everything's kind of fitness umbrella, more or less, health and fitness.

And then it all does funnel into what I do, Steve Kukwell.

You know, that's ultimately it is.

So I don't try to expand too much into different areas.

You know, I've just brought brought on a regenerative medicine branch, so I'm able to do stem cell and all that kind of stuff for my clients.

So there's branches I bring into the business, but again, I'm focusing on my business and how to make sure I expend that the most versus trying to do 10 other things that are completely in different arenas.

Yeah.

Allostatic load is something that I've been talking about a lot with a lot of my guests recently, just because I guess it's an aspect of bodybuilding that's not always, or at at least in the past definitely has not been discussed a lot you know because in the past it was like if you're a bodybuilder and you want to be the best you got to do it all you know you got to train as hard as possible you got to eat the diet perfectly you got to you got to just got to be on top of everything perfectly but it's just like man you also got a life right you also got to like make money right like

Dude, that's a lot on your plate, not just like physically, but mentally.

So how the fuck do you manage all of that?

So

it's super hard.

And I had the conversation with a client client earlier today because he's doing his first show and he's super focused and he's got a he's got a super successful business so the guys you know he he he makes a great living but wanting to do this kind of as a bucket list thing i said that's amazing that's great let's do this i got you um but the people that are like you know i want to do this but don't have a means of income and then they're going to be like an old animal ad if you ever saw those where they're like a guy in his basement of his mom's house with like a dozen egg whites, you know, saying like, I don't care about life.

I just got to get to the gym to get my set in kind of thing.

Like those old hardcore ads the mentality of a bodybuilder i get it and it is very selfish a lot of times like you do have to push away so much so much of life that is fruitful that is enjoyable to just try to accomplish one thing um it's very hyper focused but um you know again creating balance is important on that but um

understanding that you have to have a a stream of income or revenue with this in order if you want to pursue this at a real high level that's why i pursued it that's why i wanted to be a firefighter because I was like, well, I could, I could fund and live the way I need to live in order to pursue this as well.

So, you know, I could go over to the Middle East.

A lot of those guys are, you know, paid to go over there and train in like oxygen gym and, you know, are pretty much given a stipend and, you know, everything's paid for.

And that's great.

And you could do bodybuilding 100%.

I just never wanted to do that because I felt like I wanted to live my life here and have balance.

Yeah.

What do you feel like has given you the most anxiety

back when

back when you were competing,

back before you retired?

I think the thing that would give me the most anxiety was like missing the mark,

you know, like not being ready.

Because it's, again, we're in a very subjective sport and you're always like, like you say, you always want to do eat perfect, train more, do more, more, more in, as, as.

in bodybuilding.

It feels like there's never enough.

And you always want to push yourself to the next, the the next, the next level, the next level.

So the anxiety for me came into, am I doing enough?

And am I going to be ready?

Am I going to look my best?

And I never focused on really the other guy.

I was never focused on who's doing the show because I was like, I only have control of myself.

So my only focus was really what I can do and bring to the table.

Gotcha.

Is there anything that came from outside the competition arena that caused an immense stress on you?

I mean, firefighting was a big stress.

And, you know, there was nights I was up 24 hours, you know, days I was up 24 hours getting my ass kicked when I worked on the ambulance where I was making 23, 24 calls in a 24-hour period where I didn't get to sleep at all, missed meals.

But I didn't let it, that was an extreme stress on my body, but I never let it be an excuse for me not being successful or achieving what I wanted to achieve.

I never

was using that to say, well, you know, I guess I'm going to play second because I didn't get my full sleep every night.

No,

it taught me that I was capable of doing some really stressful shit and accomplishing some really amazing stuff by staying focused and not making excuses and just pushing through and just showed me that our bodies are capable of some really incredible tasks and

things,

you know, pushing myself way past what my mind said, oh, it's going to be too hard, but my body's way more capable.

I love that.

I think that's fucking awesome because I think it's so easy for us to forget just how capable we are of things.

And it's, especially in times of stress and anxiety, it's just like,

I don't know, it's almost overwhelming to

that.

I think we just, by default, feel like

there's such a cap on what we can achieve and such a limit on what we will, you know?

And

I mean, I see this in so many different places.

For example, like, where am I going to end up later in life?

Am I going to have the living that I want?

Or like, how, how big and how fucking shredded can I even look as a natural?

Like, how far can I get?

Like, people don't even, I feel like these days, people

just have this, like, the lowest belief in what's achievable as a natural.

So now everybody is starting to look kind of like a fake natty.

Yeah.

It's, um, I mean, I don't know what's true, obviously.

I have no clue, but I like to believe that we're capable of way more than we think, you know, and I think you're a pretty good example of that.

It's kind of fucking insane that you spent like 24-hour shifts not sleeping and you're able to achieve what you did.

Yeah.

I turned pro, won the Mr.

USA in one of the, you know, at the time, there was only two pro cards given out at that show and only a handful every year.

And I always said like the

nationals back in like the late like 2008 to 2012, 14, like that was more publicized than a lot of pro shows because everybody wanted to know who's the next pro, who's the guys that are going to get the pro cards.

And MD, like, if it was eight weeks in from the show, MD was in town every weekend filming my workouts and it was in the trenches and it was, it was a, I think, kind of a mini golden age of bodybuilding for the internet era and early, early stages of that.

And it was great to be awesome to be a part of it.

But it, it, like you said, um,

I won that show working on one of the busiest ambulances in the city of Dallas, getting my butt kicked, you know, and

I remember getting off shift sometime, like damn near falling asleep at the wheel on the way home because I was so tired, so like hypocaloric, so just beat to shit, but I didn't make any excuse.

I was able to figure it out and work my hardest and not, and just give it my all.

And it paid off.

Yeah, yeah.

Weren't you doing DC training too?

Like when you were around that time when you first started?

Yeah, that was 2003, four, five, when Justin Harris and I trained together.

We were DC advocates.

A lot of the, you know, it was more or less kind of the Dorian style training, just very high intensity, rest pause sets.

And

it wasn't quite the full-blown like DC, like, like Dante really recommends, but we, we, you know, we did end up logging stuff.

We, we made, kept, and, and I remember doing this as a natural

for several years, and it does beat the crap out of your body because it's super heavy.

Like, I remember when

Justin's like, All right, now we're going to squat four or five for 20 reps because that's what you got to do on DC.

And I was like, Okay, I'll do it.

And then, and then one time he walked in and he's like, All right, we're going to do 500 for many reps as we can do.

And I said, That sounds horrible, but all right, I'll try it.

I mean, there's videos that I have, like I'm from early YouTube days, I mean, probably 2006, five, something like that, that I was squatting 500 pounds at 20 years old for reps.

Like, did you say front squatting?

Front squatting, Jesus Christ, dude.

and i just i didn't know better i just did it so

this is this is pre-instagram baby i see a lot of these guys lifting now i was like yeah there's some are pretty strong but i was like if i had instagram back in the day i could have been a superhero at uh

no for real that's nuts um

what How do you feel like your training had changed over your competitive career?

Do you feel like it had?

Oh, absolutely.

Like I had to adapt.

Obviously, with

training heavy and hard, it beats the crap out of your body.

Your joints will take a beating.

Regardless of how enhanced you are, you know, when it, when you come off, you're like, whoa, okay, now my body's talking to me.

Like, you can get away with a lot when you're on

and, you know, DHT levels super high and you're freaking Superman.

Like, you get recoveries through the roof, all that kind of stuff.

Then you come off, you're like, wait a second, like it hurts to get out of bed.

This isn't good.

So, you know, for me, it was, all right, we got to, we got to be smarter about the way we train.

We can't be throwing around 200 pounds.

I mean, I was super strong.

I was, you know, inclined pressing 200 pounds.

I military press 405 for reps.

There's video.

I'm not just saying there's video.

I got videos in archives about this stuff.

And if I still lifted like that, I think I would definitely be a lot.

I mean, can I still do some of that?

Yeah, I'm still pretty strong, but.

My ego knows better now not to do that because it's, I'm risking a lot for, for, for nothing.

It's like, I need to put a focus on you know lifting smarter not harder when I lift now and in the later part of my career I focused on

protecting my lower back it was one of the biggest things you know heavy squats year and deadlifts for you know year after year my lower back took a beating and then this probably about 10 years ago is the first time I really got into the regenerative medicine side and I got some stem cell injected in my back and that made a big difference to try to give me some more time into the extreme lifting that I did in bodybuilding.

so that's why I'm a believer in regenerative medicine now because of my success and experience with it.

So, you know, utilizing more of the future health stuff now, like you definitely can expand careers, no doubt.

So, but you have to be smart.

You have to,

there's too much, sometimes there's too much ego.

Like, you don't have to always grab the 200-pound dumbbells to do stuff.

You could make lighter weight harder by doing it right, more focus.

And

there is a lot more education on that and a lot more emphasis on that that for people.

So, I mean, you see those little funny memes or like little video side-by-side videos like Ronnie training in 2001 versus like the guy that's like real strict to controlling now with doing weight.

There's funny, funny videos.

You know, the super science guys are going to be like, yeah, you need to train like that, not train like Ronnie.

But then the bro science guys will be like, well, let me see.

Ronnie's 300 pounds shredded.

Yes, it's superior genetics.

The guy in the video is 150 pounds saying you need to do this, but barely any muscles.

So you got to to meet somewhere in the middle here.

Like, let's, yeah, yeah, there's a combination of some, you know, movement and weight, intensity, and then using proper form.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like just you go hard, but be conscious about it, you know, be a little careful and shit.

And

not many people are being careful when you're trying to

throw around five, ten plates.

So

that's obviously coming from experience.

Yeah.

But

is there any type of training that you feel like ended up,

I guess, working the best for you?

I guess, like, what did your sets and your reps look like?

How much volume did you feel like you do on a day-to-day basis?

Into Worm.

I think my training really cranked up was, again, pre-contest because that's when everything was turned up for me.

And I felt like there was a sweet blend because of my body and what I felt I responded to from when I trained early in my career of just lifting heavy ass weight and moving a ton of weight.

It was in combination when I started adding more volume to it, doing a lot of supersets, drop sets,

high intensity on that component too, combining those really worked to take my body to the next level.

Cause I felt like for years I was competing in that 265, low 270s for a while.

And then I made that big jump when I started training with Gina in my, and where we started incorporating like a lot of volume, but training heavy.

um doing like giant sets of stuff um you know milos is big in this kind of like giant set and superset where it's a lot of volume but you're also lifting pretty damn heavy too for that.

And the combination of the two is where I felt my body like grew.

And that's when I said early on with that equation of whether it's going to be food, supplementation, or training, that's where the training I felt like really dialed in for me.

It wasn't just go lift super heavy.

It wasn't go just do you know lightweight and a ton of reps to get a pump.

It's like, no, go, go train hard, go intense,

and with intention, with intentionality, but also focusing on volume and getting

as much blood

that we can into the muscle through each workout.

And I felt that's what really started changing the shape of my body.

Okay.

I feel like I can kind of relate a little bit.

Patrick Tor has his own little SST type sets, SST type training program.

And in it, he implements like on the second exercise, there's like two exercises per

no, sorry, two sets per exercise.

And on the second exercise, you implement one of those.

And normally, the SST set, or basically, like this little intensifier at the end of the set is something like

the rest pause set, for example, where you like rest for 20 seconds, do as many reps as you can again, rest for 20 seconds as many reps as you can again until you hit like one rep, for example.

Or there's like um like a drop set where you slow the eccentric to about four to five seconds until failure again.

And it's just like all these like

these intensifiers, but also like time elongators.

And I always, at the end of the set, I'm always just like, this is the best pump I've ever gotten every single time.

And

I know there's a lot of controversy right now on like, what is the most optimal way to, you know, induce hypertrophy, especially because there's a lot of this science-based training that's prevalent, right?

And a lot of it is true, right?

You should.

focus on a stretch for a lot of the exercises but i don't know i think um i don't i almost feel like there isn't enough credible research on some of these methodologies that we implemented as bodybuilders and i almost wonder are all these extra things that we are doing as bodybuilders that are like changing our genetic coding through

you know um

synthetic implementation and stuff is this also

um part of why we can grow so much from doing these things so i don't know it's cool No, you're absolutely right.

I said this in a podcast not too long ago.

I was like, bodybuilding is sometimes light years ahead of science because we're doing things and then science catches up and be like, wow, there's proof that this actually works because science always wants to see proof.

They're like, does this study show?

I mean, you could make any study kind of show something.

Let's just be honest with it.

But bodybuilding, you got proof in the way you look.

You got proof in the results that happen,

whether your strength goes up, whether you're getting leaner, whether you're getting, you know, achieving the goals that you set out.

So, I believe that bodybuilding, because it's, again, in a study, it's also hard to make sure that everybody's eating a certain way and training to the efforts that they want if they're just getting paid to do the study.

Bodybuilding is like, nah, these people are so die-hard, hardcore with the way they want to die, the way they want to train, the way they want to win this show, that they're doing everything pretty much perfect.

So, you have your perfect test dummies right there,

test subjects,

to show you that this training method actually works by doing, you know, the like, and I really, with a lot of my clients, I've really incorporated a lot of the, exactly what you were saying.

There's time under tension, there's like

very controlled negatives that I like to incorporate.

There's, there's

like squeeze reps where you're holding static movement in a certain position.

for several seconds to try to really emphasize certain ranges of the movement.

You know, incorporating all these now, I feel like can really help somebody change their physique.

And it's not like just this one static workout.

There's a lot of dynamic and change and variables in the workout.

It really gets the body like, whoa, this is, I got all kinds of stuff going on.

I come up with all these little names with different workouts I send clients.

And a lot of them have, you know, there's a lot of methods behind it other than just like do some straight sets of eight to 10 reps for four different exercises.

Good luck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you mind me me asking, by the way, because I'm still so intrigued by, I guess, how you dropped your like your use and your test use so much during the offseasons.

I guess

did you see yourself gaining much in those periods of time when you did drop your tests?

Or was that more of like you're going to maintain your physique at this weight and try to compete, like bring in a better conditioning level or something?

Like, was there a different purpose, a different focus around that?

The whole, I think, the whole reason for me was like, all right, it's, I'm going to give my body a rest overall.

Like, I'm going to reset my receptors.

I'm going to get be fresh when I do start back up.

That was my, that was like my number one thought process behind that.

And there's people that say, you don't need to take off.

There's no reason to take off.

You're going to feel like shit.

Yeah, you don't feel great.

But I never made it an excuse.

Like, I never used drugs, PEDs, as a crutch to create certain desired goals or effects from what I'm trying to achieve.

Too many people use it as a crutch.

Like the only way I can get A to B is if I use this.

Like I never stopped training hard.

I never stopped eating a certain way, even though whether I was on or off, whether I was pre-conscious or not, I always was pretty much 90, 95% on the ball.

That way I created consistency there.

That's what created the results.

It wasn't because I was on a shitload of drugs or not on any drugs.

It was because I was consistent in it.

And then people can never tell when I was really on or off.

I can tell, you know, you lose a little bit of that hardness.

You lose some of that strength.

Like, okay, you don't get the 11th or 12th rep as easy.

Maybe you fail at 10, but you're still pushing yourself past where normal people are going to give up.

Or when people come off and they kind of fall to the wayside and you see guys lose 30 pounds because they've come off and they're not training hard anymore.

Like, I always framed my ass up, always pushed.

I always, I always.

didn't make that an excuse to not be big or strong because I was just off.

So

my reasoning, like if I ever got anything in the offseason, it would be just maybe bump test and add a little EQ in.

But I was never like, you know, we're going to add in a ton of anadrol and deball and go crazy with it.

You know, like, I tried it once and I couldn't eat.

I felt sick.

Like, I'm like, this, how is this benefit me?

I'm doing one thing to try to.

It's counterproductive.

So I was like, let's just go back to just being in some basic stuff.

And then, you know, when I want, when it's time to get on the gas, when it's time to get on stage and really pour everything into it, because I have a goal set, like, then we'll get on it.

So it, that's what I feel like, why I was able to compete for so long.

And,

and yes, I, my body aged and I've aged, but you look at some guys, you're like, damn, these dudes like aged 20 years in three years.

Like, they, that doesn't look good.

Like, that's their internal, you know, their internal damage kind of coming through the skin and the way they look.

I was always able to, you know, I age pretty gracefully considering the amount of stress that I put on my body over the years.

I've done DNA age tests where my age, I actually age, I'm aging slower than my biological age because I've the stuff I implement now.

And

so it's, you know, there's smart ways to do it.

There's not a smart way to do it.

And there's, there's rushed ways and there's

ways where you think, hey, I'm going to do this for a long period of time because I want to be in it for a long period of time.

Yeah.

How long would you say were these health phases that you would take and how frequent?

I'd say at least three, four months

in a row.

Like I wouldn't be like, yeah, sure, there's part of you that's like, dude, I want to get back on because I feel great.

And being off absolutely sucks.

Like, I get that.

And that's a mental hurdle you got to get over.

I always told my buddy, I was like, well, I don't want to feel like the, you know, have that body dysmorphia where I feel like I'm super small if I'm not on anything.

So what I want to do is I'm just going to get as big as I can.

So even if I feel small, I'm still the biggest guy in the room.

That's what I told him one time.

So for me, it's,

you know, I would take that time, three, four months.

And then, you know, in the bodybuilding world, it's like, okay, Olympia was September at the time, a lot of the years that I competed.

So you would be able to take or maybe do a couple shows afterwards.

So let's just go October, October, November, December, January.

And then it'd be like, all right, maybe that's three months, maybe four.

And then if you're going to do the Arnold, there's, you've had three months off and then back on, you know, get back in into the swing of things.

So the guys that are just staying on the gas like super hard all the time, you can see they just burn out.

Their bodies, you know, as they go on in the year, it, it doesn't carry that same hardness.

The Christmas is leaving.

They're not, they're not as fool.

Their body just looks tired.

Yes, some guys are freaks.

Like Victor Martinez, freak.

Like that guy could look insane all the time, probably running, you know, a cycle all the time and just

look insane.

But not everybody is Victor Martinez.

Not everybody's Dexter Jackson.

Not everybody's Kevin Lavrone, where they have those kind of genetics.

That's just, that's just being real, you know?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

That's a cool point.

And I'm glad you mentioned that too, because I was always, that was one of my curiosities is how the hell this guy had this freaking long ass standing career and how he lasted so many freaking years.

And

I think it's just so undervalued to discuss just how important it is to like

take your take your foot off the gas pedal.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's, we're, we're human.

Let's be real.

Like, what's your ultimate goal?

It's, it's great to look

our society, and especially with social media, is so vanity-driven.

And that's the thing about bodybuilding, it's subjective way, the way you look.

I get it.

And we become obsessed with the way we look.

Yes, you want to look great and you want to look a certain way.

You want to have, you know, be presentable.

You want to be attractive to the other sex, all that kind of stuff.

That all plays a role.

But, you know,

be smart, be a little bit more

focused on some long-term health.

That's always sat in the back of my mind as I went through my career.

Yes, sometimes you're like, I don't care.

I'm going to do whatever it takes to try to win Olympia and I'm going to go all in and I'm going to do whatever drugs or whatever training or whatever I have to do to achieve that.

There's that like winner's champion mentality, yes, but you have to know when to let off the gas.

You have to know when to say, I need some time off.

It's okay if I don't look a certain way.

If you need some counseling, whatever, like, you know,

trust me, your girlfriend's going to love you if you're not 4% body fat.

And if you're 10% body fat, it's okay, guys.

You know?

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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.

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Yoseba Apara asks,

Big fan of the show, favorite show you competed at and why?

Favorite show I competed at, I would say

competing in the Arnold, the Mr.

Olympia are epic.

I mean, the adrenaline rush, being on those stages, it's such a high.

But I think personally, the show I go back to is one of the ones that I really hang my hat on.

It's like, man, that was probably my favorite show was the Mr.

USA, the USA Championships 2011 when I turned pro.

It was just, it was just achieving that, like hitting that top of the mountain and being like at the top for that short period of time.

You're just like, man, it was just such a high

and like i said at that time there was so much like press and and uh following of the bodybuilding community at that like the the competitive bodybuilding side and that was the folk that i don't think even think men's physique was around back then classic wasn't around so it was just bodybuilding like bodybuilding was it yeah so um that's that was my that was probably my favorite damn i think um i feel like there's always going to be something special about when you get your pro card.

Yeah.

Yoseba again asks, will we see a Cope come back?

You know, that Masters Olympia is a little enticing.

Like, I'm not going to lie, I'm 39.

I'll be 40 this August.

Not yet.

You're still young, bro.

I'm still young.

You know, absolutely.

My body's fairly fresh.

Actually, literally this past weekend, I just did a full round of exosoma stem cell for my body.

So I'm like, man, hopefully in a couple of months, I feel great.

You know, one of of the things I actually want to do, kind of a bucket list thing, and I do plan on doing it.

I've been training for it is I'm going to do a boxing tournament.

I'm going to do an amateur boxing tournament.

And just to show I'm not a one-trick pony, I actually have some athletic ability other than just a big guy that gets on stage and flexes.

So,

bro, I would not want to be with you in a boxing week.

That's crazy.

If you don't mind asking, though, actually, I just thought about this, but what would you recommend for people in terms of, I guess, if you were to give them like

an approximate protocol for

regenerative medicine,

whether or not they're on the bodybuilding stage or not?

Like, are there certain things that you would recommend?

Absolutely.

There's maybe timing.

Yeah, I mean, the regenerative medicine side with now the availability of stem cell exosomes, like those two working together as like messengers and building blocks for the body, helping it really rebuild the connective tissue, tissue,

the collagen differentiation that happens when you utilize those products, whether you're injecting directly into a joint or using it systemically with IV.

I did the systemic route to kind of work on several areas in my body.

So there's understanding the availability of it now that it is in the U.S.

You don't have to travel outside the U.S.

I offer it now through my clinic that

like we could send a nurse to your house.

We can do, you know, you could

fly to us kind of thing, which is which is amazing

to have the availability of it.

And now that it's not crazy, crazy expensive, like it's expensive, no doubt, but it's much better than surgery or having to depend on pain medications or steroids, like corticosteroids, not necessarily not like, you know, testosterone the rest of your life, I'm saying.

Those are great tools to have.

Stuff like PRP is great.

But the next level would be the

growth factors that are available, like, you know, calling the stem cell, and then the, which are the umbilical-based stem cell, and then the exosome product as well.

Those two together, I think, are amazing.

And that's what a lot of the, you know, here are the celebrities, the Joe Rogans talk about it.

Tony Robbins, all those guys

are very influential in that space.

Cool.

Something I definitely want to get into as well.

I've been thinking about it a lot.

Damn, it's fucking expensive.

At least for me right now.

I'll get you hooked up for for sure.

But

Nigerians asks, how'd you get so fucking strong?

You know, I think strength is one of those genetic things.

Running my genetics, I have some, there's genetic markers that actually indicate whether you're more power prone or more endurance prone with your genetics.

So my genetics is very power, meaning like, you know, the high-intensity exercises hip.

I'm,

and And I just see what kind of muscle fibers are within your body.

I am heavy, type two muscle fiber, just because I just know my body from training.

I know that I could, you give me 40 yards to run and I could pretty much hang with anybody, but you give me a mile and I'm freaking walking that thing because I do not have the endurance that most

versus I'm more of a sprinter than I am a mountain runner.

Gotcha.

Yeah, I did my genetics too and I found out that I have a slow twitch fibers, so I'm better for endurance, which is crazy because I fucking hate cardio, but whatever.

Joey T20 asks, What is the craziest cycle that you've ever taken?

Usually, pre-contests they get a little spicy, especially at the end, you know, where you're almost kitchen sinking.

Spicy is a good word, but you know, where you're kind of just saying, like, well, shit, I'm gonna throw this in there, this in there, this in there.

Um,

I would say,

you know, obviously, everybody talks about trend and, you know, those, the Trend Masteron, the, the Winstroll, and like, you know, using a lot of the hardeners and that kind of stuff toward the end of a cycle is very common in bodybuilding plays.

One of the funnest compounds and the guys that do, or have you ever tried it, is halotestin.

And it's not a very,

it's not a liver-friendly compound by any means.

You don't want to do it very long, but it's one of those where, you know, you're two weeks out of a show and you're very depleted, you're flat, you feel weak as shit, and then you walk in the gym and you can, for me, I would all of a sudden grab 200 pound dumbbells and rip them for reps.

I was like, I shouldn't be that strong.

That's not right.

So I'd say incorporating that product in

was always a fun.

We always joke like, you know, it's, it's Halo time or it's the, you know,

like,

so that, that, you know, you want to talk about king, like, you know, that's, that, that shit's on trend when it comes to strength and stuff, but not, not really on like overall muscle growth.

No, it's it's it's not, but uh, you know, the halo was was always fun to throw in there, bro.

Honestly, like, I know I've heard a lot of people talk about them having like mental problems and shit when they're on it, but like, like, I'll feel a little weird when I'm on trend for like a prolonged period of time or whatever, like, even longer than four, five, six weeks.

Halo, dude.

I don't know why, but I fucking just, I love Halo, bro.

I know.

You just,

it's like this

internal, like, you have this, this strength deep inside of you that's harnessed.

You just feel like, but you're like, man, I feel, I feel good.

Like, I don't know, I felt, you know, yeah, you could, you could spark, you could get sparked a little bit, but I think part of that was being more dieted down and being hungry or hanging versus like what that did for you.

But

you know, I always said this.

I was like, listen, you know, they talk about roid rage.

And it's, to me, I was like, there, I, I never really had the issue with that.

It was like, listen, if you're going to be an asshole, you're just going to be a stronger asshole on steroids.

That's that's kind of it.

Like, that was my differentiator on it.

When I never felt like Roy Rage is really a thing, it's, it's more the, like, if you're an asshole, you're just going to be a stronger asshole.

No, for real.

I mean, I feel like if, if, if people wanted to actually make like Roy Rage like an actual, like, an actual term, they could just make PMS rage like the same thing as

it's literally just imbalance hormones.

Yeah.

And like, if you're like a, if you're a bodybuilder and you're staying on top of your shit, then you can make sure that your hormones are.

I always felt more peaceful.

Like, I was like, man, I'm good.

Like, you know, and when I was off, or at the, you know, that's when I felt like I was more susceptible to getting out of control.

Drag

Ikovsky.

Damn.

I fucked that up.

He asks, ask him about Project Super Heavyweight with Justin Harris.

That's going back in the

DC training days.

That's what I mentioned a little earlier.

Right.

Project Super Heavyweight was something that Justin had the idea of, like, you know, hey, let's show us incorporating DC training.

It was, it was one of those, obviously before social media, and we had to create DVDs to get out content for us back then.

So for Justin, he had the idea, let's film, you know, like our lice, let's film training, let's build some more day-in-the-life type stuff.

But the transforming, the idea was like taking guys that are at wanting to get to a national level, eventually turn pro, like showing what it takes.

That's why I was like, Project Super Heavyweight, we want to become super heavyweights for me and heavyweights

it was cool it was cool yeah yeah

it's still crazy to me though that he would like get on stage at like 280 290 like straight up two freaking 300 pants shredded is wild it's big you know and that's the thing is is in pictures a lot of people

When they saw me, they're like, oh, he looks a little small.

But then when I would stand next to somebody, be like, oh, fuck, he's huge.

Like, structurally, I'm bigger than most guys.

Like, I could stand next to Andrew Jack and and him and i and i could i was one of the guys that could stand like the big next to big rami and not be shadowed because i was the same kind of structure and mass as him did i have like i was more balanced top to bottom so i didn't have these insane quads that were too big for my calves i was always more balanced where it you know kind of flowed more and it wasn't just it wasn't as freaky so to speak you know

yeah That's why I like the pictures that I use for the Q ⁇ A and stuff, just having you in the comparisons.

You like, you're fucking towering, bro.

it's nuts

polyfucks if you can only pick 10 exercises for the rest of your life what would they be

10 exercise that's a lot of exercise yeah maybe let's just do five let's do five exercises um

you know

i would probably say

You know, there's these massive gyms that have all this equipment.

And then I train at a gym that probably has half the equipment of what normal gyms have, like, say, like an LA Fitness or some of these massive, like, um, you know, 50,000 square foot gyms, like Lifetime or whatever.

And I feel like I'm able to achieve everything, if not more, by really just utilizing.

Like, I love incorporating cables, I love incorporating dumbbells, and I love incorporating machines, probably evenly spread throughout.

And I can't say that there's one's better than the other.

They all serve their purpose in the right exercise and movement.

Yeah.

So I would probably say that per body part.

but I really, you know, I'd always go in waves.

I'd love the squat and then I would hate the squat.

And I would love to like, you know, do dumbbell bench press.

And then I would freaking hate dumbbells because I'm like, it's half the battle's just getting the freaking weights there.

So I have my, I go through, through phases of training.

But I do love to, I would say my current training, I like to feel like I'm a little more functional and not as one-dimensional.

Like bodily is very linear with its training.

I like to feel like I can be a little more dynamic, utilizing more core glute strength

to be a little more explosive.

And kind of, like I said, I want to probably boxing tournaments.

So I want to have a little bit more flexibility through hips and more power through my hip drive.

So I'm utilizing some more stuff that it wouldn't be as advantageous to do for bodybuilding, so to speak, you know?

Yeah, gotcha.

John Benjamin98 asks,

not sure if you remember any specific moments, but what was the hardest moment that you had as a firefighter that you had to endure?

There was

several times where, I mean, when you see somebody die right in front of you or in your arms, that's traumatic.

Like that's, that's pretty hard to kind of, you know,

in firefighting, you go, you see stuff and you have to digest it really fast and you're on to the next call.

So you don't have a lot of time to process it.

And sometimes it could sit on you later.

There was time, like it was Christmas Eve and we had like a, I remember it was like a three-year-old that had, had, had, like, did sudden, sudden infant death syndrome.

Like, the parents woke up freaking out, the baby's not alive.

It was young.

I can't remember the exact age, two, three, something like that.

And, and

it just like the look of the parents and, and now being a parent myself, I just, I can't imagine that pain.

Um, and then the other one would be like I, somebody that was burned, like 99% of their body burned up, and we had to bring them in the hospital.

And I remember that smell of burning flesh was something that you just can't leave your nose.

Like, you could be as soon as I'd smell that, I probably would throw up because I remember that smell so vividly.

Um,

it's uh, you know, and the firefighters see a lot of crazy stuff.

You, you, I mean, police do too, but firefighters are the one that are cleaning it up.

They're the ones that are called to say, Hey, person shot three times here, like, you got to clean them up, or person's missing an arm, we gotta, you know, we gotta get them in the hospital type stuff.

So, there's

it's it's wild, you know.

And I got, like I said, I've been thrown up on, bled on, did on, pissed on.

Like,

It's crazy.

Holy shit, bro.

Even just thinking about it, it's like I can't fucking stomach that shit.

Kudos, man.

Pagani Pani asks, thoughts on TRT Plus for a year?

TRT Plus?

Yeah, have you ever heard of that term?

Expand on it just so I don't screw it up.

It's a a hilarious term.

It's like

running TRT, but with a tiny little extra on there.

Like, I don't know, like 20 milligs of Anivar or like a small, small dose of Primo or something.

I, I honestly prefer that for

a lot of a lot of guys that come to me and they're like, I'm doing this whole laundry list of stuff.

I said, hold on, let's reset you and let's get your health right before we consider anything else.

And then they're like, why?

I still want to run all this stuff.

I got all this stuff.

Okay, then let's let's try to figure out a smart way to do some things here.

Um, a lot of times, you know, they're they're already they're they're legally prescribed a lot of this stuff, so it's like, Okay, we're let's let's figure out how to do this better, more efficiently for your body.

Um, again, the TRT dose, he's probably, you know, 200 milligrams.

Let's just call it, that's probably what considered TRT, one ml a week.

That's what he's probably doing.

That's probably going to get you in that 1500 milligram uh

range for your blood work.

So, that's plenty of tests.

Like, that's you're at a very you're already at almost a super physiological level with that.

I do have some clients.

I got a 45-year-old client who has 1,100 tests naturally.

So that's not, you know, not too out of the mark, but you know, the

1500 is starting to push it a little bit.

So let's just say, okay, you're there.

And the TRT plus, you know, being smart with it.

I had one client that was wanting to be in the best shape of his life at 60, added a little bit of anivar.

You know, I talked to him, got a script for Anivar, and we, you know, he added 20 milligrams in.

It looked crazy.

This guy was insane, hard, shredded, just very dedicated to his health and added that in for a short period of time, you know, for a goal.

I think to do it long, long term may not be the best.

Antivar, long, long term, not the best.

You can do it, you know, in your three, four months spouse to not have too many issues.

Primo is one you can kind of add in.

That is, is, is pretty safe and mild considering, you know, it's going to help some of the, you you know, with the estrogen management a little bit.

It's going to do some of the some beneficial things to kind of enhance testosterone, let's say.

But,

you know, it's, I'm not opposed to saying, you know, those could be okay, the TRT plus for a longer segment of time than what you could run Trend or some of these other compounds for.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Isn't it fucking crazy, though, just like how crazy crisp that you can look off of like just a small dose, like jumping off on a small dose freshly?

yeah i i did that like uh

the end of last year i think i had i was like i'm gonna run 40 milligrams of anovar for a month just on top of my trt and i mean my body transformed like i i had veins in my abs i had my my obliques were freaking shredded i my glue i was like what's going on here like i is that all i needed to do to get on stage like

i didn't need to do all this other shit but i mean my body's just in a much healthier spot than i and i know it much better now.

But yeah.

Yeah.

When your body is in a healthier spot, like I felt this personally where I just respond so much better.

Just like when I first started in the first place, like the response was so much better.

And I know whenever I take a long health phase and then reset my system and do a lot of inflammation reduction.

a lot of reduction of

oxidative stress, I just respond so much better.

But I also just like, I swear to God, bro, I see this all the time where it's like, I feel like when someone jumps from

being, I mean, not all the time, but most of the time when someone jumps from being not, from being natty to not nanny, it's just crazier than when someone jumps, like doubles their dosage, you know?

Like,

that's very true because they're, I mean, there's, I was talking to my, my partner on, uh, in, that I, I work with the Dr.

Timmy, and we were talking about that.

And it's like the, the benefit from going, seeing from

like doubling your test, say you go from 500 to a thousand like how much greater it is with the results it's actually like less and less the more you add in so it's it's not not that more is always better it's what your body could truly utilize is is the key yeah and i think that's the the big misconception with a majority of

people out there when it comes to gear and compound use is it's like it's like volume of training right there's like uh this this margin just gets smaller and smaller as you you just increase it higher and higher.

So there's like a sweet spot for most people, but I mean, yeah, obviously, 10 grams is better, right?

So

I couldn't imagine, you know, I hear, there's, I hear some old story.

I've talked to old school bodybuilders from the 90s and early 80s, et cetera, that more in the 90s, they got pretty aggressive with some of the dosing where they would do like a 10cc shot type of stuff.

Like, this was stuff I've actually heard.

And I'm like, oh, my God.

One, that fucking hurt.

And two, like, yeah, you, I see why you guys looked insane because you guys use some super high dose of stuff.

Like, they didn't use a lot of different compounds, but they use a lot of a couple.

Okay.

You know, yeah.

Hmm.

Bro, I feel like my actual like injection site would just explode.

I just feel like my muscle would explode.

I don't fucking know how that's possible.

Yeah, right.

Nathan Schutz.c asks

why GH15 hated him.

Oh, on

GH15 message boards?

No, that was on.

Why am I drawing a blank on it?

One of the old school forums.

I have no idea.

I really don't even know the guy.

I think when somebody hates on somebody, it's usually because they're jealous of them typically for some reason.

So I, yeah.

You know, he just

never met the guy, so I couldn't tell you that we had any beef.

Maybe he couldn't compete at the level I did.

I don't know.

That's hilarious.

Bro, I'll literally like see shit pop on my explorer page, like even things that are just completely bodybuilding unrelated.

And like anytime you jump into the comments these days, it's all hate.

It's crazy.

It is.

Unless it's something that's extremely wholesome, where like you're seeing a puppy being saved or whatever.

Right.

I mean, even then, when you see a puppy being saved, there's going to be someone that's like, you can't treat a puppy like that.

You can't hold a puppy like that.

You can't make everybody happy.

That's crazy, man.

You can't make everybody happy.

If you're going to try,

you're going to be in for a world of hurt.

Yeah.

Sam Nico 24 asks, well, what did you do to keep your hair?

Man,

that was a task, absolutely.

Like, sure, it's a little on the thinner side now, no doubt.

But

I would always, like, for me, I mean, I was more DHT prone to

the hair loss.

Obviously, anytime I ran heavy DHT things, I would be like, oh shit, I'm starting to lose my hair, you know?

So, I went through a little phase where I tried

oral finasteride and I wanted to just shoot myself because that is the worst.

I remember like crying at like Tide commercials because I thought, like, I'm like, why am I so emotional?

Like, why does my nipples hurt?

Like, it was just terrible.

Like, no.

And, you know, so there's topical things you could add, especially now they got peptides to help with androgen, you know, issues with hair.

There's like topicals that I would recommend overtaking pills.

Those do help.

So I would always use like some hair growth shampoos and all that kind of stuff.

And it definitely helped, no doubt.

I have done one hair restoration treatment where it to try to thicken up a little bit.

And I would probably do another that, you know, to help a little bit.

But, you know, it's.

That's why you see most guys, most, especially white dudes that are

saved heads and bodybuilding because they just lose their hair and DHT.

Yep.

If you have high DHT receptors in your hair, you're likely going to lose them just because that's

what the top part of your scalp is really what's dedicated to

the DHT.

That's me, man.

That's me.

I'm getting a fucking, I'm going to fucking turkey.

Yeah, they breached out.

I'm like, shit, I might take them up on this, you know.

Yeah, we still got, we've still got some hair.

We're doing all right, but I want to

do it way better than I would at your age, honestly.

Yeah, that turkey's got to be nice.

I'm so stoked.

Yeah.

I've been doing monoxidal finasteride and microneedling for the longest time.

Yeah.

Sometimes I feel like it hasn't done dog shit.

No, I'm actually one of the treatments that, because now with having more access to exosomes, they have a microneedling, exosome therapy, microneedling that's supposed to really have a lot of success.

I'm going to try it before I do anything else to see.

I'm like, all right, does this really trigger new and reg hair growth?

If that's the case, then, man, I know what business I'm getting into.

Yes.

That's tight.

All hair restoration via exosomes.

Did you ever find that your hair just dried the fuck out whenever you were bodybuilding?

I have more oily skin, so I never felt like that was an issue for me.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So it's a genetic thing for me.

That's awesome.

I have noticed it happens to some guys.

Like you, like, we'll see, like, when we're in our, like, when we're like 20 years old, our hair is like all like luscious and it's also super soft and oily and shit.

And then as we grow older and keep running the compounds, like, it just starts looking like pubic hair, man.

And I'm just like, what the fuck is going on?

There's a few people that asked this question, but they're all basically the same.

Julia Sterling asks, how do you balance all your responsibilities in the day?

Tips on time management for sure.

Man, it's

i'm i've always kind of lived pretty loose especially pre-kid like i never really ran a schedule but now with with my businesses and having it i'm pretty much married to my schedule and i always try to cut into like schedule time for what i need for myself like i'll literally schedule in an hour of my day for a workout for myself that way i don't get booked i'm not like dedicating to other people uh because i do need time for myself and then especially when it comes time for family like i make sure yes there's times where, you know, I'm, I need to spend more time or like I got a deadline for something where my family understands, hey, I need to

work later or whatever.

But when it comes family time, I try to put my phone away, you know, be more intentional with being more present with my time.

And that has made the biggest, biggest impact with utilizing time.

And then, like I said earlier, saying no to things and not being, you know, because I'll get pulled in a million directions.

If people want to say, hey, can you do this for me?

Or can I need help here?

And I always like helping.

But at some time, I'm, you know, being a one-man show, a lot of times it's like, no, I, I can't.

And, uh, but it's, it's scheduling is key for me.

Okay.

Cool.

Cool.

I feel the same way too.

Um,

I used to think when I was younger that I was like, oh, yeah, I'm spontaneous.

Like, you know, when you're dating around, you're like, yeah, I'm spontaneous and shit.

Now I'm like, if I have like someone cancel an appointment or something, I'm fucking like.

I'm fucking flipping over tables.

I'm so pissed, bro.

Yep.

Yep.

I have one last question I ask at the end of every podcast, but 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?

Ooh, that's a good one, man.

You know, I have this thought a lot.

Like, if I was to die, what would people say about me?

And

I feel like I would want the majority of the people that has met me, come in contact with me, or that I've impacted in some way or another to say, like, you know what?

Steve really impacted my life for the best.

Like, I always want to bring the best energy I can to a room or it, like, treat people the way I would want to be treated.

And that message has, uh, that kind of has always resonated with me.

Um, a lot of success in life.

One of the sayings that I was told, like, the same people you see coming up, same people you see coming down.

So don't forget the little people in life that are considered the little people.

Like, hey, you know, your friends from high school or the people that, you know, your neighbor or something you were close to.

Like, you know, if I could, my thing is, if I could think about somebody, if I, if somebody comes to my mind, I reach out to them, regardless of it's somebody I haven't talked to in five years or somebody that I talked to two days ago, I message them.

And it's something I've done and it's been really impactful, not only for me, but to maintain relationships because I love relationships.

I'm a relationship person.

And I feel like,

man, if I could,

it would be just be present in every day and enjoy every freaking day because it's a gift.

It's an absolute gift.

Recent book I read called Chasing Daylight was incredible to really put in perspective of what it means to live with purpose and live with intention and not just be, not just go through the motions of life, but love the people that love you and

go out and try to impact and be the best you can in anything you do, in any room you walk into.

I really love that, man.

I think that's something that I strive for, but I still struggle for every day.

Just taking out the time to message people back alone.

Sometimes I feel like I miss 60% of the messages and end up messaging them three days later or something crazy.

And

I want to be able to be there for the people because the people that were there for me have changed my life forever.

My best friends that have passed away and are no longer here that would take their time out of the day when...

it would serve them nothing and i don't know if you've ever heard of joe stetix um yeah but he was a guy that was super influential on social media.

And

dude, the bro would just talk to anybody,

like anybody

that

he wouldn't even be getting anything out of, if that makes sense.

Like day-to-day, people would come up to him just to want to take pictures and talk to him.

And he would end up like, we would end up pausing a workout for 30 minutes to an hour because he was still talking to the same person.

But obviously, he wouldn't be getting anything out of it.

He was just there to be there and present

and spend time with this person.

So

that's something I strive for and I think was a beautiful message that you give out.

Appreciate that.

Thanks for coming on the podcast, bro.

Man, appreciate you, dude.

Absolutely.

I've been a fan of your stuff.

I've seen a lot of it.

You know, I'm finally glad that I got to be a part of it.

And anytime you want me on, man, I'm here for you.

Absolutely.

100%, bro.

100%.

Thanks again, bro.

You got it.

Peace.

Thank you guys for watching.

Steve Kuklo, an absolute legend.

Fucking massive giant.

I just want to thank you guys again for being on the podcast and listening because I wouldn't be able to talk to all these amazing people if it weren't for you guys being here and supporting too.

So I hope that I give out some kind of value.

Every time you guys show support or have even supported each other, it's been really beautiful for me to see, and it's honestly brightened up my life.

And I hope that

we just continue to grow together.

So

thank you guys for being here.

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