Daniel Fabode: Classic Olympian Openly Discusses His Cycles & PED Protocols

Daniel Fibode, a top classic IFPB pro, Olympian, top three ad Detroit pro, and a highly accomplished coach.

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 antithetical to 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 Scarens.

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.

Whole thing like that.

Oh, that'd be awesome.

And then you're like, oh, well.

You've totally done that before.

Like Fuad literally like

during Sam Solig's

podcast with Sam Solig.

They had no audio recording.

Didn't he not press record with Jay Cutler for like 50 minutes too?

Yeah.

That was awesome.

It's crazy how you're not to operate all this stuff.

Yeah, I'm like a DJ right now.

I see that.

Maybe I should just change professions at this point.

These Asian genetics do not want to hold muscle mass.

I think they want to.

I think you're pretty big though.

I think you got good genetics.

Thanks, bro.

Appreciate that.

Especially coming from you.

I don't know if I told you this when we first met, too, but I thought your style was like the sickest shit ever.

Thank you, bro.

Thank you.

I thought the same about you.

I was like, I don't see many people that have a similar kind of like style and like bodybuilding.

Yeah.

Most people are like clean cut.

But I like tats and piercings and stuff.

No, for real, same.

Makes me look a little extra progressive, even though i'm not so fantastic i'd say fashionable stylish it's a better term right what was your like uh inspo for a lot of the tattoos if you don't mind me asking you don't have to go through all of them but i noticed i recognized some of the style so especially on the neck right um i'm greek so i'm half greek half nigerian i grew up in greece and in greece this represent represents this is a meander so it represents eternal life okay

And for me, it was kind of like when I found my wife and like my passion in life, I thought, you know, that that's eternal life.

You can, you feel like you live forever when you're happy.

You know, so it was kind of like the theme behind the sides of the head and the neck.

Cause

I was, I feel like I couldn't be more fulfilled, right?

The dreams that I had was just to become an IV pro and kind of like be able to be in the fitness industry.

But me being able to be a coach, an IVP pro and an Olympian, that's finding my wife.

It was like surpassing any dream I had in life, which made me feel like I was like living an eternal life.

So kind of like that was the theme behind the, these kind of like designs.

And the rest of it is just random.

This is our brand, our gym brand, the body fitness.

This is more dedicated to like God.

And like, this is more dedicated to my wife.

My wife's portrait, one flesh representing like.

Oh, that's awesome, bro.

You know, unity.

Just break this.

That's fucking sick.

So, yeah.

Yours are pretty freaking cool, man.

Thank you.

Very appreciated.

That's the same, but I'm not.

Probably get that question a million times.

Every now and then.

Every now and then, yeah.

How long have you and your wife been together um we got married in 2019 to 2025 so about six years in november six years yeah okay that's awesome it was fast man um i kind of i was working construction at the time and uh we kind of met at the gym and um within three months of knowing her i think i proposed to her damn yeah i was broke i was a brokeie like i had no money i was working construction And I saved up like, I don't remember how much, like five grand to like buy her a ring.

That's why I waited three months because I didn't have money for it.

And then I married her.

So yeah.

Wow.

It was fast.

I'm taking notes.

So how are you feeling five weeks out of a Optimum Classic, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

In Louisiana.

Freeford, Louisiana.

So we already did Detroit Pro.

We did Tri-City State.

And honestly, I just, how we've set everything up, I just execute.

So it doesn't feel like I'm on prep.

It just feels like I'm doing what I'm, what I'm, what's on the plan.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And I think we kind of talked about it as well.

Uh, utilizing JLP once has helped a lot to kind of not be as food-focused.

So, when you don't get hunger signaling, or

sorry, guys, I'm so sorry.

When you don't get hunger signaling and like don't feel as much food-focused, it doesn't feel like you're in prep.

It just feels like you're just checking off boxes.

So, kind of like, I feel good.

That's you know what I mean?

Yeah,

interesting.

Gives you thoughts about your, your prep.

No, for real.

Well, I mean, I just had

a big discussion with Eric Janeke actually on a podcast.

We were also discussing GLP-1s.

And

I've always had like a controversial take on it.

Okay.

Because, I mean, well, there is a controversial take on it.

Yes.

Period.

Absolutely.

Right.

There's so many different takes, actually.

One of them is you should save it for the people that need it, the obesity, the people that are obese, that have metabolic distress.

But then again, at the same time.

How many medications and drugs out there are we all taking that aren't for the corpus?

I should be saying that.

Well, I wouldn't be one that would be saying that because then that would just make me a hypocrite, anyways.

But

for,

I think the other thing is, um,

I've always felt this a little bit in my body.

That's a weird term.

Um, and I think, I mean, obviously, I hear this from other competitors, but it's like I feel like part of the, like,

part of the oomph in like bodybuilding and part of the hardest part is the endurance of dieting right sure which tears a lot of people apart of course especially mentally um

so it's like it's crazy to think that now we finally have a drug that almost deletes that yes

and i think that's the part where people are feeling a little like weird about it it's like like

i agree it's nuanced because of the mental aspect of things.

But let's be real, right?

Like before steroids came into play for bodybuilding, which is probably like when bodybuilding started.

But the dilemma with natty athletes is what if this guy took these drugs, what would he look like?

Same thing with GLP1.

What if this guy could actually diet harder and come in condition?

There's multiple bodybuilders we see out there that are pros that cannot get peeled.

What if we were actually able to do that?

You know what I mean?

So it's just another enhancement.

It's just another PD.

That's all it is, right?

Because they do have a lipolytic effect to them as well, especially things like retatrudiet or semaglutide outside of truzepatite.

So

why not utilize more enhancements?

Because tell you what, if you use the GLP-1, you most likely don't have to use other lipolytics because you're able to diet harder.

So now we are reducing the risk for kidney and liver toxicity, you know what I mean?

As well as

you know, increasing the capacity of losing body fat without having to utilize other drugs that will potentially cause more issues in the future.

You know, and you don't have to use it forever.

I understand, like, let the people that need it use it, but at the same time, if that's the case, maybe those people shouldn't be eating that much.

You know what I mean?

We didn't eat that much.

We're dieting.

So why can't they also go through the same process?

I know it sounds selfish, but at the same time, I feel like it's just

another thing that we can use to still progress as bodybuilders.

But we are stuck to not using it because of the mental aspect of things.

The risk is not there, right?

Unless you have some kind of issue predisposed to having an issue with it, like pancreatitis or something like that.

So I don't understand why people are so like apprehensive about it.

Initially, I was the same way.

I'm like, you're not a real bodybuilder if you want to use GLP ones.

Like you should just suck it up.

But if that's the case, then we wouldn't be taking PDs, right?

We would just rely on food and natural supplements and that's it, you know, but and exercise.

But we decided to take the route of PDs and that's just another PD that's just not been mainstreamed yet.

It will, it will get there.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

You know what I mean?

And if it's not mainstream, people are probably going to take it and just not talk about it.

Absolutely.

Not speaking from experience or anything.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've already taught to Transcendental.

I was going to ask you.

Yeah.

I've already taught to Transcend about potential dosing protocols.

And they were like, okay, you qualify.

And I'm like, cool.

So

I don't know if I'm going to take it in the next show or not.

But I mean, I can tell you probably if I need it to last three weeks, I'm probably going to end up trying it for the last three weeks at least.

Because there's a

the reason I'm saying this, I'm talking about all these perspectives is because, I mean, I'm obviously playing devil's advocate,

but my actual

like where I've actually come from in terms of fat loss is I was obese when I was a kid, so I really struggled with losing weight.

And obviously, you know that there are genetic markers that

make it for some people more difficult for them to lose weight.

Absolutely.

Which, for a lot of these people with metabolic disease or just issues in general, and are obese, like I understand that they're at a certain point where it's just like there's almost no coming back.

Or if there is, they have to go through some really traumatic thing that will force.

It's like, it's a weird.

It's like, you know, when you're like, when a lot of body bullish first start lifting, it's like, either suicide or I'm going to get fucking jacked.

Right.

You know?

Right.

Desperation.

Yeah.

It's desperation.

so um for me

this sounds like the greatest thing that's ever one of the greatest things that's ever been created because i fucking can't i hate dieting this i hate it and the last few weeks before a show i will not sleep just because i'm fucking starving i'll always wake up in the middle of the night and be starving and be like

i i i will normally like just eat like my my first meal of the next day early like in the middle of the night 3 a.m 4 a.m because i literally can't go to sleep dang so

what about about the aspect of slowing digestion?

How do you feel like this affects the potential growth of bodybuilders' gut in the future?

And especially like, you know, peak week during prep when a lot of these bodybuilders are probably going to carb.

So there's timing and application.

for it, right?

So if you're say 10 weeks out and you start having really heavy hunger signaling and cravings, you could utilize around that time and pull pull it out about a week or two out whenever food starts going up.

However, during prep, you're not consuming or over consuming food.

So the little portions you're consuming, even though they're slowed down, they're not enough to cause distension or stay around the stomach long enough to where they can actually cause organ growth because that's the issue we're dealing with.

Now that paired with the fact that you're not abusing things like GH will help you not have issues with your midsection.

For me, for example, we used it for this prep and my vacuum and my midsection was the tightest it's ever been, you know, because I am able to diet harder and eat less food.

Although I don't know, you don't like to require the volume, the extra veggies just to get yourself set.

Exactly.

So when you're in the off-season or in the growth phase, when you're pushing food, you wouldn't be using a GLP-1, right?

It only has application for prep whenever you're using it strictly for hunger, not lipolytic effect, not growth.

So if you're not using it whenever food volume is high, that means that that small amount of volume you're having is passing through you a a little slower.

So

there shouldn't be an issue there with that, at least that I have seen.

And I've had, you know, clients as well that I'm using it with, and we have no issues whatsoever.

You know, it does slow down gastric antenna.

You're going to feel fuller faster, which is also going to cause you to eat less.

You know what I mean?

As long as you're not like, that's the problem we're having with, keep on smacking this.

That's the problem you're having with people that are obese and use it.

They use it and then they overeat and then they have to up the dose and then overeat again until like it's to a point where there's no return from it.

And you're kind of like down regulating how it works because at that point you're so tolerant to it that it doesn't even work for you anymore.

So if you use it with the right timing during prep and you're managing your food properly, you're not overeating veggies, you're not overeating any foods, which you won't because again, your hunger signaling is lower, you will, you will not, you most likely will have a better waste than you did prior because again, you're eating less now.

Less volume, yeah.

Exactly.

So I haven't really noticed any issues with that whatsoever.

This is again the tightest my waist has been.

Most of the times I have to control it on stage because, you know, we're in classic.

So a waist plays a big role, even in transitional poses.

This time around, my waist was so tight, I didn't even have to really think about it on stage.

And back to your point, I was also very obese when I was young.

I was like, I've had issues.

I saw your transformation literally today.

The video that you posted.

That was crazy, bro.

So that was peak bulk working with, well, I was self-bulking and I was pushing a lot of drugs back then too.

But I never seen the results from that.

Were you holding a bottle in your hand too?

Yeah.

I'm fired.

But yeah, no, I was fat as a kid, man, unfortunately.

And I had like the boobs and everything.

I even had a gyno from how fat I was.

And then it also got worse because of drug usage.

But,

but no, I think for someone that has had.

food struggles before and I've had a food eating disorder as well, you know what I mean?

From the first preps I've had, um, I had a lot of food struggle.

Like, if there was something that I could say in life gave me issues or gave me challenges, is my food, the food issues that I've had, you know what I mean?

Because

I'm a type of person that can, I can just eat even if I'm full, I can just keep eating, yeah, you know, so I don't know if that signal in my brain is just not working.

Like, I'll be working around with a brain in my belly.

I'm like,

I could go for a burger.

So for me, it has been, it has been a game changer for sure.

And I use it for my wife as well.

And she's had great progress with it.

The problem with it is the dosing because a lot of people think, oh, you have to start at five milligrams.

You have to start at this point.

Yeah.

Dude, I used one milligram a week when I started.

Great.

I've upped it to two.

That's it.

And I also pull it out two weeks out of the show.

So you're only using it.

The longest I used it was seven weeks in a row.

Yeah.

That was it.

So.

I know there's a lot.

I mean, there's not a lot, but I know there's some in the audience and a lot of people just in general in the world and the industry of bodybuilding, that do not believe in micro-dosing anything.

They're just like bigger the better.

But I've just seen so many benefits to micro-dosing drugs, even such as like when I was on my podcast with Dr.

Dean, he was stating him and Vigorous Steve calculated what the most optimal trend dose would be, and they came to like 25 milligrams.

It's crazy, bro.

It's a tenth of what, that's a smaller than a tenth of what most people are taking for PrEP.

So,

and I can also understand how that could be more beneficial because you don't want, you know, part of the benefit to taking trend in the first place is decreasing your cortisol.

So if you're going to increase the trend usage and you're someone that is more susceptible to the mental side effects of trend, that's just going to increase your cortisol for sure.

That's it.

And, and then add on top the fact that you're also going to have less sleep or you're not sleeping as well.

That's also going to increase your cortisol.

So it's just, it's just going to bite you in the ass.

Yeah.

But

I hate to say it, but Eric said the same thing.

He said his waist was tighter too.

And it blows my mind.

Here's what it is.

As for the micro-dosing, I agree with you.

It keeps your levels more stable as well.

I dose all my stuff on a daily basis, except the GLP1, just because I'm kind of lazy.

So I just do it once a week.

But you could micro-dose that as well.

I have a client that does that as well and works great for him.

Right.

Yeah, it's very effective.

And Trend, that's a good point.

This was my first prep that I never used Trend, and I was the leanest I've ever been.

Because of that, what you just mentioned, the mental side effect of things with trembling.

Plus, it does have an affinity to bind the progesterone receptor and therefore cause like thickening of the skin.

So, if you're not lean enough, it's not going to do what it's supposed to do.

It's an anabolic, you're going to lose body fat, you're going to gain muscle.

But if you are overusing it and at a point where you're not lean enough, it's not going to do its job, it's just going to basically make you more anabolic, but that's it, you know.

Yeah, and it's hyper toxic, so yeah, Eric also explained that uh He explained some of this stuff off camera that I can't really, I don't know if I'm allowed to really say in detail on the podcast, but he explained some other reasons why the GLP1 was so beneficial for him and it has to do with his family life and having kids.

And I think the prep for him has just been honestly in the past so detrimental for his family life.

Yeah, and with his, I don't think details are really needed.

I think people really understand.

It's just, it's, you know, he's got two, basically, basically, two babies, you know.

So he would talk about how, like, it's almost

like, you know, he has this massive goal of getting his pro card, you know, through bodybuilding, but and just pursuing it.

Some of the time he's not even there.

No.

And so taking this has completely eliminated that from his life.

And his family life is all good while he's on prep.

It's like, it doesn't feel good.

Even when, like, he talked about it on camera in the same energy, but like, bro is ecstatic about it, bro.

Bro fucking loves it so much.

I would love for you to try it whenever you get closer, man, because it's going to be life-changing when you are on prep and you don't, because it shuts down ghrelin as well, right?

Like, you don't get the signal, you don't get the craving.

Let's say, let's say there's a pizza on this table right now, and you're three weeks out, and you're starving.

So, your calories are 1500 calories, calories are 90 minutes, right?

You're not going to think, I want to slice of that pizza.

What you're focusing on, I got to show to freaking win.

Yeah, your mindset completely shifts.

Hold on, let's, let's, let's, uh,

let's make the mic a little higher, but yeah, the better

should be good.

Yeah, how does that feel for you?

i'm fine man i'm good with it yeah all right yeah that's perfect okay yeah um ghrelin pizza yeah yeah so like if you're able and that's the thing man that's what helped me push through those final stages initially we're supposed to compete at the indie super show which is in 10 weeks 11 weeks from now

but i progressed so fast because i was not so food focused within six to seven weeks after my gyno surgery i was ready to step on stage and that's why we did the detroit so that was literally like a six to seven week prep damn really that was it You got third, bro.

That was it.

Right after the Wesley.

Because I was looking at the

I was looking at the at my drug protocol today because I know we had this going on.

So I wanted to see what I pushed and for how long I pushed it.

And I was like, we were still using a moderate amount, like a baseline chemical dose during my recovery from gyno, but it took me like six to eight weeks to get fully peeled for Detroit.

And we really pushed maybe one or two weeks prior to the show.

Plus with a GLP-1, because you're not eating as much, you can stay so on on track with your meals, you don't have to do as much cardio.

So you're not showing up with a tired, as much of a tired physique as you would do whenever you have 90 minutes of cardio a day for six, seven weeks in a row.

Yeah.

You know, so I would love for you to try and see how you feel about it.

Cause I know you, you mentioned that he's ecstatic, but for a guy like him where distraction is unavoidable,

right?

Like he has two kids, like you said, he probably has a bunch of food in the house that he cannot eat all prep, you know what I mean?

So that would be very challenging.

For me, I own a gym.

I live with my wife and my nephew.

Both of them are bodybuilders.

So even if you wanted to eat something, there's nothing there to eat.

So it's not that much of a challenge, if you were to say, from looking at things, visuals and smells.

But at the same time, again, I had a food eating disorder before.

If I wanted to eat something and I have a craving for something, my brain is focused on that.

I forget about the show.

I forget about cardio, what needs to be done.

It's almost like you get into this trans of hyper-focusing on food.

You know what I mean?

And you just want to eat whatever is bad for you.

Not even necessarily because of the taste, just because you can't have it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a game changer, man.

I'm ecstatic, maybe because I'm a prep.

It's not showing as much.

But it has been an absolute game changer on all aspects.

And I think where it's going to have the most application is also with recovery phases for individuals that

are done with their show, because that's when most people binge.

Show's over.

I'm going to go ahead and eat everything.

Yeah, I've heard most of the benefits from recovery phases at first, but now that I've talked to you and Eric, I'm seeing how much of a benefit it is for your show.

Absolutely.

So, um,

which I hate to say because I hate to condone drug use, but

um,

yeah, I don't know.

It's crazy.

I mean, I was

someone was telling me that coach that Kyle Wilkes was a good, I think one of our, one of our friends, that's one of his clients.

But, um,

I think I was recently having like some off-camera discussion with him and

Mike, you know, from the trend twins.

We were just talking about the GLP ones and stuff.

And

I don't know, Kyle sounds like you might be a little bit more on the border now, considering like the benefit to insulin sensitivity as well.

So

I just think the most important thing, though, when it comes to drugs like this

is, like you said earlier, being particular about the dosing.

Absolutely.

Especially as you're coming down closer to show day.

You're coming across peak week.

Like, of course, you don't want to like completely come off because I've heard there is like a hunger rebound for sure.

If you do come off, but like

titrating down to dose to a place where it's like you can consume these foods and it doesn't affect your digestion, yes.

With, I don't know, some of these guys are eating like a thousand grams of carbs, right?

Right.

Then I think that's probably, if you can do that all,

you know, exactly as you need to for your personal body, then I feel like that would be only beneficial to you.

But the problem is, there's a lot of people that can't, who don't, with dosing,

Yeah.

I think there's,

I mean, a lot of the reason why I have this podcast is to hone in on what the, on the truth with, with bodybuilding.

And yeah, some people do have to take large amounts of gear for sure.

But I mean, we've seen like, you know, you with your training use and I've noticed this with my own physique.

Like, I'm not trying to say this so people fucking take less gear and don't win.

Like, I don't give a fuck.

I'm not going to be in this.

I have kids listening to this podcast that are like 18 years old that haven't jumped on gear yet.

I'm going to be retired by the time they're like becoming successful in bodybuilding.

I don't give a fuck if they're doing well.

I want them to do well.

Then they'll be like, yeah, I learned this from Donald's podcast.

Of course, I fucking want them to do well.

So like, I'm just saying, like, if you titrate up certain compounds way too high for your show, at least for some of us, like me, maybe for you, I notice I get fuller.

But in trade for getting fuller,

sometimes when you start pushing the boundary, you also get a little bit of extra water retention or the detail starts starts going away.

It's kind of like a balloon, honestly.

Like, well, I don't think that's really the best comparison.

But yeah, I just noticed that there's like this balance.

It's kind of the same thing with carbohydrates.

They said, like, you know, you want to get, you try to get as full and as tight as possible.

The way the stefunkins defines it is the pressure, right?

Of like the muscle pushing against your skin.

But then after a certain point, like you fill off, you fill up those

crevices.

You fill up your muscles with glycogen and you start getting a little watery if you continue to pound those carbohydrates.

So

I think it's the same with

compounds, with a lot of the compounds.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, how I personally used the GLP1 peak week, because I was using such a low dose and it was effective, the one milligram a week, I was able to, because that was the starting dose.

So there was nothing else to tatrate downwards from that.

Like, I'd have to take so little, like, it would be very hard to even pin it.

So I just completely took it out, like, I'd say like 10 days out because you only take one shot a week so it after seven days it's kind of out of the system in a sense like the gastric empting at least for me that's when i noticed it um and honestly dude because after that at that point when you step on stage especially as a pro you place third at the at the detroit you play second at the tricid whatever you have so much adrenaline and hype cone mentally i didn't have to go back to use it again because my food focus was completely gone oh nice and now i'm i'm focusing for the optimum because i'm so close i can i can qualify right so it's hard for me to want to deviate.

Now, if I start seeing that I'm getting triggered again, I can easily reintroduce it at one milligram, which worked in the past.

And you just have to be very sensible, man.

And not everybody's going to be the same.

Some individuals will need more.

Some individuals will need less.

And you'll have to titrate some people off.

But one thing I'll say about it is definitely not stay on it forever because during growth phases, it'll...

definitely be a hindrance.

If you cannot eat as much, you cannot train as hard, you cannot recover as good, you know,

it's a diminishing return right there.

So, and potentially, we don't know with these drugs, if you use it for four or five years, what the side effects would be.

It's a new drug, especially for bodybuilders.

We know what happens with people that are overweight and stuff like that and use it.

But for bodybuilders, we don't know.

So, like, you'd rather just cycle on and off, just like you would, you know, whenever you're using PDs or androgens

and be safe that way.

Yeah, no, I agree on every other point you mentioned, man.

It's, I'm all right.

Alexis farting in the the background.

That's hilarious.

Yeah, we pulled up and they were, they were doing work over there.

So the GLP ones always just have me a lot, have me in a place where I'm just thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All the time.

I'm just,

I do want to try it.

I'm just like, wow, it's just kind of crazy because that was like my, that was the hardest thing in bodybuilding for me is the dieting.

There was nothing in my life that was ever harder than dieting to the point where like when I was a teenager, you know, I was,

I started off at, you know, I had the little bit of worst eating habits.

I've opened up about it before.

I don't want to keep talking about it too much, but obviously, it was just embarrassing, you know, how bad my eating habits were and how unhealthy,

just how unhealthy I just coped with all of it.

So, I mean, the fact that this exists is like life-changing for me.

Yeah, it feels life-changing.

So, I don't know.

I just don't want to rely on it too much.

I don't want to rely on any drug too much, but at the same time, I'm sure I'll find my balance.

It is an unnatural state, right?

Like we're talking about starving yourself for a show.

So you won't be using that under normal circumstances, right?

That's the only time you'd be, I guess, triggered like you were back then, right?

When you had, you know, your, because

I had very toxic relationship with food or a very toxic relationship with food.

And I've talked about it before

on some degree.

And I had like a lot of people message me that are bodybuilders and they're like, dude, I stopped competing because of that reason.

Like I was, I was eating to the point where I had to to throw up or whatever the case might be yeah um and so if i can help some people like with this information because tell you what being bulimic is way worse in combination with taking pds than taking a glp one because bulimia is something that can lead to death but you know potentially because it completely destroys your your um esophagus and and your

path to how you digest food

uh which can then cause you to bleed into your i don't remember if it was lungs or stomach and potentially die.

Right.

So you'd rather just, you know, if you have a person that's like that and you're considering a GLP1, that will help you prevent a lot of that stuff.

A lot of, and mentally at that point, you're not okay either, right?

Like whenever you go to food for comfort all the time.

So, and that's the point I was at.

I was having a really bad relationship with food.

It was like very hard to even talk to people about it because I was embarrassed about it.

You know, and this prep, I'm not saying the GLP-1 was the only thing that did the work.

I did, we took like 18 months of just mental work and like making sure i have a good relationship with food understanding food in general yeah uh not putting a label of good bad food but what foods we need how we can utilize those foods why are we eating is this a craving or is this hunger um and then towards the final stages of prep like i said six to seven weeks i mean if i'm starting to get to that point i'm like you know what i'm kind of getting triggered and i might you know, be falling back into the same cycle if I don't do something about it.

Then I utilized it.

But but i definitely think if you were anywhere near the point where i was mentally at that point um it's safer to kind of prevent yourself from falling to the same cycle than you know going to something that could potentially trigger that at least for me was

do you happen to ever have any iss issues eating during your dating phase

um you know that's the funny thing so

I'll eat until I'm super full, but like the calories are still not enough to where like my goal is for the day damn but the problem is during prep is the other way around whenever i get the hunger that's when i'm i'm wanting to binge for example yeah uh but yeah in the in the gaming phase man the heaviest i went with calories was 3 300.

it's not much yeah 3 300.

what and from the olympia showing until my showing at detroit which is the olympia i'd gone down up to probably 212

um and i stepped on stage it was like 27 it was sloppy it was not where I needed to be.

But I should have probably been like 211, 212 on stage.

The lowest I guess I was 212 during the prep.

I stepped on stage at Detroit at 222.

I was 219 for my weigh-ins, but on stage, I was 222.

That's 10 pounds of tissue stage.

And I was way leaner than I was at the Olympia within 18 months.

And during those 18 months, we had to move our gym from Stanford to Louisville, which is freaking two hours.

So me, my nephew, and my wife, we literally hand-held handheld all the equipment into a Penske truck.

Oh, that's crazy.

Yeah, bro.

It was like five days

of brutality.

It was awful.

My joints hurt so bad.

So I didn't train during that time because obviously moving equipment freaking wrecks you.

And I also had gynec surgery a couple months after that.

So my growth phase was not very productive.

Like maybe 10 months out of that, we got where we really honed into growing.

And

with, you know, just

making sure that I'm utilizing the right food and also taking the right approach, you know, I was way, way bigger at Detroit than I was at the Olympia.

So GOP1 was a big factor for me being conditioned during that time.

Okay.

3,300 calories.

Yeah, bro.

I didn't get past that.

What?

Yeah, bro.

How low do you go during prep?

17, 16.

I died like a bikini girl.

What?

Bro, you and I have the exact same calories, except I at least get to go up to like 3,700, 3,800.

Yeah.

I mean I bet whenever like I had like a sushi meal because we do a free meal here and there I usually just stay on my meal plan completely but sometimes you know I work with a coach who's like hey go have your free meal with your wife and yeah bro it's yeah it's pretty freaking low what how tall are you 5'10 5'10 and a quarter dude that is insane I don't think I've ever heard anyone that has a crazier low metabolic rate for their height and weight than me you're the first person I've ever met that has been a discussion with my coach and i think many is the damage that i did whenever i was going through my younger years as a kid with the you know overeating and and potentially you know doing things that i was not supposed to with food obviously i think that's what slowed it down because it's not like i feel i feel full i don't feel like low energy or it doesn't affect me in a certain way a person that eats 5 000 calories and me eating 33 i would probably feel the same way how they feel right you know what i mean right

so yeah i diet on very low calories and i also uh my, my gear usage is also pretty low compared to the average person.

I'm not saying that everybody requires that.

Like, I have clients myself that take more than I, where I advise to take more than I do.

I don't advise drug usage, but, you know,

take more than I do.

And

I just require less.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I guess my genetics are a little weird, right?

I can eat much, but I also grow easier.

I mean, it sounds like...

From Dr.

Dean's definition, you'd just be a slow metabolizer.

Yeah.

Right.

So the drug goes in your system and it stays in for longer.

So then you feel more of the effects of that drug.

And I mean, obviously, food too.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I don't think it's always,

I think the genetics for food and gear, I mean, they're not always correlated.

Like if you're a slow metabolizer

for one, it doesn't mean you're slow for the other.

But

I mean, that's not uncommon at all.

You know?

And I think I was that way too.

I think I always responded a lot to lower gear use.

But

I think at this point now, I've been titrating up constantly, consistently each year to the point where now I think I'm just basically average, I'd say, for a classic physique combat.

Do you feel like that has yielded a good result, though?

Like the approach you've taken with titrating upwards?

I mean, last year I gained like 10 to 12 pounds of lean mass.

That's substantial.

That's that's as long as I've been bulking for on PEDs.

Right.

That's the weird thing is like, I think, because I started PEDs way earlier than I ever started actually doing a real

like bodybuilding growth phase, you know, because I was just trying to be shredded on social media.

So sometimes I wonder, like, did I waste, did I waste like three, four extra years of like PED use on no extra muscle whatsoever?

Potentially, right?

But at the same time, how, how much did that help your social media?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Now I can do this without having to work another job, which is nice.

I can just focus on making more and more content.

So, um, I mean, to be honest, I don't think I'd be able to do any of the content if I had another job.

Like, I don't know why, but that takes me literally my entire day.

Yeah, it's a lot, dude.

I mean, just your setup, right?

Like, it takes, it takes a long time to set up, a long time to find the content, to find the subject that you want to talk about, whatever.

Yeah, I think part of the problem, though, is I'm not.

I think there's some people that like Hussein, you know, Hussein Farhat.

Um, they're really, really good at allocating their positions to people, things that they're not so good at.

I'm fucking terrible at it.

It took me, uh, what, like seven years of social media for me finally to get my own editor for the podcast.

I still edit my own YouTube videos, bro.

That takes me literally, that takes me an entire Thursday and half of like Wednesday.

That's crazy.

So I don't know how long that would be, but it's over 14 hours.

Yeah, dude.

That's like

half a work week.

If you think that a work week is 40 hours, you're nearly working 20 of those hours on that video, right?

Like, so you're working hard for work week.

But I feel like the fact that you're conscious of that will also help you be better at it eventually.

You know what I mean?

Because you're like, I can't, at some point, you'll be like, let me find someone that can do that for me.

Right.

People that are not conscious about it is what probably is holding them back and potentially not, you know, progressing to.

Well, that's the thing that's so hard, though.

If you're like a creator or you're trying to create content on social media, like

it depends on how you grow in the first place, it depends on how you like exploded and how you grew in the first place.

So I've had this talk with people like Lex Little, where it's like, we just can't have anyone else.

edit our videos because the way that we want to create our YouTube videos is a certain way where it's like our personality is in videos and how we edit and what we choose to use as well.

And no matter how long it takes or no matter how long I spend with somebody, it's like I can't ever get them to learn that exactly.

You know, it's just, they'll never know what's inside my head.

And normally what ends up happening is I spend almost the same amount of time and messaging them and saying this timestamp, you know, clip this and teaching them each week,

but then still paying them for the total cost of the edit.

So

I think

you're going to come across someone that's going to be like, okay, this is, he knows, he sees what I'm seeing.

He's picking up what I'm putting down.

You know what I mean?

And it's going to take off from there.

Because I feel like a lot of content creators just have that person that does that for them.

Like the bigger ones.

I was looking at Guzman and like, even Bumpstead, right?

Like Bumpstead's radiographer, he found him in the crowd at an expo.

Oh, shit.

He was like, hey, can I shoot a video for you?

And he shot the video for Chris.

And Chris liked it.

And that's kind of like how they vibed.

That's sick.

You know, because he talks about that story and how he met him.

And he's still his main videographer now they have like five guys i don't know how many people they have you know shooting their videos but that's still the main guy because he sees the vision that chris had you know

that's epic bro

yeah i can only hope but i'm sure at some point yeah um for sure in the meantime it's nice to have a podcast because all we have to do is switch faces yeah yeah so i know we've been talking about jail people and a lot and a bunch of other subjects uh but i kind of wanted to hear a little bit more about your background and how you got into bodybuilding in the first place.

I know there's a lot more that we can talk about, which we totally will, but I kind of want to know myself because I've never even got to ask you about your story or your life.

So, what's like the first memory that is indicative of your path as a bodybuilder today?

So,

let's say me moving here to the US, because I'm originally from Greece.

I moved here when I was 16.

I'm 28 now.

So, it was more desperation than anything that drove me to bodybuilding, right?

Like, I was I was kind of like a fat kid.

I got kind of skinny and watching pumping iron with, you know, Arnold, that's what kind of like triggered the passion I found it on YouTube.

So I started doing push-ups, crunches when I was like 14, 13.

But I was still a chubby kid.

So whenever I came here to the U.S.

and there was more accessibility to gyms, I was like, oh, this is freaking heaven.

So like I started going to the gym.

And I was at the time, I believe, working at a car wash.

I was paying like $5,000 an hour.

So all I would would do is I would work.

Yeah, it was bad, bro.

We got paid through tips.

So, that was the main thing.

I love the car you're doing, though, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a lot of cardio.

And I also didn't have a car.

So, I would like to walk three miles there, three miles back.

And the gym was midway from the house because I moved in with my uncle, which was not much help because I still had to walk everywhere.

So, it was just like a place to stay.

But the gym was between the house and the car wash.

So I would literally stop at the, at the gym on the way back or on the way to the car wash and stay there for like three hours i'd have like my backpack with like all my meals for the day my clothes if it got cold because it was in michigan so sometimes it was snow um and that's kind of like what

after doing it for a year i was like wow my progress as a natural athlete because i used to be a hardcore natty supporter

i was like never i'll never do pds Look at me now.

But

that's the initial thing.

Like I started seeing my transformation and I started started looking at the guys that were on social media.

And I was like, it was 2015, the first year I competed, which was the first year that Classic Physique came out.

So I was like, I can actually, I'll probably get to that point if I'm natural and I'm kind of relatively close to how big they are.

So I decided to do my first show kind of like self-coached.

And after that, dude, I would say two things.

That triggered my...

passion for bodybuilding the first time I stepped on stage because I was, I didn't have really anything else, right?

I was a broker.

I was like,

you know, and at the same time, it triggered my food eating disorder,

you know, so that's kind of like how that went.

But

I'd say it was desperation for life.

I didn't have anything else, and I was grasping for something.

And bodybuilding was something I was good at, and it kind of like gave me a reason to like keep moving, you know what I mean?

So, and it took off from there.

I did my first two shows, natural, self-coached.

I won overall in classic in both of those.

So it was clear to me what division I had to stick to.

But yeah, that was the

initial

jumpstart, I guess.

What do you feel like is the thing in bodybuilding that gave you the most anxiety?

I would say stepping on stage and

stepping on stage, period.

Like just the fact that I could not be ready.

Like one dream that I've had repeatedly is me being unshaved and out of shape, about to step on stage.

You know what I mean?

You said unshaved for a second, unshaved, like with my hair.

No, you got to shave for the show, right?

So, the dream that I have in my head before getting on stage is like, say that three, four weeks out, like, I'll start having nightmares that I'm like, I haven't shaved, or I don't have a tan on.

And just your hair reading, yeah, bro, yeah, yeah.

So, that's that's the

actual stage fright, I guess, man.

Now, it's not as bad nearly.

I don't even get anxiety now.

I've done 15 shows, you know.

But when I first started, that's what gave me the most anxiety.

And obviously, you know, with the uses of PDs, small things start seeming a lot bigger.

You know what I mean?

Just anxiety out of nowhere.

It could be just something that is not supposed to be something that triggers anxiety, but it does for me.

What do you feel like is the biggest experience you've had related to that?

To the people who have the anxiety that you've had.

I don't know.

There's a lot.

You know what I mean?

But like I said, I got married to my wife early on, right?

Like

we got married within, I guess, the first three months of being together.

And I had mostly been alone my whole life.

So

being with her and like, knowing that I have a valuable person in my life, because like I said, like I moved here when I was younger, I didn't really have many people that I cared for or valued me, except like my nephew and my wife now.

So

my anxiety was that she was going to leave me, right?

Like that I was not really that much of a worth it person, you know, to spend time on or to invest on.

And

the PEDs made it even worse.

Yeah.

You know, you start start thinking, dang, is this person like, is this just short-lived?

This is too good to be true.

And those thoughts become even more toxic and you hyper-focus on them.

Right.

And the worst part is most people, especially in their first few cycles, don't realize that it's happening.

Yeah.

It's the worst part.

I didn't know that it was happening to me until like one day I was like, am I blowing this out of proportion?

Like it would be like something small.

And I think to myself, this probably was the wrong way to react or the wrong thing to say.

I'm like, I should probably,

why?

And then you eventually realize it at some point.

But it might have been like after a year or two of you going through that before you realize that, okay, dang, yeah, I'm dealing with anxious or anxiety issues due to the PDs.

So, do you happen to remember what exactly, like specifically, like what kind of compounds might have caused you personally to feel that way?

Or

yeah, absolutely.

So, when I first started working with a coach leading into my

national show,

we decided, well, it was advised to me to to take MPP and DECA as well as Trend, right?

So, like, those manager loans, well, we did the MPP Deca to grow, right?

And then switched to Trend to go into the show.

But all three of them are 90 Norris and they're greatly known to affect the mental state.

So those were the worst.

You get a feeling where, you know, sometimes you just sit down and enjoy.

the view or wherever you're at.

You just,

right?

You never got that.

Yeah.

You feel like something is

off all the time.

Yeah.

And it keeps getting worse if you're not distracted.

If you distract yourself, you go to the gym, whatever, you might not feel it as much.

But

when you're on prep or whenever you're eating a lot of food, you want to sit down sometimes, like on the growth phase or on the prep.

You want to sit down sometimes and you want to just relax, allow your mind to kind of turn off.

That does not happen.

It just...

It could be a bottle that's on the table.

That's not where it's supposed to be.

And you want to move it.

Or it could be a bigger thought, something that had bothered you freaking a month ago and it came back to your head and just starts in at you.

It's just like a, it's almost like a constant tapping on the shoulder.

Yeah.

And it just gets worse, right?

Because it's constant.

So this is what I like to talk about a lot.

I mean, I think most people, I mean, I don't know.

I think a lot of people, especially in this audience, have an understanding of this, but I think it tends to be very missed that

how we feel, how our hormones are in our body, how the balance is dictates our thoughts.

And people like to say, you know, your mental state also dictates how your body is,

how you act in life.

Like you can control your world and your life with your mind, which is true

to a certain point.

But if your hormones are completely out of

whatever, or your chemistry is causing, say, like a rise in catecholamines

or a lower amount of serotonin in your system,

it's really hard for you to just mentally cause that to be in balance.

You know what I mean?

You can't really address your health.

And,

like, I have a friend, for example, um, who I'm trying to figure out a best way to explain this in a very general sense.

Um,

not to be specific, yeah, really.

I've had friends in the past that have like used MDMA, for example, and they will end up in, they're not gonna, they don't experience serotonin syndrome, but of course, you know, for days afterwards, when you're taking something like MDMA, you're gonna have a lower level of serotonin, but more often than not.

Um, and some people just like casually supplement that with 5-HCP before bed or whatever.

But there's people that can also experience things like sleep paralysis from this.

And one of the problems,

I mean, there's a lot of doctors that actually try to address sleep paralysis in their patients by prescribing them SSRIs, right?

Serotonin uptake inhibitors.

So if you need an increase in serotonin and you're experiencing this sleep paralysis due to likely a decrease in your serotonin levels, I mean, there's a lot of people I think who also don't really know how to address

these processes in their body without supplementing it with just another drug.

Right.

You know, like,

oh shit, my serotonin's down or something.

Like, I want to make myself feel better.

So, what other like actual prescription drugs can you take to make that feel better?

But, I mean,

obviously, well, not obviously, but

I would personally recommend anyone listen to some doctors that I've spoken with on my podcast, podcast, such as Dr.

Dean.

Like

in situations like this, when,

say, for example, you can't sleep because your dopamine, your adrenaline, your noradrenaline is too high, your catecholamines are too high,

this causes your brain to race.

Right.

Even if your body is in a chill state, if your serotonin is too low, I mean, this can cause a lot of issues with,

I mean, potentially cause things like sleep paralysis.

I'm not completely sure, but I would assume so.

And

I've also heard that some of these things can cause like really bad nightmares as well.

So, I mean, you want to calm your mind.

So methylfolate,

vitamin B complex,

which is really necessary to help convert l-tryptophan to serotonin.

And most people are probably not.

consuming enough l-tryptophan before bed anyway.

So you can supplement with that as well.

So you have those three different supplements and that should hopefully help reduce the rising of catecholamines and then hopefully also increase serotonin.

Right.

So, I mean, hopefully benefit that.

And that's what he said is honestly one of the potential ways that you can help combat the anxiety that you may get from EQ, from nandrolone, any of these substances.

And then I think the last thing, honestly, is just reduce your dosage, of course, right?

Like if you're feeling this and like you have to take supplementation on a regular daily basis just to combat anxieties that are causing you to have relationship issues or some other type of you know lifestyle issues i mean at this point there's a lot of other compounds so i think this is the best place to maybe switch it up lower the dose or just not use that yeah i don't use any mandrins anymore or eq

my my main thing is test and primal and sometimes we throw mast obviously for prep just to crush estrogen a little more

but i haven't had to use anything else even during my my growth phases uh but when i did use npp and deca i had those issues i feel like also just gaba supplements if you can get actual gaba or fenibut yeah typhin stuff like that that could help i think the problem with fenibut though is um

i mean i would recommend gaba for sure but a fenibut like ghp i think uh they can potentially cause issues with your uh GABA receptors over time.

So I know a lot of bodybuilders do like using Fenibut, but I think I would just advise against that one.

Yeah.

i'm saying there's there's options there you know what i mean and also um who was it vigorous steve i believe they they mentioned using gaba and fennibut interchangeably every other day right so gaba one day fennibut the next day so on so forth to kind of like avoid that but obviously over time you could still cause that to happen if you're continuously using it but i feel like during during um a chemical push i think all those things are essential because like Sleep is the most important thing.

Like if that's in check and you can actually go to bed and rest your mind, I feel like even though you're using those compounds, you'll be more, you know, you'll be better when you wake up and deal with your day or deal with that daily anxiety you get from those drugs.

And obviously a combination of that and moderating your dosage.

So, but yeah, that's the experience I've had with PDs.

I mean, I've had, I've pretty much, I think I've used anything that the average bodybuilder has used.

you know and with primal mast and test that i haven't really noticed i don't know if you have experience with that specifically yeah right like

pretty mellow.

Like, I don't really get any of the, I don't even feel like I'm, that's the only thing that I don't like.

MPP, Dekka, Trend.

When you use those things, man, you feel like a freaking bull in the gym, right?

You feel like a tank.

Yeah.

But with Primo, sometimes you just don't feel like you're taking anything.

You might see the visual changes.

Yeah.

But for me, I don't really think that's the same thing.

Because you're just drinking water sometimes.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

But you don't get any oomph.

You don't get any freaking aggression.

You don't get any of that.

So you probably get the opposite because it crushes your estrogen.

So you probably get lower libido.

But

other than that, it's very beneficial for like, I feel like growing and also allowing you to stay more mellow if you wanted to do a more conservative growth push.

You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

So this was kind of in the QA, but when did you first take your first cycle?

I was 22.

And I wouldn't say it was a cycle.

It was just test 250.

Okay.

And funny.

It's a funny story.

I got it from like some bogus guy at the gym, right?

And it was bad tests.

That's everything.

Yeah, it was freaking terrible because I don't even think it was test because it hurt so bad.

Yeah.

Like immediately after my whole leg was hurting and I had a fever for like four days.

Where did you inject it?

My glute.

Your glute?

Yeah, but it was, it was not.

I don't know what it was, bro.

I don't know.

It was, that's what I'm saying.

It was, it said test on the bottle, but I'm sure it was, it was fake.

And my smart self was like, okay, well, I guess this is what bodybuilders do.

So after like a couple of days, I shut down the glute.

So

both legs were gone.

And I was like, super, I was having a fever.

I was getting sick.

I was vomiting.

I was like, yeah, dude, I don't know what it was.

So

after that, after like a month, I just stopped everything.

After a month, I got a different source and I actually got a good test.

And that was, so 22, that was when I started with test.

And then

After that, at the age of 24, 26, no, 24, 25, I did my first like full-blown cycle, right?

So then we had.

Damn, it took you a minute.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I was squeezing a lot of gains out of just the test on itself, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Were you like titrating it up, though, during that time?

Yeah,

so I think the highest time was like 400.

Okay.

You know,

so then we went.

So you have to take like AIs.

Yeah.

So eventually, eventually I had to take AIs.

I was also eating bad.

So I was kind of like...

It was not a very clean, educated bulk.

Obviously, we're my first ever feeding cycle.

Yeah.

So 23 years old.

You know what I mean?

I'm eating everything, lifting heavy, doing the test, and I'm getting also kind of fat.

So I can't tell if it's fat or if I'm actually getting gyno, right?

So I'm sure I was developing because I just had surgery for it this past year.

So I'm sure I was developing it during that time.

And it kind of surfaced whenever I did compete the first time.

Like we, I was like, okay, it's visible.

When I cut, I was like, I definitely have gyno.

But then we went with MPP, EQ.

I didn't do any orals for a minute.

I only did orals for competition, but I did MPP and EQ.

It's better than me.

What did you do?

I did orals orals for my first cycle.

Fucking awesome.

Why do people do that?

I guess because they're afraid of the injection.

Because I was dumb.

There you go.

Young enough.

No, I mean, I'm going to be real.

I know I joke about it being dumb and shit, but I don't want anyone's feelings to be hurt.

Right.

Of course, I did that too.

But the fact of the matter is, I know a lot of the people in the audience understand bodybuilding to a good, you know, you guys have listened to a lot of podcasts.

You guys have listened to a lot of information.

You guys are smart people.

Not that other people aren't.

But the fact is that even to this day, there are still so many people out there, so many younger people as well that are out there being meeting people that are gaining their trust by the way they talk to them and the way they coerce with them.

And maybe even over like a course of like a year or two years, you know, this guy at the gym who's been always nice to you, he's become like an uncle to you.

And then he starts like talking to you about his PDUs.

And you're like, man, I want to jump on gear.

Like I see all these people like Sam Saul looks like fucking sick.

Like I want to jump on gear and shit.

And then he like recommends some things to you.

And i'm not trying to like put anyone on blast or anything i really don't want to because i don't even know if i'm allowed to talk about some of these situations which is the part that's hard is like i want to explain to people that these things really happen yeah with specific stories but i don't want to ever put anyone on blast right like you know there's there's been

there's been like parents that obviously they don't want their kids to take gear but there's also been some parents that are just like you know like like get mad at them for like already starting but they're like okay well just don't freaking inject it just if you're gonna do this just don't inject or something like this.

You know, things like this happen a lot.

And I've known kids that are under the age of 19 that have been scammed with their gear use, that are like just taking orals or that have been scammed with something such as like GH, and it's not real.

Just, it's crazy, man.

It's crazy.

And these kids will come to me and ask me for advice, and I'll do everything I can, but it just fucking sucks to see, like, dude, these they're being manipulated by people that they feel like they have

learned to trust that are actually almost like families to them.

And it really sucks because then they don't really know who to trust.

Like, trust this guy that's on social media who I don't even know in person or trust this guy that I've known that's been like a friend of me for so long.

Like it just sucks.

Yeah.

So that's kind of like how it happened for me was a guy at the gym that was kind of like, hey, I got this if you need it.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So, but yeah, it was, uh, I hear it all the time, man.

And, you know, we own a gym.

So like, and I talk about this stuff openly on my, on my socials.

So a lot of this kids come to me and ask me about advice or like, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

And if you're young and you're seeing gains and you don't need it, just don't do it.

You know what I mean?

And if you're in your parents' house, probably just wait, wait a little bit.

It's not going anywhere.

The gym is going to be there.

You're going to, you're going to become an adult and be able to make critical decisions later on when you're more mature and educated.

Right.

You know.

It's just so easier to said than done when you're a young kid.

For sure.

Like I've heard some really great professors in psychology discuss that like you know 10 years from now you're going to want completely different things yeah it's just how we are as humans it's natural like what your desires are right now is not your identity and we have to all realize that

but the problem is like when you're young sometimes depending on what your situation is some people aren't as some people just aren't as well off than others yeah um and sometimes your life just doesn't feel as important you know sometimes it's like my life may not even ever get better unless i better myself in this place or unless I get some kind of recognition here or like, et cetera.

You know, you never know what's going on in someone's life.

So sometimes for some people, it doesn't even matter if they ruin their life for the rest of their life.

But if they can get somewhere great now where they feel better, where they feel like life is worth living, they'll do it.

And that's the problem.

So I was in a similar space when I was younger, like whenever I first competed, because I was like, again, I don't have anything.

I was broke.

I didn't have anything or anyone that really cared, right?

Like my family was still in Greece.

My dad, my mom, the people that I cared really for.

So I kind of relate to what you're saying because I felt like there was nothing to live for.

I was like, this is all I'm going to have.

This is it.

Like, what the heck do I have to lose if I step on stage with a banana hammock?

You know,

obviously, I didn't take the route of PDs at that point, but eventually I did because that's kind of like subconsciously what kind of drove me there.

Thankfully, now I have people around me that I do feel like value me and love me, right?

Like my nephew and wife.

So, it's a good, it's a way better mental space down there.

Yeah.

um yeah now you mentioned uh the things that you like now might not be the things that you like later in life do you feel like that that's that's true for people that are at the top of sports like professional athletes because you see people like dorian yates lee priest they're still bodybuilders right they still talk about working out taking peds living the lifestyle do you feel like when you're so um I'd say immersed into a sport, because it becomes like obsessive, right?

It becomes an obsession.

And you see a lot of athletes never get out of the sport.

They become commentators.

They become something involved in the sport.

Do you feel like for those people, it's different?

Like, do you feel like it becomes their identity?

I think there's always a variance, but I think no matter what, as you grow older, your desires change based off of your age, you know, based off of the things that are required for you at the time, at this time in your life.

And I think some of the people that you actually even suggested or...

you use as examples are honestly great examples of my point, like Dorian Yates, bro.

Like, how small is he now?

That's true.

He focuses all on his, like, is it that he focuses on cardiovascular health a lot?

Yeah, I think he was doing some yoga stuff when I saw him.

Yeah, bro.

He's so different, man.

He's like this wise old, you know, ripped skinnier man.

Yeah.

It's just

like, of course, they'll love bodybuilding.

They have this entire background on it, you know, but they're not bodybuilding now, you know.

Even look at Fuat's podcast, for example.

Fuat, Ian, like, yeah, they love bodybuilding, but Ian will literally say, like,

yeah, it's his passion now, but it's not what gets him up in the morning like it used to.

Yeah.

Like, now he wants to,

I don't remember what he's doing.

Freaking running.

What is he, though?

Sprinting.

He's sprinting?

Running.

That's a big man to sprint.

He's running.

I know, I know, I know, bro.

He was a runner in like high school or something like that.

So, but yeah, there's a lot of cool examples.

You see Greg Dussette, too.

Right.

Rand cycler.

Cycling, yeah.

Still cycles say, but it's.

He's in great shape, brand, bro.

Like, I would love to look like that after I retire bodybuilding.

No, yeah, for real.

I feel like I'm just going to get fat.

I feel like I'm just going to be like, I'm going to eat everything.

Right.

I wonder if he's, I wonder if he's, he's probably still on TRT, right?

Does he talk about that open?

Probably.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

But I would assume so.

He did say TRT is the new fake nanny.

Right.

I mean, technically it is.

Like, I get those.

I get those kids that are talking about TRT Plus and it's like 500 milligrams of test.

I'm like, bro, 500 milligrams of test.

You are on a full-blown blast, bro.

You're using.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, I'm still lying.

I'm just doing that.

Most immense physique competitors regular cycle.

Yeah, right.

Or regular test base, I guess.

I would be interested to see what a men's physique cycle looks like, like the pros that are in the roster right now for like top five at the Olympia.

Because I feel like everybody's drug uses very similar.

Everyone's is very similar.

Okay, so it changed.

There's always going to be people that are, there's always going to be variants, no matter what.

There's going to be a lot of variants, actually.

But

when I, there was someone who commented on Darren Farrell's episode, right?

He's a classic physique competitor.

He's like, Niall, like, I'm disappointed in you for not calling Miles for lying.

Bro, is not only taking that much test.

We know that literally every bodybuilder is taking 750 milligrams of test minimum.

And I'm just like, I hope this guy didn't just like rip that out of like freaking Dura's podcast.

That is crazy.

And just assume all competitors are taking open bodybuilder dosages.

No, bro.

Okay.

So.

We know that Martin is taking around like 7, 750.

That is surprising for me.

I'm going to be real about it.

Martin, fucking, this massive fucking dude, open bodybuilder, fourth place, taking 750.

I get how that's hard to believe.

I totally get it.

But I mean, I don't know.

Maybe he's fucking a hyper-responder.

Maybe he just has a really slow metabolism and just has a good response.

I don't know.

But

still, he's the lowest open bodybuilder dose I've ever heard.

So if you're going to say all bodybuilders are taking 750 minimum,

if you specify that as open bodybuilders, from my experience, that makes sense.

I've seen Marinat 750.

I've seen Fuad discuss 1100, 1200 to 1300 being his favorite optimal dose.

I've heard Phil Heath saying 1300 of test alone being his optimal dose.

I haven't heard him talking about his PD usage yet.

You haven't?

I got to go look it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He said it on a podcast.

There's some people saying he was lying.

I'm like, dude, it's 1300 means of test.

Why are you expecting him to be?

What are you expecting, bro?

He's a genetic freak on 1300.

I'm like, I mean, look at the guy.

1300 is like, I feel like that's more than my total gear already.

So I'm like, why do you think that's a lie?

That's sounds fucking true as fuck to me.

It's crazy.

I feel like nobody's going to believe the test I'm going to run just because, again, I get gyno and I have very heavy estrogenic effects.

So I don't have to run that much actual test.

Year-round is like 300, maybe 350.

Yeah, there's going to be people claiming that.

Doubt it.

100%.

I know.

But my DHT is like my master's right now is a gram a week.

Right.

So I don't know why it's hard for some people to like believe that there's like you, John Jewett, Eric Janeke, who else?

Um, freaking uh,

uh, one of the guys you competed in, the one, um, fucking Jack Eagles, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jack Eagles, he's cool, I met him.

Darren Farrell, I can literally name top competitors.

John Jewett is massive, bro.

Yeah, but he tight shoots up his DHT that high as well.

So, like, it's, I think, I think people forget.

Like, I, like, I won,

I earned my pro card on just orals.

People say that's amazing.

I don't think it is because orals still do some crazy shit.

For sure.

Like just because I wasn't on a test base, I think that was unhealthy.

But

it still worked, bro.

Like fucking what, 10 megs of halo test and at least 50 milligrams of Winstroll.

Yeah.

I look pretty crispy.

Yeah.

You know,

especially when I had like no test in my system.

Probably like zero estrogen, bro.

I was fucking dry as shit.

So like, you're going to see that stuff.

And I mean, like, they're still anabolic.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, Dr.

Dean even recommended, he didn't recommend this, but he said, theoretically, if you were going to choose a ratio and you weren't dependent on the level of aromatization that your body is genetically prone to,

he would say that typically, if you wanted to favor a more anabolic to androgenic ratio, you would titrate up your DHT higher and your test lower since test is about a 50-50 ratio of

anabolic to androgenic.

So, but unfortunately, some of us like me can't do that, right?

Like I have to have when I'm running 600 tests, 500 Primo, I got to have 100 tests above my Primo.

That's just how I am.

I'm not going to be able to do anything else other than that.

But I feel like the only thing that that really does

is

while some people may say, yeah, Tessa is more anabolic than Primo.

This should be more anabolic than Mastron.

I mean, there's not really that crazy of a difference when you're using dosages of a total of like 1200 mix.

You know, that's still a crazy amount compared to people who are taking 150 milligrams of tests for their TRT.

You're comparing 150 milligrams of an an of just an androgen in general to 10 times that amount.

We're still taking 10 times the amount of a normal person.

So you got to remember that just because it's not test exactly, it's still steroid.

You're still taking steroids, man.

So yeah, you just got to use what you just got to use what works best for you.

And why take an ai if you can just balance your ratio amount of time that you're under those substances as well right yeah that's also probably the most important factor to your total tissue yeah so that's what a lot of kids don't understand i'm going to take this within a year i'm going to look like you or within three months i'm going to look like you might take you six seven years of drug usage to even get relatively close yeah that so no i agree completely that's what makes me wonder like like i get surprised when i hear people like I mean, Eric is a little bit more reasonable, but when I hear people like Eric and Martin talking about their dosage, I'm just like, I'm hoping that they just took this amount, but like for like six years, six years ahead of me, and then I'll fucking go

because that's fucking nuts.

He plays a role, man.

I think you have a very great structure for classic.

And I think the more you, because like you said, you've never actually done a proper growth phase.

Yeah, it's only been like a year, a year and a half, actually now.

No.

No, now it's been about two years because my book's about to end.

So

I don't know how this is going to look, I guess.

Think about how you're going to look like after two years of of doing that or twice the amount you're doing that, like four years, five years.

You know what I mean?

It'll, it'll putting on 10 pounds of muscle year after year.

After five years, that's 50 pounds of tissue.

You're going to look like a completely different person from the starting point till the end.

So it's not necessarily the amount.

People think, I take more, I'll put more muscle on.

At a certain point, your body is only able to put on so much muscle.

The rate of muscle you're gaining is going to stop.

Like you're not going to.

gain more because the gear is higher.

So I don't understand why people, like for me, we find a sweet spot where I respond well and I feel well.

So there's no taking more won't do anything more than give me side effects.

Right, right.

That's what Fuad was discussing too, is everyone finds a sweet spot.

And as much as people want to believe,

like I personally still feel like your size indicates your sweet spot.

So we listen to Kurt.

Davins, listen to Dr.

Dean, listen to any of these guys that focus their life on studying PEDs.

They discuss that as you gain muscle,

it causes upregulation of androgen receptors.

Now, I know upregulation has a variety of different definitions, such as maybe like your,

I guess you could consider like your response to a substance, if you respond better to that, also kind of an upregulation.

So that's where

it got confusing to me.

But when they explained their definition, it made more sense where it's like, as you gain more muscle, you gain.

a higher amount of receptors.

Thus, you gain a greater capability to saturate those receptors.

Now, if you're you're taking a gram of gear and you've just started your cycle and you're 18 years old and you don't have a lot of muscle, you have saturated those receptors and more.

So, where is the rest of that gear going to go to?

To the places that are going to cause you some excess side effects, right?

And we see this a lot.

That's why we're like, oh, these guys take a ton of gear and they look like crap.

Well, it's probably because they were actually taking more gear than they should for how much muscle that they have.

But we don't really think about that when we're doing our cycles when we're like 18 years old, 20 years old, absolutely, or we just haven't had the opportunity to, I guess, go on the internet and listen to hours of podcasts or hours of YouTube videos with this information laid out.

So, as we grow bigger and bigger and bigger, though, we start having a greater capacity to saturate, which means we have the ability to take even more gear and even more gear.

This is what allows us to take more gear.

So, that's why it's like that's where the argument comes in.

It's not like as you grow bigger and you take more gear,

then you should respond better.

That's not the case.

It's that you can take more gear as you grow bigger and you don't have as much side effects.

And this makes sense, right?

Like when I first fucking started gear, I think

my first injection cycle, you know, after I finally stopped being dumbass, was

like 300 megs of tests.

I started at 250 and then I went up to 300.

I was fucking watery.

I was bloated.

I got a ton of acne, honestly.

Part of the reason was I think I wasn't quite as apprehensive of managing my estrogen levels with AI.

And I wasn't taking blood work as regularly as I am now.

But also, I did just gain a lot of side effects from taking that much test.

Now I take 500 milligrams.

Now I take 600 milligrams.

Yeah.

No issues.

I have zero of that, which makes me wonder, maybe I could like take a little bit more test.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I should

coach a little bit.

I've never had, I don't know, man, I've never been like that intrigued from gear.

I'm like, it's almost like another box that I need to check off.

I'm like, like, okay, how much of this do I need to take to get there?

Okay, this much checked off.

I'm not thinking, what if?

I just have never thought with that mindset.

You know what I mean?

I think what intrigues me the most is like the performance side of things, like in the gym.

Yeah.

How much stronger am I getting?

Am I seeing the indications that this is working?

Am I seeing added size, you know, moderate side effects?

Because like for me, you know, obviously I have, I've had long hair for a long time.

So like, I'm, I don't want to lose that.

So like, I'm not always, I'm always thinking, okay, I'm just going to take the minimum minimum effective dose.

That's kind of like how I'm approaching it.

Gotcha.

Wow.

You're special, bro.

Better than the rest of us.

I think that's what makes you a good coach, though, is you're clearly like pretty analytical about it.

That's the best way to go about it.

Obviously, as much as some of us hate the science-based lifter,

is really, it's, it's just driving up performance.

Yeah.

If it's at the point where it's starting to drive down performance, because one, you're not sleeping because of the compound use, or two, maybe you're just so much of a water bag in your earth labor, it's hard for you to get

proper trading volume in.

I mean, all of these factors, if it's bringing back your trading performance, then obviously you're not going to make as much gains.

So

focus on the performance first.

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GH acreaglogs such as tessamorellin, IGF1, oxandrolin charche, semiclutide, then you can obtain these these from Transcendent HRT and the link for that will be in the bio.

If you feel like you're experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, such as depression, anxiety, lack of motivation, as well as lack of sex drive, then you can get this checked out as well by getting your blood work done at Transcend and they will provide you expert medical analysis.

Transcend HRT has worked with many professional bodybuilders and pro athletes such as Thor Bjornsson, Phil Heath, and Jeremy Bundia.

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

How did you first feel when you got your pro card?

I felt, oh my God, what the fuck?

What happened?

Did it break?

There's an explosion.

My bicep was a little bit too strong.

It was from the bicep crawl I was using at

your gym.

Oh, right.

All right.

Thank you for coming out, by the way.

Bro, thank you for creating that sick-ass gym, dude.

It's epic.

But yeah, when I first got my pro card, it was great.

I felt happy initially,

but it was underwhelming.

Like you expect this big thing to happen.

You expect to

get thousands of followers and get attention and this and that to happen.

And it didn't happen.

But from a perspective of an athlete, like as an athlete, I felt very accomplished.

I was like, now at least, like you said prior, you know, it's not your identity, but in that moment, it is.

You're like, and I'm a professional bodybuilder.

That's what I am.

You know what I mean?

So he gave me that.

And obviously it gives you another tank to tap into because, like, usually, when people go to nationals, they've done multiple nationals, it's like usually towards the last bit of them trying to get the pro card.

They're like, if this doesn't happen this time around, I'm gonna wrap it up, and they get it.

So, then it gives you another fuel tank to tap into versus the one that is already tapped into and completely empty now.

You know, so mentally, it gave me that extra fuel to like keep pushing as a pro.

You know, um,

no, that it felt great, but again, underwhelming.

That's, that's basically the gist of it.

Okay.

Yeah, mine,

mine felt almost like I

got to the point where I like just lost all expectation of getting it because I just kept losing.

I just kept getting placed.

Fucking terribly, terrible.

How many national shows did you do?

Five.

Dang, bro.

Five national shows.

Those are draining.

And like three of them.

Two of them I got 16th plus place.

Not even placed.

I'm not even placed now.

that feels people don't i don't know if there's not many athletes out there that compete at a high level but like whenever you get placed whenever you don't get your name called or your number called

you just go into such a freaking depressed state yeah it's just like there's no point yeah yeah might as well just might as well just eat chinese buffet before finals

How did you feel when you got it?

When I got my bro card?

Yeah.

I didn't feel anything when I first got it.

Really?

because it i liked it was like the state of like i don't know if it was denial or if it was like

just like disbelief it was more like disbelief and shock i think because i just did not expect it to happen for years i like

wanted it so bad right yeah but uh i

it kept getting just punched in the face every national show um so

there were like points of the where I would just I would like dream that I got my pro card and then I would reach out and realize like it wasn't true.

So it's just like this continuous

feeling of

discouragement.

Yeah.

Disappointment right from show to show.

Yeah.

So maybe

was it a couple of weeks or a month?

I don't remember what, but a little, just a short time afterwards, did it really kick in?

And that was, I was feeling kind of on top of the water for quite a few months.

Yeah.

It's pretty great.

That's freaking cool.

That's pretty cool.

So we've both had some crazy journeys with diet, I guess.

What have you found to work the best for you in terms of food choices, food timing?

So I'd say five to six meals a day and pretty high protein just because

protein is hard to digest, right?

So it keeps me fuller for longer.

Plus, obviously it's the building block for muscle.

So whenever you're especially on

whether that's prep or whether that's a growth phase, you're still pushing higher chemicals to normal.

So you have the capacity to utilize more of that protein.

So I'm like, I like the protein, let's utilize it regardless.

This is not something that I would do with my clients specifically, but my protein gets up to like 350, 360.

For a guy, my size, that's kind of like high.

You know what I mean?

Carbs, my carbs during Prev get really low during growth phases, or even currently that we're doing a maintenance phase into the next show.

They're pretty much one-to-one with

the protein, you know.

And fats are pretty low.

I can tolerate very low fats.

I know you worked with Fuad before, and he tolerates fats better, higher fats better than he does.

He tolerates really high fats.

Higher carbs.

His little program with John Meadows.

So cool.

I wish I'd work with John Meadows.

But like, currently, like, my fats are like 35.

Wow.

Yeah, it's just two beef meals.

Oh, it's crazy.

Yeah, bro.

I don't require that much fats.

I don't feel bad.

Do you feel like you

blow up when you eat a lot of carbs or no?

I definitely have a very good response.

Like, if I ate 50 grams of carbs right now, I feel it pretty fast.

It also goes away fast, but I get a pretty freaking good, good pump from it, if that's what you mean.

Do you mean like during growth phases, like over an extended amount of time, or like a short response?

Um, so there's this tendency for darker-skinned people to tend to feel a little bit more watery on higher carb diets.

Yeah.

But, um, you know, it's just, it's just a thing that's a little bit more common, you know, in terms of genetic response

for, say, like Jungle Asians and like black people, for example.

Maybe

Arabs.

I'm half white, so you're also kind of like...

Are you really?

Yeah, my mom is Greek.

My dad is Nigerian.

Oh, shit.

So I guess

half Mediterranean.

Because I don't know if Greeks are considered...

I guess they're considered white, right?

Because they have a lighter complexion.

They're darker to a degree, but it's it's like when you see them, they have straight hair, kind of white Caucasian features, you know what I mean?

So, I guess I might have taken a little bit of that to process the carbs a little better.

Um, I definitely feel more bloated, like I was eating like 200 grams of potato in my last meal, and for that hour after my stomach is like extended, like, I feel bloated, and it's only like 30 grams of carbs, yeah, you know.

Uh, so I go with more, like, especially when pushing food or peak week, we go with more carb-dense foods, like dates, apricots, or dates, freaking fire.

Do you happen to have any experience with insulin?

I have not.

No.

I've never used insulin.

I've wanted to, but I've, yeah, I'm already on my wake up.

I don't really need to like push food high.

Like 3,300 calories.

What am I going to use insulin for?

I know.

I've always been curious because there's controversial takes on insulin, of course.

Some people think it's just amazing.

Some people think it's just, it hardly does much.

Even though people consider it the most anabolic hormone,

I think the use of actual insulin is like, if you don't have some

diabetic issues or whatever like you're secreting your own insulin when you're taking intaking carbs for sure like most of the time i mean you're gonna have a little bit excess going into blood sugar if you're eating a copious amount of carbs but just how much insulin are you taking that's actually a benefit over your actual natural insulin production i think it's more so a benefit to insulin resistance in the long term right so you're not continuously secreting so much insulin base off of your carbohydrate intake absolutely now you're supplementing it.

So I have clients that are up to like 55,000, 6,000 calories, right?

5,500, 6,000, some 6,500.

That's when I see it being applicable.

Where like you're at the final stages of that really hard push for growth and food is kind of like at the limit.

You know for sure that they're not metabolized or not metabolized.

They're not producing enough insulin to kind of utilize that food.

So basically having like five or 10 IU of lantis in the morning, you know, kind of like increasing that baseline insulin level.

I think that's beneficial there.

But the way that I hear it being used with like 20, I use a GH and like 20, I use, I'm like, that's a lot, and you don't need it, especially like people use it in the morning, pre-workout, post-workout.

If you're an open bodybuilder, maybe there's an application there.

But if we're talking about like a conservative, healthy approach,

I don't think it has much application.

And I think people

also over-centralize it.

They make it sound better than it is.

Right.

You know, I still don't like, I don't have enough information and even anecdotal or empirical evidence from my conversations to like make a good conclusion off of this.

My legs are the weakest part.

And he really thinks I need to develop my quads a lot better because I have really strong

adductors.

Adductors.

Adductors.

But my quad sweep just isn't.

that phenomenal.

I have these long quads almost like Wesley's.

So you just see this stuff shit come out of the knees, but then there's just fucking straight lines.

I think you have pretty good legs from what I see on Instagram.

Thanks for your legs.

Thanks.

Well, I mean, I only post the best pictures.

So,

bro, that picture I took at your gym

is literally the best leg picture I've ever taken in my entire life.

My legs do not look like that.

I was part of that picture.

No, I was dying in the picture.

I was like, that's our gym, and he looks freaking awesome.

I don't know what it was.

The lighting just made them look way bigger than they actually look, for sure.

That's a sign.

We got to move here.

You got to start training out our gym.

There you go.

but yeah basically um instead of but instead of the four i use i talked with my coach and we agreed that he would let me utilize igf1 um i'm using 50 micrograms now well i haven't been i was actually 25 but i titrated it up finally to 50 micrograms of igf1 from transcend that i'm getting uh lr3

so and he states that like you know it's lr3 it's not des so it's got a long half-life so i don't need to worry about injecting it before and after my workout he just states just inject the 50 micrograms before your workout.

I'm hoping I'll see a difference in my legs.

I feel like my use of IGF-1 in the past, though, has kind of benefited my growth.

But, you know, that's the thing is like, there's so many variables.

Like when you use things like IGF-1 or insulin on only particular days, of course, sometimes, I mean, without the use of IGF-1 and insulin, you normally tend to have higher carb days on the weaker muscle groups for most of your clients, I'm assuming, right?

Right.

you already have that.

And then adding in the IGF-1 and insulin is just to supplement the already high carb intake that you have.

You know, you don't want to add the carbide, the arguments like you don't want to add carbs on top

because of the insulin, because that's just what helps,

I don't know cause a lot of bodybuilders to get fat, right?

I've felt a tolerance increase over the course of the last several months.

And it's like I don't really feel the pump anymore, which makes me really sad.

Just do what everybody else does, bro.

Double the dose.

Oh, shit.

Double the dose and speed up the tumors.

Right.

Yeah, that's the risk that I hear about IGF, you know, one LR3.

I was going to ask you if you've, because you get yours through a clinic, if you've ever experimented with incrylics, like just pure IGF-1.

No, I've, I know.

I've looked into.

I've just like read a lot of things about incrylics, but I don't even know where to get it.

My clinic doesn't.

It's difficult to find.

He doesn't have encolics.

Yeah.

I'm going to go to Turkey or somewhere like, I don't know, wherever they have it.

Because in Turkey, you can go get the Snap Tops at the pharmacy of

test and like primo and all that kind of stuff.

So I just wanted to, the reason I brought up insulin in the first place is I was talking with Eric, and I guess a lot of the reason that

I hope this doesn't make people angry.

I think a lot of the reason that the

Steve was saying, a lot of reason, like some of the Middle East guys get really fat when they're running insulin is because they fucking smash dates.

And apparently, if you consume dates, it

increases.

Oh, man.

I hope I'm saying this right.

I think he said it increases your chance of like fatty liver.

I think a lot of the maybe the glucose from dates is stored more in the liver than it is just because of the type of sugar it is.

Now, I'm not, you know, don't.

I know dates have a lot of specific benefits.

I'm not sure about that.

i have i haven't heard much about that specifically i implement them because they're very dense in carbs and sugars especially for peak week and they're very light not light they don't take as much room in the stomach do you fart a lot when you eat them the dates i fart a lot period bro so i don't know

i just fart all the time

especially because i ate higher protein right so like when you're in 350 plus bro you just pretty fart all the way i hate it bro dude i used to i was my digestion was like perfect at the beginning of like the bulk but as it's gone gone on for some reason, I thought I would be able to tolerate the protein better and better as you titrate up protein.

And I thought it would be the same with just like bulking for a long time.

I feel like it shouldn't cause any issues, but

I like 250 grams has

caused more and more forts for

now that I'm at the end of the bulk.

So it's interesting stuff.

I feel like over time, you just, whenever you're going

through a bulk and you're in a surplus, you just start tolerating food, you know, worse and worse as time goes on.

Like your body just adapts to it, and you have to up the food more, and there's more fat accumulation.

However, from what I've seen, you look pretty freaking lean still.

So I'm like, I'm surprised.

Wow, that's nice.

Thanks, bro.

What?

Alexie doesn't think so.

Do you feel like

you're fluffier?

Well, my girlfriend doesn't think so.

Does she call you fluffy?

She makes jokes about it.

It's because she's so prep right now.

I get it.

She's anxious.

She's shredded, bro.

She has like a solid six-pack.

She's walking around.

She's getting cut.

That's freaking cool.

My coach also thinks I'm like,

I'm on the borderline of the composition.

Really?

He's been actually pushing me to do an earlier show because he wants me to start prep like now, or at least start our health phase in a few prep, because we're going to do a small health phase right now.

But I just,

I wasn't ready to prep yet.

There's a mind flip.

There's a mind switch you need, right?

Where you're like, you get the itch and you want to do it.

So yeah, I get exactly what you're saying.

Now, I do want to ask you, because you have a lot of eyes on you, right?

How do you feel?

Because I feel like the previous shows, was you falling as big on the previous shows you've done like nationals uh you haven't done a pro show just yet all my growth happened right after my pro card okay but not because of my well actually that's a lie sorry um i think i had i grew up to about 200k on instagram and maybe tick tock okay when i got my pro card okay um and after that i just continued the process the growth actually happened because of the type of reels, the workout reels I was posting.

After my pro card, I just finally jumped on test, figured out how to do my cycle properly, honed in my physique a little bit better, and then I stayed shredded year-round for about three years.

And then during that period of time, I posted the TikTok reels and the workout reels on Instagram or swipes about two to three times per week.

And that's what I actually got the growth to happen to where each platform went to about a million.

So do you feel more pressure now getting ready to potentially compete here soon?

than you felt back then because you have so many more eyes on you or do you feel more driven because of that i don't know man i don't know you haven't thought about it

no i don't think i thought about it that deep yeah that deeply but i also think that it's not really that different for me for some reason i'm not sure why but i think

it's a shitty answer but i think it's about the same for different reasons like i think there's different variables like me wanting my pro card so bad was what made competing just matter all for me.

And I also thought like getting my pro card will help my content and social media like everyone else did right which it barely did you know um helps a little bit but i mean yeah it's all about like doing the good tick tock reels and

that's a good instagram reel i'm having trouble with that bro like i know it's annoying man it's a lot man it's a lot to do yeah

there's like a specific look too like when i was younger my face looked really young but then i could get my body to look very like on the borderline of natty or unnatty.

Yeah, yeah.

This was before people actually like understood who was natty and who wasn't.

so yeah i just got lucky honestly it was just a young face with like a this

sus looking physique and just a blow-up you know so that's funny um interesting yeah uh

i i i think i mean i just want to get to the olympia stage yeah so bad um but i think now that i'm older i have a little bit more of a mature outlook because when i was a younger it's like my entire like identity and value was dependent on like me getting this pro card whereas now it's like i'm gonna try my best and and I'm going to go for it, but I understand that like it might not happen.

Yeah, like there's a lot of things that in my life now have been really shocking, such as like the passing of my best friends, things that I don't expect.

There's some other things that I haven't, I don't know if I'm really allowed to discuss, but it kind of makes you realize that just anything in life can happen.

So why expect anything?

Because expectations tend to be suffering.

So

my

plan is just to work as hard as possible to

support my family, hopefully give back to my parents someday, even though they gave me a fucking hard ass fucking life when I was a kid.

And

we're on the same page.

And

hopefully, you know, I'll get to Olympia and do well at the same time.

But

if I put too many eggs in that basket, I understand it might actually even hurt me more than help me

now that I understand that, like your body tends to respond to your mental state.

And

I get,

especially, I think especially during prep when I was on the additional compounds that were increasing my dopamine and everything.

Yeah.

It just drove my mind to be like, all my happiness depends on me getting this pro card.

Right.

Yeah.

So I would put everything.

Right.

in me in there.

But the problem is that I think that stressed me out too much, increased my cortisol.

Like, I would not sleep at all before show day.

I wouldn't be able to even operate properly because of the lack of sleep and the hunger.

And I think it would always bite me in the butt.

So I'm realizing now it's like, like I told Lexi, is like the show that you're the least stressed about, the one that you just want to do for fun.

That's going to be the best one for sure.

That's it.

So that's how I'm trying to look at it.

That's how I approach every show now this season.

And I've had the most fun because the feedback that i got a lot of times was my legs were too big and from people watching it they're like oh flick your legs obviously no thank you thank you bro but uh feedback i got as well was you should have you should have won the show i should have won that show i'm like yeah but i still placed well i accomplished what i personally set out to do which was get bigger and get leaner and i brought a package that i'm proud of So those that was the initial goal.

So to me, that's a win.

So it made me happy.

It made me fulfilled.

You know what I mean?

When you go to competitions with that mindset, you're going to win eventually.

You know what I mean?

It's going to happen.

Like it happened, the Olympia win or the Olympia qualification happened for me in 2023

without me really, I wanted it, but I wasn't ready for it.

When I went to the Olympia, it was just like a realization that, dude, there's a lot of freaking good guys out there.

And you have a long way to go.

So you might as well just enjoy it.

That's kind of like where I was once I went to the Olympia.

I was like, these guys look massive.

They're peeled.

They've been doing this for 10 plus years at the Olympia stage.

Chill, bro.

Like you got some time here.

Grow, take your time, go and enjoy the shows whenever you do them.

And then whenever you qualify, you qualify.

You have fun with it.

Because it's not everything.

You know what I mean?

So the only person that is going to be the everything for is the actual Mr.

Olympia, the bumsted, the lunch for it.

The rest of the guys.

If you talk to a lot of the guys that are fifth place, sixth place, seventh place, they have other things they have to focus on to make a living, to focus on family, to do other things.

You know, so, and I realized that when I went there and I talked to those guys and I competed next to those guys, right?

You know, so it's if you take it as an experience and you enjoy it and you're grateful for it, you're always going to come out of it with something that you've gained versus going in and expecting to win everything and coming out losing every time, you know.

So that's kind of like how I take it now.

I think that's why I like that they're raising the prizes

for sure.

I think that's kind of cool because we all know that most of us don't make that much money, honestly, for

what we do or how

I guess the achievement technically is, how high an achievement would be considered in the bodybuilding industry specifically.

Yeah.

But it's also why I like Grego's story

because

I'm the same way.

I've always been a bit of a failure to my parents.

So I think every bodybuilder is kind of like that.

Like when I first started bodybuilding, my dad got on the phone and was like,

what are you, why are you doing

I was like, because I enjoy it.

He's like, you can't go play soccer or something.

I was like, I like this and I'm going to pursue this.

Yeah.

My dad actually has everything he told me to do.

I did the opposite and did really well at.

Fire.

You know what I mean?

And even the way I make money today, coaching, having a gym.

Sounds like me and my mom.

You know what I mean?

But that's the funny thing.

It's almost like he will, they will never admit that, dang, you were right.

You're doing good.

You're living well.

I don't freaking care if you have a face tattoo.

I'm happy that you are doing well in life.

Yeah.

But it's because a lot of times I feel like because parents don't get to do what their kids are getting to do, they have almost like a jealousy.

Does that make sense?

Like, at least for my experience.

Yeah.

Like, if I'm succeeding in life, why is it bad that I'm getting tattoos and piercings?

If I'm doing well, I'm feeding my family and everything is going well.

Why is that a bad thing?

Why is it bad that I'm taking steroids if I'm monitoring my health and things that are going well?

I see what you're saying.

It's so interesting to think of it as a jealousy too, though, because it's it's like it's things that they weren't allowed to do.

But I think it's also like, because it was looked down upon, too, right?

Back then.

So now it's just like out of everything, out of their entire reality that we're doing this.

And of course, their expectation is it's going to be looked down upon.

Right.

But it's not quite the same anymore in today's society.

And I understand that that can be hard for, especially as we age and age.

I feel like the ability to be open-minded about certain things.

I don't know if that's super related to neuroplasticity or not.

Yeah.

But, I mean, just the ability to be really,

it gets really difficult.

So, which is why I'm going to fucking keep smashing treatments until I'm older.

But, yeah.

I

know that my family, too,

was

they're very particular about what I did in honor to, I guess,

not in their words, but like maintain honor in the family

and a good image.

So,

the problem though is like every time that I went to do something, my parents didn't think, thought I wouldn't be good at it.

So, like, I wanted to play tennis or I wanted to be a musician.

I ended up playing seven instruments and saying,

and seven instruments?

Yeah.

And they just, my mom told me that I wouldn't get into Juilliard because I was, I sucked and I just was good enough that I needed to practice more.

So, like, don't waste my time on that.

And then, obviously, I wasn't good enough at tennis.

So my dad was like, you know, you got to be realistic.

Don't put your time in that as well.

That's crazy.

Cause like, you'll never be good at anything if you don't.

Like no one just wakes up and is good at something.

Right.

That's the thing that I find problematic with that.

And I think that's what's so cool about what we can say, right?

It's like our parents disapproved of what we were going to do in terms of bodybuilding.

But now we got to a point where I think you did as well.

Like my dad's telling me that he's proud proud of me now and it's the craziest feeling in the entire world, man.

It's same concept.

Like he has pictures in his wall in his house of me on stage, right?

He's like, that's my son.

But what bothers me, man, it's like, I can't just go past what has gone through already.

Like I need you to recognize it and admit that you were wrong.

I'm that kind of person.

Like if you talk down upon me and my decisions all the way to this point, you can't just be with me celebrating when I win.

You got to say, hey, I sucked at this.

I sucked at being a dad.

It was really bad of me to discourage you and shame you for what you wanted to do.

And I apologize.

Now let's celebrate.

I'm happy with that.

Because I'm talking about like decisions like marrying my wife.

He did not approve of.

And my wife has been the only person that believed in me when I was completely broke and worthless.

You know what I mean?

That's awesome.

That's the only reason why I got a pro card because I did not want to go.

I was like, it's a lot of money.

I'm broke.

I don't have anything going for me.

I don't even think I'm good at anything in life and she's like i think this is a talent you have and you need to pursue it let's do anything we can to make that happen hire a coach get blood work wherever needs to be done you know what i mean same thing with the gym same thing with my online coaching she's the person that has put faith in me but when you hear someone that's like i'll disown you if you marry this person you know what i mean that like puts a thing in your head where you're like i need to address this this to be addressed first before I can say, I'm happy that you're saying that you're proud of me.

Yeah.

That's kind of like, I don't know if your experience with your dad is that severe, but that's to the degree that mine was.

So unfortunately, I don't have a relationship with my parents anymore.

You know what I mean?

So

that's the route I took.

But yeah, the family that I have now is the people that believe in men are not necessarily related to me.

Like my nephew and my wife, those are really the closest people I have.

And we run the gym together, our coaching together.

They're both coaches.

And I'd say we're pretty freaking successful.

What I was saying on your podcast, that he's like a lot of coaches charge $300 a month.

You know what I mean?

I think that's a base price.

I think that's, that's a different.

So I'd say $300.

Yeah.

He was like, some guys charge $300, man.

I think he was talking about like the average person that's just coaching on the side.

Okay.

I actually said,

I actually said in this ad that coaches charge normally $250 to $500.

Yeah.

That's my experience.

That's, yeah, that's a pretty reasonable price.

But that's what I'm saying.

It's like, when you have 60, 70 people put their faith in you and pay that money on a monthly basis, I think you're a pretty successful individual in your 20s.

Like, that's freaking great.

For sure.

So I'm proud of that.

You know what I mean?

And

I don't know.

That never,

I feel more fulfillment hearing that from the people that I consider my family today that live with me and they're not necessarily like blood related to me than my actual dad and mom.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So

sounds familiar.

Not to say anything about.

I am mending, or at least I'm in the process of trying to mend my relationship with my family.

I don't really want to.

it's hard for me to talk about this on the podcast.

Now it's getting harder and harder because, like, I, I felt more and more guilty over time of like just even talking, opening up about it, because I also don't want to continue to hurt like my mom's feelings, for example.

I understand that, yeah.

I don't know.

I'm just going through EMDR therapy.

I'm trying to address what's within me first and whatever.

And I understand if she and I will never see eye to eye, that's fine.

It's what it is.

It is what it is.

But hopefully I can address how I feel about it and change that.

Yeah.

And maybe maybe it'll help in the future in case I want to go see my family again and stuff.

So

I don't know.

It's complicated shit.

It is.

It is.

I'm thinking about therapy myself for that specific situation.

Because, you know, as a person, you have your parents in such a high regard, whether they approve of what you're doing or whatever the case might be.

For me, I had them in such a high regard.

So I still want to like potentially go to therapy to like kind of fix whatever that is, you know what I mean?

Because you feel like something is not right whenever you discontinue a relationship with your your parents so I want to fix like you said address yourself first then one to you know whatever else in the future so that's something that I'm looking into do myself yeah back to drugs yes

because I really appreciate how um one of the aspects about you and your coaching and also your social media is like just how freaking open you are about everything especially the drug use even if people aren't going to believe how well you respond to the gear um At least he's not saying like, oh, I'm like the fucking, I fucking diet harder and train harder than everybody.

He's really open.

you're like yeah i took a jill pay one to make it easier like i'm straight up about it so yeah i'm sure the dosages are true too like i don't understand if i was in that place why i would but insulin resistance do you do anything regarding insulin resistance or like maintaining good insulin sensitive sensitivity

with not being on insulin now also i understand that you're like your carb intake your total calorie intake isn't super high or anything so it's not crazy to worry about but just wondering so i track metrics a lot even blood glucose especially during growth phases making sure that that's not out out of control, fasted blood glucose,

your A1C, taking a look at that periodically.

And also metformin, that's something that's great.

Injectable carnitine, that's another thing that's great for insulin sensitivity.

But that's really it.

Because again, like you said, it's abnormally low, the amount of calories I have to consume.

So insulin is not the issue for me.

It's mostly fat accumulation.

That can potentially eventually cause insulin resistance.

But if you're controlling that to begin with, if you're staying at a linear composition year-round, year-round, you should not have any issues with insulin resistance unless they're already pre-existing.

You know, so uh, I think also because I dieted, so I was extremely fat as a kid, um, and then I really dieted really freaking hard a year, like for my first show coming back into bodybuilding after I got fat again.

Do you remember how much weight you had to lose?

Yeah, bro.

I was like 280, 275, 280, and I stepped on stage at like 205.

It was like 70 pounds.

Holy shit.

Yeah, it was like a 35-week prep.

Wow.

And we went on no carbs for like 25 weeks out.

I remember it was like cauliflower rice, tilapia,

and that was it.

And I was using cauliflower rice because it resembles rice.

So it would give my brain the thought, oh, I'm eating rice and fish.

It's fine.

You know?

I mean, honestly, cauliflower rice is fire.

It is.

You don't worry about the farts.

I was going to say, like, eventually it got bad, man, because like every meal I was doing with cauliflower rice and broccoli, two of the worst things you can freaking consume for farts.

So it was a smelly, smelly prep.

But yeah, I remember I got so hypo from just not consuming carbs around like 12, 13 weeks out, man, that my wife had to like hold me up to go into the grocery store.

Or like, even working was extremely difficult.

Like I would get dizzy and

cold sweats, hot flashes just from being on low carbs.

Like I'd eat a metalapian cauliflower, but that only would last for like 10 minutes because your glucose doesn't spike that much from that.

It's just protein and fiber.

Right.

So, um, so yeah, we actually pulled out of the show like eight weeks out.

And then once I ate some carbs the week after, my body picked up and I started losing weight and looking sharper.

Oh, fuck.

So obviously the suppressing carbs so much did not help.

But once we had that little bump from the food, because we pulled out, I was like, okay, I'm going to go enjoy a meal.

I ate like freaking eight rolls of sushi and like five cookies.

It was freaking delicious.

I remember that like it was yesterday.

When you haven't had freaking carbs in 20 weeks and they touch your tongue for the first time, you get an immediate like high.

It's almost like you're on drugs because your body is so happy about it.

Yeah, bro.

I know.

You know,

from experience.

You know what I mean?

So after

that body started responding, got back

on prep and then finished the...

the prep got overall qualified for my national show i've completely forgot where that question that was.

I just started talking.

Fuck, I forgot too.

Well,

insulin resistance, that's what it was.

Okay, yeah.

Is there any,

so are there any ancillaries or any protocols regarding organ health and blood work that you give to your clients?

Yes, and it all depends on their blood work.

So initially, when I give blood work, if we have any issues with kidneys or liver, you know, things like citrus bergamot, astrogalis, things that will protect kidneys and liver help with that.

Even for cholesterol, most people get fisholas, just regular fishola.

You buy a walmart.

But what really helps you is the DHA and EPA that they contain.

So getting a higher DHA, EPA concentration of fishol is very, it's a preventative measure for cholesterol for sure.

Like it helps you a ton.

Metformin is one of the few things that help with reducing LDL, increasing HDL.

You know,

you ever watch On the Spectrum?

yeah

i used to watch that show all the time after watching it now alexian i can't go can't stop uh

i have like favorite characters from that show too like the specific individual like i love that guy james james and connor are the fucking sickest

they're the g's

but also tomosartan you know stuff like that yeah that just helps with general health yeah i see the problem i see a lot of times is people throw the whole whole kitchen sink of supplementation to people.

Like it's like a list of 25 things.

Is this an attack?

Do you have like 25 things that you take?

I have a lot of supplements.

Do you need them?

Some of them I don't need, but I think I just

use to

try to optimize more.

Yeah.

Okay.

Be a little bit proactive.

Like choline and an acetol and an osital by itself, like I don't necessarily need those supplements, but I understand how they can be beneficial.

And I like to take some supplements that are also beneficial for brain health, just in case, you know, protective reasons as well.

Absolutely.

I mean, like, do I need them?

No, but like, I mean, I'm like, maybe they'll like work long run.

Maybe I'll have a smarter brain when I'm older instead of.

You have to think about the, because like the individuals I coach are regular people with regular jobs, right?

They barely want to spend money on supplements.

So I have to.

Yeah, that's true.

If I have a specific case where people can actually invest in that.

Yeah, I'll go the extra mile to find things that will help them with cognitive function, memory, brain health, you know, all those things.

But in most cases, people are like, what is the bare minimum I can use?

Because I'm already paying this much for coaching.

I'm already paying this much for the show.

I just want to use what I need.

You know what I mean?

So that's the usual things that I use, the ones I mentioned.

But I definitely feel like there's benefit in optimizing health, finding things that, you know, help with cognitive function.

Whoa, that was crazy.

You sound hungry.

Maybe I'm not ready for prep yet.

Do you ever like recommend glutathione?

So I see benefits with it for sure like from anecdotally you know what i mean personally i haven't used it just yet um and that starts to like talk more about mito mitochondrial health and stuff like that like methylene blue and all those other things do i think there's a potential benefit for me yes but what is the degree of

benefit that you're getting out of it like we haven't seen studies where someone uses glutathione for 20 years and they had a disease and that disease is non-existent anymore you know what i'm saying yeah Like, so I think it's benefit, sure, like, it's a prophylactic thing.

You could take it with the potential that it'll help.

Yeah.

But it's not guaranteed.

Right, right.

Absolutely.

So, it is a really good prophylactic, though.

Yeah, sure.

So, I agree.

But obviously, it's also expensive.

Right.

So, that's the problem.

But if you can afford it, like, even Neil Yodahill, when I was working with him for a very, very short period of time, gets all his athletes to do three to five

grams of glutathione IV'd once a month.

Okay.

So, I took the the equivalent in injections, three to five grams each month.

And

I got Dr.

Dean to, I asked Dr.

Dean what his top three supplements would be for

reducing inflammation and organ health.

And glutathione was his number one, which was cool.

Vitamin D was second.

And then CoQ10 and NAD were third.

CoQ10 or NAD.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a cool idea.

Any basic coach that cares about health should be having all those, not necessarily the glutathione, but the rest of the nature just just mentioned that doctor didn't mention those are like some basic pillars of implementation yeah for sure for sure have you ever had um any personal scares if you don't mind me asking yourself yeah yeah i'm i'm very open you can ask whatever um yeah so after i finished my prep for that first show that with i talked about lost 70 75 pounds

um you know obviously my my relationship with her was not good either so i'm sure that my blood work was pretty skewed because of that as well but every blood marker was out off like kidney liver um t3 t4 was terrible and it was still like three months four months after discontinuing so you never supplemented with it i did but it was after stopping it oh okay okay so usually it takes like a month for it to come back to normal right after eating normal um but it was non-existent for a very long time and it's obviously because I abused the T3T4 and also my body took so much longer to go back to normal after like eating in a deficit, freaking 40 weeks in a severe deficit.

So that was the main scare, man.

When I got to the doctor's office, you know how doctors are.

Back then, I was not educated either and stuff.

You should expect your blood work to be kind of skewed after a severe prep that's been prolonged.

And you only took like five weeks of recovery after dieting for freaking 40, you know, and taking drugs for 40.

So I should have expected it to be bad.

But at the same time, I was naive and didn't know much and uneducated.

So the doctor was like, dude, I don't even know how you're standing up right now.

I'm like,

let's just cool off here.

Am I okay?

You know what I mean?

So then I got on the phone with my coach and he's like, well, obviously this is not going to be back to where it needs to be only in five weeks.

So it took me, took me a good while, man.

Like I just did TRT, like literally like 150 to 200 milligrams a test for like four or five months, you know, for my blood markers to go back to normal.

But kidney, liver enzymes were elevated.

Cholesterol was bad, even though I was just back to eating normal for four to five weeks.

You know what I mean?

But because my estrogen was so crushed, all my lipids were destroyed as well.

You know, so

that was the main health scare.

I haven't had anything like

having to be rushed to the hospital.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I haven't had anything like that.

So

did you with your oral use whenever you first started?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

My doctors.

thought I might have had hemochromatosis.

So they wanted to get a whole biopsy and shit, bro.

It was fucking, it sucked so bad.

Did you go through that, the biopsy?

I went through

all the procedures required prior.

And then I think right before the biopsy, after taking off some time and then doing those procedures,

they realized that whatever I was doing at the time, which I

believe I was taking glutathione and also jumped off all anabolics and PEDs.

I can't remember if I started TRT yet or not, but after talking to Dr.

D and I realized that jumping back on TRT actually would have benefited my liver enzymes, my liver health.

They were just like, oh, wow, I guess you're fine.

You want to get a biopsy?

And I was just like, okay, shit.

Isn't it crazy that so many doctors are uneducated about that stuff?

Yeah, I mean, I can understand, though, like, you know, us bodybuilders are so extreme that, I mean, that's the thing that I think you and I probably really love about bodybuilding is like, it's like the same, it's, it's it's similar stuff to like what peter ati and andrew huberman and some of these other scientists will study yeah um but we we like to look at it in a more dangerous and playful manner i think for the sake of more of competitive yeah and

um maintaining our life reasons rather than actual like

diseases that are caused by our actions.

I don't know.

That was not a good way to put it because I know some people go through things because they take recreational drugs and shit too.

But yeah, basically, like, I don't know.

It's just fucking, we just do so many extremes.

Absolutely.

That it's just, it's, it's always interesting to talk about bodybuilding, in my opinion.

So that's why I like doing it.

How do you feel about,

how do you feel about the Detroit Pro?

In what perspective?

Like watching it, the production or like me competing in it?

You competing in it.

It was straightforward.

The stage was awesome, though.

Like the lighting, lighting the stage quality i got the video back and i was like i look like that

um it was a wonderful experience freaking loved it all uh i'm at west i'm at math super nice people um

i just felt like i should have been compared given a chance to compare with the top two considering that my feedback was that i was the most conditioned on that stage you know and that was from the judges table so i feel like

i should have had a chance next to them

and another thing that I, and I'm being completely transparent here.

So someone gets the hurt, feelings hurt.

I'm sorry.

But my feedback was also like my legs were too big for my upper body.

If that's the case, there was someone else in that top three or yeah, the top three of the Detroit Pro that had a, I feel like

more of a prevalent imbalance than I did.

You know what I mean?

I know what you're saying.

Yeah.

So that's not helping me because that just makes me, and it makes, it turns a lot of competitors away from bodybuilding.

Right.

You know, be realistic.

Tell me the actual truth.

Why I did not place where I placed, whether that was politics, whether that was Instagram followers.

I'm not mad at the placing.

I'm happy with where I placed.

But I want reality so I don't go back to the drawing board and make a plan that's not going to work.

Well, here's the thing.

This is my personal opinion:

I don't think some of these judges, or even most of these judges, sometimes know why it is you lost.

It's fucking weird to like look at someone and be like, we're going to score you this point.

And then they all total up the points.

And then they all go through all how many eight judges or however many.

Take out two of the ones that are like the most

the biggest outliers and then that's your score.

And I think it's hard for people to be like, this is the reason why you lost, right?

So they try to pick pinpoint the ones that are easiest.

And the other part is, now this is just complete speculation on my part.

And this might not be true because I think Manning has done a great job with the NPC and IFPB now, especially versus how it was like 10 and 20 years ago.

I've heard some crazy stories for sure from 20 years ago, especially from Arman.

But I think maybe just subconsciously too, though, like if you, if you've heard someone's name before, normally your, I

get drawn to them too.

So, and everyone in this audience can probably, if they're real with themselves, can speak from experience.

Like, oh yeah, when I go to class, when I go to the Arnold, I fucking like, I was looking for Wesley and I was looking for, you know, I was looking for fucking Mike and shit but I would like that feedback yeah hey grow your Instagram become more relevant read more but you know obviously they don't want it to be about like Instagram and social media and politics right they don't what if it is

well that's what I'm saying is like that's what I'm saying is like when we go to these stages we're not like

we're not saying like I want Mike to win because he has a bigger following than yeah yeah

we're more just like we like this guy we like this guy's physique but we just tend to right yeah we don't them if we have to like give you the reason it comes to the point where like

i feel like like i for example would probably have to start psychoanalyzing myself or break doing a breakdown myself um and psychoanalyzing yourself gets really fucking difficult right yeah

so

In my opinion, and I'll just give you my personal opinion about how I looked up there because you guys all look fucking insane, right?

I wasn't there in person, so I can really tell you exactly because I know that makes a difference.

I do think

like

the imbalances matter for sure a lot.

I do think maybe I'm just trying to be as real with you as possible, and as real as you as possible.

I think that if you had like a wider back,

that would definitely put you a big step up.

And I know,

I know Grego needs to work on his back as well, his back width as well.

But he probably, out of the top three of you guys, you, Wesley, and Grego, or you, yeah, you, Wesley and Grego.

Yeah.

Grego had the most balanced physique and had the same, like, had

conditioning on a comparable level as you and Wesley.

And then you and Wesley were probably the ones that the judges would consider had the greater imbalance.

So then, I don't know how close y'all's scorecards were.

You know what I mean?

Someone had to get second, someone had to get third.

Right.

But

now, and I can't speak on whether or not that one was politics or not, or whatever.

But I do feel like back width is very.

I just feel like those lats are so important in classic.

I always have.

This is my opinion.

My opinion's probably totally wrong.

I don't know.

No, it's accurate.

I just feel like when I saw Mike Summerfield getting up there with his massive lats, I was like, honestly, I kind of expected that with how his fucking wingspan is.

Right.

Like accentuating that V-taper.

Like, I remember when C-bomb first got his pro card, I remember thinking about when he focused everything on growing his lats to make his physique more proportioned.

And then he came back on stage.

It blew everybody's mind, bro.

People were throwing up comparison photos of his old physique and then his new back and just how insane it looked, both in his front and his back poses.

Front and back, relaxed, front and back, double

fucking double bicep bicep.

Yeah, relaxed.

It's just like,

I don't know.

I think it just kind of commands.

In my personal opinion, my personal opinion, which means nothing, I think

legs and lats are two of the two most important muscle groups of classic.

And then whatever you can fill in somewhere else.

Yeah,

you see, I can't agree with that.

If someone came back and told me that, you know, sure.

Well, just like, don't ever.

They never go that much into detail.

No, but it's nice to hear that.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, if they said that, it would have been, because we're, we're professional athletes and we put a lot of work into this.

It would give me some encouragement.

Yeah.

You know, so, but that being said, when I looked at the pictures, when we assessed where we're at, the main focus has been back and chest fullness, as well as a little bit of shoulders.

You know, I just feel like it's not necessarily that my body doesn't flow well or my legs are overdeveloped.

It's just next to those guys that just have a more impressive body parts than I do.

regarding chest and back, regarding the upper body.

I think that's perfect, bro.

I think back back and chest would be the perfect places to focus most of your energy on.

That's been the main thing.

That would be fucking insane, bro.

So that's what I want to have the same transformation I had on my legs, my chest and back.

Next time I'm able to take a growth phase.

How am I going to do that?

It's going to be a little difficult because I'm barely making weight.

Like I'm probably 219 for two hours.

And that's the two hours that I check in for weights.

Which are week at?

219.

Fuck.

Yeah, bro.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, once I drink water water and eat food, like, I'm 222 to 23.

Yeah.

I wake up at 221, the lowest I wake up.

So I have to, like, fast to make 219.

And then as soon as I make 219, I have my meal right there and I'm eating.

By the time I get back to my scale, I'm freaking 222 to 23.

So on stage, I'm 222 to 225.

Do you feel like that's affected your physique negatively at any point?

Yeah, man, because like when I have to suck down that hard, even if my chest and back are full and looking good, by the time I get to 219, they're flat.

you know your weaker body parts are the first ones to go yeah you know so i come up flat and then whenever i'm trying to fill out you only have say check-ins rather like three the day before the show you don't have more than 24 hours to even fill out you know what i mean so yeah it's it's very difficult to have that balance so um

i guess Our plan now is like training legs like once a week with minimal volume.

Bro, I would even, okay, I know this is going to be crazy.

This is just a recommendation.

And you're the coach, so you know better than me.

But I saw Michaela Acox.

Have you ever seen her transformation, bro?

Yeah, she said like her legs exploded.

Yeah.

And Terrence was telling me about how she like actually took maybe six months or even a whole year off of upper body.

Training legs.

But her upper body...

It blew up recently.

Her upper body blew up recently.

Nice.

Isn't that who you're talking about?

Like

Terrence, the girl that he was with, correct?

No, no.

Okay, different lady.

I'm sorry.

Completely different.

She's a female bodybuilder.

Oh, okay.

Never mind.

I don't know why I thought.

Yeah.

But this female bodybuilder, she had like the smallest legs.

It was just incredibly unproportioned.

It was insane.

And then she took a bunch of time focusing on your legs,

doing less upper body, more legs.

And then she had a small period of time, whether it was six months to a year or whatever, of just completely eliminating upper body

program and just doing legs.

Her upper body maintained and stayed about the same.

Yeah.

Her legs blew the fuck up.

So, I mean, honestly, if you're at 219, I honestly say just

do legs max like even once a month or so.

Yeah.

I mean, the approach is like, we have literally like eight working sets.

You can't consider calves legs.

Like, it's just

three sets of calves because my quads and hampers are so dominant.

If I don't do them, I'm black, bro.

They're going to, I'm half black.

They're going to shrink even more.

They need some kind of stimulus, you know, but I'm like, I'm gonna say this.

My legs have always been so prone to growing because I didn't start training them until I was into competitive bodybuilding four to five years.

And I was doing classic.

So I started training legs well into my classic physique competitive as an amateur career.

Like I biked the other day to the gym.

I mentioned that at the gym, it was like an hour of biking.

I had to stop because they were pulling so much blood.

I was getting like dizzy on the way to the gym.

Just

bottom.

I mean, it's great, but then when it takes away from your upper body, it kind of sucks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, but that's kind of like the approach.

We, we have them.

Like the feedback for my coach was, so you have a leg day here.

There's eight working sets.

You can do it if you want.

You can skip it if you want.

But you'll have chest back, day off, chest back, potential leg day, day off, chest back, so on and so forth.

And my upper body days, I've never trained this much volume on the upper body, bro.

It's like seven movements.

It's like

yeah bro i'm like freaking oh my god the fifth one i'm like my dad i'm freaking starving

you know yeah um but that's we only have six weeks from the tri-city till the optimum which is my next show now we're about like five weeks out so my goal is with this stimulus to keep as much blood flow to the upper body as possible you know what i mean throughout the week um and if if that means that we're gonna stay fuller for the show That's that's the goal.

I've been training for over 15 years now and I was too lazy to track anything training wise for about the first 10 years because science-based training is for pussies.

But I kept hitting plateaus from burnout, fatigue, joint issues, and injuries, and other factors that at the time I didn't really fully understand.

Realizing not everyone is built to handle the intense, insane workload and injury resilience as Tom Platts and Ronnie Coleman, sad face.

I wanted to speedrun that shit, but the reality is dudes that have always known their body best are the ones that have been lifting for at least a decade.

Shit takes a long ass time to figure out.

I started tracking all my training on the notes app on iPhone because I don't know what paper is.

Until recently, I started using the RP Hypertrophy app.

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I'm paying $500.

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It'll basis this on your pump, how fatigued you feel, how your joints feel, and more.

It takes in everything into account.

None of which I took into account in college because the only accounting I did was counting how many dumpies were in my class.

Look, there's a titty.

If you don't believe in science-based training, you don't got to do no three RIR shit.

You can just hoist heavy steel and track it because we all know that the people who say that they remember their weight sets and reps every week are full of shit.

IMO, there's a sort of middle ground where you track your progress and make sure all the variables are right in your food, sleep, gear, progressive overload, and then you go to the gym and slam those heavy PRs until your blood pressure is higher than Miley Cyrus.

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I did want to ask you that.

what do you think is for an individual like me do you think like just being consistent with the content that's coming out is going to be the most beneficial or like switching something up whenever you're looking at a page because i have a mix of like educational kind of corny funny like i did today yeah you know your educational content's great um and i think that's super awesome and hopefully i mean i i know about you guys but he's a really great coach and thank you you are you're extremely level-headed and i'm not just saying all of this because i'm in front of you.

Like I've told Lexi this too, that

you clearly know what the fuck you're talking about.

And also, it's clear that you've been through varying mental states and you have

a good level of emotional intelligence.

And I told Darren Ferrell the same thing, too.

I thought he was an amazing coach.

So

I don't know.

I just advise anyone to go check out his page and his content.

But in my personal opinion, it's hard for me to say because everyone, has different value to offer.

Obviously, find where what

you have that may offer the best value.

And first off, that's the education that you can provide, especially regarding like PDs and stuff.

Everyone's always interested about that.

And then second, I think like you can even like talk about training and diet or training and diet and then showing your physique off with training when you're shredded.

So that's what I do.

I'm not saying that it always works, but if you get to the point where like people like to see your workouts, your exercises,

and then you can put the sets and reps in the caption, for example, like the stuff I do.

I try to create like workout montages hide music, but then I'll also just show the exercises I'm doing.

And then, if I'm shredded and prepping at the same time, it's a massive bonus.

And it always, it always gets more engagement.

So,

some options.

Thank you.

Before this rude camera interrupted you and turned off, what were you saying before you?

I have no idea, bro.

My brain, my brain just freaking turned off.

No glue.

All right, whatever.

We'll jump to the

analyzed it enough.

Bodybuilding, Daniel asks, when did you decide bodybuilding was your goal and go all in?

I think you kind of tied up this earlier.

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like I decided on it.

It was just that it was there, right?

Like,

I was this kid that was like working this job that was paying $5 an hour.

There was a gym right next to the car wash.

I went to the gym just because it was something to do, and I ended up falling in love with it.

So that's kind of like how that happened.

It wasn't like

I didn't like watch somebody.

I watched Pumping Iron Arnold, but it wasn't like something that inspired me to like fully jump into bodybuilding.

It was more the fact that it was there but I didn't have anything else.

How long would you say you've been training for in total?

So I started training at the age of like pretty much when I moved to the US.

I was doing like at home like push-ups and

abs when I was in Greece.

So I'd say

that was like below 14?

Yeah, like I was like 15 when I was there.

Like I came here when I was turning from 16 to 17.

Oh, okay.

So like the year from 15 to 16, I was like doing like push-ups and crunches, watching you like YouTube videos.

Like, I was literally watching, like, you know, the 30-minute workouts where you're at home and you like jumping jacks.

That's the stuff I was doing.

That's how I lost my initial weight from being like super fat.

Yeah.

Um, so I, from seriously, as a, as a, I wouldn't say bodybuilder, but taking training serious and learning about it, watching like Mike Israel

videos and like how to actually periodize my training from the age of like 16 to 17.

So, and I'm now 28.

It was that like freaking 12 years.

Joseph Daniels asks, what's the biggest cycle you've run?

So it was

750

of MPP

or DECA.

It was one of the two.

Test was right up there with it, 750.

And EQ was like 500.

I ran Diana Ball with that and it was like 100 milligrams a day.

I was getting nosebleeds.

We went to a post-mobile concert with my wife.

Epic.

Yeah, but it was terrible.

So I bent over to tie my shoe and I immediately had a massive, and you could feel it like the pressure from your head just releases.

Yeah.

You know, that's what it is.

It's blood pressure.

And I couldn't go in the concert.

My shirt got bloody.

So I had to go get buy a new shirt from like Walmart.

Holy shit.

So that was the worst cycle.

During that time, I did not get blood because I knew it was going to be bad.

Yeah.

But that's the worst and heaviest cycle I've ever ran.

Damn.

Yeah.

I don't know how anybody could believe you're lying, man.

It's

freaking bad.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm saying.

Like, people don't think I'm taking that little, but I'm taking this little because I know it's effective and because I've gone through the bad stuff first.

Yeah.

Like, I learned my lesson.

So.

Damn.

Holy shit.

I feel like 100 megs of Debo would be happy.

You just

have dopest back pumps, right?

I had to pump everywhere.

Yeah, bro.

It was terrible.

You can't even go to bed because your back is so sore.

Yeah.

You know, it was, it was horrendous.

I don't even know how I tolerate.

You can't take a shit properly.

No.

No, dude.

Like, you're going like this, then you're sitting back.

And you're going back down.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It was terrible.

Even sitting in a car traveling in a car awful i'd literally have to lay down for like five minutes then put it back up for another five just because again like you said back pumps are horrendous but you really just have it pumped everywhere oh i forgot to say 10 i use of gh so i had carpet tunnel on top of that oh my god it was all like i couldn't sleep for nothing bro i couldn't sleep for nothing oh my god i cannot yeah i can't imagine yeah that much like water retention and blood pressure especially when the deep

10 i use of gh that's horrendous and it was actually a guy that turned pro pretty early on.

He was an open bodybuilder that he wasn't coaching me, but he was the guy at the gym that you trusted that gave you some advice.

And like, that's where I got my advice from.

And that's why.

But that shows you, man, some pros don't even know what the heck they're talking about.

They're doing these things.

So I'm sure he didn't mean any harm, but at the same time,

he probably got advice that and transferred the information to me.

Yeah.

I did it, you know, so on and so forth.

Yeah.

I know it's fucking annoying.

I talk about this all the time.

I'm sure people fucking hate it but i'm like that's why you gotta do the do the little tests yourself that's it because you don't know you're so different like bro think about like us who can't even handle a certain dose of things and then there's chase irons who can handle five g's of yeah testosterone and literally hardly feel any issues whatsoever or even experience issues in his blood work right crazy bro some people just literally metabolize it and spit it out and it's yeah but with those guys too what i noticed is they get very low benefits from it as well Yeah.

Like for them to get any progress, they have to run like double running.

Yeah.

You know, so it's it's kind of like we're on the sweet spot.

I would say we're we're the percentage that's getting the most out of it.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

you kind of already answered this.

I think Joseph Daniels asked, would you go back and run Gear differently if you could?

If I ran it differently, I know that's probably the

answer that people don't expect, but if I ran it differently, I probably wouldn't have grown as fast, even though it was very risky.

And I also wouldn't have learned as much.

You know what I mean?

So I would be talking on my ass as a coach saying, hey, don't do this because it's bad.

Cause I've heard people doing it and being bad for them.

But I got to experience it.

So I'm not, I'm able to tell from personal experience, from running experience with myself.

And, you know, anecdotally, this doesn't work.

So I wouldn't say I would have ran it differently.

Would it have been beneficial for me as an athlete?

Most likely.

But health-wise, I don't feel like there's any residual side effects because or long-term negative health effects, because it wasn't chronic.

It was like a year or two whenever I did that.

And also, I gained the experience as a coach, which is what my identity is right now.

My profession.

So, this is what makes my livelihood, right?

So,

I think it was very good data that I collected from it.

So, I wouldn't have been any different, but I would have done the same thing.

And obviously, like we said earlier, I'm assuming you've done all these like

prophylactic measures and

other things to make sure that everything's in check now.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Just Daniels, again, asks, how often should someone be looking to compete to,

sorry,

I can't read.

I don't know how.

How often should someone looking to compete be expecting to do blood work?

I would recommend at least every three to four months minimum, you know.

Especially if you're in a competition season or in an active growth phase.

I do my blood work even during an actual push phase for chemicals for prep or growth phases, just because you want to see what your body's doing with the drugs you're taking at that time.

You don't want to just see it before and after you push the drugs.

You know, so sometimes like my growth phases, so like this last one I had, that was 10 months,

we were on for probably like a 1.2, 1.3 grams a week.

for like 30 or 32 weeks.

But my blood work looked the same from start to middle to the end.

We just stopped because it was 30 weeks.

I was like, this is a long time to be exposed on gear.

Yeah, but nothing was bad.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I've been experiencing about the same recently, too.

So, which is why P.

Toy had me honestly just skip the health phase after my

what we agreed to after my last show because my blood work was still good.

Yeah, so it's I think the more often the better.

If you have the financial capability, two to three months, every two to three months, that's good, you know.

Nice.

Is it possible to get to where he is without some massive cycles?

Massive cycles?

Yeah, I mean, look at Keynes Prodigy, right?

He was bigger than I was.

He was an Olympian.

I know.

Oh, dude, his controversial, though, because so many people don't believe him because he's such a genetic freak.

You know why I believe him?

Biggest genetic freak?

Because of how he looks now.

It looks crazy.

You see what I'm saying?

For you to look the way he does, he looks better than freaking Ronnie Coleman did.

He's smaller, obviously, because he's a shorter guy.

But to me, this

for that.

That's that's fine.

I'm not the only one who said that.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying the truth.

That's real, bro.

Some people think he's, some people think he might be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, honestly.

So he looks freaking like, there's no, there's nothing you can pick and say that doesn't look good.

Like this pose, he doesn't beat that guy or that.

He beats everyone on every pose.

Like, so that's what I'm saying.

That's why I believe it.

Because for you to look that good enhanced, you need to look exceptional natty.

Yeah.

Which means an Olympian classic physique, that should be attainable.

Oh man, I believe, I believe that is way,

I believe that's the case way more often than not.

I know, though, there are those few exceptions that I have to say, such as like Nick Walker, who will just respond to gear insanely.

Yes.

Right.

I mean, Nick is just such a crazy exception.

Absolutely.

Like, I can't think of one person I know

personally who's blown up on gear that much.

Yeah, no, it was insane.

Freaking insane to say that.

Like from his first show, he looked like a 15-year-old kid that was like not genetically gifted to be a bodybuilder at all.

At all.

He looks like a, I seen him in person.

He looked like a freaking tank.

He looks like a car.

Do you know how much he

was lifting before that show?

How long he had been lifting for?

Nick, I have no idea.

I'm so curious how long he had been lifting for before True Natural or if he just jumped on.

I think he was, he literally started doing because i remember him talking about going straight from his mom's house yeah to tampa like that was his first ever house that he moved to for revive

for the sponsor that he has uh and and the coach that he had back then so i think he literally went from like high school like bodybuilding straight into like growing and doing like bodybuilding actively as his profession back then he wasn't professional but like as he took it that way and then so i would say man he probably started pretty early on

you know i wouldn't doubt it but for a guy like him yeah absolutely you definitely need the gear to get to that point yeah but for a guy like me i mean 219 lean i think you could if you have really good genetics you could probably do that you know how much do you feel like you're comfortable with with gh now

i like it man i i run five i use a day okay i have seen that's pretty standard yeah i have seen that there's very minimal side effects sometimes to check if the GH is real, I'll just run it up to 10 or 15 IU for a day or two just to get carpet on.

I'm like, okay, this is good.

But at the same time, if it's, I don't know, it could be something else that's in there that's causing the water retention.

But yeah, at the same time,

I think it's beneficial.

I think it's overrated for sure.

You're not going to put a bunch of muscle on.

But the main thing that I see it being beneficial for is the muscle cell hyperplasia.

Seeing more muscle cells being, you know, regenerated and having...

I think that's why, like even though maybe it sounds overrated i think for the long term

that's exactly it's an immense launcher bodybuilders yeah it's probably one of the most important yeah so that's the reason why i think it's beneficial um but i don't think any of those people try to give so much power to a specific drug trends freaking king of drugs 500 anabolic 500 androgenic ratio compared to like 100 to 100 testosterone sure yes it has side effects it's an accumulative response you're having to all the drugs, to your lifestyle, to your food.

If everything is checked off and you add 150 milligrams of test to someone's day, right?

To someone's like

lifestyle and they're already on their meals training, sleeping optimally, they have decent genetics, not the best, but decent genetics.

And you add some TRT,

they're going to have massive improvements.

So they're trying to give this power to one specific drug.

And it's not, it's all together.

And I can say that I attested to that myself because for the Olympia, for my other preps, you know, I thought it was the drugs, so we threw drugs at it.

I thought it was, you know, the cardio.

So I did a bunch of cardio.

No, it was all the things that we collectively did together.

Even the small things like supplementation, metformin, injectable, carnitine, doing the things that other people don't want to do that kind of got me to that point.

Even sleep, you know, sometimes give someone all the drugs in the world.

If they don't sleep and don't train properly, they're not going to see the progress.

Yeah.

You know, so.

Yeah.

Acts.

marap ju marap, one blow.

You do really well with those names every time you pronounce them,

one blow.

There's some crazy names.

I know, I know, I know.

We got one that's like

wow, so that's a yeah, that's fire.

Uh, most insane cheat meal.

He actually said cheat mail, but

I'm assuming you don't do any of those.

So, I don't do any mails,

never done one of those, uh, but uh, most insane cheat meal.

So, after I dieted for like those freaking first 30 weeks and I only have like my sushi meal,

we ordered like 20 rolls of sushi, bro.

And people were looking at the platter that brought out because it was so big.

20 rolls.

Yeah, bro.

And like we had people, all the tables asking, I was like, what, what platter?

What was that on the menu?

I was like, it's not, it's not on the menu.

I just ordered 20 rolls, you know?

And it was massive, bro.

I smashed that platter, bro.

It was fire.

Yeah.

Like my wife was there.

She had like maybe two or three rolls, maybe four, say four max.

So I sat down and ate 16.

Now, I've done some pretty, I think I could be a competitive eater if I wanted to.

Because I've done like, I've done 25 wings before with a fries.

Yeah, bro.

Yeah, bro.

I used to eat, when I got up to 275, I used to eat 13 rolls of sushi,

like every, regularly, like two or three times a week.

2003 times a week.

Yeah, bro.

Yeah, bro.

It was, I was being, I was being alert.

Are you sure?

3,300 calories.

I was, I was,

that's how I got so fat.

Oh, yeah, I guess I'm not.

You know, and I was doing wings.

I was doing sushi.

It was like a rotation of a cheat meal a day.

So it was like, where can I update?

Because at that point, dude, my happiness came from food.

You know what I mean?

I wasn't a pro bodybuilder.

That's my entire life, actually.

That's what I live for.

So genuinely, like.

Yeah, I was, I was, it was like bench eating, but it was, I guess, I don't even know if there was a purpose behind it.

It was just like I was trying to find things that would taste different so I can keep eating.

You know, I remember I would buy the Millennium five-gallon ice cream bucket, and I'd have like a brownie with half that bucket.

Oh, shit.

Half the freaking five-gallon bucket of ice cream.

Oh, shit.

That's good.

It was insane, bro.

That sounds gas.

Insane.

Like, I would wake up and I had such, I had to take Nexium for like five months because I had heartburn.

That was freaking insane.

It was terrible.

It was terrible.

Ask Galaxy, literally,

the first thing I want after every single show is like a bazooki or a bazooka.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like those.

Yeah, yeah.

BJC.

He has brownie.

Yeah, bro.

All the hot stuff and the cool stuff.

Yeah.

I'll eat the whole thing.

Sushi is my to-go, bro.

Sushi.

Dills of lactate.

Memphis Cut Shell asks, thoughts on the direction classic physique is heading?

I think it's heading in a very good direction because if we're looking at the people that are at top right now, like Mike Summerfield, that's a beautiful physique.

As much as I don't like to say it, because I'm also a competitor, you know what I mean?

But that's small waists, vacuums, flaring quads, big lats, you know, something that I have to work on.

I think it's headed to a really good direction.

It's difficult to make weight.

I want to say for personal reasons, I wish they increased the weight gap, but then we're just going to start becoming open bodybuilders.

You know what I mean?

So,

no, I think it's it's uh, it's the future of bodybuilding.

Because if you notice, open bodybuilding is cool, but like who do people get drawn to the most?

Who has the most fans?

Bumpstead.

People like Summerfield, people like Erst.

You know what I mean?

You don't see, there's times that I see open bodybuilders at the shows, bro, and I've never heard of them before.

And I look at their Instagram, it's like a thousand followers and no traction.

And

they look extremely impressive, but they're just not.

No.

I'm struggling here.

Is it hunger or indigestion?

What is it?

It's,

I don't want to talk about it.

Okay, okay, never mind.

No, it's fine.

It's just the fact that I've been drinking the carb drink, but

we haven't eaten in how many hours?

Yeah.

So I just need to eat something, Sali.

I feel you.

But yeah, that was the gist of that, man.

I think bodybuilding is the future or classic is the future.

Okay.

Yeah, I like that too.

I feel the same way.

I'm excited about classic.

Oh, bro.

What do you think about Pittsburgh Pro?

What do you think about the turnout?

He's going to be crazy, man.

Yeah.

Who do you think is going to be tough?

Easy.

Easy.

He's my boy.

Easy win for rough.

I'm excited for that Brazilian guy that's coming.

I don't know if you've seen him.

He came from Men's Physique.

He's doing classic.

Oh, yeah.

You're talking about

Kaiki.

Yes, that's Kaiki.

That's the name.

I've seen him.

You know, you look at this guy when you're about to compete.

You're looking at all this.

I was going to jump into the Pittsburgh because last time I did it, I got fourth.

And I was like, this was a great placing.

I have established a name in that station.

That's fucking epic.

You know,

i'm not doing it i'm not doing it

so

another one died

could you do me the biggest favor in the world is there any is it the middle camera

okay let's we don't have to worry about it we'll finish this up soon you always say that thank you man you always say that the biggest favor the massivist favor the massive favor

yeah i think

I think it's going to be,

I hope,

I hope, I hope he doesn't watch the podcast chance and I have had a conversation about the pressure of it, and I understand the pressure.

That's why sometimes I don't even want to talk about the shows I'm doing until I do it.

But yeah, he talks about how sometimes he can feel it-like the pressure

getting to him.

And I'm like, hey, bro, we fucking love your physique.

And no matter what,

that's all we want to see.

We're just excited to go to see you on stage.

We don't fucking care about the placing.

We're just here to

you're just the dopest dude and the most chill guy and the most like empathetic, bro.

And I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm a fan, bro.

So like when I see these guys backstage, I'm like fangirling secretly.

I might have like a freaking game face on, but yeah, in my head, I'm like, oh, this is that freaking guy.

I've seen him.

So, Terrence, if you're listening to this, pause.

Don't listen to the next few seconds.

But anyways, I think it's going to be first is Terrence.

Second is going to be Kaikeyi.

And third is Hoseima.

That's what Eric and I discussed is what we think is going to be the top three.

Yeah.

So, but we'll see.

I don't know.

It'll be cool.

And then I think, I don't know.

I feel like Anton could come in close after that.

Maybe I don't know, man.

I personally feel like with his physique, he looks great for where he's at.

Yeah.

But I think he has a lot of growing to do, man.

I think he does.

A lot of those guys get a pro card.

He's still young.

And then you don't realize how much they're lacking muscle density.

Right.

Like a year is never enough.

You know?

So, like, whenever...

Most of the time.

Right.

But like, whenever I

post my progress pictures, my progress videos, I'm flat first thing in the morning.

I'm not pumped up in the gym.

It's literally me in front of my backdrop.

The same checkings I send to my coaches.

I post online.

But these kids go to the gym, they get pumped up, they have some carbs, they freaking, they look juicy, and then they post a picture.

You're not going to be with a good lighting, with a pump, without anybody next to you when you do that.

So you'd rather just post the picture that you look flat and real in.

than go on stage and look extremely small because we see it all the time.

We see guys step on stage and they don't look the same.

I don't know if that's the case with him.

It's his broad pro debut, correct?

Yeah.

So I'm just thinking he's young.

I don't know how big he is next to those guys.

So that's my only thing there.

But on Instagram and YouTube, he looks freaking impressive.

He's very young and very talented, obviously, for Bobby.

I think he has got an amazing shape, though.

And

I think...

And he came in really conditioned on his last show.

So if you can keep that up and Kyle can get him shredded and he has his shape to go off of, he'll do really well.

Yeah.

Obviously don't know how well, but it doesn't matter, bro.

He's fucking how old.

That's what he's turned 21, maybe.

He just turned 21.

It's crazy.

He was 19 when he turned pro, right?

Yeah.

It's crazy, bro.

Yeah.

Crazy.

No, I think he's gonna.

If it doesn't happen at Pittsburgh, he's gonna be winning some show sometime soon, whether that's this year or next year.

And he's gonna be the future of Classic.

Yeah, definitely could be.

So, you know, my favorite competitor right now is Nihat.

You know, Nihat?

No.

If I see him, obviously, I remember.

He tours 22-year-old 212 competitor.

We got second that is like pro to viewers.

I've seen him.

Is he from Turkey?

I think so.

Yeah, I've seen him.

Freaking enormous.

Enormous.

Freaking enormous, bro.

I was like, how do you get that big at that age?

When I heard.

He's the biggest guy at that age.

22, I was like, I was offended.

I was mad.

Because I'm like, what the heck are you freaking eating?

What are you taking?

What is it that you're doing that I'm doing wrong?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So, and I didn't want to be like most people.

What are you taking?

What are you taking?

But I definitely went there.

I definitely went there.

I was like, He's definitely doing five times what I'm doing, bro.

No way.

He's taking five grams.

I'm not willing to do that.

He looks gross.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I hear that all the time.

I don't know if I want to be as big as you.

You don't even know what big it is.

Go to body, bro.

I'll be as big as you.

Yeah, I was like, sure, buddy.

Z DY says, glad that you're having him on the pod.

Oh, dude, exclamation.

Thank you, buddy.

John Benjamin98 asks, exercise to have quad sweeps like yours, or is that all genetic?

It's not genetic because if you look at my previous showings, they were not the same in 2023.

I post all my stuff on Instagram, like you said before, the workout.

So I've started doing that and doing specifically pointers for quads.

I was actually thinking about making it easy.

Did you just like not were your legs kind of like more underdeveloped in the past or were they just something you really wanted to green?

What was the

issue story behind your legs, I guess?

Initially, they were pretty good and better than upper body.

So I just focused on upper body.

And like I said before, I didn't train legs for the first four years of competing, like as a, as an amateur.

But then I realized that they're falling behind.

So I started training really hard.

They kind of caught up.

When I went to the Olympia, they looked flat.

Adductors were kind of small.

Quads were kind of like flat.

They were still developed for the average competitor, but they were not impressive.

So from the Olympia in 2023, which is November, until now, we freaking hammered down on them.

We did like two

sessions of legs a week, which you don't need a crazy amount of stimulus.

You just need to train really hard on the sets that you're actually doing.

And they just responded really well.

So I do believe I have really good genetics to grow my lower half, you know, but at the same time, it's a lot of work because I remember my wife used to call me diaper butt because my butt was so flat.

Like I'd wear jeans and it looked like you could grab the jeans from the, it was just bad, bro.

I looked like I was like, it was bad.

So I've done my freaking work.

Hip thrust, freaking gluteator.

We bought specific machines because we own the gym.

So we bought specific machines for specific growth and we hammered down.

So it was obviously genetically.

Yes, I'm gifted to grow on that department, but it was also specific techniques and methods that we approached or deployed.

And they're all on my Instagram.

So if y'all want to go watch my.

Instagram videos, I post my workouts every day.

That's awesome.

I do have to say the shape of the quads for sure is genetic, but obviously,

obviously, you got to train.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool to hear, though.

Like, clearly, like, you're like, you had a good potential for your rate of growth with your legs.

But, I mean, obviously, it's clear that this changing and training regimen had a lot to do with how they looked when they got on stage, which is really cool.

I'm hoping that makes a difference to my legs right now.

So,

what we're trying to do.

Yeah.

Bro, I would do anything to just

do anything to have your sweep.

There's this point where, like, I was injecting the IGF went like right in the middle of my head.

So you could actually.

There's like some.

So you know what I'm going to be experimenting with for my back and chest, man?

It's called, this thing is called metiform.

I think it's hyalonic acid.

It might, I don't remember exactly what it is.

And I never really work like experiment with SEOs.

But this is a water-based one, and it literally will travel to the insurgent point and pull water into that tissue, into that muscle.

It's used usually prior to competing, like a week or two prior, but I'm ordering it now so I can actually experiment with it and see how my chest and my back does with introducing that, you know, especially during training.

Because whenever you train, you're going to pull more water into that muscle regardless.

So I want to see if that aesthetically does a difference because it's supposed to last for like a week or something like that.

Yeah.

So I'm going to be experimenting with that to see, because you mentioned you were spot pinning to kind of help your quads.

I just want to see if it did anything.

Right, right.

So, I want to, I actually want to see if that works.

You know what I mean?

Like the water-based SEO.

That's very open of you to talk about, honestly, bro.

Because

I know people that shit on SEO use in general.

But yeah, I'm a coach, right?

So if I, if I'm, I'm trying to also experiment and find what's most effective for my clients, for the people that I work with.

Yeah.

How do I provide that quality?

I have to do it myself.

Yeah.

I'm not going to do freaking cocaine, but you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there is without a doubt, like a, I don't even know how often it's used, but obviously used without like, um, used in the industry without discussion.

I think people are already trying to get on Andrew Jack.

Yeah, Florida Junior.

I don't think Andrew Jacks is freaking.

Do you think it's SEO?

I have no clue.

He looks freaking phenomenal like that, man.

He does look really great.

I wish I had his body, not just his squad sweeps, his whole body.

He's amazing.

We're set everything.

We're at his fucking

giga face.

Jesus.

pastor pastor prathew prathew wow prathew pastor pathew asks how do you feel about t3 in the offseason like hanny and chad do it depends on where your t3 is on blood work like if we're having baseline um calories and maintenance calories and we see that t3 is still low um and we see tsh being high so your body's is telling your body your brain is telling your body to create more t4 right that's why we're stimulating tsh because it works in a negative feedback loop

If that's happening and you're experiencing hypothyroidism, I believe it's beneficial.

Or if you're even in the bottom end of the reference range, I think that has a benefit there.

But if you are 3.5, 4, you know, on the reference range and the reference is 4.2, I don't see use for it.

So if you're experiencing

hypothyroidism, if you feel like it's fitting, sure.

Some people like me though, like, I feel like I do have some slow

sort of rate of mechanism.

So I feel like I could definitely benefit remote.

Same thing I do for me is I always keep T4 here just to have more opportunity to convert it to T3.

So I took that year-round.

Haven't done T3 year-round just because I don't feel like I knew I drove fine.

So yeah, that's used for specific cases.

Gotcha.

Well, Junior, Bend E6 asks, what's your half-season cycle?

I can actually pull up back in.

I actually had it pulled out before I came.

The one thing that's behind it you can even share people the tags just so they know you're telling the oh yeah this is uh this is my guru sheets so you can see all my my trade visage

uh but yeah so growth phase the most i did was went with test by 50.

i did 1200 of dhc majority of it was scrimmagal and i think that we did no all of them all of it was true

the other was primal and

platric tests.

Nice, nice.

GH stayed the same five bar amps

or five ID every morning.

T4 was,

I think, 100 or 125.

And that was it, man.

Sounds extremely reasonable.

I mean, it's exactly what I would expect.

Like your total dosage of

gear is above mine by a small margin, but it's like you and I seem to have a very similar calorie intake and

gear intake as well.

If I was able to do tests and DHT, I straight like why it would be pretty similar.

Close.

No, pretty close to that.

I ask every guest one last question at the end of every pod.

But if you were to disappear from the world tomorrow and you have one message you could send to the entire world today, what would that message be?

It would be pursue what you love and what makes you happy.

So you don't have any regrets by the end of your life.

I know that's a lot of people say that, but like I found true happiness when I stopped caring about people, not in the way of me caring about them, like empathetically, but not caring about what they have to say about me.

So when I started caring about my happiness, and that's why the face tattoos and all the stuff that I have is going on, because it's what makes me happy and I enjoy seeing the mirror read.

Once I stopped caring about that, I found true happiness, and the people that really cared about me showed up from life.

You know what I mean?

So

I'd say pursue life and your passion the best you can and find happiness and keep the happiness so

thank you bro that was awesome thank you brie uh then where can everybody find you uh on instagram dpeard blackpeard ramble and also we're on a gym in uh lulwo kentucky so for body fitness f-a-b-o-d-e it's hard to spell so that's why i spelled it for real so if you guys are visiting feel free to come by and uh say hi i'm usually there so you can find me person there and on social media on on my Instagram.

So,

yeah.

If you guys

run into him, tell him that you listen to podcasts.

Yeah, I think I just want to thank you guys for being here and always listening to podcasts and supporting

the comments that we have to

really

bring each other up and that we're used to support each other has been

in a weird way, obviously,

very monumental monumental almost.

And I think

helping us realize just how fun of an industry this is to be in.

So,

Mr.

World, I thank you guys for keeping that positive energy and supporting each other.

And I think this is what is going to help us

become better and better.

So, anyways, love you guys.

Thanks for watching.

And we'll see you guys next time.

Peace.