Martin Fitzwater: A Transparent Look Into 4th Place At Olympia's Protocols

Martin the Martian Fitzwater, the current fourth place at Mr.

Olympia and Prague Pro Champion, and one of the youngest stars in open bodybuilding.

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.

How are you doing, dog?

The man with the 23-inch arms.

Not that.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Not yet.

What are they right now?

I think they measured about like 21 and a half.

What?

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That shit looks 23 for sure.

I wish so bigger.

Were you the one that won?

I think so.

Yeah, I mean, that makes all the sense in the fucking world.

But they didn't go find the people I told them to.

Wait, hold on.

Hold on.

Give me one second.

I'm trying to...

It's a little bit hard to hear.

Either.

Okay.

I think I can hear you.

What'd you say?

Is it like echoey for me?

No, it's just like kind of soft.

Oh, okay.

I said they didn't go find the dudes I told them to, though, because like a few of those guys have bigger arms than me.

I know they do it.

Which dudes?

Like, Chef Rush, I think he probably has bigger arms than me.

That guy is fucking massive.

And then Lurgio, his arms are bigger than mine, I think.

Really?

Yeah, they're probably they're close, but I bet his are bigger.

How tall are those guys?

Six dollars.

Seems really good for you, bro.

Not bad.

Not bad.

Pretty good.

Do you keep on getting sick at the arm level or did you get sick like everybody else?

Dude, so here's the thing.

I haven't, I say this on my podcast all the time.

I like haven't gotten sick in like four or five years.

And I think that's

part of it is I get like glutathione from Transcend because they just send it to me.

Uh, because you know, I'm like an athlete for them, so I get it for free, which is nice.

So, I get unlimited glutathione, and I'll inject like

back when I was working with Neil Yodahill, he would tell me to go get five-gram glutathione IVs once a month.

But since I have this, I literally inject the same amount of dosing, but just in like various injections, so like I do that, and then NAD Plus,

and then obviously just being on top of my nutrition and antioxidants and sleep.

And I just never get sick.

And then hear this, bro.

I come back after the Arnold.

Everyone seems sick, right?

Like fucking Patty is texting me telling me he's fucked right now.

He even feels like worse today.

And then

Lexi got really sick too.

She ended up getting like a pretty bad fever, right?

So I'm like, damn, like I feel bad for these guys.

And obviously I care about my partner.

So I'm going to, I'm going to take care of her.

So

came back from this trip with ghosts from a photo shoot.

She was like having a pretty bad fever for days.

She was uh,

when she was here, she was like bedridden, having like the hot, you know, like feeling hot, and then suddenly having chills out of nowhere.

So, I'm like, you know, I never get sick, so I'll take care of her.

So, I took care of her for like three days straight, and bro, right on the last day afterwards, I started feeling something in my throat, and I'm like, There's no way, man, there's no way it's been like four years.

Fast forward, I had, I literally had like a fever for like the last two days and it completely broke my streak.

And I'm so upset right now.

Damn, I'm so upset.

I kept from getting sick out there, but

luckily, I don't know how.

It's because you're a fucking animal, bro.

It just, it's almost inevitable, though.

You shake like all those people's hands, bro.

Their hands are so dirty and shit.

You should be like putting a fucking

hand sanitizer thing before they come to you.

like

yeah

fucking dirty asses

not that you guys are dirty but some of you guys don't fucking wash your hands after pissing that's for sure oh yeah no it's like it's not it's not even like people are dirty it's just like how much shit you touch at the arno everyone's like pick this up off the table and then set it down and then 9,000 other people have done

like who knows now or some kid touches it like after he wiped his boogers and then like it's it's just inevitable, you know, and it's like you shake a thousand people's hands over the weekend and take pictures and stuff.

Like, it's hard not to get sick.

Yeah, for real.

It really is.

But, you know, I always thought that us bodybuilders would be more susceptible to getting sick and having like lower immune systems just because of like, you know, all the PDs and everything.

But sometimes I find out we're the opposite.

I think honest, I mean, as long as you're not like running red line,

you're obviously like, you're putting your immune system at a like a better place than an amino compromise place, you know, so yeah, for sure.

Um, also, she's still got the sickness, so she's been having a fever for like what, five, six days now straight.

And Patty feels worse now, and he was sick since before the expo.

So, Patty's just been sick for a straight like week and a half or something, right?

Um, I feel fucking amazing right now, so it's only been two days and it's gone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm so happy, knock on wood, but I mean, um,

I know, bro.

Whatever stuff that bodybuilding has, like, taught me in the last few years, from like the antioxidants, the glutathione,

the proper nutrition.

If, you know, you're actually eating fruits and, you know, some greens and stuff.

I know some bodybuilders don't.

But like.

I'm mad about it.

I won't lie.

Yeah.

What do you, what's what are you normally eating?

I mean, I'm just, I, I'm such a high boot food guy because I, my metabolism is so crazy that like until at the end, I'm not really putting a bunch of vegetables in because it just takes up so much space.

Oh, yeah, dude, there's no chance.

No, I have a

fruit, so I try to still keep that in like all the way through.

But yeah, vegetables get like pretty scarce in the offseason, except.

And then, like I said, as I get closer to show, obviously they come up a little bit, but I'm still like a, I like my meals to be as small as I can get them.

So I'm not like a, I'm not eating big ass salads or anything like that.

Like,

yeah people can um people can judge me all they want but it's true literally the only vegetable I eat is spinach straight just green leaves out of the bag

at least it's like a one that actually has some nutrients in it so you're you're at least above the curd bro i will literally forget about it and at the end of the day right before i go to bed like at my last meal i'll be like shit i forgot my spinach so i'll go in the fridge grab the bag and just

just straight popeye yeah

i love it bro hey

it works right popeye was literally the reason why i wanted to eat vegetables when i was a kid

it was literally the sole reason bro dude i'm a huge cartoon guy so i love that like dude i heard that your favorite uh movie was uh hercules right yeah yeah

the disney one go the distance bro that's uh

That's still my favorite movie to this day, man.

It's the best movie ever made.

That's my favorite Disney movie of all time.

Easily.

Easily, dude just like when he's getting massive and then he's like measuring his biceps to the song and this shit like breaks the fucking

dude

made me want to be a portion builder so yeah

yeah so how are you feeling right now you're like uh eight weeks out of pittsburgh right now right yeah coming up on eight weeks for like eight and a half i guess if you will but yeah i feel good i mean i you know i mean you followed me for quite some time so you know like i don't really have to diet yet or anything like that like my food is still super high high

doing any cardio or anything like that like we moved and that was literally like too much cardio so he was like feeding me feeding me cheap meals and stuff like that over the art

and stuff um but yeah now things are like leveled back out i'm in houston full-time um so we moved from stewart florida out here to the houston texas area

uh And it's been good, man.

The move was obviously tough on the body, you know, and just the whole like 16-hour drive, we did it twice.

So that was a little bit brutal, but now it's done.

So thankfully that's over and done with.

And now we're out in Houston.

And kind of like you, I just, we needed to be in an area that's more prompts for business.

So

more like the LA area or like the, in the Texas area here.

The bodybuilding community is so big that like, there's just so much more opportunity for business and to build businesses.

Whereas where I was in Stewart, the bodybuilding community is pretty much solely focused around Raw Jim and Chris.

And so like building my own gym out there and stuff, I just don't think it would have been super successful.

Yeah.

And Brett and I want to build our own gym.

So we came out here to Houston.

He'll be out here eventually.

and you know work on that building our own gym um working on some apparel and stuff as well but yeah so so that's been like the side quest, if you will.

Yeah.

And then just been training my butt off, man.

I'm going from pictures to pictures.

I'm up about 20 pounds roughly from last year, about the same weeks out.

So we just kind of keep holding.

That's fucking crazy, bro.

And man,

I'm really excited to show people what we did.

So I know a lot of people were disappointed that I didn't do the Arnold.

And obviously watching it,

I was very excited

knowing that I can compete with those guys, but I needed to take the time off, let my body rest.

And this rebound

did me some service.

So I'm very excited to come off the new look.

And

yeah, man, like other than that, it's just training's going as good as it possibly can.

Sometimes at this point, it's like,

do you try to push and get PRs and stuff like that?

Or are you just like running risk of reward, you know, because we're we're at that red line point where every machine is stacked with plates or we're putting gym pins and shit on it.

So, definitely trying to like weigh that on whether it's worth like trying to get those extra 20 pounds of weight on there for some more reps or whether we do more reps or another set,

um, something of that nature.

So, it's kind of a it's always a fun spot to be in, you know, this like eight weeks out spot.

It's like you start to look good, you feel you're strong, food's still decently high.

Um, so yeah, so now we just push it and

see what we can really get done.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

When you mentioned Brett, that was actually

one of the questions in the QA.

Someone was asking, Where's Brett right now?

I guess assuming, like,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, a lot of people, I know a lot of people were like scared that we were splitting up.

Um, even when I put up like my QA for the road trip thing, everybody was like, Where's Brett?

Where's Brett?

Uh, but no, we he will be coming eventually.

You know, I don't want to spill the beans for him.

I'll let him kind of announce that to his people when he's ready.

But yeah,

he'll be coming to Texas.

Don't worry.

We're not splitting the gang though.

I know that that's a very, very crucial part of my success this last year was having Brett in my corner and him pushing me and kicking my butt every day.

As well as I feel that he feels the same way.

We just, we've been doing that, you know, for a long time.

I know you've been following for a while and we've been kicking each other's butts since about 2019.

So

we just, we have a good partnership and it works well for us.

And we're going to keep riding that wave.

So definitely not splitting the gang up.

Don't worry.

We'll make sure that Brett's out here eventually, probably pretty soon.

And if he's not moved soon,

we'll definitely have him come out and just stay so that he can push me for a couple of weeks

until he does get moved.

So don't worry.

We'll be back together before you know.

I fucking love that friendship you guys have, man.

honestly yeah man honestly like i couldn't i wouldn't be where i'm at without brandis for sure when whenever you said uh i think earlier you mentioned rebound was that just a phrase for you in this offseason or did you guys do like a rebound over like a reverse

no yeah so honestly coming straight out of i i said rebound but i honestly didn't even rebound like what people think of like coming out of a show pushing for a little while.

I actually came out of Prague and shut everything down, went straight into a health phase.

We had like Thanksgiving the next week

and just running through the holidays.

So my family came down and we went to like Universal Studios.

So I took a few weeks off of training.

I went down to like a TRT dose.

So I think he had me do 250 a week

there.

Whereas before, I've gone, I've come off cold turkey before and stuff like that, but my body doesn't respond very well to that.

Like it won't really level out on its own for a couple of weeks.

So I just have a major crash.

So Austis doesn't really like that for me.

So he just puts me on 250 and lets me kind of cruise out of it.

Yeah, I would be

like, we did that till after Christmas.

And then around January 1 is when we started pushing my body up and

really like trying to really grow.

So that was, I mean, it's been really successful.

Like I said, I'm, I've, I tapped kind of the biggest I've ever been, but I was in the best body composition I've ever been in by by far far so coming down now I really haven't lost a ton of weight I'm still holding around that 261 262 area

but body's just kind of recomping weekly right now

excuse me

just recomping right now and and growing but yeah so it didn't really like I said long breaks probably like around eight weeks or something coming out of Prague took that break and then kicked things off in January.

Had a short push here, and then I'll just kind of trickle into

prep here.

We got my blood work done at like

14 weeks out or something like that, and everything was perfect.

So just like good to go, run it and gun it.

It's fucking awesome, dude.

I don't really understand how some guys are able to do that, come off completely.

I feel like my dick would be really sad.

I honestly, I never had any issues with that.

Mine was just like the fatigue and stuff from training.

Cause like

I never pulled back from training much either.

So I would try to train that same crazy way.

Right.

And then I'm like crippled in bed and

like 10 days and shit.

Just like after, you know, a week or two, it just starts to wear on you so much.

You're like, people are like, you don't do anything.

I'm like, I can't do anything.

All I can do is sleep because I'm

literally crippled and I have no energy.

So.

Yeah, I feel that it's,

it's always funny to hear about how I think,

you know, if you like, I don't know if you ever come across more layman

normie fitness videos, like

Greg Duset videos or anything like that.

Not always.

Yeah, I just find it always interesting wherever I come across those things and people are discussing like how most people don't train hard enough and overtraining is super difficult.

But then I feel like I talk to a lot of bodybuilders in this space like you.

And I feel like for a lot of us, it's very easy to train more than is optimal for us.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's hard to pull back sometimes.

Yeah.

So, I mean,

for me, that thing I would say is like, there might not be over training, but there's undereating and under-resting.

And there's, yeah, there has to be a balance somewhere, right?

So like.

Eventually one takes a hit and then the others are going to take a hit because of it.

So it's like, if you train too hard and CNS gets smashed, then you don't sleep.

You don't sleep.

You're not hungry.

You don't eat enough that you can't fuel the training session.

So like there is a vicious cycle there somewhere.

Now,

if it was just training, then no, maybe not.

Like your body is incredible at what it can recover from, but you have those other two things have to be absolutely perfect to recover from some.

something.

So like one of the things we always talk about, and I think it's kind of under-talked about in bodybuilding, really, is like we talk about all these genetic components of like, oh, he has round muscle and he has a genetically small hip.

So his waist looks small.

But like, what about the genetic component of being able to recover?

Yeah.

Like the elite of the elite, all of us guys are incredible at recovery.

Like even on top of.

PEDs and all those things, like we're all taking PEDs, you know, so it's like at some point like there's still people that are have an ability to recover over the other ones and that's one of the things i think is under talked about is like

i've trained with a many many other pros and i there's only a few that i think could actually train with me day in and day out and recover from it like one session sure that doesn't really matter but like that's why brett and i do so well is because we're able to like absolutely murder murder each other and call each other the next day and be like, I'm crippled, but I'll be there.

And so, you know, it's like some people just can't do that.

And that's an ability and a gift in itself, honestly.

Yeah, no, for sure.

Kind of reminds me, too, of like susceptibility for injury, how like that differs so

with so much like variability.

across the board.

Like, um,

yeah, mine is really low.

I get get impingements all the time.

It's very easy for me.

Yeah.

Um, but it seems to make sense because now that I finally understand genetics to a better degree and I've like gone in and done the work to ask my family about what's going on in theirs, get my genetics done or my genetic testing done, and also just uh pay attention, I guess, to my parents.

I'm like, damn, bro, like, why does my dad have shoulder impingements?

And he like barely has ever like lifted a weight in his entire life.

Like, what is what the fuck does that come from?

Yeah.

How do you feel about who you are with

like injury susceptibility?

I mean, I've done some crazy shit and got out alive.

So I feel like I'm at least decent there.

As I've gotten older, I've definitely gotten a few more dings.

But, you know, I mean, I did like 200-pound dumbbells with Branch and like, I made it through an entire year of training with Branch Warren.

So, yeah, that's crazy.

And that alone is a feat in itself.

But, Well, I mean, I've had some dings like in my quads and stuff, especially with the numbers that Brett and I've moved, like on the hack spot or something.

I ding things a few times.

But for the most part, man, I'm pretty resilient as far as that goes.

And for me, it's more as long as I'm getting tissue work and keeping the tissue open and healthy.

I really, I don't have much risk of injury.

I'm glad you said that.

That's probably a big part of I think a lot of us that aren't quite at that high level kind of forget to pay attention to.

Like me, for example, I really hardly get tissue work done, like maybe once every like two, three months at like, oh,

yeah.

Yeah.

It's pretty good.

Like, I'll say this, man.

Like, obviously it's expensive as all get out.

Like, I mean, you being an influencer, you probably do well so you can afford it, bro.

Like, you should begin to eat tissue weekly, man.

Like,

it will, it will make all the difference, not only just in like your, like, how you feel and your, your body awareness and things like that, but like, also just your ability to grow, man.

So much tissue you don't realize is like getting suffocated out from it being so tight or something else being bound to it.

So it's all working as like one piece versus working individually and actually isolating a muscle, you know?

So, like, I'd say one thing that for me that made a big difference in my legs

and I can send you some pictures later or something, but the the jumps that I made from like 2019 to 2020 in my legs especially

was just getting tissue work.

Like the tissue was just so tight.

It literally was restricting it to where it like wasn't able to grow.

And then I was doing well enough then.

in construction to be able to afford finally getting deep tissue work and my legs finally got opened up and they just exploded man so like i would say like if you're at that point where like you're trying to make the next step and you have the money like that's a that's a huge factor in bodybuilding that so many people like you said so many people are neglecting yeah um you hear you know ronnie got it twice a week jay got it twice a week branch was every single week deep tissue phil every single week like at the top of the top man you have to especially the bigger you get, like,

shit, bro.

I, I can sleep on my side wrong and, like, impinge my nerve and my shoulder, you know, for real.

Yeah.

Like, I, it's just, it's a constant battle.

So, like, the bigger you get, the more you just like absolutely need it.

But, like, at your level, bro, it will open things up and give you so much more detail and stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

Glad you really mentioned that, too, because

I don't know.

I'm sure there's other people like me, hopefully, but I fucking need reminders

um do you guys do you and brett ever uh do you guys do many intensifiers or any like um

yeah

yeah yeah so most of i mean i would say 95 of retina's training is based off of a lot of or i would maybe 80 uh but a lot of it is based off of jog meta's style stuff a little bit, you know, with it then with our spice and our

pizzazz thrown there thrown in there if you will but so a lot of times things that we're doing is we're doing a top set for sure um maybe two top sets depending on where we're at there um and then we're almost always doing an intensifier maybe those last like two weeks before a show we'll pull the intensifier just to make sure we're not beating our central nervous system to death yeah

Now, that being said, the intensifier can be all sorts of different things.

So Brett and I are a little bit crazy in that, like, in the offseason, especially,

we might pull the intensifiers because of how taxing the other sets are and like catching your breath and things like that.

But if we have the cardiovascular ability, then we pretty much do an intensifier on every exercise.

So, that being five to eight exercises, and we'll do one on every exercise pretty much.

So, we like to switch it up.

We'll do drop sets.

We'll do rest pause.

We do something called a stretch pause, which is essentially a rest pause, but in the rest portion, you're stretching the muscle as much as you can.

Yeah, we'll do cluster sets.

So that depending on what exercise, we'll pick somewhere between like three and seven reps.

You do that and then you rest for that many seconds, go again.

But yeah, just kind kind of, I mean, anything wild you can think of, we've probably tried it.

But yeah, that's kind of the fun of it, you know, so that's what we'll do and then

and then move on to the next thing.

Those are so much fucking fun, dude.

Like, I know there's a lot of like information or there's a lot of uh

there's like a little bit of an extra influx these days regarding um

um the more I think studied forms of training and also just progressive overload in general such as like you know, RP, Dr.

Mike.

And I obviously these have its merits and I think are extremely valuable to follow.

But I think,

I mean, like, if we really look at like what, who the people are being studied, like, I feel like we could basically say that this is good for basic training for people at a very basic level of bodybuilding or maybe even like intermediate, you know?

But I mean, when it comes to like, I feel like

this level where there's also like PED use.

I don't know if you ever heard of like Patrick Tuar talking about his intensifiers and things, but I feel like there is some kind of merit to what he says when he's talking about how like some people, like some bodybuilders, they get so advanced that it's just it's just so so difficult to progress to progressive overload at a certain point.

So difficult.

And

almost by focusing on the myofibrillar training in doing his intensifiers, his rest pause hats, whatever.

Uh, there seems to be, at least from what he's seen, um, still some kind of growth in size with his athletes.

So, I don't know, I don't know, it just sounds so cool because there's so much research on it, but

even just at a less deep level than Patrick, because I know he's actually like essentially done his own studies, but like you said, I mean, like, none of these studies that are coming from universities and stuff generally are on

guys with a bunch of PEDs that are ability to recover is much better, usually have more red blood cells than any regular person does.

Like all these things matter, right?

But then on top of it is like

you also, like you said, is just like finding things to progress on that like make it fun.

And then that's, that's really where the ability to grow comes.

I don't even think it necessarily matters.

like, oh, you can, you need to do more intensifiers.

Like maybe you need to do more leg extensions before so that you're more pre-exhausted is all.

But like just find things to make it hard.

Like as long as your training is really hard, like you'll advance in some way, shape, or form.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like put more exercises at the end.

If six exercises was easy, do seven.

Yeah, yeah.

Which I guess still is overloading in its own way.

Yeah, yeah.

Like there's some way to do more.

And if that's the case, then you can add a little more and probably get an advance from it.

Dude, Tristan Lee and I tried to do that stretch pause set with like hamstrings and we just stayed in the hamstring position, bro.

I couldn't even do a second rep.

It like completely changed the rest pause.

Like, oh,

it wrecks you.

It's definitely like a whole different thing.

Like people don't understand that like how much the taxing nervous system or how taxing it is on the nervous system to

be in a stretch that long and just like holding against the force, you know?

So, like, those fibers open up and then the blood occludes in there.

It's, it's a whole different ballgame for sure.

Yeah.

Also, I was just watching

Fuad just posted like a new episode today about,

yeah, I don't know if you saw that, with talking about Bob and Nick and then also doing a Q ⁇ A.

But one of the Q ⁇ A's was asking about bodybuilders that he recommends for coaching aside from like Jon Jewett.

I think the first person he like recommended was or that he like could think of that he would maybe pick was you.

He was like mentioned that

he feels like you're very, very in tune tune with like your supplementation and like your gear protocols and everything, which is really dope.

Yeah, man.

So, I mean, the thing is, is like, I don't do a lot of coaching anymore just because I'm solely focused on myself, you know, right?

Yeah.

But maybe we'll start doing a podcast where I can start getting some more knowledge.

But the thing that's really cool is like, I went to pharmacy school.

So a lot of people don't know that.

Was this before or after construction?

So it was before.

So when I first started bodybuilding in 2017, I was actually in pharmacy school.

2017.

It was so fucking hard, man.

It was tough, man.

It was very tough.

So

I was very good at school, man.

Like, honestly, I was that kid that could never crack a book and still get an A on the test.

So

it takes four years to get into pharmacy school.

I got into pharmacy school in two.

It just took all the prerequisite classes and then like got 90th percentile on the test to get it.

Damn, bro.

They pretty much couldn't tell me no.

So I got into pharmacy school early.

I did the first year, and that honestly wasn't bad.

It was pretty easy for me as well.

And then my second year, we got into like actually learning about pharmacy and drugs and stuff like that.

And I loved it, dude.

And then we did our internships.

And I worked in a pharmacy and I fucking hated it.

I was like, no way, I'm not doing this.

Worst job ever.

So I stepped away from school and that's when I went to construction.

I kind of knew like, hey, I'm going to chase this bodybuilding thing.

I can always come back to school if I really like feel like I need to.

But I'm going to chase bodybuilding.

So I got a full-time job working construction.

and chased the bodybuilding thing for a couple of years there and went for a woman.

Doug, I did the fucking same thing, man.

I went to school for engineering, started working as a uh working for a co-op and then after i graduated work for a year i hated it dude i literally just listened to bodybuilding podcasts while i was at work the entire time and then waited till like five o'clock so i could go to the gym dude i was even out like i was so bad bro i was in the back of pharmacy classes like watching i'm on my laptop watching like flex wheeler and Chris Comir work out and shit.

Like, and they're like, I was, I was so good at school, bro.

Like, they would call on me, even though I'm watching a bodybuilding video.

And I'm like, yeah, it's this, this, and this.

And then just like, go back to my camera, bro.

Like, so they never messed with me or anything, bro.

They just like, let me do my thing.

Like, school was easy for me.

And like, when I went in and told them, like, I'm quitting pharmacy school, like, I had teachers that were like, you have to be kidding me.

Like, half of your class is going to fail out.

You're one of the kids that's like, this is easy for.

And you're just like, I'm done.

And I was like, yeah, I just, I don't don't like it.

Like, it's not, I'm not going to enjoy it.

I'm going to stare at the clock every day and like wish it's five o'clock.

And, like, I just, I'd rather go do something I love.

So I went and did bodybuilding, you know.

Wait, so what was construction for?

Was that just like to was the purpose, your intent in construction just to make money in the meantime while you do bodybuilding?

Yeah, pretty much, man.

It was like make really good money.

I honestly, like, I loved what I did, bro.

So I, it was,

I essentially kind of ran my own business at the point at the end.

So I started out working for a 74-year-old man.

Um, and he was just kind of at the point where like a lot of the physical side, he wasn't willing to do anymore, you know, he was like a genius and knew how to do everything really well.

Um, and already had like all this clientele of so much business.

So he went in, we went into business together.

He was like, I'll teach you how to do everything if you like help me do all the physical side of things and like we'll split things down the middle and i'll take good care of you so he taught me how to run like run the construction side of business as well as

you know taught me how to do almost everything you know from even like smaller electrical and smaller plumbing all the way up to full remodels of bathrooms and kitchens and we kind of did it all so like for me it was also an opportunity to learn a trade that I can use on my own home

and things like that down the line, you know what I mean?

So like I've always kind of thought about I wanted to get into real estate eventually as I, you know, start to build my bodybuilding money up and stuff.

Oh, damn, fuck yeah.

So then I could just, you know, I can buy like houses that have been foreclosed on and stuff like that and fix them up myself and do that as well, you know, so it's kind of an opportunity for me to,

you know, just learn a skill.

Something I always appreciated too.

Like I really, you know, my dad's a blue collar, worked in the oil field my whole life.

So I knew like, you know, working with my hands and working hard, I can make good money and that'll support bodybuilding and then hopefully make it happen.

Right.

Did you ever like get out of just the physical part of it?

Is that what you were saying where you almost started like?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, at the end, we started to just, it was him and I.

And like, we brought in some another kid that was in college.

But we just mostly, I was still doing a lot of the physical side of things, but I got to be more on the business side of things as far as like helping, you know, build quotes and decide what we were going to get paid and, you know, materials and all those type of things.

So I learned a lot of the business side that if I ever needed to or fall back on, I could pretty much start my own construction business and go at it if I needed to.

Damn, that's fucking sick, dude.

My girl's brother just built his own entire house with his shop and everything.

Next year, my goal is I would like to buy a piece of property here in Houston.

And then my goal will be, we'll build our own home.

One of my best friends here in Houston owns a big construction company.

So they'll do most of it.

But the cool thing is, is like, I'll get to be, you know, involved in it all and help with it all.

So nice, bro.

It's dope.

Yeah.

Do you, do you feel like working the physical side of construction ever like help you get jacked or like the opposite?

I think there was like, it's like a double-edged sword, right?

So, like, in prep, it was always like kind of a benefit because I'm like still eating 800 carbs a day and because I'm working my ass off, you know what I mean?

Um, but there was definitely a point, probably when I got around 220-ish

that I felt like there was kind of a diminish of return.

It was like

I worked so hard all day that the amount of calories I had to eat just to recover from that to then like actually be able to make my weight go up was very difficult.

Like at one point I was doing about 10,000 calories a day and like I was I was moving like I was growing, but it was a struggle, bro.

Like and if I missed if I missed one day like that, I'd lose like 10 pounds at work.

That's crazy.

How the fuck did you sit in that food in the day while you were doing construction?

I had a really cool boss, man.

That was the coolest thing.

It was like, by the end, especially because I was like pretty much a boss too.

Just like, yo, we're going to take a 20-minute break and I'm going to eat this meal and it's going to suck, but I'm going to do it real quick.

So, like, yeah, I'll be like, you know, we need this and this and this from the hardware store.

How about you guys go get that real quick?

And I'll eat this meal while you guys go get it, you know, and stuff.

But made it work.

And my, like I said, my boss or my partner was really cool, like, understanding about that side of things.

Like, that this was the main goal.

What did you eat?

Like, were you ever able to, like, did you ever have to eat some shitty food at all or like eat like

cyclic dextrin or anything?

So, there was a lot of days.

I, yeah, we did, I did a lot of meals of like that.

Was when the MRE first came out from Redcon.

Oh, yeah.

So, I did a lot of those.

Um, and then I definitely did like pro like isolate cluster dextrin meals.

Okay, fire.

Uh, but but most of the time, I was, I at least ate as much whole food as I could.

So I would do like, you know, chicken and rice meal and get as much of it down as I could and then do like orange juice to get the extra carbs in, things like that.

And then I also, I would get up super early so that I could try to eat at home a couple times before I went to work.

to try to just ease that stress of like how many meals I had to get in at work.

And then we took an hour lunch break.

And like in the offseason, the owner of the company would buy lunch every day for us.

So like we would just go somewhere and he would buy us lunch.

So that was always nice.

It's like an extra little free meal.

Nice.

It's fucking sick.

Yeah, which at that point, like when I worked in structure, I needed it

to grow.

So it's like, that was a perk of it, I guess, if you will.

And then we were usually done by like five o'clock at night.

so i would i'd have to get like about three in at work like while we were actually working um and then i'd be able to finish my meals off the end of the day you know that's fucking savage man i still can't believe how much food you eat it's fucking crazy bro

honestly like like boss says you know it's it's a blessing and a curse you know

even like carving up it's like sometimes people are like holy shit you get to eat so much food and it's like yeah it's cool to a certain point but like at a certain point it starts to like stress you because you don't want stomach distinction and shit, but you have to eat some food to look good, right?

It's it's cool and it's not, but also, like, I understand the other side of things.

Like, I would rather be the guy that hates eating than the guy that hates cutting, you know.

I, I like, I love prepping, that part's easy for me, so yeah, I mean, knowing you got to eat like a gram of carbs, how do you like keep from your stomach getting distended?

I like hardly eat that much, and I still feel like sometimes I have that problem.

Yeah, I mean, a big part of it is spreading it out, you know.

So, like, I do seven meals,

and then you really got to find what foods work good for you, you know.

Really make sure they're clean and wholesome sources.

And, like, if you're eating rice, like, make sure you're rinsing it, washing it so that it's like real clean.

And

you know, cream of rice and stuff like that, like, make sure it's

the

best source, if you will, or white rice.

A lot of people eat that

the orange box.

And that's actually brown rice.

So just know that

it's, it digests a little bit slower than like some of the other rice like prime foods or elephants,

because those are actually white rice.

But yeah, and just honestly, just finding foods that work for you.

And then like when I'm up with that, like, a gram or 1200 carbs, like usually I'm in the off season.

So I will combat that some with like,

you know, clustered dextrin before training in your pre-workout and, you know, just trying to get some extra carbs in and places like that.

And then I'm a big candy guy.

So if I have to, like, you know, we'll get some extra carbs in there.

But like, for the most part, man, it's just rice, creamy rice.

You know, and then just supplementation, if you will.

But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a full-time job, bro.

You just have to do it.

Yeah, for real.

And then,

and then, like, other things you can do is like go on small walks between meals and things like that, just to help regulate your blood sugar, get that into a good place.

Dude, I love those, man.

The 10-minute walk after each meal, blood sugar and digestion.

I fucking love it so much, dude.

It makes me feel so much better.

It's crazy.

So, there's a lot.

There's a lot, like you can do a lot of stuff like that that'll help.

But, like, when I worked construction, I never had to do any of that.

You know, I was just, I was hungry.

Like,

I made it work most of the time.

Um, now that I'm

much more sedentary, um, it's definitely much more of a job.

Like, I have to like focus and work on it, you know.

By the way, I realize we totally just said a gram of carbs.

I think I'm like picking dosages right now,

bodybuilder brain.

Do you feel like uh, is there anything else that you feel like you have done or that you like try to implement in order to, I guess, try to keep your waist tight?

Um, I don't know if you saw this comment from my God, dude, the bodybuilder brain is going crazy right now, yeah,

uh, but he was responding to

oh, oh, about the mic, the badass, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he was mentioning how, like, you know, the open bodybuilders keep their waist tight, yeah.

Um, I mean, I think a big part of it, man, is just that a lot of us are focusing on it now, you know, like I'll be honest, like, most people just don't understand or know the like history of the sport to know that, like, back when Ronnie was competing, like, the judges just didn't knock you if you had a belly.

Like, that wasn't something that they were like mad about or like made a, made a fuss about, or, like, in transition, if you let your stomach out, they weren't, like, coming backstage and being like, hey, you need, you got to keep your waist in.

Like, that just wasn't, that wasn't the culture then, right?

It was, it was more about, like, let's see how big and freaky you guys can get.

That's really the like, I mean, if you want to be honest, that was the narrative is like the judges were pushing.

If you want to win, you need to beat Ronnie.

And to beat Ronnie, you have to be like

something absolutely incredibly wild.

Like, we've never seen anything like it.

So, good luck.

Kind of type of thing, you know?

Because of that, like,

I think bodybuilding got this bad rap of like bad waist and this and that.

And then people attacked Phil.

But but Phil never really had a bad waist until the end when he had some trouble with actual a hernia and some actual abdominal wall troubles that was that came down to more of a surgery thing than it ever was like his waist being blown out right but yeah no I mean I think all of us are much more conscious of it we're all making an effort for it And then I do think like bodybuilding knowledge has come a long ways, especially in the form of food.

You know, just like people understanding, like, yeah, you can actually be allergic to chicken or you can actually be allergic to eggs.

Like, I don't eat eggs because I'm allergic to that.

Yeah.

Like, I probably did so much in college that I like literally gave my food myself a

food allergy to eggs because I ate like four meals a day of eggs and coffee.

Like, so like,

but yeah, so it's like, I think a lot of that comes into play too, you know?

It's like, if you're eating a food that doesn't actually sit well, or you're allergic to, like, you're going to be bloated and stuff.

And back then, they were just like, power through.

Oh, well, it's probably just because you're eating a pound of chicken.

You know, like, that's the other thing, too, that I think bodybuilding has changed a lot.

And that's one thing I know that's made my waste even better working with boss is just understanding that like carbs are protein sparing.

So if you're eating a good amount of carbs and you're getting a significant amount of protein, you don't need to be eating eight ounces of cooked chicken a meal, you know, like I'm closer to like six, closer to like five, actually,

and I'm 260 pounds right now.

So, like, it goes to show you, like, you don't need as much protein as we thought.

So, like, I mean, I've done this too, bro.

It's like in my early bodybuilding career still, this was kind of just catching on.

But, like, my early bodybuilding days, I was doing eight ounces of cooked chicken a meal, 10 ounces of cooked chicken a meal, and now it's like way pulled back, you know?

And it's, I think that's one thing, too, that's also drastically different.

How many meals a day?

Seven.

Seven.

Yeah, that would be, dude, that's fucking crazy.

Yeah, eight to ten ounces, seven times.

Yeah, so yeah, like at certain points where there was like, I mean, obviously, like a couple of those are shakes, but like at certain points, I was eating like 60 ounces of cooked meat a day.

Yeah.

You know, and it's just like, how are you not going to fuck up your waist like that?

Like, I honestly think I even grew my diastosis a little bit back in those days just from eating that much protein.

Like, it doesn't matter.

I don't care how many digestive enzymes you take or what.

Like, you're just, you're going to mess up your stomach like that.

You know what I mean?

And like, now I don't do anything near that and I don't have near the digestive issues.

I don't have heartburn.

I don't have any of those issues.

So I think that's another thing that's probably drastically different

now coming into the open that is kind of was like forgotten or lost right right yeah that makes a lot of sense i think both um both stefan and uh uh patrick

have mentioned that they like to

they feel like they uh they adhere to more like lower protein which you know compared to the normal average person is fucking high as shit but like still compared to like you know classic bodybuilding days, or you know, 10, 20 years ago, there's a big difference, honestly, like a pretty big difference.

So, um, like, I think anywhere above 1.5 times your weight, it's just, I think, everyone has bloating issues.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, I mean, it's you can only digest so much protein, you only have so much acid in your stomach, right?

So it's like

there's only a certain point, there's a diminish of return.

And then, like,

also,

you know, a lot of people were used to say, like, well,

even if not, those calories are better calories

than like carbs and fats because they're less likely to be stored as fats.

And it's like, yeah, but if those calories are like completely destroying your stomach and making you a bloated mess, then like, is it really worth it?

Like, just eat some carbs.

Yeah.

No, for real.

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Do you ever crash after your meals?

You know, like eating so much?

Shit, no, bro.

Right now with me being as big as I am, I'm like, I sleep most of the day.

It's fucking awesome.

It sucks, honestly.

Like, sometimes I feel like

piece of shit.

What can I help with, babe?

And she's like, it's okay.

Just go take your nap.

Like, you're going to.

I'm like, okay, like you're going to.

Dude, I mean.

I bet it's a fucking bodybuilding superpower, though.

Like, I think it's, oh my God, that's so loud.

I think it's like, uh, I I think it's also like genetic, you know, whether or not you're, you tend to, tend to lean more parasympathetic or sympathetic.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like, it's weird, bro, because, like, before bodybuilding and stuff, like, I'm like, go, go, go, go, go, 24-7.

And when I get, like, start to get lean

and I get like that

like five weeks out from prep, I'm like, non-stop, never sleep.

But when I'm big, I'm like the complete opposite.

I'm like peace and higher beach, bro.

It's so fucking weird, man.

I know you're different because like it's you have so much food that you got to eat.

But like for me, man, I like love the offseason because I'm like, I'm like Fuan.

I'll just eat anything.

I could eat anything, even though I can't.

But I love food, bro.

I'm literally like...

Like my girl Alexis wakes me up and is like, baby, you need to get up so you can eat.

I'm like, leave me alone.

I'm literally like a grizzly bear in the last season, bro.

And hibernation.

Like, don't wake me up.

Like, I'm fat and packy.

Just leave me alone.

That's probably why you're so fucking jacked, bro.

I mean, it definitely helps that I can sleep.

And getting a CPAP was like the best thing I ever did for myself.

So if you're huge and you snore,

go get one.

It'll change your life.

That's a sign I'm a skinny bitch then.

I fucking got myself tested for sleep apnea.

and I only wake up four out of like the five times required to be qualified for a CPAP.

Oh, shit.

I woke up like, I think it was like 60 times in an hour.

Damn.

Yeah,

mine was pretty bad.

Like, it wasn't like, like, I've heard way worse.

Like, there's people that are like 200 times.

Yeah, I've heard that too.

But, like,

mine's like, that's at least once a minute.

So, like, that's pretty bad.

Bro, yeah.

Like, on average, it was like five to ten seconds I was holding my breath, damn.

So, like, yeah, so like decently long.

That's like as long as I can fucking do a vacuum, I feel like,

yeah, then, like, some of some of the times, like, I had like moments of like up to 30 seconds, damn, so, like, like, two or three times an hour, I would hold my breath that long, and then, like,

and like, I think,

you know, like, I had no idea, but I was like, but it definitely, like, now, like, I can't go 10 minutes of sleeping without Alexis being like, get put your machine on.

Because, like, I don't snore anything with it on, but I'm like,

no,

my girl fucking hates me for that shit, dude.

It's literally like

keen on there.

I'll be like sleeping, and I'll just feel myself being elbowed in the middle of the night.

Oh, wall.

I'm sorry, girl.

Oh, shit.

That's funny.

I'm not purposely snoring.

I'm sorry.

Fuck, man.

It's fucking tough, though.

I can't even imagine 30 seconds.

I don't even know if I can hold my breath underwater that long.

I can when I'm awake.

So clearly it's not good.

Yeah, like definitely, like I said, it changed my life for sure.

Before I was like, damn, I don't know if I can be this big for like very long.

Like, this sucks.

Yeah.

It's not like I'm slap dude like i fell asleep in traffic twice when it was like really bad before like right before i got my seatbelt i was like dallas like busy ass traffic and just fucking fall asleep at the wheel dude at a red light people are like honking at me and shit i was like oh fuck it was driving like

So I was like, yeah, I better go get a test.

And then I test and they're like, oh, you definitely need one.

Wow.

How do you feel now since you've gotten it?

And how long ago did you get it?

Yeah, it's I've had it like

almost two years now.

I like literally can't sleep without it, Harmy.

Honestly, like I take it with me on trips and everything, and like it, like I said, if I forget to put it on, like I'll wake up in like 45 minutes and like have to put it back on because I can't see.

Wow, is that shit like loud?

For um,

no, it's not bad at all, bro.

Like, I mean, you can, you can, especially now the new ones, like, you can't even hear them, bro.

Like, they're

they don't even make a noise.

Mine's older, like, because I want it back then.

So it makes a little bit of noise, but even then, it's not like

if you have a fan in your room, it's the fan's way louder than your seatpad.

Okay, cool.

I'm preparing just in case.

Well, you'll like eventually you will need one, bro.

Like, there will come a time.

I don't care who you are.

Like as a bodybuilder, like you're going to get big enough.

Eventually, you're going to need one.

I appreciate your faith in me, bro.

Yeah, I know.

The CPAT life is not fun, but it's...

The only thing that sucks about it, honestly, is just like to cuddle is,

you know, it's like...

You can't cuddle with Darth Vader.

Cuddle with Baden.

Literally, it's like cuddle cuddle me for 10 minutes and then like, okay, go to your side of the bed and put your machine on and get away from it.

I was born in the dark.

Exactly.

Such a shit accent.

By the way,

regarding what Fu had said about like supplements and

protocols, like what are what are the supplements that you normally keep in your regimen?

Are these like ancillary type things?

Yeah, I mean, like, you just like, like I said it's it more comes down to the person and like what's affected right so it's like the easiest way to to attack something is just get your blood work done and then know that like okay we have to fix this this and this and how do we do that you know it's like one that's common that a lot of people don't know it's like you can use cartering to fix your lipids

Well, like, yes, it's a SARM and it's cool for increasing endurance and it's great for like bodybuilding still, but it's also like really good for fixing your lipics.

So, I mean, a lot of the knowledge that I know and stuff is very similar to a lot of the stuff Jewett is putting out in his like J3U podcast.

It's just like, you know, vitamins and other herbal supplements and stuff that can help with fixing XYZ and blood work, but then also just like

understanding drugs to like actual steroids and like how protocols can work and like why they can work and

and then like knowing like okay if you're taking this it's probably affecting this on your blood work

um you know so it's it like i said most of it it all comes down to person dependent type of thing right

um

and so i can't give you like a blanket statement on most things but uh for the most part man it's just like it's being hyperactive right it's like making sure you're getting your blood work done and and checking those things and then like not ignoring numbers, you know, finding out what you're doing in your diet and how to,

how you can fix it there and how you can take XYZ to fix XYZ, you know, things like that.

It's like

one thing that I do,

and this is one that we were just talking about in the beginning.

It's like, you know, the strongest antioxidant on the planet is melatonin.

Yeah.

I had a podcast with this guy named Dave Lee who was talking all about it.

He's like obsessed with melatonin and everything and obviously had a lot of opposers, you know, because there's so much random controversy about melatonin.

But yeah, it's it's I don't know.

I mean, I'll say this, Ren, like, I do think

as natural

naturals, you do have to be a little bit careful because it can really mess with your hormone cycle.

So especially males, it can affect your testosterone, at least from some of the studies I've read.

Now, us on PEDs, I really don't think there's any downside to melatonin.

So, like in the past two years, I've taken like anywhere from 40 to 60 milligrams before bed.

I haven't had bad liver enzymes ever on the blood work since.

Wow.

Yeah, so like, it's obviously I'm doing the other things too, like NAC, like glutathione,

oral BPC, BPC injectable, like lots of other things as well.

But I do think that that is a drastic factor in that.

It's like I said, it's the most powerful antioxidant out there.

And like you said, there's people that preach on it's the best thing ever.

And there's people that will come and say it has all these negative side effects if you highly dose it.

And it's in that.

But yeah, that's one that I've used.

And then just like other things, like digestion is huge, man.

That's one of the things I know, like, I'm sure if Wab talked about too, is like I harp on that 24-7.

That's make sure you're doing glutamine at least twice a day, three times a day, repairing that gut lining, like knowing what foods are going in and out and why they're going in and out.

Just the smaller, finer details.

It's like

bodybuilding is very simple.

in the grand scheme of things.

Like the umbrella of bodybuilding is very simple.

It's like eat, tree train sleep take some steroids and like you're gonna grow and improve in some way shape or form

but as we get to the top of the pyramid you have to figure out how to twist the finer knobs and do all those like finer little things and a lot of that comes down to understanding biochemistry and understanding biomechanics and and those type of things and just like knowing how the human body works, you know, to do those things.

And

that's a huge reason why Stefan is the best coach on the planet.

Because, like, he went to school to be a doctor.

So, you know, now he can just take all that knowledge and put it towards bodybuilding.

You know, it's even small things like

coaches having you take T3 without T4.

That makes no sense at all.

Like, whatsoever.

Like, let's just burn our thyroid up and like not understand how the process works or anything like that.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, you should be taking T4 first and then understand that your body converts T4 to T3 naturally and does it on its own as needed.

And then like, if you need to ramp the system up, then you could put a little T3 in with more T4 than T3.

Like there's so many rules to this that that just comes from being a doctor.

Like that's not rules of bodybuilding.

Like you can do whatever you want, there's no rules in bodybuilding, right?

If you want to take 100 mics of T3, like, please don't, please don't.

But there is people that do that shit, but don't.

But that's what I'm saying: is like, just from having that knowledge kind of of my pharmacy background and boss's knowledge of being a doctor was like,

that doesn't make sense.

Why would you have somebody do that?

Why wouldn't you have them do it this way?

You know, the way that kind of it was intended to be.

And like, obviously, there's rules to be broken, right?

It's like, they don't, like, insulin was like, it's not made for bodybuilders.

It was made for diabetic people.

So, like, remember that its indicated use isn't how you're going to use it, but you need to know that, like, its indicated use is going to affect you.

So, like, it shuttles all foods.

So, if you're eating fats, you're going to get fat.

You know, like just little stuff like that.

You have to understand those things.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

um i normally even just recommend something like armor thyroid just to make it easier you know yeah yeah and that's that's a good i mean that's almost a better way because it's like that's actually a prescription and you can get it from transcend and like it can make everyone's life easier right but like

that exactly that's it's already put in a pre-regulated ratio of what what you should have of those two.

So it's it's a lot easier to get the intended doses.

Now, I know as a coach, like

there's no rules, and there's a time and a place for everything.

So there is a time and a place when you do have to mess that ratio up, but

someone's behind, but like

knowing those

finer details and knowing those on the front end, you can at least mitigate a lot of the damages and like not burn someone's thyroid up or you know what I mean.

Right.

Yeah.

Is it's like a lot, let's be honest, most of the people coming into this sport

are like going to leave this sport and do something else eventually.

Like, you come into this, and like, you might bodybuild for a while or compete for a while, but like, not everybody gets the luxury of being pro and having a 20-year career in bodybuilding.

So, a lot of these people, like, you just want to at least make sure that they leave bodybuilding with like their hormones and shit intact.

Like they go into their next part of their life with like not having to still

take hormones every day and things like that to like fix what they messed up for a five-year stint of having fun competing.

You know what I mean?

Like

so silly.

And it's just like

everybody wants to be a coach

with like such minimal knowledge.

It's like you've done, you did two shows and now you want to coach somebody.

It's like, at least, you know, learn and understand.

And like someone like you, you have a mentor.

So like if you have a question, you call Kyle up and stuff.

Like, that really matters, bro.

Like,

like, that's how, I mean, even just like people dying, you know, it's like, it's because somebody did something so silly in this court where we could have probably,

somebody could have easily gave you knowledge that wouldn't have let the app.

Yep, for sure.

That's what makes the sport so fun, honestly.

And I think that's where I found my love for it, too, in creating this podcast is

I've always been a fan of

just like health and wellness and like biohacking and things like that.

And it's so weird because it sounds

it sounds contradicting to bodybuilding in a way, you know, but it's like, in order to be the best bodybuilder, you have to also be the most perfect in that sense.

Otherwise, you probably just die early.

Yeah, man.

I mean, honestly,

it's kind of fascinating because, like,

so much of this knowledge is so

outlandish.

When I was in pharmacy school, bro, like, I'm, I was full

admits in bodybuilding.

You know, I'm like taking full-blown cycles and I'm doing national shows.

Well, like, I'm asking questions in pharmacy class.

Like, you know, what about growth hormone?

And like, what about growth hormone with insulin?

And bro, like, they don't know this stuff in the, in a medical field.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So, like, so much of this is learned and like

just

handed down knowledge, if you will, and stuff.

And so, like,

you're right.

It's like, it's really cool because it's an outlaw sport.

It's like, there is no rules.

And obviously, you can be as crazy as you want.

You know, we have people.

as crazy on the spectrum of like Boston Lloyd, rest in peace.

And, you know, and then we have people that are like, you know, most, most of the pro bodybuilders now at this, in this day and age, are pretty conservative.

Like, we all,

you know, we all are trying to do this for as long as we possibly can.

We're not trying to blast 20 units of growth and shit like that.

We all understand that, like, it just doesn't really benefit me that much.

You know what I mean?

So it's like,

but it's cool to see, and it's cool to see also that, like, podcasts like theirs and other ones that are giving out knowledge that people don't have to do

take 10 grands to look like.

Yeah, you know, like it just, it really doesn't work that way, right?

Like,

I mean, it's I've even tried to take more.

It's in the hopes we all do that, right?

So, oh, I'm going to take a little more.

And it's a

there's a diminish of return.

It's like, all I did is give myself gyner.

So, good job.

That cost me 10 grand, right?

You know, like, fuck so it's like i've been through it i've done a lot of that and that's where some of my knowledge comes from is like fixing my own blood nerk or having my own side effects where it wasn't worth doing this or that you know and then also having really knowledgeable people like you know nelson and like my coach now boss and just learning from them as much as i can too i think A huge part of this is exactly what you said is just like self-educating.

Like,

it's all the information is out there now for the most part.

So you just have to go out and find it and listen to it read it.

Yeah.

Would you say, or I guess what would you say is because I know a lot of us have had to kind of figure out our own

our own body chemistry, I guess, in doing this sport.

And in doing so, we kind of find the perfect ratios or the perfect compounds or even

honestly, everything when it comes to all types of protocols, no matter what aspect of bodybuilding.

But

is there anything that I think you've personally found for yourself that is something important for you to take heed of?

And then, like, that is, I guess, dictated, say, like your compound selection or something else along that matter.

Yeah, man.

I mean, so for me, I mean, like, obviously, I've found the compounds that work for me.

And, like, I don't have too many issues with many of them.

um but i i'll say like the things that i did have issues with like i'll never take deck again that was something that like honestly just it gave me so much like down depression like i was i'm the i was the strongest i've ever been in my entire life uh but i was also just very blah had like no emotion yeah was so very dead inside um

And I just, I didn't feel like the reward was worth any of the side effects that were there.

I've tried to go above a gram of test.

And like every time I just get side effects and no,

no reward over what 750 does for me.

Is there any like kind of feeling or anything that you feel like you get from going over a gram that just you're like, yeah, this is not it?

Honestly, for me, it's just like, I know that I'm going to have to take a Rimidex

or Aroma, you know, some type of AI to combat it because either my nipples get puffy or I'm watery because the estrogen is high or I'm emotional because the estrogen is high.

And I can kind of all feel those things now just because I've been doing this so long.

I kind of know like, oh, estrogen's high.

Like, I need an arimidex type of thing, if you will.

But yeah, like, I just never like every time I've tried, I've tried two or three times and like, I I never really saw a benefit of going above it.

Like it never did anything for me.

And then other than that, man, like I'm not the guy that's over here.

Like I've trended so bad.

I'll never take trend.

Like I take that during my preps and I've never had any issues.

I think that's person dependent.

I don't really get anxiety.

I don't really get bed sweats.

I do get a little bit of insomnia, but that kind of comes dose dependent.

Yeah.

Same.

So it's like, as long as I keep it like under like four or five hundred, it doesn't really affect my sleep.

If it goes above that, then it's like obviously going to affect my sleep, but that's pretty high anyway.

And then other than that, like I'm bald because of masculine.

So

like if you want to keep your hair, like definitely just

be in consideration of that, how much DHT you're obviously taking.

And then a lot of that, too, is again going to become, it's a very genetic component, right?

So, like, a lot of guys, like, I mean, Brett's my training partner.

Our cycles are very similar.

And Brett has a beautiful full head of hair, like, having

one fucking hair from bodybuilding.

And I'm over here bald, but my dad is bald.

You know what I mean?

So a lot of that's just a very genetic component of it.

And that was something that I noticed from the first time I started taking masks, like take a shower, and my hair is falling out.

Like,

oh, well, I guess I'm going to be bald.

I kind of knew that was coming.

So it's not

really a big deal to me.

And then outside of that, man, like, I,

I, as fun as orals are,

I have, I don't think that their benefit is worth their reward.

Like, it's, it's just, there's so much negative that comes with them

that you really like you have to weigh that a lot now if you're somebody that liver

doesn't take as much of a beating or can handle stuff really well then like you might be able to benefit from it because obviously they're very potent

They work very well

But just the amount of damage and toll that it takes generally is not going to give you back what you could benefit from by doing something injectable and just taking a little bit more tests or a little bit more EQ or something like that.

You know, it's like every time I took anadrol, my blood pressure always gets high.

My red blood cells always get a little bit higher there.

Liver enzymes go through the roof.

And whenever my liver enzymes go up, my appetite gets smashed.

So that's something that I really have to take in consideration with any steroid that I take is how hepatotoxic is it um and how much is it gonna affect my liver

because at a certain point when my liver enzymes get high even it's not even crazy high as far as numbers go like on my blood work if they're like above a hundred each um which is not like crazy that's definitely above range you know but it's not insane I can get that from being natural and just training really hard.

It starts to affect my appetite, so I have to be very diligent about taking tudka, about taking those knack, like you said, those antioxidants, and just really making sure that my liver

has as much help as it can.

I always say, I came from two parents that struggle with alcoholism, so God was like, I'm going to give him a weak liver so that he can't drink.

But it's just a funny joke, but no, but so my liver sucks, sucks, man.

So if I try to push the orals, I just, nothing but sides comb.

Yeah.

Like I said, terrible appetite, high blood pressure.

Like, obviously, cool things come from it.

Like anandra gets strong and shit, or Windstraw and my skin gets a little extra crispy.

You know, it's like those.

Oh, we love your crispy skin.

But they just, they don't benefit me that much.

So try not to use them in very many circumstances.

I do use Windstraw in the last few weeks, right in that last four weeks of prep there.

But other than that, I really try to stay away from them because I just don't, I don't have a place for them, honestly, in my regimen.

Right.

Yeah.

I really like what you said about

how your hunger responds to higher liver enzymes because it's like

We can sometimes, but a lot of times I think a lot of people can't always feel that.

You can't really like feel the state of your organs, but

it's, I think, really easy to miss how much it really affects our progress in the long run, like longevity aside, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, just, I mean, just little things.

Like, I mean, and that's just something I've found over the years, you know, it's like I feel like super ran down and my butt is beat from training and stuff.

And honestly, it's really come in the last like two years since I've been working with boss over these past couple of years.

And he's been like, I'll send him pictures daily here coming up.

Um, you know, and he'll be like, Rest,

rest again, rest again.

And I always before I'm like, fuck you, like, that's no,

like, I've never rest three days in a row, but then all of a sudden, like, you know, third day comes around to finally resting and stuff.

And I'm like, oh, shit, like, appetite's back.

body looks better,

you know, and it's like, yeah, like, you know,

rest is obviously we talk about it a million times and talk about how important it is but even at my level we try to get away with

as you know as little as we can and trying to push the limit and stuff you know what I mean so it's always good to get that reminder and you know especially when you're lean like this and stuff coming up the visual representation is always like

Man, like rest just does you so good sometimes, you know, I mean, it's just like you see it and you're like, my body looks 10 times better, like completely refreshed.

Like it was totally worth it, you know, in those situations.

When does he normally

start telling you to like rest out of your, out of like what you're expecting from your program?

Is he normally like seeing things that you're experiencing?

Is it like allostatic load related?

It usually comes down like,

By weight usually jumps because I'll get inflamed from training so hard.

So I will start to get pretty swollen

um so if my weight is like too high and not really like changing or coming down and sometimes they'll make me take an extra rest day and then like

there's a few like details on my physique that I kind of like always have

and if they're blurred it's probably because my body's just beat up and swollen and inflamed so like i kind of always have quad striations

and so like if i don't have my quad striations then it's kind of like all right your legs are like, they're beat, you probably need a rest.

So it's like, unless you create legs yesterday, let's take a rest day and like, we'll give your legs a little bit of a break.

And then the other thing for me that he's kind of noticed is

like

in my face, which is weird, I never noticed it until now.

But it's like, my, if I sleep well, I wake up and like have a very like skeleton prep face.

Um, and if my sleep sucks, it's my face is so inflamed, like my cheeks are fat.

Um, and it just like I look like a puff monster in my face, and like I'll still look like crazy body-wise.

Um, but he'll be able to like call it and be like, oh, I can see you didn't sleep well last night, like go back to bed for a little while.

That's awesome.

Yeah, he, he's very in tune, you know,

like we're also like super, super close.

So, that helps too.

Like, I'm super open with him.

Like, yeah, I was up in the middle of the night.

I'll text him in the middle of the night.

Like, I'm awake right now.

What are you doing?

Because Austria, they're on different time, you know, so he's awake in the middle of the night for me.

Yeah.

But yeah, so it's, you know, it's,

it's just one of those things.

He's learned my body now.

And just like finding those little things and like being like, yeah, you like, you got to take an extra rest day.

Before, I just, I never really listened to anyone else, you know, honestly.

I never like respected somebody enough to when they said, like, you have to not train today, where I was like, ah, okay.

You know, as where's him, like, he says it, he calls the shots, man.

I listen, and we've seen good things from my body because of it.

Cause I probably, like you said, it's, it, there's the over-training aspect is like, as a normie, maybe not, but when you're this big and you have this much muscle that requires so much food and so much rest and stuff like there's definitely a diminish of return somewhere like yeah

especially when you're prepping here and you know it's like one you lose food as that ability to recover obviously because then you're in a deficit so it's like you have one ability and if sleep gets takes a hit or you do 10 extra sets too many

you're gonna have to you have to balance that out somewhere so you gotta rest extra or eat more or yeah however we want to do it right right

bro by the way has anyone told you that you freaking look like yoke tom hardy dude i i've heard that so many times that's hilarious hey i'll clake it he's he's bane he's like the badass in so many movies bro he's the fucking sickest dude ever dog fucking the movie warrior was like my movie of all time bro there you go yeah

he's the guy who made me want traps

yeah just like warrior just like this no for real dude that i literally worked out traps like the most frequent muscle group my entire teenage years.

All of it.

That was a great movie.

He like beats the shit out of his brother.

It's fucking sick.

Oh, it's fucking epic, bro.

Let's move to this QA real quick.

You got a ton of questions, of course.

Yeah.

Craig Elias says, keep killing it, bro.

Sap.

Hey, it's a horror.

Fucking Craigly.

Mabili.

Sarah M.

Mabili asks, she has two questions, but I think they kind of relate.

So first one was, did your confidence change this past year with the results you had?

And if so, how?

Yeah, man.

This is weird.

So like, I've always, I've always been pretty decently confident, to be honest.

But I've never been super confident in nailing it on stage, if that makes sense.

And I've always been like a little weary of my peaks

and that I was going to bring like the best look.

I always knew that I have

what it takes to do well.

But then boss really gave me the confidence to know like, I'm going to come out and we're going to be,

we're going to look exactly how I want to look every time.

So definitely rose my confidence in that sense.

But as far as like believing in myself and knowing what I can do or that like I believe that I could be Mr.

Olympia,

I've believed that for a very long time.

And most of the people in my corner have believed that for a very long time.

So that wasn't anything new necessarily.

Just finally seeing that I've done the work mentally of top to be able to handle it and have the be able to handle the pressure and and all eyes on me and stuff like that and then being able to to nail it with boss and and come in those kind of two things kind of elevated my confidence if you will um

but like going into the olympia i did some interviews like 10 weeks out or something like that and i called that i was going to be in fourth place i kind of you know i believed in myself and knew that i would be right there so that wasn't as much new um

but yeah and then now going into this next year It doesn't really change things for me as much as it just kind of solidifies that I knew where I'm at and what I'm capable of.

And we just got to kind of keep building up of it.

You know what I mean?

I just put a bunch of pressure on myself right now, but we know that that's not going to benefit me in any way, shape, or form.

It's just a matter of like continuing to get better.

And if I do that, then I can win.

Her follow-up question was: what are the downsides to the fast rise to the top that maybe people don't think about?

Ah, interesting.

Yeah, I mean, like, bodybuilding is weird in that sense, right?

So it's like

people love you one minute and hate you the next or vice versa.

Like, they're talking shit about you one minute and then people are coming up for you.

Like, I've always believed in you.

I would say that's the worst part, especially because, like,

now with the stardom, I have all eyes on me.

So, I can't be like,

yo, fuck you, and like act like a little kid.

Like, yeah, like you were a bitch to me, so I can act like you're back now like i just have to be like yeah i yeah you always believed in me you're right yeah type of thing you know um

so that part's like it's just weird right because it's just like what like why like just stay in your lane obviously you didn't believe in me back then so don't act like we're cool now and stuff uh but that's that's the genuine nature of people in general and then I feel like bodybuilding is even worse about it.

Like, they'll flip-flop on you five or six times in this sport.

Like, they can hate you tomorrow, and then next year you win, and they love you, and then vice versa, you know.

So, um, that that part I think a lot of people don't think about, and then, like, also just like

trying to navigate the stardom, if you will.

It's bodybuilding is obviously nothing like NSL stardom or anything like that, but like Even just being at the Arnold this weekend and like shaking hands and making sure to like meet everybody and give them their moment uh

was just like something new for me to where like i'm trying to navigate those waters and make sure everybody still gets their time or their handshake um you know but it's like i had to

skip meals

and i stood there for five hours on my feet my body looked like shit at the end of the day yeah um you know so like those were kind of things that like i never really had to take into consideration before this

that I'm like kind of now having to like find

what's acceptable and like what are fans,

how understanding are fans, I guess, if you will.

It's like, you know, if you're done shaking hands at five o'clock at the booth, but you still have a line of

how many people like, do you walk away or like, how, you know, like those type of things.

There's no book on it or nobody's kind of giving you direction on that.

You just kind of have to find and like weave the waters, if you will.

So I'm lucky in the sense that I'm fairly close with Jay and Phil.

So a lot of those questions that I've had kind of going through this, I've kind of like texted them or asked them, you know, like, hey, what do you do in this situation?

I don't really know.

Like, what's the best way to go about this?

Cause I still want to make sure everybody gets their time or this or that.

And then the other, the other side of things that you probably even have more experience in than I do is just negotiating social media contracts and things like that.

Now that, you know, I've gained more followers or getting more views and YouTube's doing better and things like that.

It's like, how do you gauge the worth and that kind of thing is like a whole new game to me as well.

You know what I mean?

So that's.

They're both awesome experiences and I definitely couldn't complain about them, but it's definitely something new that you, you don't think about a lot of times as you're coming up, you know, at building a brand or a business or those type of things as an athlete.

Right, right.

Dude, it is so fucking crazy to see just how, like, like you said earlier, literally, how someone will change their perspective of you like, like that

in this industry.

It's fucking nuts, dude.

Like,

I literally also just saw this thing of like, uh, some dude was commenting on one of C-bum's posts.

It was like, uh, maybe it was when C-bum was 21 years old, like seven years ago-ish,

seven, eight years ago-ish.

And

the comment was like,

like, dude, C-bum was looking like an absolute freak.

And the comment was like, this guy is going to be hospitalized in bedridden before the age of 30.

Oh, God.

Just start saying all this shit.

And I have like a bunch of likes.

And

it's fucking hilarious looking back, and C-bum's basically 30 years old now, and literally the complete opposite direction.

It's crazy.

Um, oh, yeah, and that dude's probably bought sebub protein and

you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you think?

That's that's how the sport goes, but you just

the best advice I've got probably was from Sean Rodin of just smile and wave, you know, just

be happy, you know.

Take take the rival ride of fame and hate, all they all come counted together.

So you just gotta

smile, let it all go.

Did you get that from Madagascar?

No, I don't know why.

But it's a

that's Rodin was so chill, man.

Like a lot of his nickname was like Eeyore.

Yeah.

Because he was like the most chill laid-back dude.

But even Phil, too, man, like even with his, you know, it's like, You're the best bodybuilder in the world for seven years in a row.

And like most people can't find a single reason to love you but they can find 10 million reasons to hate you and now that he's like done with bodybuilding like everybody's like i love philly so much i'm like dude i remember people like he was constantly talking shit about you know

what do you think about uh

what do you think about what bob said about nick and i think i mean i just think it's childish between both of them like they're both just acting like little kids on the internet internet.

You know what I mean?

I think,

look, Bob, if he was the actual athlete rep and it was a paid position and all this stuff, then it would be wrong.

Like, nobody pays Bob.

Nobody voted Bob into that position.

He's gone into that position in years past to

help advocate for athletes.

But Bob can say whatever Bob wants to say.

He has his own podcast.

We all know, like, say whatever you want to say.

Just know that there's repercussions to that.

So

with, you know, whatever Nick said in return is all hoopla, but it's like,

I just think it brings a bad light to our school.

Yeah.

Right.

It's like it gives us WWE energy.

Instead of like NFL energy, right?

Like that's not, that's not sports centered talk.

And I just I would rather see that.

I want to see the sport be look like, I don't want it to be a mockery, right?

And I think like stuff like that just makes us look silly.

So like

it's just dumb that like that's also the only news that we have to talk about in bodybuilding.

Like, you know, it's like, I hate how the channels, like every channel's got to make the same posts.

Like, did you hear what Bob said?

And then like the only thing talked about in bodybuilding when it's like, yo, you know, the list for Pittsburgh came out today, and, like,

Carrizo's doing it, and William Bonak's doing it.

Like, that's what people should be talking about, right?

But so,

like,

I said, I just think it's like so silly.

Like, why are why do they care what Bob Nick said?

Yeah,

yeah.

No, I agree with what you said.

I think that was a really good way to put it, too.

But, like, like,

I would also prefer

for

the

exchanges that are looked at the most to be ones that don't cause the sport to be looked at as a mockery, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's like, I get it, bro.

Like,

I've been on the other end of those.

Like, I've been the one talking shit and them, like, blowing it up.

making it this big deal and stuff and it just like like i said it's like it it gives so much wwe energy and that's not what our sport is like this is so serious and like the stuff that we do is so r

like we shouldn't be like making the fool or mockery of it you know

yeah

yeah

they're a little quarrel though the shit they say yeah no i mean

definitely work it's definitely a laugh it's just like It feels so TMZ, right?

I'm like, damn, like, there's nothing blur in bodybuilding than that right now.

That's what we're talking about.

But, shoot, how are you feeling about the Pittsburgh Pro, by the way?

With all the lineups coming out and everything?

Yeah, I mean, I knew it was going to come and be a battle.

Like, that was something I'm expecting.

You guys know I'm not someone to shy away from competing more often.

Like, I'm already qualified for the Olympia.

I don't need to compete.

But I want to get up on stage and I want to show off this new package.

And

I'm very, very improved, you know?

So

if I can improve from the Olympia look, I'm a very dangerous man.

And that's all, that's all we can do.

Go have fun and work on that peak a little more.

And

there's, like I said, man, like, I'm a pro athlete.

This is my job.

Why not compete and, you know, make money?

And there's a big check up for grabs, which is obviously sick that bodybuilding is like,

getting to be where prize money and stuff is actually crazy.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

and i just yeah i'm very lucky to be a part of it man i know i've watched this sport for 15 years and watched the same prize money be given and things like that for years and years and years so for me to be part of the era to see more money come to bodybuilding and be able to be on those stages and stuff like 20 years from now people will be talking about the Pittsburgh Pro of 2025, probably, you know what I mean?

So like the cool thing for me is I get to be a part of it and

just enjoy the ride.

Like I said, like

we're not, we know that I have the capability to be Mr.

Olympia, right?

But I'm not like, I have to be Mr.

Olympia tomorrow.

Like it will come when time is right and my body is ready and my speech is ready.

Like I'm doing all the necessary things and making the improvements that they're asking me to make.

Eventually we'll put it on stage that hopefully we make that happen, you know, but that's like

one thing I really found in my early career that i did to myself and it made it took a lot of love out of it was i had so much pressure on myself to be successful and do well and this and all and it just it obviously made me hate it dude it like it was a certain point when i started to be like

do you love bodybuilding or do you love winning like

Because it seems like all you care about is winning instead of like the process and the like enjoying it and the journey.

And like now I'm I'm just so much more in tune with just like having fun with my friends, bro.

Like, I get to train with my best friend every day, as you know.

And then, like, my girlfriend's one of my best friends.

Everyone, we get to travel the world and compete in shows together.

And then, my cameraman is my best friend that's fucking makes me look cool on YouTube.

Just get to travel and have fun.

You know what I mean?

Like,

what do I got to complain about?

Shit, like, I could be getting last piece and I'm still living a cool ass life.

So, the trophies and stuff come with having fun and obviously having the physique and stuff.

But

I know I put in the work for that.

So, it's just a matter of time.

You know what I mean?

So, it's just that part's fun, man.

And, like, Pittsburgh will be sick

for a few reasons for me.

Like, one, obviously, it's a huge show with lots of big names and stuff, but also won my pro card in Pittsburgh.

So, like, it's a little bit of like a coming home kind of thing is like get to get to compete there again and and the Manions like I really respect them and love what they do for our sport and for them to throw this big show just kind of makes it like yeah why not go do it and help promote it and make it bigger I would be guest posing probably at that show anyways you know a top five get to guest pose there so I would have been doing that if they wouldn't have had the open show anyway.

So why not go compete and put on the show, make it happen?

Yeah, yeah.

Um, I really resonate with what you said too, bro, because like my entire life, honestly, I had been doing everything and training and bodybuilding and basically following my entire life alone.

I didn't have any siblings, and my parents were like typical Asian, super, super fucking Asian.

Like, I'm not allowed out of the house because I need to study all this shit

would lock the computer so I couldn't even access it.

So, like, I like left home at 15, and I like never really like, I made some friends along the way, but it wasn't until I went to San Diego, San Diego that I really met people I really connected with.

But even in San Diego, there were some bodybuilders, which was nice because I think that kind of showed me,

that kind of exposed me to everything, really.

I never really had the resources or like teachers or like any mentors really to offer me advice and info on bodybuilding.

And that's kind of my fault and for not looking online and doing my research.

And like, you know, there wasn't too much info on gear and things like that.

That's why I ended up just kind of impulsively jumping into places in bodybuilding that fucked me up because I didn't know what I was doing.

So like, kind of like what you said, honestly, like

now I'm finally at this point where I feel very like settled in my life.

I feel very like, like I know who I am.

I have a history of hard work that has brought me to this place place that I'm living in with this living I have, with this like platform I have.

And now I have

a partner who loves bodybuilding and supports me in all my ways and my podcast and everything.

And then I have one of my close friends who will be my videographer at any time and travel with me to help me video film things and stuff where I've like

never had that dude like ever and it's social jipper kind of piece.

Yeah, yeah.

It feels so fun just to like do this every day now rather than like having this intense anxiety on like, am I gonna win or am I gonna fail?

Yeah,

yeah, man.

I'm so I'm the same way, you know, like I don't have a backup plan or like I didn't have a

like I don't have mom and dad to call if like all goes wrong and I don't make enough money.

Like, you know, it very much was like, you're on your own, seek or swim, make it happen or don't make it happen.

And, and, like you said, it's like that.

I think all of us need a period of time like that, too, where

you kind of have to put the pressure on yourself and like kind of put the fire on yourself.

Like, well, if I, if I'm not winning, then like, I'm a failure type of thing.

Just to understand that, like, how much you can push yourself, right?

There's some moments probably that you can look back on that you're like, how did I even do all of that?

You know, it's like, even now, I look back and I'm like, how did I work 70 hours a week construction, train two hours a day every day,

afford everything

and still and still have, like, still figure out how to go compete at national level shows and stuff.

Even now, I'm like, how did I do that?

Or like when I worked in the oil field and we worked 70 hours a week, seven days days a week, you know, seven tens or seven twelves.

And I still figured out how to do cardio at 5 a.m.

I still figured out how to train at the end of the day.

Like, did an online college class all at the same time.

And now I'm like, I would never be able to do that again.

You, you figure out, you know, you just like, when the pressure is applied, you figure it out, you know?

Yeah.

But that's a cool thing is like being able to look back on stuff like that that you and I have done and now now being able to like say, well, I've made it in that I don't have to put that pressure on myself now.

I, I know that I've, you know, I'm going to have a good paycheck come in because I've done the work and built the brand and I've, you know, like you've done the podcasts or whatever, whatever that may be.

But there does it, it's nice to come to that point in your life where you're like, okay, yeah, I've done enough that I know that whatever I decide to do, I can make it happen, people say, you know?

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i mean with how much freaking carbs and shit you're eating I don't even know if I'd be able to fit that much.

I don't even know if I'd be able to fit in a fucking ounce of water in my stomach.

I think that's why I hate it.

It's because it makes me feel more full and I don't like feeling fuller.

Yeah.

What about during peak week?

I drink whatever he tells me to, but

my water is substantially less than most

for like our taper and stuff.

Like most of his other guys, they start higher and then taper to less.

But after my first show with him, he was like,

oh, we could I was like, we can tape the water way harder.

Like, I hate drinking water.

I don't drink this much and he was like oh okay

and then that's why i looked way better at me more gotcha nice i love that you don't have to do cardio or at least that much cardio that's insane yeah i haven't done any cardio the last two years that's awesome

and how

bro how's your um

and like your uh

like your blood pressure and your cholesterol and all of that is just your heart health is okay all the time yeah damn yeah i have have any issues at all here, that's fucking wild, bro.

Damn, I mean, like cardiovascularly, my heart still gets an intense workout just from how we train, yeah, yeah, we were training so intense and doing such like long sets and stuff with like axe bomb and stuff like that.

So

we're still getting the what it needs in that sense, and just not taxing it like

in it in the endurance side of things, I guess, right?

Yeah, dude, like my uh hit is still like king for my heart rate, but whenever I'm doing like a hard leg day,

that heart rate fucking just beats your regular like 120 BPM cardio.

Like, even if that cardio is 30 minutes, like, I'm doing leg day for like an hour and a half, two hours.

And dude, my heart rates just fucking the whole time.

Breathe through and like get your heart rate back down, you know?

Like, that's that takes so much like output to try to get your heart rate back down from 200 or something when you do a crazy set, you know?

Yeah.

That's way better in that sense, in my opinion.

Plus, I fucking hate Gardeno.

Oh, fuck Sam.

I wonder if I say his name right.

I think Fuad just said Joseba.

Bro, you got to tell us how to say your name right because I know you gave me shit for saying Fuad's name wrong.

I used to say fuad's name meant like fawad

like oh really like lord farquad yeah

i mean like how it's spelled yeah bro

i mean things are spelled you know i feel like things are spelled for a certain way for a reason you know you guys should say it like that it's all right uh you say you said a favorite thing about working with uh stefan I feel like there would be a lot of things.

Oh, man.

I don't know if I could pick just one thing, but probably this, like

we're very much on the same wavelength.

So

his passion for bodybuilding is so contagious.

And like, I love bodybuilding so much.

So

we're, we have the, like, our coach-athlete relationship, but we also have like Martin and Stefan bodybuilding fan relationship where, like, if I'm not in the show, we're like texting, like, what do you think about this?

And like, his shape is this, and his structure is this, and his condition, I feel like, is is this

so that's kind of cool that we can like have that separate relationship where we're like best friends but then like as a coach athlete like whatever he says goes type of thing pretty much for me he's hilarious

yeah no he's very very funny too and like with me he he knows how i am like behind closed doors which is like no filter and I talk a lot of shit and we just

we just have fun and like he's he knows that now so like he's very much like talk shit back to me and like funny jokes

now so like our just our relationship is very fun and like lighthearted if you will and it's it's all built around

that having fun and loving bodybuilding um and I think like that's probably the best part honestly it's just like no matter what when we're together we're having a blast and and doing something full

he also asks, what is your goal for the 2025 Olympia?

Well, the Olympia.

I mean, like I said, I just need to move up, right?

So our fourth last year, it's time to go into that top three.

After watching Derek and Sampson this last week and at their, you know, these last couple weeks in the Arnold,

I think anybody is is catchable at this point.

So it's just

go and continue to make progress and show up and show up.

You know, that's the only thing we can do.

I think the thing about bodybuilding right now that's exciting is that we don't have a Phil Heath.

We don't have somebody that's like a league ahead of everybody else.

The top five are all

one home run away from winning it, if you will.

That's just that's where we're at, you know, it's like I'm I see these guys.

I saw what they brought to the Arnold.

i know that that how it compared to the olympia and what i need to do to improve my look from the olympia you know and i think that they're all within striking distance so

now we just go and show up on that day and hope that we show up better than you know a few of them or or all of them yeah

you know uh but i i am 28 you know so i'm the youngest guy in the group And I do, I still know that in the back of my head is like, I have time and I still can improve a lot.

A lot of guys always say, like, when you hit 30, you hit muscle maturity.

So, who knows?

You know, maybe I'm still

get some hardness and some different look on my muscle that I didn't have before

coming up.

And like I said, just keep improving, man.

Like, I know that I can move up.

I know that I can beat one of those guys that beat me last year

and just have to do that.

Man, that's a lot of that comes down to game day just peeking perfectly and and making sure you go out there and put on a show you know so i i do think that i can move up and and we'll hopefully do so

i can't wait to see it bro you're gonna look filthy dude

i'm very excited for this new look man like well i'm gonna drop some some comparisons here soon of uh just are my 12 weeks out to 12 weeks out um but yeah like i was

20 20 pounds bigger, same condition, and just very improved in the spots that they asked me to improve.

As well as now,

as I'm coming down, I think I can improve more in those spots just mobility-wise.

Yeah, so it'll be real exciting to see what it comes out.

20 pounds is fucking crazy, man.

That's insane.

Yeah, and like, you know, I mean, some of that's just fullness and stuff, obviously, but I think I'll be probably 10 times bigger on stage or really close to it, which was

to do that at this level is pretty crazy.

Like, I didn't think that I'd make a jump like that.

So, even for me, I'm like kind of impressed with the jump we made, and

that makes it exciting for me, you know, because I'm like, damn, I just want to see how it compares to other people now.

Yeah, how much weight above stage weight did you get?

But see,

this time it'll probably only be like 20 pounds above stage weight, Oh

Maybe like 25 so I never I think the most I've ever probably got above stage weight is like 35 pounds 40 pounds, but I never get too far from striking distance

If my if my glutes start to get on box or I start to lose my abs Usually try to clean things up, you know, yeah, yeah, with my metabolism, it's pretty hard to honestly get too much bigger than that.

But yeah, this time, like I said, I

kind of just rode rode that same line of my highest weight ever, which is about 270.

But this time, it's in much better body composition.

So I was 235 on stage at the Olympia, 234, something like that.

And I highly, I see

240s to mid-240s on stage this year.

if everything goes as planned, just from how things are trending right now.

Got it.

Fuck yeah.

uh ahoda asks uh worst cycle experience

worst cycle experience oh probably like i said the deca one um it was just it was like 750 tests and like 600 deca maybe 800 deca

um

and as far as like performance and

growth and stuff like that it it worked really well like i drew a lot i was very like i was in probably the strongest I've ever been in my entire life.

That's when I shoulder-pressed 405 with Keon for like eight or ten reps.

But yeah, it's just retarded.

Like, I did stupid stuff on it, but I would just, I just was just so in the dumps.

Like, I wasn't enjoying it at all.

I wasn't having fun.

My appetite sucked.

Yeah.

Yeah, just nothing, nothing about that was like exciting or fun.

So, that was probably my worst experience.

Um,

and then a couple times in my early on career,

I was a little bit of more of a head case and just taking trend early on at higher doses just made me like a crazy person.

So I just feel like a few of those times, like I just wasn't enjoying PrEP

and then pulled drugs down and usually ended up having a better experience with it.

Just kind of finding that happy medium, but definitely the deco was for sure my worst experience.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Yeah, I always feel the same about using any substances like Trent 2.

Whenever I'm like on my prep, it just like exacerbates how bad I feel and how like irritable I feel.

And I know for a fact that just like increases my allostatic load and stresses me out more, you know?

Yeah, it's like

if it's not stressing you,

then that's fine, but when the anxiety comes and it starts to become you become a ball of stress and your look is going to become affected so much that like the steroids not really doing you a benefit at that point, Renal.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

The opposite.

I kind of like this question, actually.

It's the same person.

Yes, what off-season did you see the most gains and why?

I mean, this is one of them.

Probably like similarly,

I've had a few times where I've jumped about 10 pounds of stage weight

from offseason or like from one offseason to the next.

How long are those offseasons normally?

Usually around a year.

I've never really taken more than

like usually I compete once a year.

The longest time I ever took was I took all of 23 off.

And I think between stage, it was about 18 months.

So that's probably the most games I've ever seen, if you will.

But stage to stage,

I was like 235 or 238 at the Texas Pro in 2022.

And in 2024 at New York Pro, I was like 235.

So it was almost the exact same, but the body looked drastically different.

As far as like tissue acquired and like put on tissue and actually jumped big weight was early on in my career.

After my first couple national shows, I did do like the rebound, like we were talking about, where like you actually push out of a show

and just very responsive to food.

And mostly that was just because we would take my food down low.

And then when I was working construction, it was easy to ramp it up high super fast.

So we would just leave PEDs in at that point and hope that in those ramifications that some of that tissue stuck, you know?

and and I had good success with that, honestly, probably just because I was being so active and there was so much food in the system that it's like I was shuttling those nutrients very well by working so hard with construction and stuff.

Um, and then this year, the

ramifications or the big jump is just one, having life be very stress-free,

and then two, just having the ability to

do what I was talking about, like sleep all day and, and those type of things versus having to work or do anything like that.

Um, and then probably quality of gear, too, as well.

Just I have more money now, so I'm willing to spend more on the highest quality of things.

Um,

but I, at, at that point, I don't think like that's gonna make a 10 pound jump over what I was using before because I've obviously had those jumps with what I was using before.

I just think it's probably cleaner and better, feel healthier type of thing.

As you know, like using Transcend stuff versus using underground stuff, just, you know, less pip, anything like that, you know, that you're experiencing.

But as far as like gear goes, because I know a lot of these questions that get kind of asked towards that stuff, almost every one of my off-seasons where I've put on a ton of size has been a 750 test base.

It's been a 600 or an 800 EQ

base

and then growth hormone somewhere between four and six I use.

I've gone up to like eight and ten I use

and because of my super fast metabolism all I really see is that I have to eat more food.

It doesn't doesn't really benefit me that much, you know, just because then it starts to become a battle of like, can I get in the amount of food I need to combat the blood sugar effects and stuff of growth hormone at that point?

So that's kind of always been the base for me.

I've, you know, a few of those off seasons, I've done things like I said, like threw anadrol in for a period of time, like four or six weeks.

But after a very short period of time, it affects my liver enzyme.

So then I get shot and it has to get pulled.

And then training-wise, man, like

I've never really done anything different.

Like we kind of just do the same.

I've been doing the same stuff for 10 years now.

It's just like run the hard and heavy stuff as hard and heavy as you can.

And when it gets easy, figure out how to make it harder, you know?

Whether like, you know, something now I would say is like, I've really implemented a lot of tempo.

So just like really slowing down the negative on things,

especially on my legs, just because my legs have gotten so strong that the load I can move,

you know, hopefully I can at least pull it back some if I'm using tempo and things like that and being able to control it a little bit more.

Yeah.

And just take some of that brutal sheer force off of the joint.

Right.

Yeah.

But yeah, as far as what made those jumps, honestly, is

the biggest jumps I made is just when life was as stress-free as it could be.

There it is again.

You know, like, as stupid as that sounds, like, that's, that's the miracle drug that everyone's looking for.

For real.

That, like, people are like, oh my God, what did you do?

It's like, no, I'm just like, in those periods of time, my life was very stress-free, whether that was financially or physically or whatever that may be you know whether it's you know i wasn't working construction anymore so i got a big jump in 2020 when i quit working construction because my body wasn't so stressed from physical work yeah uh you know i had another big jump in like 22 was because i started to make decent money from social media and stuff finally at that point to where that was less of a stressor.

You know, and then like this last year is like just finally having like my whole circle, you know, it's like, and then those other things too, you know, it's like now I don't have financial stress because social media I do very well.

And we have good companies that take great care of us.

You know, at home, I have a wonderful girlfriend that makes my life super easy here.

So I have no stress here.

And then like training wise and stuff, I have, you know, a partner that pushes me to my absolute limit.

So I know I'm working my absolute hardest there.

And I have a coach that can call every shot and I don't really have to stress there.

You know what I mean?

So this last year has probably been the most stress-free I've ever been.

And I just get to have fun.

It feels like playing high school football or something again.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, just like having fun and like having no worries.

You know what I mean?

It's like a lot of the kids at the Arnold ask me like

teenage boys, like, what's your advice?

And I'm like, dude, you're in high school, like, mom and dad are paying the grocery bill.

Like, eat as much as you can, have as much fun as you can, and like train as hard as you can.

Like, you got it, you've got it made right now, bro.

You got no stress.

You know, you can go and shoot like your artist thing in life is like making sure your report card is good and like

shit, bro.

You want to leave for the most part.

there's obviously kids out there that have like a shit

different life at home but but for the most part you know what i mean it's like your biggest stress this then is like you don't have to pay groceries or rent or anything like that so just enjoy it and have fun and like that's kind of where i'm at yeah

again you know it's like i just get to be the kid that loves bodybuilding and chasing my dream and having fun and like I'm getting to watch my dream like hopefully come to fruition.

You know what I mean?

So

how can I complain about that and that i think that part right there is why the

the success has come in a like overnight if you will but right it's like i'm just i'm just having fun again though i'm like i have no stress i have no issues i'm not like even this stuff where people are asking me like what about nick talking all this crap i'm like bro nicks i'm nick's thinking about me i'm i don't care about nick

whatever nick says good for nick like I'm going to bring the best physique I've ever brought.

That's cool to me.

No, absolutely right.

You know what I mean?

So it's just so different.

And years prior, dude, like my headspace was so different.

Like, I'm going to beat that.

You know, and it's just like that.

No, like, I'll win.

I'll, you know, that's the goal.

I'm going there to win.

But I'm just having a blast, dude, bro.

Like, I get to wake up and live my dream every day, bro.

It's like, if I know a lot of people, like, you wanted to be a NFL football player, right?

Or whatever.

Like, I had that dream, too.

I was going to go to the NFL and be a running back and this and that.

But this was also a dream of mine from the time I was a little kid.

So for me to be able to say, like, I am this is so cool, man.

Like, I had posters of Phil and Jay and shit on my wall as a little kid, you know?

Yeah.

So it's, it's crazy.

Like, they're like my bros.

Like, I have their cell phone numbers and stuff.

You know what I mean?

Like, how's that?

I'm a lucky dude.

Yeah.

Now we're going to have posters of the Martian.

Yeah, hopefully, bro.

That's a fire.

That's important.

It's a champ mentality, bro.

Thanks for saying that, by the way.

It's another reminder to me.

And my little like self-mantra/slash reminder that I have for myself is like every morning that I wake up now, other than practicing gratitude, which is something that I've had for a while, is also reminding myself to

just relax it's it's weird it's like i literally have to like actively remind myself to just relax and enjoy it you know because yeah man

that you i think so many people need to do that man and that's that's something that i really i've kind of done myself in the last like two years was just like

look you know step back for a minute and like look at what we're so privileged most of the time obviously you know there's moments in life when you get to look at it and it's like, man, the whole world's coming down on me.

And in those moments, you get to get to have a pity party and feel that way, right?

But for the most part, you can like step back and in hindsight look at what's going on.

And like, we're pretty privileged, man.

Like, we live really cool lives, you know?

And like.

For me to get to say that I'm a pro athlete, like, that's the coolest thing ever.

Like, the kids look up to me or want to be me, or any use my code, any of that stuff, man.

Like, that's so cool to me because, like, I, like, I, we talked about, like, I could be working 70 hours of construction.

They're like, my dad's still a blue collar worker that works his ass off every single day.

You know what I mean?

I'm just lucky, like, I don't have to do that.

You know, I'm very privileged.

And

because of that, I get to do this,

which is like, what?

this is such a cool job bro this is

sickest thing ever yeah my job was going to the gym how is that

like

you know what i mean so stuff in it but it it's sometimes it's hard to look at it and feel privileged until you really like put it in into perspective you know what i mean so you're doing things that you always wanted to do and

you know, supporting a family and stuff off of

what was a hope and dream at at one point or something, you know.

Yeah, for real.

Um, that exact reasons why I literally like remind myself every morning, like, goddamn, I'm fucking blessed.

Because like

as a kid, I really did not think my life was gonna

turn anywhere positive.

And now I'm just literally a completely different being than I ever expected I would be doing something completely different.

It's nice.

Exactly how I feel, man.

Like, you know, like I said, my parents were troubled and I came from a background of like, you know, even friends and stuff are like in jail or dead or,

you know, got had big trouble or all these things, man.

So I'm just lucky I got out.

Now I'm doing big things and now I'm just trying to like soak it all in and like enjoy it.

You know what I mean?

Like it's crazy that this is my life.

Hello, bro.

I also wanted to ask,

kind of going off the last person's question, how many off seasons did you have?

Like, I guess, or I guess how many off seasons after you started or after you gave up your natty card did you have?

Let's see.

I mean,

like I said, just a short

each year, like about six months from 2017 all the way until 22.

And then I took that full year off.

Well, like about four or five, like two off seasons where I had said about probably about six months of like trying to push up and eat as much as I can, a little health phase, and then go into a prep,

you know, in that year.

And then in 22 was after 22, I did the Texas Pro in the Arnold UK.

And then after that, I took the rest of 22, all of 23,

and then competed in the trade 24.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's a fucking so there's something that I love to like press on my podcast because I think most of the people that listen to this podcast already understand this because they've been, I think, an audience of bodybuilding and kind of understand the ropes well enough.

But there is kind of like

a lot of like maybe normies out there that will come across bodybuilding content or like TikToks, reels and stuff, and they'll make comments.

And you can just see from the average person that they kind of expect that if you're massive, you should be taking 10 grams.

Or if you're giant, you're just, you know, you're literally like killing yourself with an overdose of like steroids, which I think obviously you and I know is just so not true.

But I think this shows like this is this fucking sick ass example that like

it is about the time and you can still grow on like a dosage like yours on like 750 of two compounds.

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I think genetics everybody,

bro, I mean, like, everybody thinks that this, you know, it's this crazy world.

And

it's honestly a big reason why a lot of the top guys don't talk about like what they take or anything because like we're just liars, you know?

But no, it is, bro.

It's honestly, it's just a marathon, not a scream.

Everybody thinks like, well, if you took 10 grams, then like I can be.

300 pounds tomorrow and it's like no dude like i don't care what you do like, you could do as much steroids as you want, you can do the rich piano bigger by the day and take everything under the sun.

Bro, there's just a certain point, like, you're not going to get bigger.

You might gain water weight and water retention and things like that, but as soon as you come off those compounds, all of that water weight and tissue that you thought you put on is going away.

Um, but it's just it is, it's just time, it's food, and it's training, man.

And like, you can't, you can't replace

food with like, oh, I'm going to take an extra gram of tests.

It's like, no, if you're not eating

the

necessary food that you need to to be in the surplus to be able to put on weight, then like, who cares about that extra test that you're taking or something, right?

So the biggest thing there is like, most of us over time, one, also realize we're probably taking more than we needed to at one point in our career

because

like i was talking about early on it's like the the diminished return of if liver enzymes go up appetite is down can't eat as much or sleep diminishing returns of some drug causes you to not be able to sleep um so it's just like it's it's one about finding what your body can handle and if you're a hyper tolerator or not a hyper tolerator, which is something I know you kind of know something about, but it's like

how much drugs can you take without getting side effects, right?

That's also important.

But at the end of the day, it's like, no, most of these guys aren't taking three, four grams.

It's just, they've been doing this for 10 or 15 years

and, you know, continuously have put in the work that needs to be done and eaten the amount of food that needs to be eaten for years and years and years.

It's a compounding effect, right?

It's like, even if you take a year off in the midst of it, it kind of makes

the whole pyramid fall to shambles.

And it's almost like you got to start over again.

So you got to just kind of, it's about putting together perfect years.

And that's part of what I was talking about earlier when I talked about the ability to be resistant to injury, like that genetic component of that really,

and how fast you recover is like, that is also what keeps you consistent, you know, if you don't get hurt.

That is important for staying consistent to be able to do this year after year after year.

There's one muscle tear, one blown knee.

You're one of those away from losing 20 pounds and having to recompound that all back up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, let's knock out just a couple more of these questions.

I'm sorry, everybody.

I know you guys asked like 50 questions and we only got to go through like five of them but i wanted to be selfish and ask all of my questions first so

we can always do not it

asks how stressed were you against sebum

and um stress yeah

in prog

so honestly i wasn't that stressed about chris uh that first day a lot of like i know the internet was talking like on friday or whatever or it was saturday there uh Like people thought that Chris was going to meet Eve and stuff like that.

Honestly, from my corner and stuff, we kind of knew that I was in the lead and in a good position.

And we weren't too worried about Chris beating me, but our main worry was that hamstring injury.

So

I popped my hamstring in pre-judging

and it was just super, super painful.

And our main worry was just how much was it going to swell?

I didn't want to lose detail in my hamstring and glute

just from the inflammation of that injury.

So, you know, we leaving the venue, that was like kind of the last thing we were talking about was like whether I was winning or losing.

One, it was how I was going to change my posing

to be able to put enough pressure that the hamstring and glute was firing.

but not enough pressure that it hurt to where it made me sweat.

And then the other other thing was just like how we were going to keep inflammation off of it.

So I was sitting on bags of peas and changing them in and out every like 20 minutes, just trying to keep the ice on there and keep inflammation down

and stuff, stuff like that.

And so that was, that part was a little bit stressful.

But I wasn't like really on the internet or too much because of that.

Like I wasn't watching or hearing people say like, oh, I think Chris is winning or this or that.

That was probably good for me in a sense.

But, like I said, my corner, like, Brett and boss were like, no, like, from a bodybuilding standpoint, like, you won.

Um, Chris was very, like, crisp and poised.

And basically, that was his obviously like one match.

Um, so then that was, that was kind of something that they really

were just like hounding me on.

Was like, look,

you won from a bodybuilding standpoint, but from like a presentation presentation standpoint and a showman standpoint, you're getting your ass kicked.

So, on like tomorrow on finals, you need to come out like Phil and like own the stage and show him like this is your show and like you won this.

Um, and so that was something that like I definitely implemented and came out at finals.

Like, no, no, I know you guys think Chris won, but like, this is my show.

Um, and I was very confident in that.

So, wasn't too, like I said, it wasn't too much about like, was I worried about Chris or was I worried about losing?

But it definitely like, one, kind of showed me where I can improve as a, as a showman and as a bodybuilder to increase my stage presence and those things.

Cause that's something that I think Chris is

one of the best we've ever seen at is like drawing it out and making them feel part of the experience and stuff like that.

So that was really cool cool for me and then also just

one knowing that like the internet's gonna talk like we kind of knew like

look i could like whip chris up and down the bodybuilding stage and like still half the world was gonna have chris bumpstead winning because they love chris right um so also knowing that was kind of cool like knowing that the heat and the pressure would be on and like all eyes weren't on us was actually a cool feeling.

Like I really enjoyed that to go home.

Yeah, yeah,

I can't even imagine it, bro.

It would

be so freaking crazy with all the pressure already.

Didn't Stefan

Stefan Stefan

recently?

I learned how to say his name right, too.

Didn't he mention something along the lines?

I'm not sure which show it was where, like, um, you were like standing a lot.

I don't know if you were greeting people.

Um, oh, yes, that was that was at the Olympia.

Okay,

and like

just the meet and greet is like, it's brutal, bro, because they do it the night before we compete pre-judging.

And I'm just that guy, dude.

I don't want to sit down and shake your hand and get a picture while I'm sitting in a chair.

I want to shake your hand and like hear your story and stand up and talk with you and stuff.

So yeah, at the Olympia, dude, like, I did that.

And then

we lasted the meet and greet.

And boss, like wanted to look at me, bro.

Like, he looks at me and he was like, You look like shit,

like, what the hell?

And I was like, I was like, I think I just need to lay down.

Like, I think I just need to de-stress, like, eat a meal and lay down.

And I laid down and sent him pictures, and like three hours later, he was like, Okay, like, you're back to normal, but like, never do that again.

That was bad,

okay.

But yeah, I did look pretty bad, bad, bro, because I just like I was standing for like four hours

just

shaking hands and stuff.

Whenever I do

you just gotta you gotta like kind of find like I said, that's some of the stuff I haven't figured out yet, you know.

Yeah,

how to what

is the line to draw on what's being rude to fans and what's

what you do to do the necessary things you got to do to win shows and stuff, you know, and it's kind of got to find that happy median.

I'm sure this is kind of a hard question to answer.

I guess I'm curious now because I saw like two Q ⁇ A's ask this as well.

But they were asking like along like to follow up the last question, if you ever felt

like what would you feel like if Chris like took a full year off to like build muscle and then you guys had that competition like how you felt like that might go

yeah i mean it probably it definitely could have been a different story, right?

A year is not that long to push your way up into open volume, so yeah, definitely.

You know, who knows if that would be enough time,

plus, you also have a year too, technically.

So, yeah, yeah, right.

So, like, I mean, I think the thing that you have to take into consideration there is like

there's a certain place at which a body is like a homeostasis, and then to push past that is very hot, hard, right?

I think Chris's body is kind of happy at where he was in classic.

So who knows how

well his body would respond to pushing up into those upper echelons and also putting on that size, no matter what,

other things are going to grow as well, right?

So if his back had to come up, Who knows if his waist doesn't grow a little bit or obliques don't grow a little bit from having to move that extra weight or be even just be heavier like Chris would probably have to get up to 300 pounds to then come down to the weight that he needed to be right so there's a lot of factors in that but

if Chris decided to push open

you know barred his health issues and all those things

if he was to do that man like he'd be a very dignified bodyworld structurally

shape-wise, balance-wise, Chris is one of the best bodybuilders we've ever seen.

He's just not huge, right?

So as long as he could keep all of those other three in check, Chris could definitely be a Mr.

Olympia at the open level.

But we all know that a lot of guys can look good.

And as they put on 20 pounds, everything kind of changes, right?

And the body just doesn't look the same or something.

So,

you know, we always say like, oh, if he had 20 more pounds, he'd be Mr.

Olympia.

But 20 more pounds could also blow the waist out or make something look wonky or weird, or who knows, you know, or, or even just mess up the balance.

You know, maybe the legs grow too much, and all of a sudden, you have a really bottom-heavy guy, and his upper body can't keep up with it, or something.

So, it's just definitely a game of inches, right?

And it's

still

a battle, but I do think Chris would be very, very successful if he chose to push to that.

Coach Kurkambe asks, how do you keep your weed smoking under control?

That's basically impossible for me.

Yeah.

Well, I oh my

control.

It's like my one vice.

So that's...

That's kind of how I justify it is like I try not to do any other drugs or anything like that.

Yeah.

Besides smoke weed so that I can't allow myself to do that, if you will.

In prep, I smoke

at the end, I smoke quite a bit.

If you know a lot about THC, you know it's fat-soluble.

So as body fat gets down,

you can't stay high very long.

So I end up smoking a lot more.

This is

just advice for potheads.

Don't just go do this if you're not smoking pot already.

But I switch from flour to concentrates so that I can

do more THC in one hit

and not have to smoke so much flour.

Because if I smoke flour, I will get like a smoker's cough.

So instead, I do like I do dabs.

And that way I can just do like one dab.

Makes it only

take one inhale

versus 20 inhales, right?

But I definitely don't go do that because I do it or don't justify

habits because I do it.

That's just what I'll do.

Half the audience.

I need to say that

it's in control or under control.

It's just, that is my one vice.

So I kind of allow it.

Yeah.

I mean, prolactin aside, I bet weed smoking is a little bit anabolic, honestly.

You know, take the stress off, you know, the edge off a little bit.

Parasympathetic state, you know, recovery.

This is just something that I've had lots of conversations with people about.

And, like, I know even some coaches like make their athletes stop or have made their athletes stop funky leap because of the conversion to prolactin or what can then

in turn be estrogenic and make you watery or this or that.

From all my experience, it is absolutely true that smoking lots of THC will cause you to be estrogenic and have estrogenic side effects.

My little brother became a big pothead.

He's never taken a PED in his life or even thought about taking PEVs, and he almost gave himself gynae.

If you're estrogen sensitive, you're probably going to have side effects from it.

Now, that being said, if you're a bodybuilder on PEDs,

you really have nothing to worry about.

Just combat that with the desired AI that you want to combat that with.

But the other benefits from it can definitely be beneficial for bodybuilding.

Whether it's the anti-inflammatory properties of the CBD, which is within weed products, whether it's the sleep benefit.

I will say there's been some studies and it doesn't allow you to get to RIM sleep.

So, it could possibly affect your sleep in the sense of it not being as deep or as good,

but it does help you go to sleep.

And then, just honestly, just the constant body pain and fatigue that comes with this.

So,

being 270 pounds and beating the shit out of myself every day with weights.

I definitely, I like, it's always a joke, but it's, it's not funny.

Um, as I always said, like, I understand why bodybuilders in the 90s were addicted to painkillers.

It's like, this is painful, dude.

Like, yeah, I beat the shit out of my body every day.

You know what I mean?

It's like most days I'm so sore getting off the couch irks and stuff, you know what I mean?

So, um, to be able to do that and smoke weed and be able to combat that a little bit is, I definitely think that's a benefit of it.

It's like it keeps me from wanting to take ibuprofen or something stupid.

Yeah,

um, instead, you know what I mean?

So,

is it

good for me?

No, but is it better than alternative?

Maybe, so I'll take it, I guess.

Right, I'd say too, for anyone that like does,

I guess, uh, incur side effects on themselves by smoking, but can't stop, or it doesn't, it's not a good place for them to stop.

Normally, I recommend like, um,

if prolact,

I don't know if prolactinemia, if they have like some like prolactin-like side effects and it's not their estrogen increasing, like try P5P from Amazon.

I don't know if you've ever heard of that.

I have activated vitamin B6.

And for me, like I literally will pop like 50,

I think I'm pretty sure the dose is 50 that I take.

And

I will literally feel my dopamine raise in like the next 15, 30 minutes.

So like I smoke too much and like my prolactin is really high and I'm feeling like I can't move.

And I'm like, yeah, I'll take that and my dopamine will raise, and I'll feel like stabilized.

And my nipples won't feel as sensitive either.

Pretty dope.

So,

there you go.

There it is.

But, yeah, I mean, like I said, there's ways to combat it.

And, like I do, I think there is a place and a

spot for it in this sport, but I don't think it's like a

necessary or something that you should implement into your regimen.

I just think if you do it, it's definitely okay.

Yeah, right.

Oh,

okay let's start closing this up i'm sorry everybody

i get so excited to ask everyone's questions because i know they're all curious and they always have good questions and then i never get to them

such a jackass

um dominic kai keen asks how the hell do you have gat do you have lats like that

lats like that yeah

I mean,

obviously genetic component to having good back, right?

Or my insertions are good.

And early on in my bodybuilding career, my back is actually my weakest body part.

So my first national show,

Steve actually told me my had a shit back.

No shit.

Yeah.

So

one was just figuring out how to train it.

Early on in my bodybuilding career, I didn't have a lot of connection with it.

It was more like I was just like throwing weight around versus like, actually squeezing and contracting the muscle.

So that was important for me.

And then building that like thickness and like just fiber recruitment in my back, I did a ton of deadlifting.

And I feel like that really built that, especially neural recruitment to now like be able to recruit everything in my back, even on a road or something like that, and really be able to feel the difference.

And then as I talked about early on, Another thing that allowed my back to really like expand and blow up was deep tissue work.

I feel like the back, especially because it's a bunch of muscles gliding over each other.

Yeah.

You get a lot of muscles that

the fascia binds up and they stick together.

And in doing so, you're just not getting that big, as much of a stretch as you can and as much of blood into the tissue as you can.

Those two things will really make a big difference on also lowering your backup, but also increasing that range of motion and things like that to make sure you're getting your elbows all the way back.

Make sure that you're getting that stretch all the way forward.

Yeah, cool.

Last question, Joe AFC asks,

What was your mind shift?

What was your mind shift?

What is your mindset shift from being what seemed like a villain to who you are now?

Yeah, man, I mean, not much has changed, honestly.

It's just like a lot of it, it's really my perspective on things, right?

So

before was a little bit of why, why me,

if you will.

It's like, why didn't I win or I should have or me, me, me type of thing.

And now it's just more of like in the moment, right?

So like we talked about early on, it's like, I can put so much pressure on myself to win trophies and titles.

And really what that did was make me resentful when I wasn't winning the trophies and titles I wanted to

and also just made me so

focused on that goal

that I wasn't having fun and I wasn't enjoying what I was doing versus now just living in the moment and enjoying what I do and I love it so much that there's no reason that people can think I'm a villain because you can see

you can see the passion come through in the way that it should be coming through.

I think a lot of times, in those moments that people wrote me as a villain, it was my passion

coming through or being conveyed in a manner that

didn't shine the right kind of light on it.

It's like I love bodybuilding so much.

And I, like in the Texas Pro, a lot of people kind of hated me because of the things I said towards Andrew and things like that, which they were, my wording was childish, no question.

But it was purely from a place of just how hard I had worked and how much I knew I had given to that prep

and to come short just ate me alive, you know.

And now just in hindsight and stuff and knowing where I'm at and stuff, it was like, like I said early on, is like sometimes you, could easily be the hardest worker in the room and cross every T and dot every I.

And sometimes it's just not your day yeah um and that's that that is maybe one of the things about bodybuilding that sucks is like it's still still sometimes the guy with the gift might win um

and so i think that perspective change was big and then also just who i was surrounded with you know i had some negative people in my life in a few of those years that people thought that i was a negative villain type of person.

And by eradicating that,

those people out of my life and those negative mindsets from my group,

you know, I just, I have nothing but positive people around me.

So I have no reason but to be positive, you know, I think that's, that's probably the biggest factor of them all.

But, oh, you know, your circle is a direct representation of you for sure.

That's cool.

I am, I like that a lot because I feel that I had that same experience too um it's it's crazy what people around you will do man yeah you know from bad girlfriends to shitty friends uh can definitely make you a different person to you know having people like branching and

always around is just you want to do nothing but level up too yeah right

My best friends in the entire world ended up being the two most positive people I've ever met in my entire life.

And my best friend Ryan, before he passed away,

I feel like these guys turned it to my therapist, honestly, at one point.

Like literally showing me that, like sometimes I'm just looking at it all wrong, honestly.

Like there is so much to be proud of and so much ahead.

And so many things that are just so much more important to focus on, such as friends, family, what we've got going on and what we're doing right now at the current time.

Yeah, man, I mean, life is so much about perspective, bro.

And you can come at it from a perspective.

Like I said, like, life is happening to you, or life is happening for you.

You know, and it's like, you just, you kind of like, you get to make that decision.

It's what perspective you take on it.

Because,

like you said, it's like, in most of those moments,

nothing changed.

besides your perspective for you to be able to be proud of what you did.

You know, it's like in one moment, you're like, I could do more and I didn't do enough and this and that.

And then a perspective changed, and you're like, you know what?

Actually, I've done a lot.

Like, I'm capable of a lot of cool things and stuff.

You know what I mean?

So

a lot of that is, it is like just also just finding yourself, bro.

So like,

you know, I did a lot of therapy in 23 as well when I took all that time off.

And a lot of that was just like just learning like who Martin was on the inside and like

you know why i was pissed off about x y and z or

you know you got to kind of do some soul searching and find out who you are so then you can represent that the way you want to represent it

yeah yeah going off of that i have one last question i ask every guest at the end of every podcast and uh if you were to disappear from the earth tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would that message be

i'd say

it's not about the end goal it's about the journey

that is best like i mean we talked about it so many times on him today but

um you know it's so many times you can chase something and you might never even

get to that something

whatever that may be that you know, the Olympia or your gold medal or whatever that may be for you.

But the journey is really cool if you're doing something that you love and enjoy.

So like just remember that, you know, it's like in the cool moments with your friends and

even, you know, in this, it's like soak in those overall wins at the amateur level and soak in those class wins at the smaller shows and stuff.

you know when you get to the pros it's not so easy to win a show and it's not so easy to get to hold the trophy above your head and stuff you know i mean so soak it all in soak in all parts of the journey the losses too because there's a lesson to be learned and a moment to take away from those as well

yeah bro that was a great one thanks man

it was worth it while sorry that was so long dude that was an hour longer than i normally try to go for so

all right

same bro same you go get you on and um where can everybody find you?

Oh, yeah, man.

They can find me on Instagram at MartFitz, H2O.

A little play on my last name there.

And

really from there, you can find all the rest of my social medias.

But YouTube, it's Martin Fitzwater, Martin the Martian Fitzwater.

You need those, you can search, and you'll be able to find me.

And we're just trying to do the same thing, man.

Give educational content.

Show also what we do every day.

You know what I mean?

So we have a lot of training on the YouTube, a lot of full days of eating, things like that.

And then also just us traveling around and doing all the fun stuff as well.

So appreciate the support.

And hopefully we can teach you guys or give you some information that's worthwhile.

Fuck you.

Thanks for coming on again, bro.

That was awesome.

Let me know.

Would you do another one or something in your table?

Bet, bro.

Bet.

Thanks for watching, guys.

That was a long podcast, but it was fucking awesome.

It was super, super, super fun.

Oh, geez.

If you guys would like to support the podcast, you can rate us five-star on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or anywhere you find your podcast, or subscribing to the YouTube channel and clicking the bell button because that helps us get great, amazing guests like morning today.

So, I love you guys.

And I'll see you guys next time.

Peace.