Darren Farrell: Ireland’s 1st Olympian & J3U Coach - Steroids & Mental Health

Darren Farrell, coach at J3U, better known as John Dewet's Coaching, in Ireland's first Olympian.

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 Skarrens.

But just as a rock climber, the athletes undergoing this path in the sport are willing to put their life on the line for their passion.

Just the danger between the two sports is different.

Luckily, we do have safety nets in the sport, such as...

organ imaging and regular blood work.

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

I've been thinking about making a trip to

Dubai at some point, but the only excuse I can think of other than a vacation is going for the Dubai Pro, which I think I will never ever want to do.

That show is a crazy production as well.

Yeah, dude.

That show's like, isn't that like the most, it's like the highest paid and one of the biggest shows?

It's quite open off.

Like, from, I know some people within like oxygen and stuff, the goal is eventually to take that prize money to a million.

Oh, Jesus Christ, dude.

That's crazy yeah that's unreal

um

well anyways i just wanted to say um

i i really appreciate you for coming on i uh i really really really deeply with your philosophy and your perspective on mental health well thank you man

it's been a long run been a long run

um

but Along with that, I mean, it's pretty cool that you stay and remain open with

all your own serious adversities that you've faced in the past, which

all of these things together for me

tends to be an indicator as

being a good coach.

Yeah, definitely.

From my perspective, I think I spent a large, large portion of my life bottling it down.

And that's what led to my own issues and stuff that I think now it's important to be open about it.

And there's a more, like, I've been coaching now for

12 years.

And when you've coached this long, you realize there's a lot of it

in this particular industry.

And obviously, some not so serious, some very serious, but different levels of it.

And I think being open about struggles and my own issues and stuff, like I'm in no position to tell people what to do, but I can at least make them feel comfortable in making steps to

get on the right path themselves.

Right.

Well, I mean, speaking of coaching, how did you get started with J3U?

Been coaching a long time, but always been aware of John and Luke then as well.

Initially,

listen, I'm someone who has this sort of a mindset.

Like

through my therapies and stuff that I went through dealing with my ultra stuff, one particular therapist diagnosed me with rainforest mind.

I don't know if you're

rainforest mind.

Basically, I'm someone that like

anything I'm interested in, I obsess about and just can take all that information in huge quantities.

In school, they thought I had like photographic memory and stuff with certain things, but then I'd be terrible at other things.

Oh, shit, that's crazy.

That's insane.

When I found like bodybuilding and nutrition, I just went all in on it and I loved it, like the nutritional aspects of it.

I've always wanted to just learn as much as I could.

And I found Jay through you that way.

And then

I met John in person in

2021.

It was just after I won San Antonio Pro, but I actually traveled to the Olympia, which was a couple of weeks later.

I qualified for the following one, but I had a client during the Olympia.

So I traveled out with her.

And I just met John after the Olympia in the gas part, the gas clothing sort of house and talking to him.

And I sort of built a connection with him.

And then then Luke over the years and then

they came to Dubai to do a seminar and stuff that I had attended and just built on that and I've done all the courses with them and when they started this sort of coaching we got talking and I was like yeah I'd love to be a part of it you know it's been been a huge part of what's built me to the coach that I am and so I wanted to get further involved and then you know moving down the line get involved more within the education side of things too oh that's awesome so i'm assuming this is like all after you completed courses at J3U.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I did my first one like four or five years ago.

Maybe longer.

The older you get, the sort of timeframe

seems shorter.

And it really means I'm like, yeah, it was like two or three years ago.

And I'm like, oh, six, seven.

But yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, for real, bro.

I was thinking the same shit.

I found out like just a

maybe like in like one or two weeks or something, I'm going to have been with young LA for four years.

It's not.

You see, in my mind, I'm MLA was only around around for like the last two years.

I don't realize four years has passed.

Yeah, I know.

It's fucking unreal.

Oh, God, getting all this awesome.

So that was your first Olympia?

First Olympia.

That was the first time.

Was that the first time you qualified for Olympia?

So I actually, that was the first one I coached that.

I didn't, I qualified.

I did the San Antonio Pro, which was like a few weeks before that Olympia, but qualified me for the following year.

But I had a client in that Olympia.

So it was my first Olympia I attended, and that was as a coach.

So I actually went there coaching first.

And

then, so I had two girls in that Olympia.

And then the following Olympia, I competed at, and I also coached actually someone I competed against on the classic stage.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

No way.

That's crazy.

How did that go?

Just a guy had been coaching for a while.

I turned him, he turned Roe under me that year.

And in the same day, he won the bro show.

So we ended up qualifying for the same Olympia.

You know, I had discussions with him about, you know, if he wanted to potentially work with someone else for the Olympia, because

it's a kind of a weird situation to be in.

But we had been that he was like, no, no, I want to continue working with you.

And you got me here.

So yeah, I was like, oh, like, that's, for me, that was an awesome experience.

So I don't think any owner, I don't think anyone else can say that they've competed and coached someone in the same class as them at the Olympia.

So.

Yeah.

Who be who uh i don't know we're neither of us placed in the top 15 so

he's uh oh yeah

but he's he's an offsman so i still coach him and he's still friends with him so yeah it's been a couple of years now we've been working together that's so fucking sick bro yeah

mate

happened again in the arnolds last year yeah because i did uh

I got I got invited to the Arnold, Ohio.

Yeah.

And he got invited to the Arnold UK.

So I was like,

I didn't put in an application for the Arnold UK for that reason.

Oh, nice.

The Ohio was the show I always wanted to do.

So

invited to that was, you know,

both a surprise and an absolute honor.

You know, I still, I'm still this kid from Ireland, you know, where bodybuilding is a lot big.

So to have done the Olympia and the Ireland, Ohio now is something I never even thought would be possible.

That's so fucking cool, dude.

Really, that's dope.

I remember when I was in Ireland,

I didn't feel like bodybuilding was the biggest.

Now, like, when you go to other places, like you go to like Italy, especially in the last decade, it's like there's no bodybuilding anywhere.

There's almost no gyms at all, dude.

People are literally just like,

I don't know, people are doing like burpees and shit in gyms.

And

they're like this big.

But like in Ireland, I just felt like it wasn't, still wasn't prevalent.

The more prevalent culture, I felt like was everyone really just enjoyed getting really fucked up.

So,

which was fucking sick, too.

So, hearing this about you in Ireland is honestly pretty damn inspiring.

Man, like,

I fell into bodybuilding.

You know, it's not, you know, there's some people, I keep looking around now and I see people talking about, you know, their journeys and stuff.

And people are like.

dreaming to go to the Olympia.

I didn't even know what the Olympia was when I got in, but I just fell into training off the back of finishing up playing sport.

I got into it.

Which sport?

Did my first show without even knowing I had post or anything?

Some of my gym was like, oh, you should do this show.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, cool.

I kind of just fell into it.

And back then,

there wasn't even a way to turn pro within Ireland.

I believe it was one, maybe two pros that were out of Ireland that had, you know, won it at the European mass European show or something, the Arnolds Europe or something like that.

But there wasn't even a show within Ireland to turn pro.

So so it wasn't even something you thought about because it was just not possible.

You know, it wasn't until like a number of years later, I ended up, I moved to the UK,

then moved to Dubai.

I was, you know, I just continued training.

I never had aspirations of being a pro bodybuilder, I just did this, you know.

How old were you around this time?

Uh, so I left, I left Ireland for London when I was 24, 25.

I just started bodybuilding when I was 24.

I left about a year later to London.

Was there something specific that like

was there something specific that like sparked that to make you want to start lifting after the sport you were playing?

What was the sport?

I played rugby and I played hockey.

So many of the US listeners, not ice hockey, it was in Europe field hockey is quite big for men as well.

So I played that.

And I played both of those sports at the highest level from like a young child represented by country, everything.

And I was, that was my identity.

That's where I was going.

You know, all my university was, you know, true sports scholarships and stuff.

And I got injured at 23.

Well, I had a number of injuries leading up until I was 23 that basically just meant I couldn't play.

And during rehab from one of my knee injuries, I started doing, I was like these spin bike classes in the gym.

And I started then doing some weightlifting.

It just kind of went from there and started training properly and then ended up in body melting.

Damn.

Holy shit.

Wait, did you say spin?

Yeah.

That's fucking crazy.

Wait, so when I finished my, when I, so around all this, I was doing finishing up my master's in university.

And

while I was doing that, I started doing my personal training qualifications.

And that was actually my first job out of like to get in that was I was teaching spin.

That's awesome.

That's tight.

My girl taught spin.

Yeah, so did I.

That's fire, bro.

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What was your master's in?

Nothing to do with this.

So I did an economics in university.

Then I did a master's in international business.

And then I went, so the way the university works in Ireland, if you, you know, you get a first-class honors in a master's, you can go back and do another one.

So then I did eventually go back and do a master's in sports nutrition.

Oh, that's awesome, bro.

Kind of reminds me of my journey a little bit.

I started off as mine had nothing to fucking do with bodybuilding.

I was just an engineer.

And then I went to do my master's too.

And I was like, man, I got to do something that has some kind of relation to the thing I actually fucking care about, which is just bodybuilding.

So I tried to do a little kidneyology twist and go into the biomechanics of muscle and tissue, like study biomechanical engineering.

And then instead, a week before grad school started, I just dropped out and just did Instagram fire.

Wow, they worked out, didn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it worked out.

I worked out.

It's funny to see, though.

We both went to school for these different degrees, and then now we're just obsessed with everything bodybuilding.

I went to school just because it was

what you were supposed to do.

And also to continue just playing sport, you know,

it made for the perfect environment to continue getting sport, like getting paid to be in university and

play for teams and just continue on that track and allow me to just train.

That was largely it.

I never really knew what I wanted to do.

I just kind of did what I was supposed to do, you know?

So, what happened in the rest of your bodybuilding journey up till the point that you started realizing how competing is like a thing that I could be doing or something that I want to pursue?

Honestly, I don't

think a lot of people probably would have thrown the title in a lot earlier than I did.

Like, I did my first show at 24, and I turned pro at 29, and having never won a show until I won my pro card.

Holy shit!

Honestly, man, the so the year before it was in

2018, I did my first pro qualifier.

I went to New Zealand and I went back to Ireland.

This was the first year of the

new IFBB pro cards in 2018.

And I placed dead last in both those shows.

Oh, dear.

And then Aaron, but I just, you know, I've always been someone who just

it's probably both a good thing and a bad thing is I just, push myself to the limits, and like I'll absolutely kill myself in training.

And I just loved that aspect of it.

I did that.

And then a year later, 2019, I went back to New Zealand to that show and won the overall there.

That's the first ever show I won.

Damn, that's all.

Wait, did you say 2019?

Nice.

We got our pro card at the same time, bro.

Awesome.

Fire.

Yeah, no, that's tight.

And then, do you ever

go?

What was your

compete the following year in my first pro show?

Again, I did absolutely shit.

I think it was the first, it was in the UK.

I must have been 10th or 11th.

And then the following year,

I'll get into the, like, we can go into the ups and downs of where my sort of mental health was at through all this in a bit.

But the following year,

I

remember putting in an application.

I fell away from bodyguarding a bit.

I didn't really know what I was doing.

and I was going through a lot of stuff and fell out of love with it a bit and then got back into it and

I put an application in for the Arnold UK just because I was like it was the first Arnold UK that was there and I was like oh it would be cool to do maybe if I want to do it and

I remember it was about they released

and the list for it and I wasn't on it I was really pissed off and upset and I was like okay I took that as a sign that I still you know this meant something to me and so I got

to my friend, Jamie Dorigo.

Some people might know him who are listening to this as Coach Reed, the coach, and a good friend of mine.

And I was like,

there's a show.

I want to do a show.

There's one in five weeks in Spain.

Do you think we can be ready?

So we just did a shotgun prep for five weeks.

And I went to Spain.

And that was a huge show.

There was like...

29 or 30 guys in it.

To get in perspective, people listening,

Fabian Fabian Mayer won that show, and Ramon Dino came second.

Oh, those motherfuckers.

Yeah, so

I think I got 10th there, and I got some really good feedback.

And obviously, I did a five-week prep, I wasn't fully in shape, and I was like, okay.

I just looked, I got back to the hotel that night in Spain, and I just looked at the list where there were shows on, and I was like,

okay, fucking five weeks' time, there's two shows on in Texas.

So I went out and did the Texas and the san antonio and i took third in texas and then one san antonio and it was like oh shit i'm going to the olympia holy

wait what was the how long after the show with ramon was the um

san antonio pro six weeks six weeks holy what would you say what do you think you did differently from i just continued to pry

i i did spain after like five weeks of dying so i had like it was still you know i wasn't fully in shape but i had some really good feedback on how I looked and from the judges and both some people, some people that I like respected their opinion.

And I was like, okay,

I know that I can be better.

I just, in my mind, I was like, I know I can be better than this.

So I was like, I want to just get on stage and look my best.

So I was like, I was pushed for another five weeks to the Texas.

And then the sixth designer.

What was the feedback?

So

the main one for me, actually, the main feedback that I got that gave me

the sort of motivation that I could do this was actually from Jordan Peters,

trained by JP.

He sent me a message.

It was just like, he was like, I was set like second, third row back.

He was like, you looked awesome.

You looked like you belonged.

And I was like, okay, this is someone who has never given me a compliment in my life and rarely gives out any sort of compliments.

So I was like, okay,

I think I should, you know, push on and do this.

I still had no aspirations of winning.

I went to America and I was like, oh, it'd be so cool if I could get top five at a show in America.

That was the goal.

Damn.

Whoa.

So do you feel like,

in your personal opinion, what would you say, or if you received feedback from the judge at both shows, what would you say was maybe the

key indicating difference in your physique or the look in your physique between the show of the Ramon and then the San Antonio Pro?

Initially, definitely.

Okay.

Yeah.

They also like the feedback on the first show was my shape and structure was brilliant and they told me I needed to be sharper.

So

that's fully with anyone's power.

And it's like, okay, if there's five weeks, that's something you can achieve in five weeks.

Yep.

Yeah.

How miserable were those five weeks though?

I don't actually remember.

I think

it's a positive in my head because I qualified for the Olympia.

This is a bodybuilding problem, though.

It's like when you're in prep, You're like, oh my God, this is hell.

I'm never doing it again.

I know telling people it's like getting a tattoo.

It's like you got a tattoo and you're like, oh my God, god, this hurts so bad.

I'll never do this again.

A couple of weeks later, you're like, you don't even remember how bad it was.

You're like, can't wait to do that again?

Yeah, bro.

Every time I get a tattoo, it's like I have a bigger addiction to get the next tattoo sooner than possible.

Yeah, it's a weird thing about shows too.

I'll have so many friends that talk about how they're just quitting bodybuilding and they don't want to do it again.

And then I'm like, oh,

you know what?

And then six months later, they're prepping for a show.

You forget how hard it was or how hard you perceived it was.

I guess it's more

the reality of it than

I think

the sort of craziness or the love we have for it just draws you back every time, you know.

Challenge, I guess.

I think

the breath.

Right.

Yeah, I agree with that too.

There's this level of,

I don't know, I think it depends per person, obviously.

I guess you'd have to dig a little bit deep into what drives each person, but I think for a majority of us in bodybuilding, bodybuilding, we're driven by this feeling of aspiration.

And I think, you know, how testosterone drives competition.

I think this competitive nature combined with like, I don't know, two, three of the things that we love doing the most, which is training hard and then eating food, eating food to make us better.

It's just like, if I'm doing this every day and I love doing it all the time, then I want to put it somewhere.

I want to put it somewhere that'll like propel me forward in life, something that'll, I don't know, almost

make me feel like there's some kind of meaning to the thing that I'm doing more than just

human nature to want sort of some sort of gratification from your efforts as well.

So to see your efforts actually

like come to something substantial, you know, and actually mean something.

It's, you know,

it's something you know that's

it's something hard that you can achieve, like that you've achieved.

And there's no sort of greater feeling than that.

How did it feel when you finally got qualified for Olympia?

Honestly, I didn't even believe it at first.

I remember getting back up to the

because I had done it.

The first show I did was in Dallas, and obviously the second one was in San Antonio.

So I had, I had gone out for like three weeks to just booked an Airbnb in Dallas and then drove down to San Antonio for the second show.

I just took the

like one of the main suites in the hotel in the venue.

So I was able to just like literally came out of the venue and went up straight upstairs to my room.

And I just sat there for like three hours doing nothing.

I'm just like, what the hell?

It was weird.

And it was a lot for me to take on board.

And that actually was something I struggled with a little bit later on: was taking it on board like this sort of

reality and pressure of it, or perceived pressure of it all of how things kind of changed for me.

Because, you know,

I think

something

I kind of reflected on and really run through to me was

Mike Summerfield talking earlier on in the year about how he was glad he didn't win the Olympia because he wasn't ready for it all.

I had a little bit of that.

I wasn't ready for

it all, like the sort of, you know, being an Olympian and all that sort of stuff that it came with.

It was a lot for my head sort of to take on and the sort of what I perceive I had to do and all of this.

I see.

But yeah,

there was an initial sort of shock then there was joy and then there was like

wow okay

um

before asking you this question that i'm really curious about uh i really like honestly i'm a i'm a big fan of that story of yours too because i'm someone who i'm not like chris bumstead um

i don't i've never just won my shows off the bat.

You know, I've never just done well and just propelled myself straight to stardom or whatever.

Um, but

like I did nine shows before I turned pro, and um,

given I know most of those shows were done natural, but uh

each show I got a little bit better and better.

So, regardless of whether or not I took PEDs, there was this level of like

proper dieting and conditioning

that I still had to improve on after each show.

So, even if I I ran PDs, I might not even come in conditioned enough, honestly.

So

I,

it's like,

you know, you hear stories of,

I feel like there's often times that you'll hear stories of people blowing up because they just win shows and they're just like, wow, this is like a gifted person.

But the ones that are the favorite for me are the guys who have spent

all these years

just training and grinding in the dirt and not being being recognized.

And they don't look like they have quite the potential that you would hope.

And then out of nowhere, they just blow everyone out of the water or they get first place at a show and they qualify for Olympia.

And that's just like everything that I'm striving for, to be honest, because I understand that I have good proportions,

which I am proud of.

But in all reality, I have seen the people that I compete on backstage, on stage.

I've seen the comparisons.

And

these people are freaks, man.

And I know without a fact.

Yeah.

And I know without a fact that the reason that I blew up in the first place,

it's not

while the structure of my physique, the shape is good.

It's really all because I spent like eight years

figuring out how to twist my body so my waist looks extra small and just capturing all the perfect angles on camera in all the perfect places with the best lighting in the gym.

I swear to God,

it's literally an evolution.

Like, I've never done it, but if I place the videos and pictures in like a timeline, you could see how my content had evolved over time and how each one would like blow up with more views.

So, I mean, and that's not something that I'm going to be able to do when I'm on stage, you know.

On stage, I got my

front pose, my side poses, my back pose.

There's no fucking, there's no good lighting.

Most of the lighting on these stages are dog shit.

So,

yeah, it's going to expose whatever that I'm lacking in.

That's the fun of the.

For real.

But

if you don't mind me asking,

what were you feeling throughout this entire process, this entire bodybuilding journey?

Because I know there are a lot of ups and downs and a lot of unexpected turns for you.

It's a hard one.

For me, bodybuilding has been

a passion,

a drive,

but also a coping mechanism.

For a long, long period, it was just a coping mechanism, you know, where I sort of

When I look back at it now and I look at like kind of what I went through in terms of a sexual assault,

it doesn't surprise me that I got driven towards bodybuilding because it's like you go through something like that and you question yourself.

You question like your

manhood and all this.

And then

it's not a surprise to me, like looking back on it that I went so hard into bodybuilding because it's like the complete opposite of what I was feeling inside.

So for a long time, it was just like a coping mechanism.

Throughout my sort of progression within bodybuilding, there was years where I had never even spoken about it.

I hadn't dealt with it.

So there was plenty of ups and downs there where I was

massively depressed and then just trying to

put on this facade of like, you know, if I'm not feeling good, at least I'll try and look good and do this.

And that just led to huge ups and downs in terms of, you know, the emotional and mental stress that bodybuilding puts on you and the sort of negatives you feel about yourself sometimes there, especially if you're.

you're not doing particularly well or anything.

So yeah, it served as a huge,

it's weird because I look back and it's like there's negatives and positives within my journey of like what bodybuilding was for me.

Like I hid behind it and didn't really deal with stuff.

But at the same time,

it helped me develop into who I am now.

And I turned it more into something positive as the journey went on.

Do you mind me asking how many years

from the incident until you first started opening up and speaking about it?

seven I think seven yeah seven

yeah it's a long time listen it's you know when something you go through something like that it's

you don't really like you don't know how to deal with it and it's it's it's not

like it's still gonna be hard today but you think back when it happened when I was 20 you know I'm 36 now so 16 years ago it was a different world back then it was something where

you were embarrassed about it you felt weak about it um

so i i just tried to bottle it all up then until eventually it did just you know shit just hit the fan for me when it all came out you know um

and i'm glad it did because it helped me just develop into the person

today but you know

it's

yeah there's there's a lot of bad decisions made over those times as well and

it kind of

I think I missed a large portion of living in that period of time as well, because I was just always not fully there, always a little bit numb to everything.

Yeah.

I know this is kind of a hard topic to discuss.

And if you don't feel comfortable,

I'll, of course, you know,

like, listen, I've got to a point now where I'm like, it's just something that happened.

It's not, it doesn't define me.

I'm not that person.

You know, it's

at the end of the day, it's like, I've got to look at it like this.

I'm living the life I am now, but, you know, that's part of it that's got me to here.

So I don't look at it as a huge negative thing anymore like I may have done, you know, not so long ago.

Right.

Well,

I have, I've recently been going to therapy because this is just something that I've always wanted to do.

And I...

I have had very close friends that have all been proponents of therapy.

And I just, I don't know why, but maybe because my life was going well at the time, especially compared to when I was a kid, maybe I just thought, hmm, I don't need it, you know, like, why spend the extra money when I'm doing okay?

And I have friends that I can discuss and talk things with.

But I'm realizing now that, like, no matter how strong you become,

life doesn't necessarily change.

And sometimes you're surprised.

Sometimes it surprises you, you know?

And I'm realizing

I think I'm always going to have the ability to maybe continuously address things that maybe have made me feel uncomfortable when I was younger or things that

might

be triggers for certain ways I may act now.

And so I'm just like, you know, this is a really good time because I'm in this transition where

it's kind of hard and weird for me to talk about like this.

But like in the past, you know,

when you're young, you have way different values.

And when I was younger, I was just like this massive,

I was just this massive fuckboy that was like an only child and like

left, left home at like the age of 15.

And then

I was like looked down upon as a kid because I was like I was really overweight and Asian in this predominantly white place in the early 2000s in Texas.

I was kind of racist.

So I would just be like probably looking for validation and trying to,

I don't know,

talk to girls or something, some dumb shit like that.

But now I'm in a place where

everything feels different.

The things that stimulate me feel different.

The things that make me feel fulfilled feel different.

And I

really just think a lot of the time about having a family and setting up up everything that I'm doing right now in order to build that family that I want to have and I want to create.

So

when I think deep and dark thoughts, it almost scares me more now than it did when I was a kid.

Because when I was a kid, if I had just disappeared from the world,

I would

then just feel bad about it.

Versus now, I feel like

there is

people and potentially more people in my future that may depend on me.

Absolutely.

So

I remember you in one podcast discussing

some things about a previous experience of yours in

attempting to commit suicide.

So I was hoping to ask you a little bit about that, about that story and what happened.

So I think

I managed to go so many years without confronting this because i stuck to myself um my wife was like the first person i ever told i love her um i was as like like what you said like i just moved

between

person to person you know i put on a very good front of being like a social butterfly if you want to say and you know very came across very confident you know i was

Like I played sport.

I was always very good at sport.

And that was kind of the identity I had.

And it was

put me in sort of groups of popular people and things like that.

So I always managed to be that type of person.

I was under it all, like from the beginning before any of this,

I've never been the most confident person of myself.

I've always been hung up on a lot of things.

But that was always my sort of coping mechanism.

I think one thing obviously was losing sport was one thing.

And then, you know, getting into bodybuilding.

That was my next sort of thing that I could sort of hide behind and use that.

And it wasn't until I sort sort of,

you know, I met my wife and actually started becoming like, that's why it was just what you just said really resonated with me about more people.

I met my wife and things were real then.

And it's like you have, you have someone who's close to you and can see through the shit, you know, and call you up on your bullshit.

It's,

I struggled massively.

We met, I was, I'd moved to London.

gave up so this was like

this was like was this mid-20s when you moved to london yeah I was 24 when I moved to London.

And

you know, I was very lost at that point.

You know, I was, I was, at the time, I was debating moving to New York or moving to London.

Um, and then I met my now wife, and I just opted and left and moved to London.

Um,

I haven't known her that long.

We moved in together one year later, we were engaged.

Everything went very, very good fast for us.

Um, wow,

and we have a massive, like a really good connection, you know, it's like she's my best friend.

But she could see everything.

She could see through that stuff.

And slowly she could see the cracks appearing in me and

my sort of facade breaking down in terms of what I was putting up and the walls were coming down.

And London was difficult for me because I gave up sort of a comfortable life in Ireland.

All of a sudden, I'm now in a real relationship where, you know, I have to be making money and stuff.

I can't be just, you know, just looking after myself.

I struggled there.

And I took jobs as like, I was, I was a debt collector there.

And then I got back into online coaching.

And then we about it just after we got married, we moved to Dubai.

And then moving this far away from like your comfort zone, it just

brought everything to the surface more.

You know, it just made it more like amplified.

And I just really struggled here within myself, feeling like a man, feeling like I wasn't providing and then feeling weak again.

And it just brought back all of those

emotions of not being what a man should be, you know, or what a man should be, you know.

And

one night we had like an argument, and I just, I just felt like I wasn't

worthy, like she'd be better off without me.

And I just decided I'd be better off that way.

Attempt to take my life.

Luckily, you know, my wife found me.

Sorry.

She found me, called some friends of ours to come help because you know, that's her thing is

it's illegal in Dubai or was at least then.

So if you notified the authorities of someone who tried to kill themselves, they'd be put in prison.

Wow.

Yeah, so crazy.

It was a very difficult time, but luckily we had some

close friends here, like you really helped us out through that period.

And we weren't particularly well off at that time.

We came to Dubai out no money.

So it was a struggle.

I made some friends who just looked out for us, helped us.

And it was still a journey from there for me in terms of getting the help that I needed.

I went to some therapy.

But for me, it just, I wasn't,

I wasn't ready to be

helped at that point.

So it took me a number of,

I would say,

probably,

went through a period after that where

I went on to medication.

So I was on medication that kind of helped me for depression.

And

I was better for want of a better word, you know, for a while.

And

when I

kind of jumped the gun, you know, I got some therapy for a while, thought everything was okay, got things on track.

And then I stopped doing therapy and didn't really, didn't really deal with all of my issues.

I think what's hard for some people to understand is, you know, you go through what I went through in terms of a sexual assault.

That's one thing.

There's a whole load of other stuff that you need to untangle that comes from keeping that hidden for seven years.

You know, how you developed as a person, how you cope, how you communicate.

And I needed some work on that, which I wasn't aware of at the time.

It wasn't, like I touched on it a while ago about the Olympia qualification.

It was after the Olympia qualification later that year that i kind of had a another sort of relapse of massive depression um

and i was going through that that the sort of

i finally was able in a place where i think i was able to to accept and actually try to to work through and fully um work through it and understand it to get to a place where it was like like i said a while ago that it's it's just something i went through it's not it's not me it's not part of me it's not what defines me, it's just, it's just something.

The stuff is always still so

It's like I want to, but it's at the same time, it's so weird how it's also so difficult to talk about sometimes.

I always think like I'm totally cool with it.

And that's like, I'll say something or think something in my head and I'm like, brings back an emotion, even though I'm not being that way.

It brings that emotion back to the surface.

It's a very strange feeling.

Right.

Even if it's been like a whole decade.

Yeah.

Now, this might be a little bit...

I actually don't know.

I feel like this affects everyone so drastically differently, but this is something I really would love to talk about because I don't think many people really discuss this very much.

And I really wish that

people, someone had talked about this when I was younger, but

I'm wondering, like, during your bodybuilding,

during your bodybuilding journey,

well, first, if you don't mind me asking,

Do you remember around when or what year that you ended up

taking PEDs for the first first time or

giving up the naticard first time when i was

24

24 okay

do you at all ever feel like

either

trt or peds

has ever affected your mental health in a negative or positive way

I think I'd be naive to say, no, they haven't.

I think absolutely they have.

To To what extent it's hard to say because you always say, no, I'm grinding, you always think you're fine.

But like, I've been, I look back and I'd be naive to say no, that they didn't have a negative effect on this.

I'm not saying they were the issue, the issue was myself, and they just brought things, made things more,

what's the word I'm looking for,

developed.

Yeah.

Because

I think in in my, it's, it's a weird conversation to have because I've had moments in time where I would be running certain compounds or even more applicable, I'd be in a serious prep and, you know, coming down on like the last five weeks or so.

My calories are getting low.

I eat a lot of food, so I'm fucking starving to death.

My energy is really low.

So anyone who wants to talk to me in public, it's like,

I'm so irritated.

I'm just so irritated because I'm so hungry and tired that I don't even want to, to, like, I just don't have the energy to give them the time of day.

It doesn't even feel good.

Like, I don't even have any emotions to give.

And then on top of that,

I had PEDs.

And the thing is, like, the hunger,

I remember when I was natural and I was, there was, there was some really bad shit that I was going through when I was a kid trying to lose weight.

And I would just starve myself.

At one point, I lost like 40 pounds in the course of like two months when I first started losing weight at 12 years old.

But I remember those experiences where when I was starving myself, when I was low in energy and not eating food, I was just the worst person to be around.

So I know that that's me.

If I'm in a prep in the last five weeks, I know that's me.

Now, whenever the PEDs are added in, it's a little bit hard to determine the difference, but I feel like most PEDs I've used have not really exacerbated the problem to a degree very much, unless

I have some kind of hormonal imbalance, such as like estrogen is very suppressed or estrogen is too

high.

And that's where I notice it's exacerbated at a large degree.

So, and I think the examples I can think of are like the last three weeks of prep, we're coming up close on peak week and stuff.

Here, estrogen gets really low, and then potentially, if one does react more to certain compounds like halotestin or something, that makes them a little bit more aggressive.

It can cause some issues, and then have that compounded with maybe a lack of sleep.

But

that's always been weird because I've noticed that because of this type of situation, I've had to keep a closer eye on my hormones and what I'm on.

And it's also made me, it's also made it easier for me to relate to females and now my partner, whenever she's experiencing some varying symptoms of PMS, which seem to differ on a month-to-month basis.

Like sometimes it's fucking terrible and sometimes it's okay.

Right.

And it's like, you don't know why, but it's the same shit is happening.

The same time in our cycle is happening, but it's just fucking worse sometimes.

So I guess it comes down to like, is that coupled with whatever emotional and mental stress is going on in your life at the time?

It's going to

have an effect with it, you know?

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

So I guess I, I just found it like a valuable experience to have.

But everyone does react differently, but I think it's just such an important thing to be aware of.

If anyone is going into bodybuilding and jumping on PEDs, is like, I think one of the reasons why this bodybuilding sport is so difficult is like

you have all these other things that are added on top of just dieting and training and getting to a really lean body fat percentage that are exacerbating things.

For me, I think one thing I've become very self-aware.

Dealing with depression,

it's not something that goes away, you know, it's it's something that you kind of

like when you when someone asks like, oh, how did you get over depression?

It's like, and only you get over it, you just learn to understand what your coping mechanism or like what your triggers are and then your coping mechanisms for it.

So I recognize in periods of like

high stress or stuff like that where I start seeing myself go within myself and I just have a little reset to myself.

So I become very aware of being able to see when I'm getting like that.

And I can see it when I'm in prep.

Like I,

like when we talk about the back end of prep, I don't become aggressive or anything like that.

I just go within myself, like really quiet.

And I could be that.

And then I know to make a conscious effort to be like, you know, make sure every morning and speak good morning to my wife.

I love you.

How are you?

Yeah.

Please sir.

Like if I don't, I could go a day without speaking.

So it's, that's one thing that's sort of carried over until I've noticed over the last sort of

three years or so that I've become a lot more self-aware and being able to recognize and see things within myself and sort of reset and correct the path that I'm now a lot more like stable for someone to speak.

Right, right.

I agree.

This entire process, this entire journey of mine has propelled myself forward and becoming way more self-aware than I ever was

in an immense fashion where I'm like almost intrigued and interested in like just hearing,

I don't know, I just, I listen to so much like psychology and like philosophy now it's just fucking fun to hear honestly um

like uh you know Scott Galloway no

um I know that you've talked a lot about manhood in in the past and you should look up Scott Galloway he talks about um the modern day age male and a lot of young males these days and the the shit that they have to face and how there's this ever increasing um there's this ever increasing just the space between

how

many younger males nowadays are becoming less and less motivated less and driven are achieving less are making less money staying in their mom's basements etc things like this and then women are excelling in places so you're starting to find

have this gap where women that are younger and younger are looking for men that are older and older

and the age in which they're looking for these older men to have as mates is just growing.

So that's leaving a lot of young men to also

be left without options.

So he just discusses a lot of these things, which are really freaking awesome, honestly.

And I love the way that he does.

But

yeah, anyways, tangent.

But

on the other side of it, though, I've always felt like ever since I also did

start changing my journey and uh giving away my nanny card and then also learning about how to deal with it myself i found that

taking that road has made my life so much better too and um i think having this uh testosterone on the support of having testosterone has honestly been surprisingly

more impactful in a positive way on how I act as a man than it has ever before.

Like,

I consistently feel the exciting, the excitement of achieving things and working towards goals.

It's a lot more comfortable to do so.

In fact, it feels fun to do so, you know.

And also, in being aware of my hormones and my state.

And, you know, for example, if I'm coming off and even just going on like a health phase on TRT, or if I'm just on a stable, like high testosterone level, I still feel stable regardless either time.

But I

am

a lot more

like the normal symptoms you would expect with one with a higher level of testosterone or a higher level of masculinity are things that are very comfortable for me.

And it makes life fun, honestly, including the dynamic between me and my partner.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I can see that.

I can see that.

It definitely, I would say

that's one thing that I kind of look back on.

I look back on my early years with sort of PED use as well, going through like when I was still in the sort of younger years on, but maybe from 24 to sort of

27, 28, you know, it wasn't the most educated space.

You know, it was before I had really got into the higher education of it.

I didn't really understand it.

And I look back and I kind of can.

I go, would it have made much of it?

Would it have made a difference for me if I was

doing things the right way rather than a hell of a lot of wrong ways

to what my led to my like development and during that period of you know my

mental and emotional state you know there was definitely things done a lot of things done wrong and there would have been huge ups and downs within my within my ormos okay cool I really relate to that um

yeah I think that's why uh the education these days the the way more prevalent education in the subject these days is just so important now for for anyone especially anyone that hasn't taken PDs PDs before that knows they will be.

Because you and I, I think, have gone to a place where when we started, everything was experimental and by ourselves.

We didn't have any information to give us, you know.

And my dumbass just fucking took whatever I was given to.

So that was extra bad.

Yeah.

I'm an extreme personality that I'm like all in.

So I'm like, yeah, more is better.

And that was me.

I joke about this with some of my clients.

I don't try to get over the point.

And I'm like, listen, I have done absolutely everything the wrong way.

You name it, I've done it.

And trust me when I tell you, you don't want to do it this way.

And I'll tell them straight up, like some of my experiences, some of the things I've done.

I'm like, yeah, don't do that.

Wait, do you mind if I do you mind if I ask what are the top experiences that come to mind?

DNP usage.

Okay.

That's probably the worst of them.

What happened with DNP?

So I have a real funny story.

I was using that for a couple of weeks.

It was around the period I started dating with my wife.

Oh, so this was like 24 also-ish?

Yeah, 24, maybe early 25.

We've been speaking for a long time.

She was living in London.

Our first sort of period of dating was I was still living in Ireland.

She was living in London.

I flew over.

She flew over here.

And she was flown over to Ireland for a weekend.

And we went to stay away somewhere.

And I was on DMP, and I was

I just remember being uncontrollably hot and sweating.

I lay

it was like a cabin kind of resort with like a room, like our own sort of private room, and there was like a decking and stuff.

And there was like woods and stuff outside.

And I lay out on the decking with rain just like for about an hour, just under the rain to cool down.

Like, I look back at that period and I'm like, I'm book working that I didn't kill myself.

That's fucking hilarious, dude.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

Yeah,

I would not be able to do DNP not one bit because I already have like this raging hot temperature.

I don't know why.

Like, dude, it's kind of ridiculous.

Like,

my partner needs it to be warm.

And I need it to be like fucking freezing cold.

That last night I set the temperature.

Like, I woke up in the middle of the night and I'm like, I'm literally just on like tests and primo at if I've talked about it before, 600 test, 500 primo, which for being a classic pro, I think is, I don't know, I don't, I don't think is crazy or anything.

I don't feel like I should be, I just have always been like hot, especially when I'm bulking, especially when I'm eating a lot of calories.

Like the thermogenesis in me is just high that I had to set the temperature to like 58, 57 degrees last night

because I was just too hot.

As well, I need to get on as cold as possible.

Right.

It's fucking nuts to me.

Someone that's like, if we ever go, like, when we ever go back visit Ireland, you know, you've been there, it's cold.

I'll wear shorts and a t-shirt, maybe a hoodie, and I'm happy.

Whereas my wife's like, she's like four or five layers and, you know, freezing her ass.

I'm like, this is lovely.

That's hilarious.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Well, it's good to know that

you guys are doing well and living together.

So now I know that I think I'll probably be okay.

You just strategically have blankets and stuff around on the couches.

I'm like, yeah, you can put a blanket on.

I can't.

You can put a blanket blanket over you if you're cold.

I can't get

colder.

So

just for the audience to get other better ideas, are there any other crazy stories that you would recommend people against?

I've just run stupid dosages and stuff like that.

And

I think

off the top of my head,

over a gram of test with

echo poise pretty high as well

and trend at about six, seven hundred milligram a week, stuff like this.

I've done all that sort of stupid shit and

for many years.

It's funny.

I look back and I'm like,

I don't even use probably a third of what I had done in life and that, you know, I think it's funny.

I think the longer you do this, the more, the let, the least,

the less you want to use.

I've heard, like, you're younger, you're like, oh, I want, I want more, more, more, more, more.

The older, you're like, please, just as little as possible.

Yeah, bro.

no i get that um i have this like raging fear of just ever using trend and like i know like if i have my coach prescribe me trend for this next show i'm definitely gonna ask him to do at least some some dosage below 100 milligrams per week listen i find like kind of just like does it check through you

a lot of clients and a lot of my clients last very much some of my very successful clients We've used just like 75 milligram a week and it does the job.

I'm pretty sure I saw your DM too that I think it was addressing my

I think you had a we had a previous DM on Instagram where I think we're talking about that trend dose too

right like 75 to 100 milligrams yeah

I don't like listen I don't I don't tend to go over the 100 milligram with a lot of guys there I don't think I have done at all in the last year

right because like I mean in the end like if you want to have that like there's so many other compounds that help you with the dry the dry full look you know you can add windstrol helotes and all these other compounds and then I mean if you just want to use trend for the the anti-catabolic effect, right?

And the thing is, when you look at decreasing cortisol, when you look at it and you look at like the huge benefits of trend, like, oh, yes, obviously anti-catabolic, but you look at it from a

cortisol management perspective, which is highly beneficial at the back end of PrEP.

There's only a certain amount of that that you can tolerate where it's going to bring that where until it's going to be like you go over a certain threshold where it's actually going to work on the opposite way, where it's affecting affecting mood that is actually going to drive cortisol up.

So you're, you use too much of it and you're losing out on a huge benefit of why you're using it in the first place.

You use somewhere between like 75 and 100 milligrams, you're getting all the benefits from it in terms of adding bringing in cortisol with people.

Yeah.

And I'm so glad you say that because I think people tend to, I don't, I wouldn't say people tend to be ignorant.

And I think a lot of the people that listen to this podcast are very, very

conscious of the things they do and their use.

Everyone that listens to the podcast seems to be pretty, pretty fucking smart, which is cool.

But

I think that it's very easy for a lot of people to be just unaware of some of these feelings.

Because honestly, I myself have not even realized how I felt when I

jumped on a compound.

Like, I almost wasn't even aware or conscious of the difference that it put in my mental state, in my sleep, in my emotions, until I've already had experience with it for like maybe even years or a long period of time.

And it's like, and that's the same thing with like, say, even Adderall or like caffeine or like just any of these substances.

I've noticed that like

now at the age I am at after using these, some of these substances for five years, maybe 10 years or whatever,

I can feel like a 50 milligram or 100 milligram dose of caffeine.

I can feel like

the lowest, like

I was prescribed 20 milligrams of Adderall and all through college, all through high school.

I stopped taking it, but um, whenever I do take it, I break it into a, an eighth of the pill,

which is what, like 2.5 milligrams or something?

Or is that, is that the correct math?

Yeah, like an eighth of the pill, bro.

And I feel it, which is crazy to me.

And it's like, it's very small.

That goes back to what we talked about earlier, where we talked about what Both said, like about becoming more self-aware.

I think the more self-aware you come, like

you're able to see these things within yourself.

We're typically,

especially in our younger days, we're just living in the moment.

We're not really conscious of like our surroundings or like our actions so much.

We're just there.

Whereas I think, you know, you sort of go through some stuff, whatever you learn and you develop.

you get a bit older you become more self-aware of your actions and your thoughts and your processes right you can really then see these little effects that are taking place it makes me wonder if this is like us becoming more aware because we're becoming more experienced with these substances or if it's just a side effect of getting older where you just feel everything more.

Definitely.

Yeah.

I think both just getting it for me,

I think in the last couple of years, especially, I've matured and grown up a lot.

And that's allowed me anyway to develop this awareness.

Another thing I really liked about what you discussed is Fuid and I had this discussion on our podcast where he stated that he found himself a sweet spot for his dosages.

And this is a dosage for an open pro bodybuilder, which, you know, we know is

which we know like, you know, a general range that is high.

And he stated that at one point he was just jumping up every year, 250, 250, 250, because I want more, I want more.

Like maybe this is why I'm not doing as well until he reached this place where he was like, this is, I don't know if this is the correct number exactly, but I think it was something around the level like two and a half grams of test.

And he just felt like a shit water bag, basically.

He's just like his training, his training efficiency was going downhill.

He didn't feel good in his own body.

It just, it was just working against him.

And then he worked back down and landed for himself as a pro-open bodybuilder at 1.25

grams of test.

So he stayed at half the dose that he ended up climbing up to.

So I find this always super interesting because I think

most people that are very experienced in the bodybuilding community understand there is a sweet spot, right?

At some point for almost any drug, you know, the side effects start hurting you and it starts becoming less beneficial than it was to take it in the first place.

Whereas

I think many

perspectives outside of the bodybuilding community or that are new to the bodybuilding community have just heard the same comment that is posted on all TikTok's reels

that

all bodybuilders

like the bodybuilding competition is drugs a drug competition and who wins is taking the most drugs or

is lying about their doses and i just like my purpose one of my purposes in life is just to tell people like

this is hurting people.

This knowledge is hurting people.

It sort of flows nicely into this.

I have like a, like, something that's really applicable to this is a client of mine I worked with this year.

Um,

someone I've known, I've known him a long time, I believe.

He was a junior bodybuilder in the UK when I was with, I was with BSN at the time.

I met him at Body Power.

This is years ago, still when I lived in the UK, he was only a junior bodybuilder.

And I hadn't seen him for years.

I bumped into him at the Arnold UK last year where i was over there for my client and i bumped into him and i was like hey how you doing and he was like oh it's been going really well like he was but for me he was like oh it was awesome to see the arnold i was like how are you doing he he nearly broke down to me because he was like i'm not good his health was in a really bad place he had got like um

he said he hadn't been feeling great he had been on cycle for a long time really high dosages went for blood work because he hadn't been feeling great Blood work came back terrible.

And then he went for like some heart scans and stuff.

He had like,

all of a sudden I had, I think it was like 23 or 27% function.

And as one of his

left bench goal, I think it was one, but it's basically his heart function

shot.

And they're like, you're never going to bodybuild again.

So

I just spoke to one time.

I was like, listen, okay,

it's not the end.

You know, there's ways of managing this.

Like, you mightn't be able to do competitive bodybuilding, but we can certainly get you back on a healthy path.

So I went and like got him to send me over anything.

I was like, listen, when I get back to Dubai in a few days, send me over everything.

So he sent me over all his stuff, what he was doing.

And he wasn't a client of mine at the time.

I was just helping him because I'd known him and he was this seems distraught.

So I was, I gave him some advice on sort of protocols to do in terms of his health, his food, like cardiovascular training, like hip cardio and stuff to help and some peptides, just supplementation.

I followed like protocol to do.

And he kept in touch with me for about, we did this for about eight weeks, got some blood work back, everything was improving.

And at this point, he was like, oh, I want to

start working with you and I want to compete.

I was like, okay, but we have to manage this.

And we did everything on TRTs, like he was on 1705 milligram of test.

So he had lined up a,

at the time he wasn't sure.

He thought

he was going to be doing classic.

And he was.

I think my weight limit is 92 for classic.

And I was like, okay.

And the regrail show he wanted to do was

it was like eight weeks 10 weeks away

and from his weight I was like okay what we're going to do we're going to go into this regional I'm not going to drive your weight down too aggressively we'll go into the regional and just do heavy weights to get your sort of qualification so you can then go and do a pro qualifier which is a couple of weeks later and we'll get a weight down to 92 but we need to make sure that that's your weight cap so we dieted down and he went to that show and it was 95.4 kilo or something just in the mid 95s

um but he checked his height and he was like, got back to me.

He's like, oh, turns out my weight limit is 88 for classic.

And I was like,

that's not going to be possible.

You know, it's going to be more detrimental.

There's no way you're making that weight limit.

So we had six weeks until the Austria Pro qualifier.

I was like, we're going to do the heavyweights.

So it was like, at this point, I was like, we've no need to be dieting as hard as we need to do.

If you've been there, we need to make you fill out, make you look good.

So he was on 175 milligram of test at this point as well.

I put in, I was like, we'd got blood work back, we'd got heart scans back, his heart function came back to like 75 in mid-70s.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so he was in a really good place.

It's still something that needs to be managed, and we're still late to look after.

But

we put in 200, 200 milligram of Masturon.

So he was on 175 tests, 200 milligram masturbat.

That's where we ran into that show.

He stepped on stage five weeks later at like mid-98 kilos, won the old role, and won it broke heart.

whoa

fuck yeah dude like so to give like some younger viewers a perspective of like obviously this is an extreme case where we were using minimal and trek dude won the overall and and in bodybuilding as a heavyweight and

so it just the perspective of like you know what's really necessary and what maybe isn't necessary yeah That's fucking so sick, dude.

I've actually heard that a lot,

surprisingly, like from all my conversations with people on podcast and out of podcasts i've been surprised to hear a lot of times where you know the the original i feel like the more common philosophy or the more common like thing that you hear coaches doing is they'll run less in the offseason and then they'll run this crazy stack for prep

And it does give you this fucking nutty look, right?

But in my opinion, not every show in every division requires that nutty look.

And I think sometimes, especially in some divisions, like

that can actually kind of hurt some people's physiques, like people that tend to just come up more full, they just tend to be more full.

It's harder for them to get like dry and striated, like say like Urse or something or C-bum.

Well, C-bum sucks down, so I don't know how true that is, but like Earth, for example.

And I've heard, and I think Samson is another good example of this, right?

Like he now, when when he won his Olympia,

I'm not sure.

I mean, if you know this, then you can correct me if I'm wrong, but he

didn't really carve up.

He kind of just starved himself, continuously kept eating lower calories into the show, and then also ran

around half his doses.

That's even, I think you said this year again, it's half again this year.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like, it's fucking nutty because,

I mean, in reality, like he's already built all this real mature muscle mass.

I think that for him,

I probably need to sort of preface what I said about my client.

Like I said, I've known him since he was a junior bodybuilder.

He's been training years and years and years.

He has well-developed muscle already.

He's an experienced, like he's still young, but

he has been training a long time.

I think he's been training longer than I have.

So it's not like he was a newbie going into his first ever show.

You know, so he did have a solid foundation of muscle.

It wasn't like we built a ton of muscle on 300 crunches a year.

It was a lot of muscle, but it was like he, that was all that was needed for him to do what he needed to do.

Yeah.

And I really like that a lot.

I think one of the reasons why I love this talk is because

I was so excited to run the craziest prep cycle of my life when I finally did my first pro show.

And it was a cool experience.

I looked freaky and everyone was like wondering what I was on and shit.

But when I went on stage, like it was awesome.

But I felt like

when I looked at older pictures, I almost felt like my lines could have been deeper.

And then when I came off all the compounds a week after my show, my legs shrunk quite a bit, but all my lines got way, way, way deeper.

And I was like, holy shit, like it's easier for me to come in looking more conditioned on a little bit less of compounds.

Yeah.

Or maybe running them up less into the show.

There's going to be like the higher you use, you got to remember there's a certain amount of inflammation that's going to come with a sort of an inflammatory response to, you know, if you're pinning a lot, you're using a lot, there is an inflammatory response that's going to come, you know,

things worthwhile.

So these, these, like, you're only going to learn this stuff as you do it and understand.

Like, like you just said, you did this show, you're like, oh, maybe my lies were as deep.

And you can see after I was, well, now you go with your next show and maybe tweak things a little bit different.

Like, it's all a learning curve.

There's no

set path for any one division.

We have sort of rough guidelines and like, you know, how things should work in a perfect world.

But as we know, every individual is going to react slightly differently.

And it's, it's through the process, you're going to learn and experience things.

And you can tweak for yourself.

We all know.

I've been the same.

I still to this day, I'm like, that's why I'm like

still trying to figure out how I can peak perfectly for myself and get lost and be truly happy with the physique I put on stage, which I'm not to this date.

Like, even though I've won shows, I still, I look on everyone and I'm like, no,

it wasn't right.

You know, the bits I like from one show and then another, there's like fullness from one show, condiche from another.

I still haven't put it together perfectly in my opinion yet.

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I wanted to ask you a lot about like training, nutrition, and some other like bodybuilding philosophies of yours but uh

your i think your background and everything else kind of interested me i think the podcast so much podcast with john probably uh covered a lot of my training views of

anyway

slightly dumbed down

um

yeah that was a good podcast i swear though like whenever i talk about dude i feel like talking about bodybuilding if i just literally just talked about the science of bodybuilding i could sit here for like 10 hours because to be honest honest, I feel like I only talked about 10% of what I wanted to with John alone.

Yeah,

that man is just like

he talks sometimes and he goes, some of it just goes way over my head because he goes off in tandems, but it's just

amazing to just

honestly, that's what's what I think for one of the greatest thing, like the biggest draw was for me as a coach.

Yes, I've been a successful coach before J3 and I've, you know, I've had Olympian athletes and stuff, but the biggest draw for me to go to

J3 was the ability to learn off John La Loop.

They're two of the like really great minds in this industry, just in different ways.

And it's, it's, like I said, I'm someone who likes to dive in and just learn as much as I possibly can.

And to have be able to learn from those two is just unbelievable.

And like since working with them, I've leveled up to like

a completely different level as a coach in terms of my understanding of

training, nutrition, disparate aspects, like more intricate aspects of different like, you know, details within health management and things like that that are like maybe a bit more obscure and rare cases, but like you, I'm like, I just love those weird, rare things that are,

um,

I find just fascinating and interesting.

Yeah, I agree.

Um,

I, uh, I mean, I have some questions to ask you, but honestly, since we're slowly running out of time, and honestly, everyone kind of, the Q ⁇ A is addressing all these topics anyway.

So I think we can just, we'll just go off the Q ⁇ A and we'll we'll probably go off with some conversations off what people are asking.

Joseph Daniels asks if heart.

Joseph Daniels asks if health markers are good for a blast.

Is there any reason I can't go quickly into another?

Yeah, so

this is always I kind of

want to, you want to be, I want to be careful with like how a word would obviously everything is dependent on your health markers and health and ranges there.

So

this whole thing of like the previous sort of, like, I think you're probably the same coming up in the area where it was, you know, you do 12 weeks on and you take six weeks off, you take eight weeks off or 10 weeks off.

That,

you know, you,

the time off.

and crime on is irrelevant.

What matters is the, is where the health markers are and the labs are.

And the reality is, is like, one thing, like dealing with higher level athletes as well and timelines with relative show to show and what their sort of

their sort of show lineup is and the sort of how confined their time.

There's going to be periods where you're looking at like where they're probably on more than they're off in a year.

And you have to be realistic with how long you can stay off.

And it's all managed by

our health labs.

our health markers and looking at labs

in terms of what you're going to do.

So yeah, if you're someone who's been doing an off-season and you're, you're 14 weeks in, you pull your bloods and everything is looking really good, then there's no reason not to continue on another,

I'd probably, I always kind of like to air on the side of caution and run buds another four, four to six weeks later, again, reassess and then check.

But I probably, a tip of the rule of thumb for me is probably no longer deserved 20 to 24 weeks.

Gotcha.

Yeah, this is always something that I find interesting for me because I've been on the side where I almost felt like I should coming off because I was kind of anxious.

But my own coach who understands, like, you know, I shared him my blood work, I shared my doctors my blood work, and they're all like, it looks good.

And I'm always like, oh, I'm surprised.

Obviously, my hope is like, maybe, like, all this ancillary stuff and, you know, risk mitigating protocols that I've been adding over the years has been helping.

But

it like, I almost have this anxiety, like,

can I really like keep lasting?

And so I'm wondering, like, is your, what is your, like,

what do you think about just having

like

just like cruises for the sake of response?

Like, do you think those.

You said something that kind of made me think more on sort of, I talked with this recently.

I think actually

one of my sponsors might have posted today in a reel exactly what I was talking about is I think about everything in a longer picture.

And I look at the sort of macro perspective of it.

I don't like to use the word blast and like a blast.

I like to be like what we're trying to say to my clients is be a bit more conservative with what you're doing that allows you a longer runway to of exposure rather than a higher dose that's going to lead to a lower runway of exposure.

So you're going to be, you're going to benefit more from maybe

let's just pick numbers out of our head here and say like running a gram

where you can run your cycle for 16 weeks get bloods back because they're perfectly fine and go for 20 weeks opposed to if you're someone who's running two grams on certain compounds within that you get blood works done at 12 just 12 weeks or so and you know markers are skewed and you're gonna have to come off so the more but the person who's going to get more productivity out of that obviously the one who's run less and had a longer runway of exposure because it's a longer runway of exposure where you're in a surplus in exposure time and pushing train.

Ultimately, that's going to be the one that's going to yield the better results.

So, that's always been my philosophy: be a little bit more conservative in your use.

It's going to allow you a longer runway of exposure.

Yeah, I completely agree with that.

As I know, like other top coaches and like, you know, like John Jewett also has discussed himself too.

It's like the thing that rings truest with me whenever I think about this process is like bodybuilding is a very long-term game, right?

All these guys who have massive amounts of muscle, you know, Samson, for example, like you don't get there by blasting 10 grams in the course of three years

in fact you can never get there in three years like it literally requires just years of pulling on muscle say that everyone can put on um at max sustainably like 10 pounds a year for example like you're gonna be wanting to make sure that you're doing that in the healthiest way possible if you're still putting on 10 pounds right

But regardless, it's still going to be about 10 pounds.

So it's like, if you want to put on 100 pounds of muscle, then you got to play the game in planning for 10 years.

Yeah.

And that's the thing is to play the game in planning for 10 years.

You know, if you go too aggressively at it, you're not going to make it to 10 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

Are there any ancillaries or

like risk mitigating protocols that you run yourself to manage your blood work markers?

Yeah.

Listen,

I run as a staple.

I run, like, I have a thyroid support in um pretty much year round first up because within you know growth hormone uses brain turns out so i use

uh tamosardin and metformin hubian for me sort of year round um constantly monitoring blood work relative to what i'm actually using like i've like really broke good time to ask actually because i've been sick on and off for like the last two months where I've just had this like chest infection.

It's come back today that I had

influenza that's led to like a pneumonia um and that's why i've had this chest problem for for so long but for some reason alongside that over the last couple of weeks my blood pressure has shot up and literally got my blood pressure back i was doing came back at 160 over 100 the other day

so that's led to me like introducing upping my thomasartin dose at the moment alongside the medication i'm using clear this up and to bring it down along with introducing some some cardio as well to help us again with it.

Like, I do cardio every day, but I'm like, right, okay, I need to do everything I can right now to correct this as quick as possible.

Right, right.

Uh, what type of cardio do you normally do?

Um, I'm just always somebody who likes to start my day with cardio from a mental health perspective, just

like to get up, get to start off my day with something that's a routine.

Um, obviously, it will change in prep.

Often, in prep, it's taken away initially, but

yeah, but uh comes back in

um

up to quite a high amount usually for me,

yeah, dude.

Prep is so difficult.

I get my cardio in, like, I almost get my cardio in more during prep, but it's always so much more devastating to me.

And I'm just so upset that I have to do it every single time.

It's funny, I love it.

My authority is my head in prep,

yeah, for real.

Um, I've been doing a lot of what John John's been doing, I think, in the last year or so, where like during prep, I'll be doing lower,

uh, lower

BPM steady state cardio.

Uh,

sometimes I go above 130.

Sometimes I even hit 140 just because

I'm being a little,

I don't know, what's the word, like neurotic about trying to get conditioned enough, which is stupid because it's not going to help that much.

But it might actually hurt me.

But yeah, normally I like to keep it lower, like around 120.

And then on my off-season, I've been really enjoying hit cardio because I just feel like I can get a greater benefit for my cardiovascular system with a little bit less time doing cardio, to be honest.

I think as body weight's going up, it's

almost like it's a lot more.

I think it's something that's overcomputable.

Although I think it's coming in now, people are realizing the benefits of doing high-intensity cardio, especially within off-seasons, like even up to just three times per week.

It's going to protect your health a lot more.

It's going to be better than just doing some steady state every day.

It's going to be better just three times a week doing some high-intensity cardio where you're getting your heart rate above that sort of 140 mark, which is actually going to lead to some cardiovascular benefit.

I remember hearing on some podcasts, I think maybe it was like from Peter Attia like three, four years ago about,

and Cuberman too, about how amazing zone 5 is for your long-term health and cardiovascular health.

And I was always wondering, like, why don't I ever hear bodybuilders doing that that often?

And then I heard about some other coaches and bodybuilders like John doing it in their offseason.

And immediately I was like, okay, fuck yeah.

This means that I can do it.

This means I'm good to go.

So the problem is I just need to find a little bit more, like, more battle ropes and more like rowing machines so I can stop fatiguing my legs so much.

That's that's the trade-off is finding

something you can do that's not going to impact in a negative negative way and also something you could do, you enjoy as well.

Yeah.

I know these are a lot more benign in helping, but do you use any smaller supplements and ancillaries like Astralagus or Citrus Bergamot?

Yeah, listen, I've got a full array of everything.

I'm fortunate enough that I get

because there's such a list of like Astralis Bergamot, NAC.

I use absolutely everything, but for me, firstly, I get the

although I don't know how available it is in the US, but the train by JP, like list of covered within Files, Sport, and Love Heart, you pretty much everything covered that I take.

On top of those two, I take in the

secondary

and

high-grade Amiga,

K2D3,

separate NAC,

and then glutathione glutathione as well, every day.

Oh, glutathione, bro.

I love that shit.

I've injectable form from Transcend, and I inject it on every um rest day, and it's weird, dude.

After I inject it, I actually like feel this like it.

I almost feel like my insides are cleaned out a little bit.

It's like this flush of like, I don't know, it's weird.

And I swear to God, it's not psychological because I've been taking it for years now.

It's fucking awesome.

Well, actually, I mean, I know that those don't really correlate, but I still swear to to God, it's not psychological.

I also feel like adding in the injectable glutathione and also a lot of these protocols are a reason why I have, I'm like not gotten sick in five years now, I believe, since like right before COVID.

I tested positive for COVID early in COVID at one point, but I had absolutely zero symptoms or sickness.

So I just stayed in, but I was completely fine.

And I was still working out at home, like doing push-ups and shit.

So I don't know, It's weird, but I really feel like I owe it a lot to like these risk-mitigating protocols and using gluten-based.

I think it definitely helped for sure.

I don't, I know I'm sick, the sickness had, I have a lot of respiratory issues.

I had asthma as a kid, so I'm very, oh, same.

So I'm very susceptible to these sort of things.

So, and it's actually, I think it's all stemmed from, I actually

got COVID

when I just started fairly to the Arnold UK.

That time, I came back and had COVID.

And they told me what it developed into was like long COVID.

and I developed like respiratory issues with it.

So I was about 12, about three months where my breathing was impacted and I was on an inhaler.

But then this time around when I got this, it sort of brought it back up.

I just hope to the doctor this other day and he was saying that, you know, when you're susceptible with and you already have a weak respiratory use, when you catch something like this, it's going to develop further into what they've given like a mild pneumonia,

sinusitis and

influenza as well as they told me I had.

So, but other than that, I very rarely get like sick bugs or anything like that.

Wow, awesome.

Well,

this is kind of a general question, but Micah asks: how to calculate macros for your body weight if you're cutting or bulking?

I guess you, if you're inexperienced, you've not done

any form of diet before, best bet is just go and go off one of the calorie calculators and and uh

assess how you you move from that and then adjust that up or down based on it on how your response is and right

like you can obviously go into more intricate ways of like calculating

um grams of carbs per pound protein i don't like that as far as the basic i go with you know one to 1.2 grams protein per pound of body weight and then the rest just working um Oh, actually going off of that,

for

pro-body, or well, I guess for bodybuilders that are enhanced, do you ever have a different level of protein that you

recommend them?

In terms of

like rather than like say that you had like a natural athlete,

do you happen to have like a different protein intake that you give to enhanced bodybuilders?

I have this, I adopt more of a a mentality of a lower protein intake than maybe a higher protein intake.

So

I think maximum is like maybe 1.3, 1.4 grams of protein per pound.

Yeah.

I might go a little bit higher in dieting phases.

Like in an off-sea phase, I want to be able to push carbohydrates, especially with like male bodybuilders, bigger bodybuilders.

I want to be able to use, you're going to have to push carbohydrates quite a bit.

And, you know, calories are going to get high.

We know if protein is too high, it's going to impact on digestion.

When things go rehigh, you're going to lose that ability or a runway of calories.

So

the only real varying things that come into that with assisted athletes is their protein intake might change depending on dieting or gaining.

That sounds pretty in line with the top coaches that I've been talking to as well, which is kind of funny because, I mean, like both Stefan Kinzel and Patrick Tor from the conversations are around the same place, like 1.5, which is funny because I remember Patrick Torre saying on a podcast with Fuad about how he is more of like a low protein guy.

And then he said

his amount of protein he prescribes, and it was 1.5 times your body weight in pounds.

in grams of protein.

And for literally any other normal human, that would be extremely fucking high, you know?

But in the bodybuilding industry, it's not.

Like there's been some crazy protein

context prescribing.

I think I've done even two grams per pound back in the day.

But listen, I think when you eat and you eat, you have to eat, I guess.

You'll probably find the same.

It's like anything for me that's over, like,

even now, probably over sort of 180 grams of meat per meal.

I'm like,

you know, I put

lower.

No, 180 is literally where I like max out to.

Whereas I've done in the past probably 250 per meal.

But I guess the back's probably when I was a little bit smaller and my calories weren't getting as high through carbohydrates as well back then, whereas them, my food gets very, very high and it's quite a lot of work.

Gotcha.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Jose Bappara, the homie, asks, what sets you apart from other coaches in the industry?

I think for

me,

what I like to think is my relatability to my athletes, my experience um like i say to all my athletes is i'm like listen anything you go through

i've been there done that experienced it felt it cried felt joy everything i've been there done that um

and i think a lot like a lot of my athletes who want to achieve high standards certain hold me there have a certain level of respect for me that i've what i've done and achieved um

you know and there's not many coaches i've coached at the level i have whilst still doing it themselves um

So I think a lot of that comes to the table.

And I always kind of let my actions speak.

A lot of my clients will say that as well about me is like, you know,

whatever I expect them to do, they've seen me do.

And I hold them.

So if someone could, I always dispond the offset with anyone who wants to work with me.

I'm like, what are your goals?

Okay.

They tell me their goals.

I'm holding you to that standard.

And I will call you out on your bullshit.

I will also be the person who's there to support you and you could talk to no matter what.

like i'm going to be relatable on that side of things but i will call you out in your shit and i'm going to hold you that standard so if you want if you tell me you want a pro card in classic i'm going to treat you like i treat my pro classic guys

and and because i've been there like i'm not someone who was gifted with genetics i've worked for everything i've achieved so i understand what the work that's needed to put in yeah

i think that is extremely viable um and i a thousand percent agree i think you do have a lot of um experience and stories that i think are very very relatable and honestly the entire first half of our podcast was

a whole lot of mistakes to look and learn from that they don't have to yeah

yeah

um um

oh are you going to be at the arnold classic this year i'm not i'm actually going out to texas

the

i don't know if it would

the end of march into the first two weeks of april so i'd

to travel there for that rather than going to the Arnolds this year.

Damn, okay, gotcha.

I love Texas.

It's like my place to go.

Yeah.

What do you like about Texas?

I just love Dallas.

I think I just loved the

laid-back lifestyle of the people there.

And everyone's so friendly.

I love the bodybuilding community there.

And obviously for me now, having like Luke and John are there as well.

So I want to go out quite for like a for me, a holiday is just going going somewhere and just doing my routine there and then having them there to go and meet, train with, talk to,

and go through stuff is awesome as well.

So we have a lot of friends there now as well.

So

yeah, it's just that's awesome.

Yeah, I miss Texas every now and then.

It's not, I'm not, I don't think I'm ever going to live there again, but honestly,

it was really nice.

And when people, when kids weren't racist to me,

all aside, everything else about it was nice and peaceful, and all the stakes were fucking huge.

So I kind of missed that.

Craig Goliath says, tell him he has some 9k peaks.

Like, Soph.

NF Craig asks, what did you do primarily for lats over the years?

This is funny because my early part of bodybuilding, I had such a shit back.

When I turned pro?

Yeah,

after I turned pro, I was on like a certain like hi if I've been turned pro.

I was my wife.

She said straight away, I think you might have been on a podcast or something.

She just said you, she said, I have a shit back.

So I completely, I took, took my ego away from it.

I've always been quite strong in like pulling movements.

Like the first time I ever even like deadlifted out, but I pulled like 220 or 230 kilo straight away before I'd ever even lifted, like just pulled it, no problem.

I've always been strong at like sort of pulling movements and rows and everything like that.

I'm not necessarily done it right.

And I always associated my early parts of my career just getting strong.

So I moved a lot of weight.

And I think maybe,

God, it must be six, maybe five, six years ago, I just was like, right, I need to just.

learn how to do this again and I dropped all the weight right back and I just I went on a deep deep dive on execution I was probably around the same time I really wanted to learn more about biomechanics and movement you know and went into like do certain courses and lucky enough for

periods a couple of years ago as well I got to train with

the muscle doc for a couple of months and and I learned a hell of a lot from him on like execution what I'm looking to do and

that helped me develop my back a lot.

What would you say are the most important things you learned from him that you still remember?

Form and intention,

understanding what I'm actually trying to achieve from a movement before getting into it.

So it's like, right, why are we doing this movement, right?

I want to focus.

I'm trying to hit my lower lat.

So

think about that before you do the movement.

And it's like actually understanding what portion of your back you're trying to work and having intention to do that rather than just getting in and moving and letting a machine dictate what you're doing.

It's like you did dictate to the machine how you're going to move because we can see with so many of the like back pieces you could train several different part of your backs on one machine um

depending on how you set up and how you move and what you where you let your elbow go so yeah it's having that form and intention

um

and just learning to be more controlled within the movements Yeah, I think that's a good example when you said like you could literally hit so many parts of your back on one machine, which is fucking so true.

You can take a standard, a standard mid-back row and train your entire back pretty much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I was literally having this conversation.

The reason I'm laughing is because I was literally having this conversation in my workout yesterday because

my boy Leo wanted to film a workout and film a podcast.

So we were hitting back and he set the cable up low and I wanted to set up the cable high.

And I'm like,

and I like kind of tested him a little bit.

I'm like, why do you want to set up the cable low?

for

this lat workout we want to do and he tried to explain it and when he was explaining it, I just kept thinking about in my head about how much I was disagreeing with it.

And

he stated basically,

because when he has the cable low,

he brings his elbow in and tucks it in low in this position that engages his lat.

And then I was about to say something.

And then he was like, but honestly, it really doesn't matter where you put the cable.

It just matters where you finish with your elbow.

And then the moment he said that, I was like, okay, cool.

Then we're on the same page.

So, um, I'm pretty certain the show, the first show I did in Texas, he competed in as well.

Oh, no way.

I'm pretty sure.

Oh, no shit.

Oh, that's awesome.

Um, yeah.

So, I don't know, it was, it was just a funny conversation, but yeah, it's like, um,

my friend Nathan, for example, has always had the most trouble engaging his lats and he just can't, has a lot of trouble building it.

But then you look at his physique and he has the most massive biceps and rear delts and just like a thick fucking back, bro.

So it's kind of just funny that

it's, I think part of it is genetic, you know, like some people just have an easier time engaging and having that muscle

connection with certain parts.

But like for him, for example, it's like every time he hits lats, his biceps and his rear delts just take over.

And he has a little bit of trouble just pinching in that elbow and really driving downwards into the lat instead.

Yeah.

So with people like that, I usually try to get them to think like that.

They're

don't think like you're pulling on a machine, think like you've got a rubber band attracted attached to your wrist and try and drag it against it.

So, you're you're put so there's like it's almost like you're imagining there's like that pressure pulling you like this is while you're trying to pull it back because that's going to cue you not to pull like with your elbow first is going to cue you to sort of drag that lat back first and let that leave.

Yeah,

Tife 2 asks, What's the bodybuilding world like in Ireland?

Small.

I think it would be, I don't think I'm in a fair place to comment on it anymore so much, but I haven't lived there for eight years, nine years.

Yeah.

So it's changed a lot.

And, you know, it's something it's cool to see it growing now.

And something I've tried to give back to as well.

You know,

three years ago, I sponsored the Muscle Contest Ireland and I put my money in it to sponsor it.

And I want to do more for it to help it grow because there's so many great bodybuilders there, but there's just a lack of opportunity for progression.

But for me, when I was coming up in it, I found it quite a negative space to be in.

But I think it's certainly improving now.

And it's cool to see a lot of the young guys coming through there.

And there's definitely some really good bodybuilders coming out of Ireland there.

So I'm sure I won't be the...

But I'm not the only.

we had the first Irish

female Olympian qualify this year as well.

So that's awesome to see.

I'm not the only one to do it now.

Still the only male and first ever, but

hopefully I won't be the only male soon.

There'll be a couple more.

Yeah.

Because I keep fucking drinking too much alcohol.

That's why.

It's so fire though there.

That was one of the funnest times I had there.

I would be bodybuilding there, and I met two homies there that were really into bodybuilding as well.

And they were like asking me about Instagram and stuff.

This was way back in the day, you know, so there was not as much prevalence in social media, especially in the bodybuilding industry.

But they were like asking me for tips and shit, and we'd be go lifting, we'd have like the hardest training session, and then afterwards, we'd just get absolutely fucking smashed afterwards.

So many gains made.

Burrick Lifts asks

your current stack or your highest stack?

Oh, we just dropped a little highest.

Yeah, yeah.

Currently, I'm running a 250 test

and

1250, but then Mastron Primo half half.

Oh, whoa.

Holy shit.

How do you feel on that?

So

I recently spoke about this.

Well,

like, this is some anecdotal sort of evidence that's going to apply individual.

You know, we always get asked mast versus primo, and it's like, we're always very much like it's same, same, but it's going to individual response will be different.

I started off this cycle with running mast only at that rate.

It's the first call I've ever run just mast.

So, like, I've always done low test, high DHD for the last couple of years.

Um,

originally starting off with test Primo.

And then last year I did test Primo Mastron.

Obviously with Mastron being a higher milligram per mil, less shot injection.

So this year I was like, okay, I thought let's try just test Mastron.

So I was doing 250 test, 1250 Mastron.

And I felt shit.

I was just feeling really shit, feeling like there was just, I was like, I shouldn't be feeling this way.

Like I'm, I'm big, I'm on a lot of food, I feel really flat, I don't feel like I'm not seeing the look that I usually have.

So, I was like, I'm gonna run blood work, and I ran my blood work, and I was like, but this is, this is weird.

My progesterone were completely tanked, like zero.

My estrogen came back mid-range, like normal.

And I'm someone that every cent of blood work comes back.

My estrogen is high.

I run high estrogen and feel good on it.

That's not really high estrogen, but elevated estrogen.

I feel good on it.

This time it came back.

Wow.

like low like not like low low but low in the middle like normal for you and then prolactin was high and i was like okay anecdotally here the only difference to what i've ever done is i'm running high mastron alone so i've taken out half the mastron and replaced with half primo and things have come back to to normal oh that's awesome bro that's uh yeah that's cool that's really cool anecdotal evidence because i love i know a lot of people have to experiment now with primo versus mastron and people feel different stuff as well and I'm one of the people like you where mastron has weird effects with my

with my e2 or estrogenic symptoms like estrogenic suppressed symptoms

and then also

I'm still not quite understanding of what it does with my progesterone, but when I run mass too high, it does weird things for sure.

But I find that super interesting that you've, I guess you've always been

like a high estrogenic converter whenever you're running these conversations always like i've i've never had blood work come back where my estrogen is estrogen is in range it's always been slightly elevated and that an issue where in my early parts of my career i was always like god is this an issue do i need to take an ai or something and obviously now and like later on i i developed no sides from it i've never had any sides from it i've never felt anything no

touch word nothing from it um and all felt really good on higher estrogen and always had you know, quite a full bubbly look because of it.

And recovery good, everything good, libido good.

And then this time around, when it came back, what most people would consider good, like mine was in the lower engine normal range, I felt shit, libido was shit, mood, oh,

just terrible.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Um, that's really cool because I have a friend, my friend Trevin, who he doesn't really bodybuild now, and he really didn't ever really run that much, but he did run some stuff in the past.

Um, but this kid, like before he even ran anything,

it's like his estrogen is like normally 90.

It's weird.

It's just normally really high above range, but he feels normal on it.

And he always felt normal like that.

Never had gyno either from just having high estrogen.

It's just something, it's just his number is just very high.

And I think

I can't remember if his doctor

prescribed him something in order to help his balance, but

I remember that our conclusion, though, was just that he always felt good with a very, very high level of estrogen.

It's just something that was

the only thing I have to watch with it is occasionally my prolactin will go too high.

And you do start feeling symptoms from that.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Do you mind me asking how much or how often you inject?

A daily.

Every day.

Wow, that's crazy.

That's crazy, man.

Every day and have

That's so, that's so cool because for me, like, I have to run 600 tests, 500 Primo.

Actually, right now, specifically, it's 625 tests, 500 Primo, but I have to run that in order for my estrogen to be within a reasonable range.

If I have my Primo equaling my test or my Mastron equaling my test, I feel like absolute dog shit, which kind of sucks for me.

at the end of prep because I'm still trying to find a balance of where I can get dry enough, but not feel like, like, just

like emotionless, irritable, and like my bones are breaking apart.

So, um, yeah, it's just kind of interesting.

But I also inject every day, so maybe if I like, I don't know, if I staggered my injections a little bit more, then I'm sure my estrogen level would be higher.

Yeah, it's it's

it's it's always so hard to buy zarsania, but because you can only just trial and error those tails, you know,

yeah,

yeah,

damn, that's dope.

Um,

Enzo, Enzo asks, do you have any regrets?

I don't think so.

No, because

I feel like I'm in a really good place now and I'm happy with the life I'm living and like what's what's developing where I am.

And it's all played a part into that.

Like the personality even that I have today is, like I discussed earlier, earlier, is a byproduct of everything I've gone through.

And I'm in the position I'm in and done everything I've done because of everything I've

done in the past, both good and bad.

So no, I don't think her.

That's awesome.

Charlie Diaz asked this question that I ask everyone at the end of every podcast because he thinks he's clever.

But if you were to disappear from the world tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would it be?

Oh, what?

I feel like I should have something hugely deep and meaningful.

I think it would be to live every day like it could be your last experi.

Maybe not live every day.

I'm trying to think how to word it, but it's

let those know around you that you appreciate it and like it could be your last.

Because you never know for either of you when it could be.

So I think it's...

I don't want to live like I think those are the things that anyone says that they regret is not saying something to someone they love.

So, I think if that experience could be taken away, I think it's say what you want to say to the people you love.

I really like that.

Um, and I feel like mine would probably be very, very similar to that too, because uh, I used to hear that, or I used to hear things like that here and there as I was growing up, and I uh I would just be like, okay, well, I'll try, but I never really understood it, I guess.

So, it's not something that I guess I really ingrained or I really did in practice.

I would just hear it and say it.

But then,

probably not until in San Diego, my best friend passed away, like right before my eyes, that

I ever felt the closest to death that I think I've ever been, regardless of whether or not my family members have passed away, they weren't people that I lived with, you know.

And

I think ever since that time,

I don't know, I feel like there was a lot that changed within some of my closest friends and I.

And every day now, it's like the people I love and the people I care about, it's almost hard for me not to

be a little anxious of it all disappearing.

But I find it also a lot easier for me to have gratitude for the day, for each day that I have, and have gratitude for the people that are in my lives

because

of how shit it felt when he

left.

So, um, it will do like that's it's it's we're saying that.

And I'm like, that that resonates quite a lot with me because I think that's why I feel the way I do about it is because

it's hard not to feel like I'm lucky or living on borrowed time, having tried to do what I tried to do in the past, you know?

So every day is like

appreciated a little bit more.

And, you know, going through all those emotions both at that time and then going through afterwards and experiencing and understanding the potential impact that would have had on the people i love and be like like

holy wow that's that's that's big you know and so it makes you feel a little bit differently about those around you and that you just want to make them know that you appreciate and you love them and you know likewise because

you don't want to miss that opportunity or be left with that that feeling of like you always see those those movies or those shows where someone's like

you know a character dies sometimes they're like oh the last thing ever we said was an argument

and i don't ever want to be that person

yeah

yeah never

that's awesome bro thank you for coming on man thank you that was epic this was wicked

really enjoyable to just shoot the and talk

yeah same bro same um where can everybody find you Instagram, I guess, probably the easiest place.

Just my name, Darren Farrell underscore IFBB prop.

And then obviously, if this you can find me through to J3U coaching website as well, what's the dab or anything?

Yeah.

Fuck it, guys.

Epic coach, Darren.

I think if you ever want to find a coach, my personal opinion is find someone that you can relate to and find someone that you're comfortable just talking about your life with and going through things with.

Though I know it can tend to be a lot when

you

have

these huge connections with your clients and you guys deal with life, it's I understand each one is its own relationship, but I think that the fact that you have those relationships with your clients is probably the most powerful thing because that's not something I had with my first coach and it was pretty detrimental for me.

Yeah, it's hugely important.

So, what I was trying to stress to all my clients initially is I'm like, hey, this is just

drop me a once a week check in, you know, I'm here, talk to me, whatever.

You know, I think the relationship is hugely important because the most valuable the information is what you've you tell me and the more open and comfortable you are to tell me things, the more I understand.

And like it's, it's like we're playing charades, you know,

the more you can tell me, the better I can understand, and the better the outcome will be.

Yeah, 100%.

That was awesome, bro.

Thank you for coming on again.

Well, thank you, man.

I appreciate you having me on.

It's been wicked.

Come out here.

We'll look after you.

Oh, that'd be awesome, bro.

That'd be sick.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Pretty sure my girl and I will probably check it out sometime soon.

We've been talking about it for so long.

So appreciate the offering, bro.

Awesome, man.

I'll talk to you soon, dude.

You too, man.

Have a good day.

You too, man.

Later.