2x Olympian Alex Toplyn: Honesty About Taking Too Much

We have Alex Toplin, two-time Olympian, Men's Physique IFBB Pro, host of Men's Physique Radio and owner of Manifest Competitionware.

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

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

Both of these are antithetical to society's understanding of the sport.

And while there will always be some that claim that PEDs are all you need, I would like to deliver an honest message of what is required for achieving top performance, as well as the dangers associated with this route.

I received this comment from a user named Night Scarens.

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

Just the danger between the two sports is different.

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

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

i used to have like a day where i can like really lock in in the morning and just begun like my efficient processes of what i needed to operate my coaching business you know between the hours of like 7 a.m and like two yeah you know but now my day now branches out until five o'clock which is like stuff to cover with butcher company so on and so forth.

Like, so my days are no longer like, I need to focus for six hours of my day, five hours of my day, and I'm good, right to keep what I'm doing now it's like I branched into this business now I have this business coming you know I'm you have a fuck ton of business oh yeah

delegation

that is the shit I suck at delegating that's what I suck at I know bro I know who I delegate to my fucking self too that's the problem there's only so much of yourself that can go around I've learned it the hard way bro that's why yeah

just totally go from that.

Let me see how much of myself I can go around.

I'm just kidding.

I know she listens to it, so I'm just fucking around.

You can move the mic a little bit more to the right.

Perfect.

Yeah, awesome.

I want to make sure the camera sees your pretty face.

Not feeling it?

No, it looks good, but I just never know what to do with that camera because...

I get comments all the time, like,

message to the

camera guy fucking learn how to like focus on the screen i'm like it's an autofocus guys

people are ruthless have you second guessing everything you're doing

and so uh right now i just have it on the center focus so that way it won't keep fluctuating which means it's focused on your nipple oh yeah so all right don't flex during the podcast

um

yeah but um

You're talking about delegating.

So like, do you just not like, because I remember you're stating on that podcast, something along the lines of like, you just use the, you used smoking to help you fall asleep, which I do too.

Yeah.

Well, that was my crutch.

That was a problem.

Like, I would say that, but then I would also do it in the morning.

Okay.

You know, and then I would do it, you know, before my workout, then after my workout.

And then I was like, I still need to eat more and I'm tired.

Now I would fill in the gap with weed to motivate me to do it.

It got to a point where every little decision that I had to make throughout the day had to then be back to smoking.

Okay, I'm going to go to the gym.

I'm going to smoke first.

I'm going to go to the mall.

I'm going to smoke first.

It's just a part of my next move.

And that's where it became a problem.

Okay.

I see.

So what is it now?

It's casual.

So I made a rule for myself.

Okay.

So again, I was a guy who did it every single day, multiple times a day.

I made a rule for myself that I will never buy it.

So before

that's me with the nicotine.

See?

But so therefore, it makes it a like a casual hangout.

It's not me bringing it to the party.

So I'm not going to be like, hey, let's all go smoke.

Yeah.

Knowing I'm not going to put into it.

That's just not who I am.

I see what you're saying.

So if it's like casual, like, hey, I got this after the gym or something with my training partner, boom, you know, small little things like that.

So it's little rules, but I did go on a two-year hiatus.

Like I went completely cold turkey after I competed at the 2022 Olympia.

And that's what kind of led me into that.

So I knew I can do it for at least two years, nothing.

And then I can control it.

That was my thing.

So with that logic now, I guess that means you just never, you also never smoke to go to sleep.

That's true.

So like, because it's not at my house, like I said, I will never buy buy it to have it at my house for casual like day-to-day use i don't really dictate almost when i use it it's when i'm with the right person

you know what i mean so i sounds weird bro but that's like a little rule that i gave to myself that'll then allow me to control it bro it works so much it does it works so much like i just i like i like the dude people can give me but i'm i'm gonna be real i just love the feeling of hitting a vape i feel like it feels great bro it's

you know what i mean it's like it's like i don't know man it's same thing with me eating weed it's like i'm just gonna

like from whatever it is, it's not like the fact of being high.

It's like, right, I am smoking.

And so that's what I had to almost detach myself away from because I made excuses for myself every day.

Every second.

Yeah.

So just like you, like, I like that feeling, but

it's hard for me to basically determine whether or not I would consider myself having an addictive personality or not.

But I can tell you, like, I've been addicted to a lot of things, but I've been able to, with willpower, mostly inspired by probably my boy Dion, who likes to just randomly cut shit off.

He smokes weed crazy, and he'll randomly decide like New Year's, I'm going to stop smoking weed for six months.

And he fucking lasts to six months every time.

It just, he just randomly does that just to like,

just to do something hard.

But it takes me like

something happening for me to realize it.

I think that's the problem too.

It's like the reason why I stopped for that time was because I had the worst trip of my my entire life to the point I said, I never want to be fucking not sober again.

So, like, oh, so that was the problem, right?

So, like, I needed something to happen, and then I was like whole turkey and like, and then I was slowly working it back.

Lucky for most people, their homies will just rip them the biggest bungalow their first time, and then they just have the worst experience ever.

And it's funny because I know there are a lot of people like that who are like, I tried it one time, and it was horrible, right?

That one experience for them no longer.

It's crazy, but um,

I do the same thing that you do now, like with nicotine, for example.

I just never buy it, I never have it, I've never possessed it.

You force it to be casual, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like, if I'm like at an event with a bunch of people or whatever, and I feel like I need a little up, then I'll just ask someone

exactly, right?

So, in a process, it's something

imagine asking some random person,

yeah.

Um, but um,

yeah, I don't know.

I like trying things out, probably why I'm also in this bodybuilding field doing the things that I'm doing.

But I was just about to say that.

I just, I love, I love experiencing things.

Like, I don't like being someone that hasn't experienced the feeling.

I just like having the feeling before I die.

Yeah.

And then I have to end up going through a process of like getting myself detached from it.

I always had this one thing.

I'm not everything, bro.

And

I don't know why I'm saying it even now, but I always had this one thing.

I want to try every drug in the world once rather than outside of like all the crazy shit, but like the ones, like the psychedelic ones, like the one that have you have like a different experience like i've always wanted to try it so that i can then have that experience and so i slowly made my way down the list bro i bet you were going to have people in the audience saying the same but like dude people don't even realize like most people that like do shit like us are like us 100 yeah and that's the thing bro that's why the community is kind of kind of cool because like their extension of us you know like hey i do that too or right but you know no one says shit about it they just say when you're like exactly you gotta get yeah you gotta get talked to one point he's like all right i don't really really give a shit about it.

Here we're just posting it on record for everybody to hear.

That's great.

You talk about it all the time.

That's what you gotta do, man.

Unapologetically, yourself.

Anyways, yeah.

So I've noticed the same things though with me

for you.

That

certain circumstances weed pulls me back.

I agree with Joe Rogan in other circumstances where it's helped me connect with people that I wanted to connect with a lot more deeply.

I agree.

It's helped me increase my empathy to a level that I think I just couldn't really reach before.

Yeah.

And it has helped me sleep.

But just like you two, like I've noticed when I stop smoking weed before sleep, I'm assuming you have experiences too.

I got like better sleep.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just harder to fall asleep.

The latency is.

Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth, man.

So my wedding ring right here is an aura ring.

And I started tracking.

Oh, no shit.

Yeah, yeah.

So I started tracking.

I got an aura ring and I got a.

This is going to sound so good.

Just kidding.

I thought you were going gonna say a mood ring or something no no i got a i got a mood ring it's crazy no i um i got lexia nora ring for their awareness to go with me and shit so oh really yeah yeah see so that's kind of cool that that's a wedding that's what i'm saying so i use this as my wedding ring but i started to be able to track my sleep and i noticed as i came off back in the day i noticed that my sleep is getting significantly better so i don't know man i feel like we just use it as a crutch we justify it with little things where it makes sense to the norm but and then we start finding other opportunities to use it you know that's where the addictive trait comes from, right?

And it transitioned with me into bodybuilding too, you know what I mean?

So, like, I was young doing things that I shouldn't have done because I was addicted to whether it was the placing or I was addicted to, you know, the feeling of the actual compound while I'm in the gym or so on and so forth.

Right.

So, like, I've noticed that I have an addictive trait, but I don't know if it's to the compound, but it's like to the thought of the feeling, I guess, like the feeling of the thought of me being able to sleep better with it, right?

And then the actual thought of, hey, this is getting me to this level, or this is the reason why i'm doing so well so fast and i got addicted to those feelings yeah that's the problem what would you say is um some things related to bodybuilding that were just like this like like uh your experience with weed um

i mean the first thing obviously comes to mind is drug to drug right when it comes to

peds um coming off of like testosterone for me like wasn't a thing you know what i mean so like that honestly it's probably not really a thing for yeah but like what i mean is like coming now.

My norm was like 400.

Okay, gotcha.

So like to me, I

it was just like weed.

I over I had I overdid it.

So like with for me, my TRT was no, no reason it had to be 400.

Right.

So I just, I just had to overdo it a little bit.

You know what I mean?

So I think that's the biggest thing that I had a direct correlation with.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

Going about that TRT thing.

I literally saw your most recent post and I thought that was fucking awesome.

Yeah.

Wait, is that so?

That's four months that you've been off.

yeah four months to this day to this day you're still off yeah i'm still off damn how long are you gonna

how long are you gonna last for dude i honestly don't i don't think i was gonna last this long to be honest

like it was

like withdrawal bro like the first month i was actually not getting smaller yeah and i was looking at myself like i was shrinking like visually i thought i was shrinking you right and now i'm at a point where i'm actually shrinking and i don't give a shit you know so it's weird right it took some time to get to this point but the reason i don't give a shit is because i never expected my health markers to be this good again right i I was in my head, always thought it was gonna be this, right?

So, like, I started to care about

not necessarily the physical side of things, but more the internal, the healthy, right?

My gut has never been this clean and had no inflammation, like things that I'm noticing.

I always feel great, yeah, bro.

I mean, bodybuilding is amazing, but

yeah, the times I feel the worst in my life is lack of sleep and bad digestion.

Yes, I just literally like

want to throw myself off a cliff.

I 100%, like my sleep, you get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

That's your new norm, right?

You're comfortable understanding that my sleep isn't going to be the best.

Like, I've noticed my sleep score literally be comfortable and consistent in the 60s.

And now that I'm off, I'm consistently in the 90s.

So it's been a massive difference.

My energy, my tolerance, you know, my ability to focus on doing businesses.

And yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of different little reasons for that.

But I don't know, it started to all truly happen when I started to come off.

And again, it's weird, bro, because like I was always, and I'm still am, that coach who

wants my clients to at least have a little bit going.

So their, you know, their natural test is likely not there unless they're younger or they're, they've been on for an extended period of time.

I typically like them to stay even at 100 migs, 150 migs, something to keep their baseline.

Right.

For me, bro, I body was so toxic, I just did not want to pin again.

I wanted to see what would happen if I come completely off clean for the first time in my career, bro.

So that's where that's the phase I'm at right now.

Damn, yeah, that's um, I got so many questions right now.

Can you uh tilt your mic a little like just uh smoothly?

Yeah, there we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

um,

all right, so goddamn, dude, I'm trying to figure out where to start because I won't even like actually hear your story, but I know that you were discussing before that uh, you have like this transition in bodybuilding, yeah, which this is uh, I definitely want to hear now, but um

god damn it, okay.

Well, first, um, I guess, yeah, can you just tell us a story of Alex Topland?

I was, I was just going to say, man, like, I had a very fast rise in bodybuilding, you know, what even got you interested in bodybuilding?

I just know I didn't want to play football anymore.

I went to school for football.

Yeah.

And I was like there.

I was like, man, I'm not happy doing this.

I'm not.

And the weird thing is I was like really good at it.

So for me to just not feel happy even with being good at something, I knew that I just wasn't passionate about it.

Right.

So that's when I really started to understand what passion felt like.

Right.

Like, I'm actually passionate about being in the gym.

I would make excuses.

I would find any little way through two days of practices, I would still find a way to go to the gym, right?

So, like, I understood that's what passion looked like and felt like.

So, I started falling in love with that.

And I sort of started my junior year, but by the time my senior year came around, I was just kind of out of

the love of football and more falling in love with the bodybuilding side of things.

That's when I started following all these social media personalities, you know, the bodybuilders, and those worlds kind of collide at the same time.

College.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so it was like 2018.

And I did my first show in 2019.

And I won my very first show.

It was an NPC show.

A couple of weeks later, I went ahead and did summer shredding.

And I actually won the overall there.

So I got a sponsorship, a little bit of money.

So I was like, whoa.

That's when I started to learn about the social media side of things.

It was NPC first, social media side of things with the overall win.

And then I shut it down for that season, had my first offseason.

went into North Americans that year later, won an overall there.

That's where I got my pro card.

So my first three shows were all overalls up until my pro card.

Damn, fuck.

That's crazy.

That was not me.

Yeah.

That's good.

That was my experience with the sport, right?

But also, it was slowly, you know, kind of fueling what was behind the scenes of like

more, more, more, more,

because I want to do better, better, and better.

And again, my dosage just continued to rise.

Right.

And then, you know, I started going into the pro ranks.

And that's kind of like never being off since those days to now being where I am now, where my physique, even though I had that very fast trajectory, you know, going up, going up, I had my, you know, a show a year later, it got my ass kicked, bro.

First ever ass kicking in the sport of bodybuilding.

A show a year later after your turn, bro.

It was my pro debut.

Okay.

I got my ass kicked, dude.

I was like,

it was the DC Pro.

I still go today, but it was like the first year they were doing that there.

And I was like, all right.

I'm going to just pick a smaller show.

Ended up being the biggest show of that year, whatever, right?

But I got my ass kicked.

And I remember that was like the first time I ever had adversity.

And I almost caved on that adversity, bro, because I haven't had it in so long.

I was always good in football.

I had a crazy start to bodybuilding.

Then my first ass kicking, right?

So almost had like a, that's why I went through my binges and stuff because I was like, I don't know what, I didn't know enough about it, but I was also emotional about what just happened.

Got my mind right.

Next year, went into the New York Pro, and that's where everything really started.

I beat Sadiq.

I placed second to Kyron.

And

obviously, Kyron at that time was a, you know, consistent with three times in a row, fourth place finisher at the Olympia.

So I stood next to him and I had some points from the judges.

And I was shocked.

You know, I was like, okay, like, I might be able to do something.

Keep in mind, I'm still young, bro.

It's my second, at that time, it was my second year, you know, as a pro.

So I didn't know much.

I barely knew the athletes I were standing on stage with outside of like the big names.

And then that's when everything started.

Two weeks later, I went to Miami.

Muscle Beast, that's my third pro show at the time, qualified for the Olympia.

Yeah.

How did that feel?

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it was probably one of the best feelings that i've ever had in my life even to this day i've had some other ones too other cool experiences but that validation moment you know it was weird i was walking backstage and everybody was looking at me like holy shit you know that was one of those first shows where i realized like whoa like i'm getting the attention this is before going on stage they they knew who i was and i was like oh my god right and that confidence translated all on stage and that was very clear and you know we took that one home And that's where I have an origin of like the trident, right?

That transitioned later into kind of like the board shorts and stuff like that that I started.

But that show started my bodybuilding career in my head.

You know what I mean?

I'm at the Olympia.

It's go time.

You know, later that year, I went through a lot of like health complications, not necessarily like blood marker wise, but I guess.

body wasn't responding.

This is all happening for the first time like every year before this or every show before.

I'm getting better, better, better.

my body's really fighting hard to get lean which was very uncommon for me how long how long before this did you start gear before this uh started happening i started gear right after my first season okay so like going into

get my pro card but that was like

that was like the first introduction of like testosterone and

then like anabar you know it was like baby stuff and then like going in my pro debut was where like all right we kicked it in the the gear and that's where we really started how many do you know how many months or years have i've been running like

before you noticed that you started not responding and that's the weird part so i yeah so basically what i started gear 2020 yeah 2020 and then i noticed my body stopped responding at the end of 2022 because I was going into the Olympia.

But again, I don't think it was because of the gear necessarily.

Well,

I was taking D-ball instead of Anivar going into the Olympia.

So I had a bad source and I could notice it.

So I dropped 15 pounds of water in peak week.

And then from there,

that's when the dosages just started getting really like significantly higher going into that show.

And that's where I started to notice a downfall because my shows from 2022.

right i placed 14th at the olympia my first year now not bad i'm like i ranked i was i was happy about that every show after that has gotten worse And that's where I started to notice my body really starting to play back against me.

Yeah.

You know, and my dosages were high, bro.

Like,

I would never have somebody run the dosages that I were running.

You know what I mean?

And I didn't know any different.

You know, I was still young and learning.

You know, I wasn't a coach or anything, you know, but

my dosages were a lot higher than now I would ever be comfortable running.

Were you coaching yourself at this time, or was this someone else's idea or was this both Y'all's idea?

No, so

it he's an old school bodybuilding coach mindset.

Like, he's a phenomenal guy, like, probably one of the best guys.

I mean, we got me to this height, you know, now even though it's in the Olympia twice, um, you know, but I think the aggressive nature started taking place when I started turning pro.

Okay.

And my body was getting beat down from it.

Yeah.

And was it whether it was my thyroid because we were dieting extremely hard, you know, zero carbs, stuff like that.

My body just wasn't necessarily responding to it.

And it kind of led me to a lot of like health situations later.

Like my thyroid took so long, bro, to get back to normal because I've been fighting that every single prep since that prep, right?

You know what I mean?

And then my doses just kept getting higher and higher and higher, but my look was getting worse or worse.

You know what I mean?

So that's a softer end.

It's softer, bro.

And that was my thing.

Like, I can see my body fat on the DEXA scan, even though, you know, they're not 100% accurate.

And C was low, but it wouldn't translate to the stage.

You know what I mean?

My pop wasn't existent.

You know, so that kept happening and happening and happening.

And the craziest thing is, I was still able to qualify for the Olympia again.

You know what I mean?

Not having the best looks.

But nonetheless, every time I got to the Olympia,

I got my ass kicked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have so many thoughts right now.

Dude, I feel like

we've covered a little years ago.

How frequently were you competing?

And did you ever take good off seasons?

I could have taken longer off seasons, but I think I took traditional off seasons.

But granted, I was young still.

Right.

Like, so I could have taken a longer off season and actually put on more quality tissue, which would have made me more successful even now.

But I was still having success.

That was the problem.

Right.

So

I, I have my first offseason right before I went pro.

What are traditional offseasons?

To me, I think traditional offseasons is a minimum of two pushes.

Okay.

So that can be, for me, I would like six months.

Okay.

That's to me a traditional off season.

Yeah.

So that can look different for everybody.

You know, obviously, I think some little downtime in between that coming off a little bit or, but regardless, I would think a six-month time span and then you start a prep would be that traditional offseason.

Some people have enough tissue to not need to do that anymore, especially in men's physique.

So they might have a one-push phase every offseason.

It's just different.

But I'm younger.

I think my body needed it.

If I would have had that more, then I would have been good.

But there was a lot of other things happening around that time too, like the businesses starting and, you know, coaching taking those stressors.

So, yeah, so it was almost like I had to work around those schedules too.

You know, I was getting married.

So, you know, I had to plan my prep around that.

And I was in another another country so like

so it was a lot of little things so you know my coach did a great job he did the best job that he could and he also was like dealing with you know me traveling and stuff and even though i consider myself a very high level of executor you know it's still not easy making adjustments while somebody's on the go right so would you consider him um so you said old school like would you consider him more does he have more open clients yes like he would he's an open competitor himself he's an open pro

so it's kind of that mindset yeah you you know which you know it can work for a lot of people but it ended up not working towards the later in my career it got me off the ground fast bro you know what i mean it taught me the traditional mindsets of training hard moving weight you know just those kind of values which i can carry with me now because that's what i love bro i'm hardcore bodybuilding rooted to the ground like that's what i was built on my dad my first coach stuff like that and that taught me a lot of positive traits but it also came with its negatives this is what i this is a topic that i've actually wanted to talk about a lot or I enjoy discussing because I don't feel like it's discussed very often.

Fuad and I kind of had a little debate on this.

You're nodding your head as if like, you know what I'm going to say.

Yeah, I think I'm curious.

I watched that pod.

Because sometimes I'll hear people claim that like everyone's taking the same shit, but then they won't differentiate between divisions, which is a little silly, I think, because the look is so drastically different.

Yeah.

It's not just the length of time that someone's training for.

There's a lot of things that are different, honestly.

I agree.

And I've noticed this, like I've seen this a lot where

someone, and maybe even myself, will be pushing higher doses in certain circumstances.

And they look different.

They look more open bodybuilder.

And these days, I'd say maybe back then when jeremy wendilla was uh repeatedly becoming olympia you could see how he got more and more full and more full and just more fucking v taper exactly but there's certain things about the the physique and men's physique now that are just so drastically different such as i think the level of detail yes um and that's really important that's being awarded too like and i get it right because I think evolution is taking part.

You know what I mean?

Because a word that used to be described to, you know, know, cover a men's physique athlete would be polished.

There's not as many polished guys.

You know, they might be complete, but you can notice the skin texture is a little bit different, right?

They're pushing for that extra deep graininess where they didn't before, which is fine, you know.

But the Ryan Terries of the world are getting rewarded because of that, because not many people can have that detail and separation.

Ali Bilal, a prime example of it, right?

Came out on a scene on out of nowhere during a time where detail and separation and conditioning in general, that grain is being rewarded.

So

I am more of a fan of the structure side of things, right?

If I had to rank them, structure,

I would say conditioning and then muscularity for men's physique.

Okay, I talked to Sandy Williamson, she's a judge, and she actually put conditioning last and muscularity to

conditioning last.

Yes, so again, that's where I think men's physique

was,

right?

Because there were bigger guys before, right?

But there were guys who still got rewarded based off of structure back then.

But I think that the polished look for men's physique is fading away a little bit or not being as rewarded right now.

And I think Aaron Banks is an example of somebody who was more polished, right?

Not as detailed, separated,

but still a very clean look, right?

Still has nice lines, round shoulders, stuff like that.

He does still have a very clean look.

I mean, everyone in the top of men's physique, the look is just fucking clean as hell.

Exactly, man.

Then you look at open, everyone is just full as hell.

And then you look at classic and everyone's just, well, not everyone, but most of the top guys are very, they were very detailed.

They were very like 100% lines, you know, like freaking stridations.

Chris had a

hurricane.

Very strident people.

Urs is a prime example.

His legs, bro, separated to the gills.

His look is very pretty.

But it's also now, you know, pushing deeper into the, I don't know, like you said, the featherings and that stuff being rewarded.

And don't get me wrong, bro.

Like I said, I'm rooted from old school bodybuilding.

I'm a fan of it.

You know what I mean?

But like I said, it's just the evolution that's happening right now.

Right.

I'm sure there are changes to classic, though.

Like, I think it's not easy for me to say what I said about classic, particularly, because that one's a little bit more confusing to me still.

I feel like that look is changing, man.

I feel like different looks get rewarded.

And Mike has a very different look.

Way different.

I think he has a more polished look.

And he was somebody who wasn't known for getting, you know, inside-out peeled conditioning before the Olympia.

You know what I mean?

So, like, he was still getting rewarded.

You know, I think he played six before.

It's like, I don't know.

I think that he's elevating

the division and hopefully pushing it in a way where, you know, those pretty physiques are getting rewarded again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike's a freak, bro.

Mike's a fucking freak, dude.

His shoulder-to-waist ratio doesn't make sense.

It's fucking crazy, bro.

He's such a humble guy, too, man.

Like, when we were first talking and chatting, he was like, always, he was always telling me, bro, I just want your chest.

And I just want you to like, I'm like, what are you talking about?

One of the best in the world.

That's also no.

The fucking the bro, the bro me that.

He makes you feel so good about yourself.

I'm just trying to look like you, bro.

Okay.

But

yeah, so I mean,

people can argue what they argue, but I truly believe that there's some people that have stated like, oh, the difference is like Fuad was stating initially

how you peak.

And most of how you peak is within like your nutrition and peak week, how much you carp up, et cetera.

That is very true.

I think that's the most true.

However, just like John Jewett has stated as well in his, in his whatever information, in his education, there are various ways in competing that you can make yourself more full on stage, including keeping GH in or titrating up doses of certain compounds because you know, the compounds keep you full.

It's just how it is.

And that's the thing, right?

Like, so

that's what wasn't happening to me anymore.

So, like, you know what I mean?

No matter how much and what I was taking, it wasn't keeping me full.

But I think you said it perfectly, there is no one way to skin a cat.

You know what I mean?

I think a way that I love John Ju.

I love his teachings.

I follow a lot of it.

I implement a lot of it.

Even, but even he speaks it.

Like he's peaked himself differently multiple times and like the look multiple times.

Like there's a time he's ready three weeks out, he keeps the food steady, going right into the show, water, everything else.

So the time he'll push his GH higher, he'll throw insulin, you know, even in, you know, during peak week, all of it, right?

There's all, there's different ways, um, you know, to kind of create that homeostasis on the day that it needs to be on stage, you know what I mean?

And that's the thing with me, you know, I've done it so many different ways to try to find the right way, but it always kind of resulted in the same thing because, you know what I mean?

And I kind of reverted back to like, okay,

what's the underlying issue here?

Because it wasn't happening in the past.

Again, you started to see it.

My looks started getting tired.

The judges started to see it.

And I was masking it with like, I'm still making it to the Olympia, though, or I'm still placing top two, three every show, but it wasn't my max potential, right?

That's what the issue was, right?

Dude, it's such a shitty feeling to see when your body's like deteriorating.

Bro, you literally just see a worse look, and you're literally putting in the same effort, if not more.

More, more fucking sucks, dude.

More, and that's the hardest part, bro.

Imagine being back.

Okay, this is the feeling I had waking up at the Olympia.

I woke up, almost said a prayer to myself.

I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna look like.

I looked at the first Olympia or no, the second one, bro.

The most recent, like I said, during during the downfall of it all, that last show, look myself in the mirror and I was like, this isn't it.

And having that feeling on show day, bro, you don't lie to yourself.

You can see it.

You know, I think that's the problem.

And I think that was the hard thing with me.

You know, like it was very hard for me to continuously try to convince myself that I'm where I need to be.

I look good.

I'm just flat fit.

My physique just wasn't coming back to life.

So I had to give that.

a reality check, bro.

I'm 28 years old.

I have the time now.

I'm going against 35-year-olds consistently you know i let me take the time now to take a step back reevaluate my coaching situation reevaluate my health situation you know prioritize my my my wife for a change you know all of these little things that i was kind of putting on the back burner for so long trying to chase something that i was trying to force rather than take the time in order to fix you know yeah i i love that perspective though it is fucking awesome that you made it to olympia twice already with

your um

history.

How many times did you compete?

How many shows?

Oof.

All right.

So in total or just pro?

Pro.

Okay, pro.

These three not pro, right?

Yeah.

It was, yes, three, not pro.

Okay.

Three not pro.

And then I did DC pro.

Then I got my ass kicked.

And then I went to Miami a year later.

I got, oh, I went to New York a year later, got second.

Two weeks later, went to Miami.

I felt like I was out shit, did the Olympia, four pro shows.

Yeah, in that one year.

And then next year, that was my fight to get back to the Olympia, and it wasn't happening.

My body was deteriorating.

I did five shows in that year.

All right.

So that's nine, but each of those like second, second, third, third.

You know, the San Diego show that I did, though, the one you did, I played second.

All right.

And then, so that was five shows, nine total.

And then that fast forward to this year.

So I did

the Optimum Pro was my first show this year, qualified.

And then I went to India two weeks later.

I got second there, and then I did the Olympia.

I said, 9, 10, 11, 12.

12.

Damn, is um,

how far from your weight cap are you?

How far, bro.

So, my weight cap is 239 on stage.

I'm 219.

Fuck.

Yeah, bro.

That's a deplete at 219.

That's what I'm saying.

I shouldn't be there.

You can destroy people.

That's what I'm saying.

Imagine me taking the time on the front and getting healthy, actually running an all-season that I'm responsive to, putting on some quality tissue.

You you know what I mean?

And then having that pop and roundness that I've had in 2022 that set me up for success.

And imagine that.

So that's what I had to convince myself to, man.

Like I was making excuses to step on stage, to step on stage, because I'm still placing second or third or winning a show, but it was like, okay, when does that become enough?

I want to be the best version of myself.

And that's what I wasn't seeing anymore.

I didn't like myself on show days, but I was still high enough because of my genetic potential or like, you know, what it was at that that point, like a great structure, you know, good muscle bellies in certain areas, certain stuff like that, right?

Like, but it just wasn't my potential.

Right.

And that's what I kept telling myself.

It's like, you're doing yourself a disservice if you do enough to skate by, but not enough to maximize who you can be.

And that's what's in my head right now, maximizing who I can be.

What do you feel like personally are the main factors that caused you to stop responding?

How do you want to?

Never coming off

the uncomfortable high dosages that I was running.

And then also, I think the added stress of my structure changing.

I am somebody, like I said, who executes every single meal.

I do what I got to do, but I'm also on the go a lot, right?

I'm prioritizing a lot of other things that, and this is during a prep, right?

So, yes, I feel like I can still execute, but it's different, right?

Like,

was I doing it with the intent that needed to be done?

You know, um, why was I combining two meals consistently, you know, instead of having my meals separate?

I don't know, man.

It's just little things that kept adding up.

You know, I got married in Greece, you know, so like little things that kept popping up that, you know, didn't allow me to have that consistent focus that I had in the years

past, you know?

So I have to honestly put that in there too, but I don't think that was the number one thing.

But the dosages are very high,

consistently high.

And then I never really came off, man.

Never give my body a a break.

I think, bro, okay, so I really love that you're talking about this because it's really cool to hear like actual live empirical data

here

say this.

I feel like I would agree with all of those things.

Like hypothetically, if I was in this situation, that's what I would feel too.

And I think the third reason,

the stress,

I think it'd be, I think it could be even more of a factor than we think it is.

After all my podcasts with some really amazing, smart people,

including both Austin Stout and John Druitt, I just feel like total allostatic load, which is including all three of those factors, your dose, the time that you're on it, and then all the other stressors that are added to your body are all things that just don't give you the best look.

It just, it just doesn't.

It will never beat cortisol.

Yeah.

Like, I'm sorry.

Like,

cortisol is something that can really deteriorate a look in, whether it's in peak week, whether it's in your offseason, right?

So that's something that I've also noticed because, like I said, I was juggling a lot and I didn't know how to manage it at all.

I call it, I did not master my schedule because if I don't do that, I'm going to be sporadic, which is going to then force that consistent weight on my shoulders while I also have to juggle, you know, my

time with my wife, my social life, my businesses, my content.

you know, all of those things that are also on my plate, bro.

So I kind of dove all in, you know, and I had to like kind of figure it out as I went.

But I think while trying to continue to figure out, I think the answer was so clear to me, instead of trying to force this, take a step back in order to take multiple steps forward.

Yeah.

And I think that's what I needed for me, my mental and my body, you know, and I didn't need to continue to justify it with almosts, you know.

Yeah.

And I think this is the perfect reason to

why

One, being a good coach is really difficult.

And two, I think a majority of normies, the people that are listening to this podcast, I believe most of these people understand this already, but the majority of normies are people that will like come across a reel or a TikTok that discusses bodybuilding or

discusses PEDs to some extent.

They'll just believe that all bodybuilders are taking like three grams, four grams, or they should be.

And if they're not saying that they are, they're liars.

Where obviously, like you and I have experienced, if you do push yourself to that extent, sometimes it just actually hurts your look and you have to pull back.

Yeah, bro.

There really is a sweet spot for everybody.

And I was going to say, you said it perfect.

It's different for everybody.

And division, I think, too.

I think the sweet spot's different for the division.

Yeah, I think there's a big separation between open bodybuilding

and men's physique.

And I think I kind of blended the lines pretty evenly with, you know, being an open bodybuilder and pushing.

you know, that emphasis.

And as my knowing my body wasn't responding, it was like we were trying to offset and compensate for it.

And then here we are.

It's something I've been trying to think about a lot, too, because I've been feeling very worried and anxious.

And I think it's probably only going to hurt me in the ass because I'm being anxious about it.

But

I feel like I should take some kind of health phase by now already.

Have you done?

I did do a health phase before my last.

What's health phase though?

So health phase for me would just be dropping to like 150 tests, like a TRT or a cruise.

150 is what I've prescribed by

send I think that's fine um yeah I would feel like and hope that that's fine yeah um like I think I don't think I don't believe that

150 tests is driving up inflammation no I'm I'm a coach bro like 150 tests can create optimization too like to be real here it's not like I'm coming off because I came off for a little bit like my off so how many five six months from since the Olympia or whatever it is like I came off for like three four weeks three weeks, and I just, even though I was down to it was a 150 at the time, I just, I don't know, man, I still felt toxic.

Uh, granted, it was still obviously not that long ago since I was running, but I just made a decision to come off for the first time in my life.

Like, I don't know what drove me to make it, but I felt so toxic.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

I felt like you mean, you just feel it, you're just like, I just feel like I'm gonna respond better.

That's what I'm saying.

I want, I wanted, I wanted to do it to the extreme.

I took the extreme so much in one way that I almost wanted to take the extreme in the opposite way, you know what I mean?

Yeah, and see if it's going to help.

I want to have a kid.

Bro, it's 100% going to help.

Exactly.

And that's what I'm saying.

I'm so confident in this decision that it was just became such an easy one.

This is no more of me not investing.

This is, you know, investing in me.

Like making this decision is investing in the future version of me as a bodybuilder.

You know what I mean?

Just because I'm not as big as I used to be and I'm starting to shrivel up a little bit, as I like to call it, you know, I know that I can justify it in my head now because this is the investment where I'm going to be on stage and where I want to be.

Because I truly believe in my heart, bro, I can be the best in the world.

You know, that's not something I just sit here and say, like, I truly believe it.

But in order for me to get to that spot, you know, I need to maximize my potential.

I need to start closing the 20-plus-pound weight gap that I have.

You know, and I can't be scared to take a phase like this that is going to propel me into being able to then continue to progress.

Um,

Terrence Ruffin also.

Yeah, I don't know if

you heard him say this, but

he got his hair transplant, right?

And normally for the hair transplants, I think most of them require like a month off.

I think his was two weeks off.

I don't know if he did it by decision or what,

but obviously he came off cycle before the hair transplant.

Took the two weeks off, I believe it's two, and then came back.

And I'm trying to remember the exact numbers.

He was over 200 and then I believe he dropped down maybe like 12 pounds or so.

And then the moment he came back,

he blew up with like 30 plus pounds and reached 212, like 212 pounds that he's never been at ever before.

And it was just like like that right after he came back.

Again, that's not for most.

Like obviously he's a genetic elite, but like

that

can even be a small little factor of his body needed a little bit of a break.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know, man, I've learned a lot from Terrence, you know, he's a big reason why I'm actually not competing this year, likely.

You know, it's almost uncomfortable saying that, but I'm still getting used to it because

I have trained with him, I've just spoken with him, I reach out to him for advice, and he's the same thing, bro.

Like, he says, he said something to me that's forever going to stick with me.

No one's going to care how long it took you to get to the mountaintop when you're at the top of the mountain, you know.

So, for me, I felt like I had to keep doing it to stay relevant.

You know what I mean?

But it was until I saw Terrence actually take that step back in order to now take those multiple steps forward.

You know, it gave me the comfort and overall confidence that, hey, why not me?

Like, why not me take time, you know, in a way that I think is best and conducive to my success and my health and then take a shot at it, you know?

Yeah, it's really hard to separate out yourself from like the dopamine rush of.

of social media and consistently posting and a plus plus, especially like if you're getting the attention of earning an IFBB pro card or going to the Olympia,

it's fucking hard to just disappear.

My account was still growing, and I have the podcast.

I have, you know, my men's physique content.

I have all these things that, you know, is being fueled by my success on stage and my relevancy.

I think that's the thing.

Like a lot of people get nervous that they're not going to be relevant anymore.

And, bro,

I had to turn that shit off.

You know, I had to, you know, I'd do it for my current self and what's what myself is going to be.

The real ones will be there.

And I can even say from experience, when you do come back and you look crazy, then exactly

exactly oh yeah i um he did the right thing you know what i mean um i i just feel like i want to talk something personal right now because i want to get it out there but i do put all my trust in him i

um i haven't discussed this much

if not at all publicly but i i have a new coach that i've been working with since my last show um and i love kyle kyle is my favorite coach I've ever worked with so far.

He's a great coach.

But the current coach I just wanted to work with because I've always wanted to work with him for a long time.

Spill the beans.

I kind of said it on Fuad's podcast, but I'm working with...

Okay, first I got to say this though.

I just,

he has a different methodology.

And I think I partly,

I just wanted to try something different.

I've always come off after a show.

I've always taken breaks.

You blasted right after.

Yes.

Yeah.

I like that method, to be honest with you.

If you're healthy.

The rebound method.

Yeah,

Yeah, so I got my blood work done and then I sent it to him and the doctor and him said I'm good basically.

So like

I have my I posted a podcast with Dr.

Vina talking about my blood work so people can check it out if they're interested.

But essentially the blood work was very surprisingly good for coming off big prep.

Yep.

So we just like kept going and I think I gained a lot of weight right after.

I think the rebound actually worked pretty damn well.

But I can't can't stop helping that one feeling.

And I don't know if it's actually me being feeling toxic inside or if it's psychological that like, damn, like I really feel like I should just come off now though.

Your body will tell you, bro, not just your mind.

Like your body will start to tell you, like for me, bro, as my hair started thinning,

I started really breaking out.

Like I've never had the best skin, but I'm talking like in ways that I didn't even feel comfortable going outside or being on camera.

And that's very untraditional for me.

So I started to see things manifest on me while also coinciding with the feeling of like the bad sleep, the sweats, right?

Like, just not feeling comfortable, you know what I mean?

So, I started feeling that on my outer shell, too.

So, like,

if your body, and also, blood work, let's be real, bro, it's going to give you a good indication of

how things are progressing internally.

A lot of times, what's happening on the inside will start to show it soon enough on the outside, right?

But

I think that the feeling of toxicity is a gut thing too.

Like, if you feel like you've been on too long, like, you might have been on too long.

You know what I mean?

He, well,

that makes me feel a little bit better because I'm not in that place yet, I guess,

physically, but he did.

We are going to have a health phase before I start prep.

Yeah.

Which I'm strangely really looking forward to.

It's going to help your responsiveness.

You know what I mean?

I feel like it will too.

And that's probably a good idea for prep.

100%.

But

receptors are a real thing.

Like, they can be overworked.

they can be you know fried after a while you know what i mean so kind of giving those receptors a it's like your metabolism it's like eating 5 000 calories for you know three months straight you know you start feeling like fuck in your your body you know and then you can bring your food down there down regulate your metabolism again all right like so stuff like that works i look at it the same way just regarding the people that might in the audience that might be thinking um when you're stating about receptors and and how they respond some people have like a little confusing of an argument with the whole like

the upregulation of receptors when you take more androgens.

It doesn't work in the way where like it means that you're more sensitive to gear.

Yes.

That's not how it works.

Not at all.

It just means that like as you grow more muscle, you gain more receptors.

Yes.

You can use more gear.

It doesn't mean that you become more sensitive to the same dose.

Exactly.

Just like Kurt explains, I like his definitions.

I like his wording better because it's easier to understand, but he just calls it like a homeostasis.

I love it because like I couldn't find my homeostasis, bro.

You know, my body was always out of whack.

And it was because of how much I was taking when I was taking it.

And I don't know, man, I think I did things a lot of times the wrong way in order to do things then the right way.

You know what I mean?

So that's what I've learned.

And the way that I practice my things that I do with my clients are a lot of the negative experiences that I have with myself.

You know what I mean?

Do you mind if I ask if you reveal what the blood brick was like?

Um, I don't remember specific numbers, but the biggest thing that I realized, and this is like another reality check, um, my fertility was non-existent, you know, my LSHT, like non-existent, FSH, non-existent.

Um, and then I, that led me to get an actual true fertility check.

Um, my obviously testosterone through the roof.

Um, the biggest thing is my lipid panel was screwed up, you know what I mean?

So, um, my cholesterol, crazy high.

Thyroid, like 0, 0.0.

Like it was awful.

And it kind of made sense, bro.

Like, I was doing two hours of cardio.

Bro, having crushed thyroid too just feels terrible.

Bro, and that's how I was fucking.

I was having T3 for breakfast every single day.

You know what I mean?

To try to just keep something happening.

I had to take so much T3.

Like at some points, I got into like 75.

T3 just to get my levels into one, into the one range.

Damn.

You know, that bad, bro.

Holy Holy shit.

I was on zero card for a very long time, a lot of cardio.

And again,

we had to force it to happen, you know?

Yeah, we had to force my body to respond.

Right.

And then by the time the show was over, whatever, my, everything was in the shit, right?

So, like, now my thyroid, after four months, you know, is actually back in a good range, you know, which I'm happy about.

It's um, it's a three out of four.

I want to get a little bit higher, but yeah, it's pretty good.

Yeah, so it'll, it'll get there.

Um, my cholesterol, my, um, my lipid panel my metabolic panel um the only thing i haven't come back yet is my fsh not like high everything else i'm healthy bro so when i saw that that was such a motivation for me yeah you know i mean i get my stool analysis done to check my gut no inflammation my h pylori is gone like i had all of these things bro going on in my body that i can look back and see it and now i'm starting to see my hair thickening again you know and things just start to happen again as i'm feeling healthy so i can only imagine my receptors probably a bad word to call it, my homeostasis state is primed.

You know, I'm ready sooner than later to actually being able to put on some quality.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I feel good right now.

So I just don't want to rush it.

That's just hard.

I don't have a date yet.

I think that's a great way to put it too.

What I don't know if this came directly from Fuad and his channel, but he and his podcast

has, it's a kind of a recent podcast where they say blood work, good blood work builds muscle.

Yeah.

It's like a really cool way of saying it, honestly.

I never heard of it that way, but that's a really good way to look at it.

which makes all the sense, you know, like the healthier you are, of course, the easier you're the more efficient your machine's going to run.

But, you know, when you're doing bodybuilding, it's so contradicting because everything you put in your body just slowly makes it worse and worse and worse.

Yeah.

So I think it's just like wearing down a car, adding mileage, you know.

I was not getting maintenance.

That was the thing.

You know, I wasn't maintenancing my body.

You know, damn, we're fucking poetic here.

I had a Corvette and I was running it into the ground and I was trying to become a Lamborghini overnight.

and

I'm allowed to know shit.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, man.

Okay.

Well, that's cool to hear.

Is there,

were there any supplements, medications, ancillaries that you were running to try to offset?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had arimidex, I had Novidex.

You know, I was even getting to a point I was almost taking electrozole.

What else did I do?

My biggest thing is my T3 and T4.

Okay.

Yeah.

What about like ancillary supplements for blood work?

Oh, so like, yeah, I took like the whole Revive setups.

Okay.

So like, I'm never forget, I just bought the bundle.

I was like, just take,

but my cholesterol was shit, so I had to take a lot of fish oils.

Like, so I was trying to, I was overcompensating.

What fish oils were you taking all of them?

And a serving is two.

Yeah.

And I was taking 12.

12 pills.

12.

I forget how much it was.

Servings or pills?

12.

I've taken 12 pills.

12 pills.

Yeah.

So that's basically.

So that either six or 12 grams of fish oil, whichever one.

I'd actually learned that from Ian Valier.

Yeah.

Well, to be honest, I've learned about the fish oil thing, that many grams from so many different bodybuilders.

Everyone, every bodybuilder I know takes more than six.

Bro, I take six grams.

Yeah, it doesn't makes to me, I don't know, like

it's very hard to overdo, you know, omega breast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's like, for real.

I mean, to be honest, dude, I got it.

Like, I'm like, I think I'm like you where I'm like really excited about getting my health on track and like keeping it in a good place.

That like, I just don't, this is going to sound weird, but

I love steak.

I love the taste of steak.

I used to go to like Doe's in Arkansas back when I lived there with my parents.

I literally got three pound steaks from Does Right.

I did twice a day.

Three pounds.

Anywhere.

But

now I literally don't even eat any meats, but red meats or anything?

No, I don't eat red meat.

These are your collection.

I have a tiny bit of chicken, but I eat a lot of salmon.

Yeah.

I just, just like whey protein, salmon,

maybe sometimes a little bit of grilled chicken, but most of it is just salmon.

I don't know, something about it makes me feel good.

It's probably a lot of fun.

I was going to say, a lot of it is probably like placebo.

Yeah, it probably is placebo.

I'm just like, I'm going to be more fish all on this shit.

Bro, it's funny, though, because, you know, you're talking about that, and I'm about to sit here and say, I had this, this, and that.

You know, this is the first time I've ever had flexibility in my life, bro.

What I mean, ever, I've had the same breakfast.

I've had like the same everything for damn near five, six years.

You know, I'm like a nonstop since the day I started about it.

It was like my everyday thing.

That's just who I was.

Old school minded, always had to eat the meals on time, like, you know, always that stuff.

This is like the first time, like this new year, where if I'm traveling, I'm not bringing my meals.

And that's never like me, bro.

If, you know, I just shot a campaign stuff for my board sugar company, same thing.

Like, I'm not bringing my meals.

I'm going to enjoy it.

If my wife wants to go out to eat, I'm going to take her out to eat.

You know, I'm going to have my meals throughout.

But if there's a situation, I'm going to have it.

And I've never had that in my career.

Yeah.

Ever.

And that's a small practice I do with my clients every once in a while where it's like they get a diet break, you know, and one of those days I want you to not track.

And then the rest of those days, just macros, enjoy yourself, right?

Time off destruction plan if that's what they're doing.

Right.

So I try to work that flexibility in, knowing that there aren't, you know, those Nick Walkers out there where they can be that robotic for years and years and years on end without having that repercussion kind of come back.

And I know him, and I know he still has that flexibility when it's warranted.

But even still, you know, like I want to make sure that I'm having that.

So, just as much if I'm physically feeling good, mentally, I'm giving myself that opportunity to take that step back, too.

I love that.

Yeah, I think Nick Walker is going to be in a good place too because I just had a podcast with Jesus.

Too many omega-3s.

Too many omega-3s.

Holy shit.

I just had a podcast with Kyle and Jared.

So whenever they came together, they did individual podcasts and then they came together and did one both of them.

Which was really fun because,

you know, like 90% of the time, we just talked about their coaching with Nick.

Yeah.

And from my experience with both of them, especially Kyle, too.

Like, I just know how he works.

And

he wanted to implement the health phase for me right after my show as well.

That's why I respect the hell out of him.

I'm from Jersey, right?

So I've known Kyle for a very long time.

He was like one of those coaches, you know, in that area that I was was from.

And

one, I've seen him grow so much over the years of coaching.

You know, obviously he's coaching big names, putting them on stage looking pretty damn well.

But he's one of those coaches who I respect the hell out of because he actually does prioritize the health too with it.

You know what I mean?

I speak to him pretty consistently now,

but even still, like seeing the way that he goes about it, seeing his teaching, seeing the ways that he preaches, there's not many coaches that do that now.

You know, they might say they do it like health days,

you know, but they don't do things that to what i would think is necessarily the the healthiest of ways even with a health phase yeah there's some savagery out there for sure yeah to me a health phase isn't four or five hundred you know what i mean like and i see that pretty commonly that is a very open bodybuilder yeah philosophy it's like come off everything but keep your test very high right you know to me it's like uh

like Even if you're an open bodybuilder, like, I get it to a degree, but like, come on, like 250 come down give your body a little bit of a break that muscle isn't going anywhere you've been that big you've been 300 you know what i mean yeah so i don't know yeah i wanted to get my body as responsive as possible so i was so comfortable with this so many many times so many times from so many different experts have we heard that it's just that much it's just so much easier to maintain your muscle yeah and all these people that literally like maybe even retired will notice that they like they keep so much of it even if they're completely off you know i did a recent physique update I'm like, what the fuck?

Yeah, I was like, hold on.

That's TRT plus for sure.

I think he said like, what?

It was like 10, 20 milligrams of antibiotics or something.

He actually had like a plus in there or something.

That's

open bodybuilding.

I might be wrong.

I might be wrong.

I don't know.

But to me,

If you truly want to be, bodybuilding is a short duration.

Like if you look at it compared to, but you can extend that with being smart and being patient.

And I think us bodybuilders lack the patient side of things, especially when we feel success.

You know what I mean?

So I don't know, man.

I think I just wanted to do and have my career different because I'm young enough to make a decision now to kind of shift the trajectory of it, you know?

And

I don't know.

I think I'm learning from a lot of other people too.

That's the cool part.

So how long is this phase going to be?

When do you

that's the thing I don't know?

So

I am hiring a new coach.

I'm still working by myself right now.

But this,

like I said, it almost feels uncomfortable saying this.

I don't even know if I want to compete this year yet, you know, and I haven't not competed for the last six years.

So for me to say that, it's like, like I said, it's almost like, I don't know, feel the lying to myself a little bit.

Knowing how far away from the weight gap you are and how much potential you are, bro, I agree with you when we were talking about Terrence.

Yeah, I think.

I think taking this year off.

I would imagine that too.

Like, you know, I think, like I said, a lot of people get nervous about losing relevancy.

And I think, you know,

I'm one of those people where I'm not relying on my sponsorship obligations.

And honestly, my sponsorship obligations have nothing to do with bodybuilding, you know?

So check, like, I don't feel like I have to do that, you know, and I have a lot of other businesses that are, you know,

doing well that I can focus on.

So I don't know.

I think a lot of people don't have that.

They all they have is bodybuilding and the need to stay consistent.

And like I said, relevant in bodybuilding.

So with me understanding that and kind of like convincing myself that, because like I said, old school bodybuilding mindset,

I became comfortable with it.

I become comfortable with the way that I'm like looking, you know, like even though I'm not the big round and, you know, separated as I was,

I know that I'm going to be more later because of what I'm doing now.

Right, right.

Yeah.

That's like, what, 20 pounds off your weight cap?

Yeah.

Just grace.

So like, and that's the thing.

They're not telling me to have to grow a lot.

You know, they just say I need that pop back.

You know what I mean?

And my body looks tired.

So like, I have a great structure.

I throw 20 pounds on your physique.

That's what I'm saying.

That's exciting for me.

You know, there's a lot of bodybuilders right now because of the way cap, they are not bodybuilders anymore.

They're maintaining.

You know, they're not building anything.

They're just simply maintaining and trying to fine-tune.

I can grow.

I can take the fucking time off right now to then be on stage.

They're not going to touch me.

You know what I mean?

Because if I'm standing next to them now or on the same stage as them now and you know holding my own imagine what i'm going to do when i'm actually maximizing right right you know what i mean right i i feel like our coaches would definitely just say like have patience and take this offseason yeah man seriously and

don't lack patience in bodybuilding otherwise you can truly suffer on the back end um stefan and uh

patrick tour yeah great guy telling me about how uh

they both said that like if you if you go too hard if you grow too fast obviously this includes both blasting and food.

You just start to blur lines or you can start

changing certain shapes of your physique.

Ironically, Ben Kopolski, he told me they think everybody's body, and again, that's a general term, but has five years of when you're running all this gear, that then you're going to start feeling like you're running it, like your body's going to feel like it.

And he told me that.

And by the way when he told me that, it was like my second year into running it.

So I wasn't really thinking much about it.

Like, I still have years.

I'm on that back half now.

So like, that's what I'm like, that's what I draw back to.

Holy shit.

Like, holy shit.

He was right.

Like, he was right.

Five years.

Five years.

He said, you got like a five-year window where like you can kind of be stupid in bodybuilding.

And then you're going to start noticing the effects of being stupid.

Oh, shit.

Yep.

And now I'm starting to feel the effects of being stupid.

So I don't know, man.

That's always stuck with me.

It was like my first year moving to Tampa in MI40.

I always looked up to him and I heard those words and I was like, Ben, come on the podcast, bro.

Get over here.

If you guys are watching and you want Ben to be on the podcast, because I really want him to, because I look up to him.

Fucking Ben was supposed to have a palm with me yesterday.

And he said his fucking Wi-Fi quit working literally five minutes before it's supposed to start.

So now we're supposed to reschedule and he hasn't responded yet.

So a fellow MIT

is begging you to get on this podcast and continue to preach the value that you've even given me.

Probably doesn't even remember me giving me that, but it stuck with me, bro.

I just love all the stuff he talks about with health too.

Just like, these are all things that I'm going to want to go into when I stop

bodybuilding.

You know what I mean?

You know the funny thing about Ben?

He was so big during his runs going into the Arnolds and all those crazy shows.

He had to buy, you know, MI40 was a private gym.

Like nobody other than him could train there for a long time.

Bro, he had to buy two leg press or two leg

extensions and put them right next to each other, a left and a right, just so he can fit his legs in there.

No way.

So it's still there, the same one

in the corner.

It's so funny.

That's fucking sick.

I i mean i know he wanted to have like the biggest legs and bodybuilding

his calves oh my god

he was that guy walking around the gym and everyone's like walking like holy shit like so that was so cool that was cool man and he used to have that old school bodybuilding mindset and he would train people there every once in a while like the bigger names the nick walkers when he came into town stuff like that and it was so cool man so cool If you feel like any of the medications that we spoke about today may benefit you, such as BPC 157, GH acreagogues such as tessamorellin, IGF-1, Oxandrolon charche, semaglutide, then you can obtain these from Transcendent HRT and the link for that will be in the bio.

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Dorian's high-ass wants to go to IHOP.

No way.

He's booking right now, right?

Yeah.

You're Dorian's coach too, right?

Yeah.

Still?

Oh, yeah.

That's...

Yeah, guys, this is how I first met or I first heard of you as through Dorian.

He was saying that you were his coach and everything i coached a lot of influencers you you coached uh christian gooseman too didn't you yeah yeah that was cool um that's one of my closest friends who you know came to my wedding in greece that's awesome yeah so i've coached a lot of like ryan dangler nathan fringe he's like runner um a lot of people yeah what good you what got what good you what made you what got you started in coaching um honestly

It's hard to answer that question.

I wanted to be a full-time bodybuilder, but I realized to be a full-time bodybuilder, you can't be a full-time bodybuilder, right?

You got to do something that kind of has an extension of bodybuilding.

So I love the X's and O's behind how my body was responding or not responding.

So it's clear, bro.

Yeah.

So I started to really pay attention to myself.

So then again, it made it very easier when I was hanging out with my boys and we're talking about situations that I kind of like had the direction or answer to it.

Like that was me.

You know what I mean?

So I became like the nerd of the group of being able to

explain or emphasize one thing.

And then I was like, hmm, you know, let me, I want to try it.

And so I coached my first guys for free.

I just put like a post on Instagram, bro.

Got 10 people who signed up right away.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah.

So I was like, okay.

And it was all for one show.

That's like a weird thing.

I was like, I'm having 10 guys for a summer treading show.

I wanted to coach people into summer treading.

So 10 people in one show.

It's fucking nuts.

Yeah.

So I was like, all right, let's do it.

It was like.

just probably a little over zealous, but I'll coach them in.

I think it was like $100.

Like there's something like one time, $100 for the whole 16 weeks.

So I was like, okay, cool.

I feel like I can do this.

So I did it, bro.

And I got who won the overall.

Every one of my guys plays first call outs.

Oh, no shit.

Yeah.

So, like, and this was like a time of summer shirt, it was huge.

Like, but regardless, it was such a like, holy shit, moment for me that I almost felt more proud of, you know,

from that than when I actually fucking did that.

Holy shit.

So I kept doubled down on it.

You know, the first big guy who gave me an opportunity, I guess you could say, who kind of like then grew from there was Ryan Dengler,

coached him into an overall.

That kind of went, you know, wild.

Christian loved Ryan's prep and how he looked.

So I coached Christian into his next show and won that one.

I don't know.

So like a lot of cool things started happening around like

that.

Like my first experience was a win, you know, as a coach.

So I was like, oh my God.

So I don't know, I kept running with it.

I think most people on this podcast, I love saying that because they do, but would also understand this feeling because I think we all kind of just enjoy the feeling of just like learning about bodybuilding, the thing that we're passionate about, knowing more about it.

Cause I've got a lot of people that view this podcast that aren't even enhanced.

Yeah.

I just love listening to it and love learning the information and such.

And

I realize like, I think that's.

I can just feel it in a lot of coaches, especially Stefan and their passion for it.

And how it's like, you know, as we grow older, you know, your bodybuilding career will only last so long, but it's like, this is a field that is so in-depth and there's so much unstudied info that like

so much of this wisdom comes from experience and empirical data.

I was, yes, bro, we are test subjects.

We are walking test subjects and we're learning.

every single day.

Bro science is awesome.

You know, the Jeff Nipper side of science and sports is awesome.

Combining those thought processes, practical with logic, like or, you you know factuals you know it's so cool to me you know what i mean because there's some things that we do that it's almost like hard explained with science you know like no you you literally can't yeah not in this level

that's what it's cool to me man is like there is no one size fits all there is you know multiple different ways to do something and to do it correctly you know what i mean so finding that that's just that's the the art of bodybuilding you know it's not just Everybody eats this and will change it at the same time.

No, you got to learn someone's body.

You got to follow trends.

You got to see see how their body responds to X and Y and how that's going to be optimized for their preps later or whatever.

I saw collecting data.

Now I'm a nerd with my own preps.

I write down every little thing week to week so I can learn myself, you know, and I can do that with my clients.

You know, that's why they, and I feel like I learn their bodies and we have success.

Maybe you and I should start broch out, bro.

That'll be more

challenging.

You can't call it brochure, though.

We'd just have to have an uh, we'd have to have an open bodybuilder.

Yeah.

That would be a good demo.

That would be good, bro.

Yeah, fake natty.

We could find him around here.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Just kidding, bro.

I'm just kidding.

No, I think he's natty.

You think he is?

Are you sus about it?

What do you think?

You're not sure?

I'm not, bro.

I wouldn't put money on it.

Yeah.

Let me start off with this.

I heard he's a great guy.

I don't know him.

Like, he's one of the guys I've never met in person.

But he looks fucking gnarly, bro.

He looks sick.

Yeah.

I don't know.

If I just saw him for the first time, and he didn't, I didn't know whether he says he was an added or not, I would lean more towards him.

No, like, I more think he was in the beginning phases of running some stuff, right?

Yeah, that's why I say think is, uh, obviously, I don't know anything.

Like, I never ever accuse someone of being on or not being off, yeah, like directly, because it's just like, if I don't know a fact, yeah, do you know I should be pro Dan?

Do you know who that is?

Dan Ibrahim, he was a men's music guy.

He lives in Houston.

He blew very fast on social media.

He's with Dark Sport sport now i'm not sure i don't think so regardless imagine a guy who has the elite one percent genetics like next level insane right uh i turned him pro completely natural nobody

yeah at north americans won the overall do you want to thank anyone before you head out i want to thank my coach um he's just been there since they won alex taufflin yeah nobody

would know

that this man was natural, you know, and he went in there and just destroyed Dan Ibrahim?

Ibrahim.

yeah you can type probably if you pro dan depending on where you are broham e-b-r-a-h-m could have butchered that but

he was a dark sport

uh

let me say

i think i spelled it right the first the first time but then the way you spelled it gave me a hockey player danger dan is not the kind of hockey costume or whatever

i think the way i spelled it with an i it's this massive fucking black dude yeah there he is okay yeah that's him for sure yeah this guy's fucking huge.

Yeah, and bro, he just started taking not that long ago.

Like two, two years ago, at this point.

So, like, that should tell, like, he's the 1% elite genetic.

Um,

you know, so he's a prime example.

Yeah, right, right.

Okay, so he's an outlier.

That's what I was going to say.

Is

obviously there's some people that are very sus, and I don't ever want to, like, claim anything.

But when I look at like, I know Sean in person, um, and

it's not even a right saying.

Um, it sounds weird.

I just, I don't have any evidence.

I don't have any facts.

But the thing that makes me feel like he is, is when I see him, everything about him looks extremely reasonable, extremely reasonable, except for his arms.

Yeah.

The conditioning, the level of muscularity everywhere else,

for how old he is and how long he's been training.

That's also true.

The good tells us consistency in his body, bro.

Does his body stay consistent?

You know what I mean?

Or does it have those very high ebbs, ebbs you know and those low lows you know right i think that's a good way to find it because even myself bro like i'll be 100 my body goes like holy he looks incredible he can win the olympia to

did he pro yet you know what i mean so like and then if i look at sean it's like some people will say sometimes he looks crazy now you got to remember like david like maybe i shouldn't say david lady but like all these people that are creators and like how they look on instagram when they take crazy pictures like there's a huge difference when you have downwards lighting versus like when you go on a fucking stage and then you have the fucking white-ass light that's going straight exactly where you have Alex Eubank, a prime example of him.

I think he's awesome, but like, you could tell, like, even said it before, like, he manipulates the hell out of like the lighting and the angles in order to bring his physique to life on it.

But, like, yeah, like you were saying realistically, when I when I look at Sean, though, like, um, he

he

when he gets full, it's it's

if he's on something, it's it's not, it's not a lot, it's nothing more than like a base of test or maybe an anovar or some shit.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's just, it's, it just, it's, I can't, it's hard for you to say that.

I think it's hard, but it's just like, it just doesn't look like it, man.

Yeah.

And like when he goes and gets ready for his shows, um, whether or not they were old shows or whether or not they're the shows where he finally had to test natural, like the old shows he just didn't even get conditioned, and the ones where he did have to get conditioned, and he just fucking shrunk like a string bean.

Yeah.

Like he just, he was smaller than some of the other guys on stage in the nashville show and

i mean there's a lot of arguments that can be made around it but i don't know natty we're bringing it back sorry sorry guys

i just i think i'm the i'm the weird guy that likes to um analyze

like stuff

like

i feel like i like to make the position that some people are more natty than they are not i like to give the benefit of the doubt i was about to say i'm in the direction of giving benefit of the doubt because like like I said, I've coached outliers.

Hugh could be an outlier.

Exactly.

There's a lot of cynicism in the world.

Yes.

And that's the thing that

I just kind of like, it's hard for me to handle because

I've seen a lot of amazing things and it's just very easy for people to have these dark thoughts.

Yeah.

They take the law of average and compare it to the law of everyone when in reality, it's like, hey, you know, this guy maybe has a following or whatever because he's just genetically as gifted.

Yeah, there's a lot of

words to learn, you know?

So

again,

for sure.

I just like to play the game in my head.

That's all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember seeing, I remember when I was,

was it fifth grade or no?

Like maybe seventh grade or something.

It was before high school.

When I was a fucking kid, there was this one black kid in school.

Yeah, exactly.

In elementary school?

In elementary school.

That was training.

Like I was training at this time.

I remember, but I was still fucking chubby and like I looked like shit.

there was this one kid that was training

and

dude i can't even explain to you

bro he was the biggest guy i've ever seen

a fifth grader bro i was like

like his biceps look like they were like there's like models that you would look at yeah like with like 20 year old models 22 year old models that were like natty but they're fucking huge right i remember his biceps being the same size size as a normal, like 22-year-old model.

And this kid was like 12 years old.

That scared.

Just a fucking black kid.

He's, and he was not, he was not on stairways.

This middle school kid was not on stairways.

That's where he is right now, bro.

I wonder what he's doing with himself right now.

No, for real, he probably isn't a bodybuilder.

Yeah.

He probably isn't doing anything.

It's just like the most genetic people at times are just like accountants.

That's crazy.

He's all for real, man.

It's fucking nuts.

I think Terrence even posted this.

There was like some soccer player or something he posted on his story saying like, dude, dude imagine this guy was actually a bodybuilder he actually cared enough yeah yeah dude was literally just soccer player and he was jacked out of his mind yeah dude it's funny though like i think it's the like bro i hate saying this bro is go to africa like

i'm serious bro the average person there is like a genetic like what the is going on you know so like it's funny seeing it you know because bodybuilding isn't massive there so like those of who find it out and come here it's like oh shit yeah nearly come i also have you heard of the lead priest there's like a little lead priest debate on whether or not he's real about his doses um yeah yeah and some of that stuff i can understand is sus but in my opinion

running a total of like around 1.2 to 1.5 grams to get somewhere when you're like five four or five five or whatever yeah does not sound very crazy to me no and i i would say like even for for me i was well over that you know so like to

to say like that's what he ran

I mean, he's not the tallest of guys.

I think I think it's logical.

Um, I think, again, he was one of those guys, genetic leap.

I mean, you see it, bro.

He was natural looking cra enhanced for years.

Like, if he was five ten, the doses would j would definitely be higher already.

And then it would be a little bit more reasonable, especially for someone that, like, responds well, which he clearly does.

Look at me.

Bro, he responded well from birth, you know, when he came out curling the umbilical cord and grew a bicep vein.

You know what I mean?

Like, this man was insane.

So, I don't know.

I think, again, it's hard to compare to the genetic 1% because we're surrounded by them now.

You know, like in the bodybuilding worlds, the guys who are at the top, we talk about those guys.

They're the ones who put on muscle a lot faster than maybe some of the people watching the podcast.

You know what I mean?

So it's hard to compare to that, you know, compared to the average.

Right.

Yeah.

Part of the reminder for me, too, what made me realize that this is a lot more true.

And I should not doubt people like this.

Yeah.

Is after talking to a bunch of coaches and them personally telling me like

the difference in some of their clients.

Yeah, you learn people who just ride on the same thing as they give other people.

It's kind of fucking crazy how drastic it is.

It doesn't make sense, bro.

Like the second we introduce a little bit of the testosterone into the Dan kid, oh my God.

Just like, what the hell has happened?

He morphed, bro.

Morphed.

I'm just like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

And there's no way that there's people out here that literally, you literally hopped in a hyper chamber.

And, you know, he grew out of men's physique.

It wasn't even a, didn't even chance to compete in men's physique.

Great.

Yeah.

Like, he, he, well, he did compete in it, but everyone was telling him not to because he's way too big.

And then he didn't place well, even though he looked insane because he doesn't fit the standard of men's physique.

So he had to make the transition after one year to go to a classic

that fast.

This is crazy, bro.

It's fucking nuts.

I think he looks like it, too.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's do this Q ⁇ A because we're starting to run out of time.

But I wanted to ask you.

Before we cakes tonight.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I get pancakes.

You coaching Dorian.

He told you he wants pancakes.

Oh, man.

Pancake.

Dorian knows.

Pancakes are my thing.

Like, I have a weird thing about getting together with my boys and we go to IHOP.

Like, that's like a thing for me.

Like, in my head, that's where my guys go.

I don't go to nice steakhouses all the time.

I want to go to IHOP with my friends and be hood reps and just eat.

That sounds so fucking bodybuilding.

And that's what I want.

That sounds gas.

I fucking want some pancakes right now.

Come on out, bro.

Totally not going out.

All right, coach.

I wanted to ask before we got on to this, because this was going to be like one of the first things I was going to ask, but suddenly we started talking about PDs.

But

I was going to ask about your

diet

when you were on your off-season versus prep.

Yeah, that's the crazy part.

Like I told you, bro, I wasn't different.

You know, if anything, I gave myself an extra free meal, you know, or not extra.

I had one free meal.

Like I said, very old school, very traditional, you know, oatmeal, eggs in the morning, you know, chicken twice a day with rice.

Every car, every, you know, main meal was car, uh, rice.

Uh, then I had beef and rice, and then oatmeal and eggs at night.

Okay, yeah, very, very traditional.

Every traditional dog, uh, um, or very traditional eating like a dog, you know, same time, same mounted uh per meal.

Do you know what your uh macros were, or did he just give you them in the normal meal plan?

Yeah, so this was another one of those things.

Okay, so he did give you a normal meal plan, like kind of an old school PDF, but then I would put it into like my fitness palette.

See,

but regardless,

I think

this is where I started to, another sign of me realizing I'm not as healthy, bro.

My maintenance was so low, you know?

Oh, fuck, I hate that shit.

And I'm like 6'2, you know, 245, but I'm gaining weight eating 2,700 calories.

Damn.

Yeah.

So, like.

Imagine how much I had a diet to get to.

Yeah, how low.

How low did your calories get on prep?

Oh, bro, low.

1,400.

Yeah.

For some of that, 6'2 is crazy and half a cardio that's crazy bro

that was forcing my body into forcing a response that was me when i got my pro card but when i got my pro card i know my thyroid was in the was it was in the dog shitter because that was my ninth show in the span of like two years or something and i had never run tests at the point i've never injected anything yeah i got it off of orals because it was some stupid shit like yeah this was like the kind of story where it's like i didn't know anything about bodybuilding so i just blindly followed a coach and then I fucked myself up.

Now I talk about it on a podcast.

Yeah.

But I think we all need those experiences though.

Right.

But I think just like you, thyroid was crashed.

My testosterone probably wasn't great.

And then

all the stress factors, I'm literally, I had to eat 1,200, 1,100 calories.

Just to get a response.

I was eating straight, just the, you know, those boxes you can buy from like Rouse or whatever with just spinach?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would have like a five-pound box.

I would just eat that like chips.

Yeah, but mom was like fucking hundreds of tilapia and asparagus you know what i mean like it was like damn it sucks bro but like i said i learned like that was the thing bro like i don't want i don't want to have to i shouldn't have to do that every prep but now i'm eating 4 000 calories and losing weight and getting healthy no way yes i'm getting healthy bro i have never been there before so like i have to go to i hop to not lose weight i will lose weight on this trip that's crazy so that's what i had to remove all my cardio for the first time ever like i'm doing things i've never done before yeah like i had to remove my cardio completely because if I'm continually losing weight, I'm eating more.

I'm not a big eater in the first place.

So, bro, eating fucking 4,000 calories, I fucking hate it.

Like,

I don't like it, bro.

I eat, you know, eating 4,000 calories of chicken and rife, beef, and rice is not fun, you know?

Yeah, so that's what I do on a day-to-day.

But when I travel, I can have that flexibility a little bit more.

So, that's what I give myself.

Like, 4,000 calories on, like, not

just like not on like a program right now,

just for you to maintain is kind of crazy.

Exactly.

So, like,

I will

i will shrivel very fast if i start undereating i there was a period it was cool though because i saw it it was at the three month mark i was like whoa my body's responding again i basically got my calories right up to like 20

from 24 to 2600 calories um

after the olympia but i kept getting so much weight bro like fast i was like 25 pounds up eating clean as possible like eating 2400 2600 clean very clean i just kept gaining though.

Like weeks, weeks, weeks, months after.

Yeah, like, yeah.

It took till three months or it took like, yeah.

So I finally stabilized at the two and a half or two months after, right?

I stabilized.

My weight stopped increasing with me doing nothing.

Like I was still doing cardio.

I was eating the same exact meals every single day, about 2,600 calories.

And I stayed there.

And I kept gaining, kept gaining, gaining, but I just hold, I just held there because I was like, too low will destroy my thyroid still.

I had to get somewhere.

So that was my baseline.

And I kept gaining, gaining.

And then I finally stopped gaining.

And then I held it there for another month.

And then I started losing.

It's the same thing.

And I was like, wow.

So I increased again, dropped, increased, dropped.

I was like, oh my God.

I didn't believe that my body could take in 4,000 calories and still be good.

I kept dropping.

So that's where I was.

I think some people would make the excuse or make the argument that coming out of a show, you're just so much more.

uh responsive and obviously you're just going to gain that weight a lot easier which is true to it

but like like, I was eating 500 calories more than you after my show.

It's taking that same weight until it stopped, maybe three months in.

So that's it.

And you're 6'2.

Yeah, bro.

6'2 right now.

It's fucking nuts.

Yeah.

Right now, I'm right now.

I'm at my weight cap.

I'm 239

right now at where I should be.

And this is obviously me completely off, still eating like a decent amount of food, 4,000 calories.

I've never been able to do this.

I've never been this light eating this much food.

You know, obviously the compounds are out.

I'm starting to shrink a little bit here and there, but like, I don't know, man.

It's just like, I'm noticing things my body has never done before.

I know I keep going back to this because I'm excited about it.

Yeah.

You know, like I'm noticing things.

It's crazy to see the responses.

Yeah.

They're like, wow.

After so many years, I thought, like I said, I got so uncomfortable with being, I got so comfortable being uncomfortable.

That was, that was my norm.

Right.

So again, like noticing a new norm, a healthy norm, that's what I value right now more than the physical.

And the crazy thing, too, is I think some people could also make the argument like, Damn, he should have known to like come off or at least Dami should have known to at least, you know, be on a cruise, like a real cruise.

But to be honest, like, especially in the competing industry, not even in just the competing industry, just like everywhere with people taking gear,

people really undervalue how important it is.

And people literally don't do it.

Like, sometimes they don't do it for like two years.

And that's what I revert back to the initial conversation we started was the addictive personality thing.

I was addicted, not necessarily, but the

looks that I was having, the placings that I was getting.

And I felt like in order to do more and get more, you know, I had to, you know, or get higher, I had to do more of the stuff that I was doing, which inevitably kind of reversed on me over time.

You know, how was your like trading in your volume?

Have you noticed that you were so

like while I'm on?

While you've been off?

Oh, I'm off.

It sucks, bro.

It fucking sucks.

It sucks so much.

I go, I don't know what pumps are anymore.

Yeah, bro.

Like, I'm not full anymore.

Like, i eat those that amount of food i'm not fool like in terms of like

pop to me it sucks i can't lie but like i said i'm convincing myself like this is a necessary evil um but yeah man i think that's the hardest part to be honest with you is like not feeling like the gym is the therapy for me like to get in the pump feeling like juicy um but i still go in there with intent man i'm like even if i'm going in there with the idea of like maintaining i know i'm not growing right now but like i just want to hold on as much as I possibly can while doing it in a healthy way.

You know?

What about like trading rep ranges, um, styles?

Um, like,

yeah, so I'm less volume now.

Okay.

So that's the biggest thing.

I'm not as strong, but I still try to maintain my strength.

Um, but instead of aiming for like, say, like a

I like failing at like a five to eight rep range minimum on my like last heavier set.

Okay.

Now I'll do like

instead of like working up to a

five to six with then a back off, I'll actually stay at like I'll do one warm up and then I'll be like four sets of you know eight to ten.

You know what I mean?

So like I'll still lift heavy, but it'll be on a more consistent,

you know, weight.

That's the biggest thing for me right now.

Like I, the main thing is intent.

I go in there with intent, train with intensity.

It's just not as heavy as it used to be.

Have you ever experimented with other styles or other up ranges?

Yeah, so I started off with like the high volume.

Like I love doing things in like the, the, I would say about 15 to 30 range.

Okay.

I thought it was fucking high.

High, but that's the thing.

I was crazy.

I do this thing, the craziest bicep exercise I have ever done.

You will never not get sore from doing.

I don't care how often you do it.

You pick four exercises arm.

I'd pick four bicep exercises, four tricep exercises.

And you would set a timer for each of those six and a half minutes on each.

And then you would do

each exercise non-stop.

It's 50 total minutes.

oh shit yeah non-stop so it's all high pump minimal break you do 100 reps in under the six minutes six and a half minutes a hundred reps of that exercise it's not gonna be crazy heavy right you're not gonna 400 reps of each

bro you will i'm telling you if you ever have the balls to try it bro you are going where the fuck did you get this shit bro that's the thing we used to make the crazy shit up as a kid like we would just try something right we would we tried under five minutes like oh that's hard you know like okay let's so that's what we did and i just to this day i will even give that to my clients as like a little, like a challenge to see if you can do it.

And bro, still to this day, they're like, I can't, I can't move the next day.

It's cool.

So I've actually adopted that mindset on some other exercises.

Like I've been doing a regular exercise.

I'm like, let's see if I can do this 100 reps under six and a half minutes.

You know, so like, I love high volume.

I love intensifiers.

I love drop sets, you know, so I do a lot.

I think I love.

a lot of different styles of training.

So I combine it into it.

One, at different points of my training, typically when I'm enhanced like i will split up so you know i'll start off with something one day that's very high reps and then i'll go to like very low volume right after that and then i'll go to something that's you know um

stay with the same weight the whole time but very minimal rest breaks like i'll have 30 seconds right i don't know i just throw a lot of little different things in there and it keeps my training exciting i can still track that one exercise to make sure i'm still progressing in strength yeah so i kind of get everything i need to out of one right as long as you're tracking it, you know that you're

progressing.

I'll track one exercise

per day, like per muscle group mainly.

And I need to aggress, whether it's in strength, whether it's in reps or even form, you know, to make sure that I'm getting somewhere.

That's one exercise that I'll record every day.

I think that's what, from what I've heard, maybe most of the coaches discuss, seems to be reflective of their experiences is

doing

Ben Pokulski also discussed this too, but he trained like training various types of

it keeps

like yeah yeah like i'm trying to remember what he was actually explaining but he's like saying for example if you're trying to trying to focus on like fast twitch fibers and you're really good in the eight or six rep range but training really suck at the 20 rep range yeah right well what he wants to do is he wants you to be able to progress in these areas because all of them contribute to hypertrophy right all of these ranges but if you're worse in that area it's going to be easier with less work for you to progress in that area.

Absolutely.

So, you should be working the area that you suck at.

It's a different stimulus.

Yeah.

You know, you're working, you're working the uncomfortable stimulus range for you.

And that's what, bro, that's what I love doing.

I was like,

I hate, I wouldn't, this is not, obviously, it's a bro science thing.

Your nose is thing is confusing your muscle.

But like, when you do all these little different things, I feel like I just always get sore.

You know what I mean?

So, like, it feels good, you know?

I get the philosophy of confusing your muscle.

It makes sense.

It makes sense, but like, sometimes when you say it it to people who know their shit, they're like,

he's dumb.

It's funny.

I'm waiting for somebody like, Dave, say that shit.

Got to change your 500 milligrams of test to 500 milligrams of trim.

Overnight's bad.

I've never heard that one.

I know that'd be funny.

All right.

Let's ask these questions.

Dude, you got me thinking about pancakes.

Bro.

John Benjamin98 asks, at what point did you leave your day job to go all in on coaching and being an entrepreneur?

Oh, that's a good one.

So, my first year of bodybuilding, I had a job.

Second year of bodybuilding was the COVID year and I actually got let go from my job.

And I was, that was the prep going into my pro card.

And then, damn.

Yeah.

Well, I haven't, it's a whole nother podcast.

But, and then going into, I started coaching right after I got my pro card.

I, that's when I opened up the thing for summer trading, 10 clients, yada, yada, yada.

Um, and that's when that gave me the confidence.

So I made a rule for myself that I wanted to at least match what I was making from coaching to my nine-to-five job, which was I was a

I don't like saying tech sales, but I sold different platforms to, you know,

you know, real estate agents, what, yada, yada, whatever.

So, from that, I was finally able to do that at around like 30 or 40 clients, whatever it was.

And that was about, that was three years into me bodybuilding.

That's when I decided to make that transition.

And then I matched my pay for at least three months.

And then I went all in on it.

And I was able to then grow my roster from 30 to 40 to what it is now, having coaches under me and kind of doing the whole thing.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

Congrats on that, by the way.

Yeah, thank you, bro.

I never imagined the coaching thing to be where it is now, but then able to do all the cool things that we're doing.

The fact that you're doing podcasts and coaching and you have your business too.

Yeah.

I don't know.

That blows my mind, bro.

I'm having trouble even getting my business started with everything I got going on.

And I'm not even coaching anymore.

Yeah.

We got to see now.

We got to get together, go get pancakes sooner than later.

We'll talk business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent Bushnell asks, get him to ask you where you store your syrup.

He'll understand.

That's from the podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

Where do you store your syrup?

Come on.

Come on, bro.

Come on.

I'm almost fucking scared to answer this.

Is it there's two options?

Is it in the fridge or the pantry?

That's the thing.

I store them in both.

What kind of shit must be half?

Because we've broken, hear me out.

We have broken this down to a

science or something?

Not a science.

It's cultural.

So, we've noticed that there's certain color people who do one thing versus another.

So, I'm curious to know because you're you're mixed, right?

What's your nationality?

I might not be next,

mixed,

okay.

So, tell me, where do you start?

Do you think I'm half black or something?

No, no, no, no, no, no, maybe I am.

I'm just saying, like you're awesome.

Okay, put it this way: you're not white and you're not black, so like you're something else, you're in the middle.

So, like, that's what I'm putting, I'm putting you in the middle category right now.

Where do the white people put this?

Come on, bro.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So where do you put yours?

Okay, so just like I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember what other things say this.

I might be thinking, I might be thinking of my fucking gear or some shit.

Yeah, HGH.

It's in the pantry when it's unsealed.

And then the moment I open it, I put it in the fridge.

Nah, that's white of you.

That's very white of you, bro.

Yeah.

Damn.

It stays in.

AntoMima stays in the pantry the whole

time, bro she stays in the pantry the whole time she never sits next to the gh ever she is by herself on the pantry oh my god is there a reason for that why i don't know bro i don't know i i've we've narrowed it down to it being a cultural thing every guy every guest who comes on our podcast will ask him that at the end like where do you store it and it's so funny bro the white people say one and the black people say the other crazy hilarious um i think the only reason i do this is because someone uh i used to just keep it in the cabinet i just didn't give a fuck i kept everything out of the fridge if it wasn't like food that would deteriorate.

And then someone told me, like, you should be keeping these things in the fridge, including wine bottles.

I would keep wine bottles out of the fridge.

That's probably super important.

I'm sure it makes sense.

I'm not saying it doesn't.

It's just, I don't know, man.

It's a cultural thing.

Your parents did it one way.

You do it the same way.

And again, I've noticed that, man.

It's really weird.

I don't even fucking remember when my parents put the syrup.

Damn, that's crazy.

I love pancakes, though.

A lot of syrup.

That's an insult.

You're calling me a body.

You're definitely on the wider side.

That's fucked.

Sina Kavash asks, how to mentally deal with a bulk when you're not in shape as much as a cut?

Bodybuilding, you have to understand it's a game of seasons, right?

So

your body is going to go through multiple different seasons in a quote-unquote year.

So

you have to understand that each phase and how that phase looks on you, whether, you know, I'm not going to say you shouldn't be losing your apps, but everybody's looks a little different.

You just have to get comfortable with that.

And that's where it's hard because like you're so bodybuilders, you know, we're so unhappy with the way that we look 90% of the time that we focus on that 10% of chasing that 10%.

But when we have it, we're almost not mentally ready to go back to the other 90%.

So I think that's the phase they're going into, right?

After the cut, after the show, they transition into that 90%.

You got to get comfortable with understanding, you know, because there's a good chance.

So even when when you're at that 10%,

you still have to improve on that in order to get to the next level where you want to be.

That's where that 90% comes into play.

That's when that off-season time, you know what I mean?

So it's conceptualizing that.

It's a mind thing than anything else.

You have to conceptualize it.

You have to understand in order for me to be better here, this is important.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I can tell you guys I regret not taking more offseasons just for me to grow.

So now I would have been so much bigger, so much longer ago.

People don't take that 90%

as serious as

the other aspects of the prep or the process.

And they end up kind of in a consistent circle.

They look the same.

And I think if I had to give any advice to the younger demographic, is prioritize the off-season just as much as you do the prep.

Yeah.

You know, that's the number one thing that's allowed me to continue to progress or not progress by not doing that.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's a good one.

Or, uh, or

be old,

settle down and have a family.

Yeah.

And And then it's okay if you get fat.

You got a trigger.

Stay in shape until you're married.

JK, JK.

JK, JK.

Maybe she will want you to get fat.

I don't know.

Maybe she'll want you to get a little bit more.

If you're more secure about herself.

Oh, shit.

Jacob Whelan asks, differences between previous coach and cuts.

So I'm not with any, everybody thinks I'm with cuts.

That's the thing.

You're not.

I'm not with anybody yet.

Have you ever been with cuts?

No.

People just, they're all guessing because of who I'm going to do the podcast with.

So I'm not with any coach now.

Did you do a podcast with him?

I did do a podcast with him before, but the guys who I'm on the podcast with consistently, um, they're coached by cuts.

Oh, Aaron Banks, obviously, he is who he is, right?

Um, and then uh, Drew Collin, two-time Olympian, he's been through with cuts multiple times, so like they're very high, you know, um

notary guys on his team.

So everyone thinks I'm gonna go with him because, but I'm not rushing into a a situation.

You know, I'm just, I've been with my previous coach for seven years or six years, whatever it was, the whole bodybuilding career.

So I just, you know, I want to prioritize my health, make a decision, you know, when I'm ready to pull the trigger.

Yeah, bro, you have a lot of time.

Yeah, I'm not a rush.

You're going to fucking kill it.

I'm excited.

Ariel is also super cool if you do ever decide.

Yeah.

Super Shell dude.

He's a genius.

I mean, we kind of talked about this already, but Mike Jim McLean asks, when did you hop on your first cycle?

yeah i was basically going into my pro card but it was like kind of like the odd cycle everyone's first cycle is like an odd one you know like mine was uh

a a moderate dose of i got no actually my first was 500 i jumped right to five to start um

it was 500 and then like 25 mix of annabar you know like a thing where I don't know.

I always have taken 50 mix of Annabar outside of my first prep.

What about 50?

I've always like, to me, in my head, base level is 50 for a male.

Okay, I see.

Every year after that, I've taken 50 megs of Vandibar.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Minimum.

Yeah, I feel like that's very standard for everyone's first cycle.

Oh, yeah.

Like around 500 somewhere.

Mine was fucking weird, but you know.

So do you think that's a normal, like a 500 is like where people should start?

I think it depends, to be honest.

In my personal opinion, if I was coaching somebody that just told me they don't give a fuck if if I don't give them something first, they're going to jump, they're going to become enhanced, then I'd just be like, start at 300 first.

Let's start there for at least just like four weeks, maybe.

That's what I mean.

Six weeks.

That's what I say.

See how it goes.

Perfect.

And then, yeah.

I tie trade up.

I say, if you're a first time ever, let's see how 300 affects you.

If there's no symptoms, you feel good.

All right, we'll push to four.

Yeah.

Right.

And I think four for a first prep or whatever.

We can say it's four as long as we possibly need to.

If we need to push to five in the future, okay.

You know, I can put, I'm comfortable pushing test higher than I am pushing the trend or master on higher if they're also on that, you know.

Yeah.

Um, one of the reasons I say that, too, is I think I directly spoke to someone that uh jumped on 500 for the first time and he felt like shit and he got all the side effects and everything.

I'm like, well, I mean, that's probably because you didn't have to do that much.

Yeah, everybody has that everybody's body is different, so like, don't jump, don't learn the hard way, right?

It's hydrate it up, right?

You start to feel it or, you know, you see it and then kind of come back if it's necessary.

Feels so much better doing that, in my opinion, anyways.

Yeah, and you learn.

You know, you learn where that sweet spot is

the easy way.

KCOP312 asks,

What made you start your whole bodybuilding career?

Do you think you would go for?

Did you think you would go for a bad breakup is the reason why I started bodybuilding.

Yeah.

There's a reason why I got in the gym.

It was a reason why I wanted to compete.

You know, she always

was talking about a guy who was famous, but who had like really shredded abs and all this stuff.

And I was like, fuck it.

After, I was like,

I'm going to look better than him.

I'm going to be more shredded than him.

That's what started bodybuilding for me.

Fire.

Yeah.

And then I did well.

And I was like, ah, fuck you.

I have a new love now.

And it's men on stage with spray tans.

Fire.

Yeah.

That's that's fucking sick.

Too bad he's not an Olympian.

Exactly.

Last question.

Jared Anthony asks, do you think steroids are essential to be successful in this sport?

When talking about the law of average, right?

Not the genetic 1%.

Or honestly, even be,

I think to me, successful in this sport, we'll say

you can get to the Olympia.

Like, we'll call it that.

I think they're...

Yeah, that's hella successful.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have lower standards, man.

I'm not even there yet.

I'm talking about like the top percent of bodybuilders.

Like the be on the Olympia stage is a very

a successful in bodybuilding like in general like you're successful in podcasting even turning pro like there you've done a lot of things but like to just be a bodybuilder to

quantify like success and being in a restaurant of that to me it's like at least great sitting in the olympia stage um so in order to get there i would think there's at least at least 90 of if not 95 of people on that stage are on running gear yeah i think the only like five percent will come from maybe some bikini athletes oh yeah yeah yeah yeah you know what i mean mean the guys yeah i feel yeah i feel like it would be even a smaller percentage since it's mostly bikini athletes i mean i can understand how like

i think um i had a podcast with uh what's her name i had a podcast with an uh

bikini better she's not watching this

i'm just brain fighting it's fucking what is it it's nine o'clock right now um yeah no i had a podcast with an amazing bikini coach she's one of the top bikini coaches oh it's uh jamie bernard jamie yeah yeah um i had a podcast with her and we had a little joke about it but I think from what she said, kind of gave me the feeling that you could guess that definitely less than half for sure are natty on the Olympia stage.

Maybe like a third, maybe a quarter.

Quarter to a third, maybe.

There's more.

Are you talking about?

No, there's more than half.

The quarter to a third is natty.

Oh, okay.

Either way, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I gotcha.

Yeah.

I gotcha.

Most of them are not.

Yeah.

I would even say maybe even higher than that, but regardless.

I feel, yeah.

So, I mean, the thing is, like, it's like, like we discussed earlier, it's just spectrum.

Like, some of these people could be running literally nothing, like maybe 2.5 milligrams of anivar and then like a little bit of clan or something, or like some thyroid support, which fucking a lot of people are, whether or not they're bodybuilding or not.

Yeah.

So, um, you're right.

I'd say that's probably,

yeah, but, um, aside from that, I agree.

Like, I, I don't, if, I don't know, going to Olympia

not on PDs is just so hard for me to believe.

Yeah, I mean, unless you're in bikini.

I think Keon Pearson did it, but, like,

we say it all the time.

Well, probably the most genetically guy out there right now.

So I don't know, man.

Like, like I said, for the person who is not the 1%,

I do think it is a necessary evil in order to have relevancy in the sport of bodybuilding.

So, you know, take it as you will.

You know, the natural, we talked about that briefly is, you know, starting to make a name for yourself.

So you don't have to take that route if you don't want to.

But like I said, say you wanted to make bodybuilding bodybuilding your thing and your main thing i do think it's a necessary evil

yeah i agree um which i think is a good idea to learn about it first rather than just jumping into things yeah and not the hard way not the hard way also i do believe i think uh you could definitely a lot of people turn pro natural yeah it's hard to believe but i think we've heard stories that we've seen people we've known people

three pros naughty that yeah which is fucking nuts yeah so nothing's not easy you know and i'm excited i haven't probably not open bodybuilding but no no no no no no no no no the other divisions for sure Yeah.

But like I said, it's possible.

All right.

You got to look yourself in the mirror and say, you know, is it logical at the same time?

You got to have some stuff.

Like when men's physique gets a lot clearer to see before you start

the structure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Cool.

All right.

That's about all the time we have, but that was fucking sick.

Yeah.

Bro,

it's hard to explain it, but I feel like I was just talking to my boy.

You know what I mean?

No, I know.

This was extremely easy.

Yeah.

I ask everyone one last question at the end of every podcast, but if you were to leave the earth tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world

today, what would that message be?

Manifestation is real.

You know,

I went through life for so long doubting myself.

And it wasn't a coincidence that the moment I actually started to believe in who I was and who I could be.

is when everything started to actually happen for me.

You know, I made excuses for years.

I never saw myself as a guy who, you know, could add value, you know, into this and what we were doing.

I thought I was going to be a very traditional, you know, go to school,

barely graduate, get a job, you know, work for the man my whole entire life, which, you know, I just saw myself as a very traditionalist and I started to then think outside of the box.

And it was when I started to believe in who I was and who I could be is when things actually started happening.

So I believe in manifestation.

It's huge to me.

And like I said, I started talking at speaking it out loud, and it started happening.

You know, so believe in yourself.

That's the biggest thing that I can say.

Don't be scared to say it out loud.

Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

I think that's going to take you significantly farther than the ladder.

It's fucking awesome, man.

Thanks for that.

Of course.

Where can everybody find you?

So you can find me on YouTube.

That's like probably the biggest focus of mine.

I create a lot of men's physique content,

vlogs.

I have my own podcast, Men's Physique Radio.

But my username is you can type in Alex Toplin, T-O-P-L-Y-N.

And I'm sure stuff will come up from there, whether it's on Instagram, YouTube,

probably Reddit too.

Bro, Reddit.

Oh, my God.

Someone told me they created a subreddit for my podcast.

I was like, oh, fuck me, dude.

Bro.

Incoming the slash, the slash sushi.

There.

Oh, man.

But yeah.

All right.

All right.

That was awesome.

Love you guys.

Pancake time, baby.

Pancakes.

Pancake time.

I'm telling you, go jeez.