John Jewett: How To Maximize Muscle Size & Shape Like A 4x Olympian

If you are a bodybuilder, you're applying science whether you want to or not.

You're having to assess your program, change it, monitor the effects, and then based on that response, you adjust your program.

That literally is the scientific method.

Four-time Olympian bodybuilder, registered dietitian, coach, and educator, the creator of J3 University, a place for learning evidence-based bodybuilding, John Jewett.

This is my approach for peak weeks.

If you look great and you look like you can walk on stage at some moment of the day, just do that.

Then, if you don't, we slowly start manipulating one variable at a time and we do the least and escalate that up to the most as you need.

Some people ask like, why are some bodybuilders getting like blown out midsections?

Like, is it a drug to blame?

Is it this?

It is multifactorial.

A lot of guys that had that big growth spurt too quick, you see their waist grow.

Some of this comes in even naturals.

There's a study I looked at with athletes.

They measured their organs and gaining weight and even those organ sizes increased because if you're a bigger individual, you're gonna have bigger organs.

So if you're gonna gain 100 pounds of muscle tissue, your organ sizes are gonna increase.

There's been a hype around for a long time, but it's just probably one of the most overrated drugs in bodybuilding.

How do you personally try to keep your waist tight?

Oh man, this is a huge hot topic, isn't it?

I've been asked so much about this.

So,

you're looking pretty lean still.

It's called old man face.

I try to avoid that to look like I'm dining.

Yeah, and I stay pretty lean year-round now.

How uh, how far off of stage weight would you say that you stay now?

Um,

Usually like 25 pounds-ish is kind of like where I'll kind of coast around.

That's pretty damn close.

Yeah.

I mean, right now I'm only like 17 pounds away.

Nice.

And how long has it been since the show?

How many weeks?

Yeah, we've been.

It's right at 14 weeks.

14 weeks.

Yeah.

Okay.

That makes me feel really good about myself because I'm always talking to all these big-ass bodybuilders like you and they'll always say things like, like Mike Summerfeld was like, yeah, I gained 60 pounds in four months.

And I'm like, am I doing something wrong?

Yeah, I don't know.

I've been more productive staying closer to stage weight than I have in the past where I've been like way over.

And then disappointingly, you're like, oh, yeah, I'll be like whatever stage weight.

And you're like, have to diet like 20 more pounds off.

So

this has been better for me staying leaner.

Yeah, it's about as far as I get off of stage weight too.

Like right now, I'm the heaviest I've ever been.

And I think I'm almost 20 pounds above stage weight.

And it's been about 20 weeks now.

Okay.

So

I'm a lot lighter than you are.

Like my stage, my weight cap for classic is 197.

But

I think this is the first time I've ever heard someone else be like around the same distance from stage weight.

in their offseason, which is making me feel a lot more comfortable.

Yeah.

Like people are like, you're not gaining enough, John.

I'm like, dude, I'll gain a pound a week and I just stay lean.

And if I go faster, like, I don't think that would be more productive.

So, right, right.

That actually brings me to, well, that brings me to something I actually wanted to discuss with you.

But before I do that, just wanted to say thank you for coming on, by the way, because I know it was taking us a second to finally get one scheduled, but so many people obviously have been asking for you to come on, have been asking to hear from John because everybody loves your stuff, literally everybody.

So I'm honored to have you on, man.

Well, honored to be here too.

Like your podcast is excellent.

You articulate so well and ask great questions.

It's great conversation.

So it's, I'm glad we finally got it lined up.

Wow.

I'm flattered, bro.

Feels more inside.

But that was reminding me.

I love what you said on the pod with Fuad about you were like pushing your clients to work around a 15 up to 20% body fat in the offseason.

Something along those lines, I believe.

I think it's.

For some people, you know, um, we have those genetic anomalies, which

you would be one of them, right?

Like, you're probably gonna have a baseline that's leaner than most people and still be productive.

For some people, that's people have to get a little softer.

So, it's a little surprising for me because I actually

I'm a little bit more like Fuad where I was like a fat ass my entire life.

I was like really fat when I was a kid, so it's always harder for me to diet, um, but easier for me to have an off-season and put on weight because I just love eating food and like yo, I love sushi, but a lot of it.

So I like find that like, even right now, for example, like I have an appetite throughout my entire day pretty consistently.

Like I'll, I'll get full at certain moments in time, but

it's just nothing along the lines of like, you'll see those, you'll hear stories of

bodybuilders talking about having to push food so hard that like they're never hungry and they feel like shit all the time.

You know what I mean?

I'm the same way.

I don't even see that being productive because I used to used to be told that, like, yeah, man, like eat to your like, feel like you're going to throw up and it's like your guts distended all day.

It's like, I think we've moved past that thought process and in a different era of bodybuilding where we know that's our, you're in an unproductive state if you're having to like push food that hard to a degree, right?

But you would say on average, so normally you, you say like, because I know it varies a lot per person, but up to like 20

hello hello okay

we're here is this like already the podcast are we already doing this yeah yeah we're doing it we're doing it okay

I differentiate between are we are we natural or enhanced bodybuilding because I think that does make a difference and partly why I wouldn't let someone get

up to say the 20% body fat if they are the enhanced athlete because one, you have a lot of tools already in place that are going to be able to partition it away from body fat and really leverage your ability to drive it towards muscle.

And also, once you get to a higher body fat percentage, like above 20% for a natural, that's when you're kind of getting into like cardiometabolic issues and disease states where you really do see poor health start to occur.

And 20% body fat's pretty damn high.

Like at 15%, you're starting to see like abs fade away.

Like that's already the outskirts for a lot of guys.

A lot of guys think that's 10%.

It's like, no, no, that's like 15%.

So if you're enhanced, you're probably going to see like those deleterious health aspects occurring a lot earlier on because of the drug aspect, the higher food, the higher body weight, all kind of accumulating on.

So you have the tools to stay leaner.

So like 15% is probably more the

realistic number for someone that is enhanced.

And that could go a little higher for someone that's natural.

But the health markers are probably a lot of things to be considerate of when you're enhanced and pushing into the offseason.

Okay, gotcha.

Um,

yeah, I always find that so interesting, I guess, because

uh,

we'll hear that.

I mean, you, you, you've heard what like a lot of um creators will have like discussed in the last year or a couple years about like main gaining and such.

Um,

I saw a reaction from you,

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, at some point, it just depends on your goals.

Like, you know, you can do that, but at some point, it's really going to be a point of diminishing where you're not really going to be able to build a lot of tissue.

And you're going to have weeks, especially in those where you have a very variable schedule.

And to where you're not able to control every single factor, right?

To where if you have a week that, oh man, I got really active.

Like I had to walk around my work a lot more.

And all of a sudden now now you're in a calorie deficit.

And so you're not really productive that week as far as putting tissue on.

Or then another week where, oh yeah, I just had to sit around all day.

And for whatever reason, now it's an excess of surplus.

So that can make it hard for someone that is trying to keep the variables so tight and gain at such a slow rate being the gain taining thing.

But I really think gain taining is kind of the bullshit way to really

see out the most muscular version of yourself and then get to the leanest version of yourself as well.

Because I think you're going to hit a ceiling very quickly doing it that way, as you absolutely do need a caloric surplus to put on tissue and

move up to a level of muscularity of that.

Like who my crowd is that I speak to is like, you know, competitive bodybuilders.

If it's a lifestyle thing, it's completely, it's just different, you know, that that may work for your goals.

Like if you want to try to just slowly keep kind of keep a good composition and maybe you add some tissue on.

For me, I'm kind of the all-in guy, you know, that's excited to

try to be the best at everything I do.

So gaintaining this isn't as exciting for me.

Yeah, I think that's the same perception as most of the people that listen to my podcast as well, even though I have a wide variety of, you know, people that listen, whether or not they're doing it for lifestyle factors or they just want to compete too.

But I think everyone has this extreme interest in bodybuilding methodologies and trying to maximize themselves to the best of their potential on the podcast, which is why it's so exciting to talk about these things.

But I think one of the the things that confuses people is like, we all talk about how there's really like no

scientific studies on enhanced individuals, like when it comes to,

you know, methods of bodybuilding, right?

Like

I think I've heard the discussion

trying to determine whether or not people think that, I mean, like you said, we partition calories better when we're enhanced.

So does that mean it's also more optimal for enhanced individuals to be in a significantly higher surplus than natural individuals?

And if so, like how much?

Right.

How much, right?

It's

this is why I love looking at research.

And a lot of people are just

so like extreme with it.

It's either like, no, man, it's just go off the in-the-trench experience and science is all bullshit.

Or you have science guys that will only make their program based off a research study.

And that's not the way you should approach this in either way.

Really,

I mean, experience and in the trenches is what trumps all.

And a lot of times what we're seeing in the field and what we're seeing in our clients' results is what we're trying to go test and research because we had to have some reason of like, oh, why is this working?

It's like, well, that's why you conduct a research study, control the variables, and we try to understand it a little bit better.

Then that might refine our coaching.

But we don't start just off those studies we had to develop the coaching process so it should be like this meeting of the middle and if you are a bodybuilder you're applying science whether you want to or not like you're you're having to you know assess your program change it monitor the effects and then based on that response you adjust your program that literally is the scientific method so if you're not doing some degree of science uh in in your bodybuilding you're not probably being optimal in your your progression Now,

to the question around natural is enhanced and the limited research around enhanced is that why I love research and in the natural bodybuilding realm is that the drugs aren't present.

So you can actually see the variables of what's impactful when you're manipulating training or nutrition or sleep or whatever it may be to get a better idea of how to optimize it.

And yes, you're enhanced.

but it doesn't change who you are.

Like as a, you're still a human being with a physiology of that slightly close to a natural.

Yes, you have hormone enhancements and that's going to change rates of things that can occur, but all the variables around training, nutrition, the principles can stay pretty dang close.

But to your point, like, yeah, things do move faster when you're enhanced.

Like you kind of get reversed back to newbie status when you become enhanced.

So like that initial rate could move a lot faster for your rate of gain, just like a newbie would.

Right.

That's actually something I really love you that you said before.

And obviously one of the reasons I really love your content is I think there's this cliché perception that most bodybuilders are illogical and emotional and aggressive and can't control their emotions.

But in reality, there's a lot of very logical bodybuilders out there.

Even like, I remember in my university at Purdue, like most of my a ton of my fellow engineers were the biggest bodybuilders at the university,

which is hilarious.

But like we'd always be like logging shit.

Whether or not we like derive our dopamine from like logging things that are in our logbook and then seeing it increase in number or just going in there and getting our lifts.

But to what you said before, like to an enhanced state from natural is like being back to a new vegan.

Would you say that's like a good reason for someone to try to maximize their natural potential first?

I think it's important for a few reasons.

For one, I think there is a, and this is going back to like like the young, the young early, if you had the ideal situation right, like I started training like in middle school.

So if you had this, this point of your reaching to like middle school, John, you're like, John, what are you going to, what do you do?

Like, do you go on gear when you're in middle school?

It's like, no, you probably should not do that.

When do you see this optimal hormone level as a natural?

And it's like probably like in 19 into your early 20s, you're still in a really optimal hormone environment.

And if you've been training sufficiently during that time you probably get to a point where gains are already coming pretty slow however

have you had enough years and like emotional maturity to fully be able to execute the process of bodybuilding i don't think so i definitely wasn't i'm still learning to train now sufficiently um and improve things that i definitely wasn't doing earlier on and my schedule was all over the place so i think there's just some time you need to spend training naturally especially being young changes for the older guy getting into it because he's already kind of gone through that.

But then someone that's younger too, like we don't see full brain development in males till they're around like 24, 25 years old.

So if you're now like, hey, throwing all these exogenous hormones in that has some aspects that affect brain development and function, this might has long-term consequences as well.

So I think for health reasons, for maturity reasons, there's some time you absolutely should spend training natural before going on and see out as much as you can.

And that way you don't have gear masking poor nutrition, poor training, and just throw it in to where eventually you end up like just on gear.

And you're like, well, I don't know why I'm stalling out and I still don't look that much better than like the really advanced natty.

It's like, yeah, because you just masked it all with gear.

You didn't learn how to train and implement your diet and be just a better bodybuilder over time.

So I think you definitely should see out.

I used to, hey, at least five years of doing everything right.

And you should get to a point where that rate of progress in the gym is like kind of inching along.

Like maybe you're hitting PRs like every three weeks to every month.

It's not like every workout anymore.

That maybe is your consideration point for when you might be wanting to go enhance.

But again, that comes down to what are, what are your endeavors here?

Like if you're not going to be a competitive bodybuilder, like I would not go that route.

That's my, that would be my advice.

I mean, I know that's hard to like feel when you're younger and you're also in, you know, we have like this, this day and age,

social media.

Yeah, you don't give a fuck.

But

I think one thing too that, like, a lot of us don't really think about when we're younger is

how we feel bodybuilding.

Like, we feel great doing it.

We feel great seeing the progress, right?

But I think, at least for I can speak for myself and probably others that I know, when I was younger, like the thing in my head was like, I want to get here as fast as possible.

I want to get to this look as fast as possible.

But then, as I started growing older, I realized the thing that actually made me happy was seeing the change in me over time.

Not being there, but seeing my progress.

You know what I mean?

And

I don't think that's something that we think about when we're younger is like, if we do decide to just

use everything in our toolbox right now and our progress does halt,

then

I think that's kind of a bigger cause for a lot of people just

giving up.

If that makes sense.

Real quick, guys.

So while I was looking at the YouTube analytics, I actually saw that 85% of you guys that watch this channel are not subscribed.

And I want to ask very little of you guys, but if you enjoy this podcast, if you find value in it, then please do me this one favor and subscribe to the channel.

Because doing so helps me get bigger and greater guests like the guests you are listening to today.

Also, this channel is not sponsored, which means only the companies that I work with, which are Young LA and Huge Supplements, are the companies that can help fund this channel by you guys using the code nile so code nile gives you a discount of 15 off of young la and code nile also gives you a discount of 10 off of huge supplements and if you decide to purchase anything from any of these companies it will help immensely for me by using my code and this way i can travel to other guests and also upgrade an equipment to make this podcast bigger and better for you guys yeah i guess that that is part of the allure when you're younger too of like the fast rate of progress that could be promised there with gear.

And it's seen, right?

Like I had guys when I was coming up and guys in high school that were on steroids or early college.

And it's like, wow, they like, they blew up.

Like their strength skyrocketed.

Like you're seeing it in front of you, but you don't see like the years down the road of like, well, what does that look like now for that person?

And a lot of the guys aren't even doing this anymore.

And there you go.

There's your next point of like the maturity side of like in that time period in your your 20s, you don't know where you're going to end up in life and what you truly want.

So to just jump into using gear, like you don't know once you get a job and out in the world, like your life's going to change.

Like we even be wanting that for yourself anymore.

But when you're in it, man,

because I powerlifted in college and like, man, the allure of just like blowing up and the, you know.

fantasy of it all was very alluring.

So

it's a tough one.

You broke a bunch of records when when you were powerlifting too, didn't you?

I did.

Yeah, I was, I was really good at bench press.

That's uh, what's like I quickly learned like early on when I first started lifting, like I had some type of gift for this.

So, uh, my freshman year, I went to a big 5A high school in Texas.

So it's all football.

And I was like the second strongest bench presser on our football team.

The one lineman was stronger than me, right?

So I'm like, all right, I have a knack for this.

But I found the group of guys that powerlifted and

here in San Antonio and linked up with them.

And yeah, I did that for like eight years.

Back when I was doing it, the bench press shirts and equipment were like the thing.

So I did a, I benched 706

at 220 pounds.

I squatted less than deadlifted less than that too.

But nonetheless, like that was,

yeah,

played around with some pretty big weight when I was younger.

Crazy.

Do nothing close to that now with a bench press.

That's fucking nuts though.

Do you think,

did you always want to be an open bodybuilder since you were young?

Or is that something that changed as you got older?

I was fascinated with bodybuilding.

Like when I first saw bodybuilding

when I was five and my art, I lived in a duplex and our neighbor was in a bodybuilding.

He has stacks of magazines.

And of course, like, you know, I was born in the 80s.

So it was like Arnold and Stallone and Van Damme.

Like there was like muscle everywhere so we're like i don't know just the hyper masculine era that i came up in but bodybuilding was already a fascination so i saw these magazines and sort of black and white photos of dorian uh when he when he did that famous photo shoot so it was always bodybuilding i think just implanted in you know in my brain but coming up i there was only open bodybuilding when i was coming up so it wasn't any other divisions like classic or men's physique so that

that was the only option and that's also what I saw as being the pinnacle to me, just because that was my exposure.

So yeah, that was always going to be the route that I wanted to go once I got into it.

Going back a little bit to the off-season thing, because this was actually in the QA, and I feel like this is just like a good time to ask anyways.

But someone was asking

when did you grow the most?

When was the off-season that you had the most growth?

Yeah.

Definitely when I did my, after my first nationals, I did USAs and I was a middleweight now i was a sucked down middleweight so i went from like i was ready around 184 i sucked down to like 18 176 to make weight um after that that whole year come back to usas and i was uh i was 209

so put on like 30 pounds of stage weight um now it's like a 209 not having to suck down to make weight that was the morning of the show i think i weighed in at like i think i weighed in at like 214 215 or something like that but um so it was a huge amount of progress and that was just over the course of the year that was probably my biggest jump uh in body weight i

but but hell just this past year i've had probably one of my big next biggest spurts of growth because um 2023 i did my last 212 show and i was ready about 217 and would could suck down and make 212.

But now fast forward, like from that show to the Olympia, I was 233.

So that's already like 16 pounds of stage weight, which for someone that's, hey, I'm 38 years old and doing this a long time is pretty damn good progress.

So yeah, but I think those would be my two times where I've made the most progress.

And how long did it take for you to gain those 16 pounds?

That was

from

There's a lot of prep involved in there too.

So I did that 212 show in July and then that was a year into an october so it was like maybe like 16 16 months something like that but

also that was like from that july show i did legion in october so that was a prep then i think i just had like a about a six seven month off season period to push up and the rest was maybe improvements i could have made between shows so it wasn't How long was that prep for?

For the 212 show or

the one in between during that long like 16 month offseason.

That was about 10 weeks.

So I dieted for like 22 weeks for that 212 show to get down.

I got a little too fat.

I was like 260.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

I was like, I won't do that again.

And then, yeah, from that show, it was about 10 weeks to Legion and I came up to like 222.

for that for that show.

So I think I did make some progress.

Then I had a pretty good an offseason chunk.

That was like six months.

Then I was far shorter preps because I stayed really lean.

And that's why I'm like, here, here we go.

Here's where my light can really shine.

And I did basically dieted for like eight weeks for Toronto.

And that's when I was like, it was like 229-ish.

And then by the time I did Vancouver, won that show, and then Olympia.

And that's when my stage waited to come up to about 233.

So I think it was a situation where you kind of suck down, then you're able to fill back out.

And I made some, I don't want to say mistakes, mistakes but like learning aspects around what works really well for me so i was like oh i want to be super hard and granite and i you know if you're 212 or you're classic like guys get crazy peeled for it you're used to that condition open there's a shift a little bit like you have to manage the fullness side as well so i was like i kept reducing testosterone and growth hormone down and down and down and eventually it was making my look look worse.

I was looking softer.

And so I realized like, no, i run this hot test and gh going down you you you look softer yeah yeah wow um i would think i had gone down to like 400 milligram per week of test and about five i use a growth hormone um and that was coming from i was at 900 megs of test and i think it was around nine i use a growth hormone and so i was transitioning this down into toronto and that looked pretty good for toronto and vancouver like man what is going on like i'm looking softer my body weight's lower I was looking back at pics.

And then my buddy Luke Miller, who's on our, our coaching team, an educator on J3U, I was like, hey, man, here's this.

Here's the data.

He's like, you know, on your last show, like, these are things that you had in place and worked well.

So I moved test back up, growth hormone back up.

And that's when I was at the Olympia for like at 233.

Okay.

And I, yeah.

all the way through show, like 900 megs of tests, growth hormone the day before, walking out on stage, right?

Like it's all, it all stays in place for me.

And that's the best, best look.

How much do you think that that response is individual, independent?

It's, man, it's all over the spectrum.

So

with guys that get really granite and grainy, and usually they drop off in the fullness when you start dropping off tests and growth hormone and those aspects.

The guys that are like bubbly round and also struggle getting peeled, those are usually the guys you can, you have to pull everything out.

Growth hormone.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

a quote like James Hollingstead, he said it, he said this, like, you know, you get caught, you get caucasian dry or they're like, you know,

black and round.

This is James Hollingstead.

This is not Josh saying this.

So, so it's like, maybe it's these different physiques if there's something like that.

But I would just say, like, in general, guys that are really, really hard and probably struggle with the fullness versus the guys that don't get quite conditioned, stay really round.

um, that's where you're having to kind of play the spectrum and finding the balance of where it fits.

So, the cookie-cutter approach of like at X weeks out, you cut your tests, and X weeks out, you cut your growth remote.

Like, no, no, no, there should be an assessment that takes place and adjustments along the way to find the PD approach that's personalized to you for your peak.

Yeah, 100%.

This isn't even close to the first time that I've ever heard darker skin tends to have more of that softer, bubbly look, whereas all the white guy hard gainers are fucking grainy, shredded, peeled to the glutes.

Yeah, maybe, maybe we just, we gave the grainy white guys some advantage out there of like, oh, maybe I'll just keep in my, my growth hormone and my test, but, but, but really, like, you know, like when I'm like four or six weeks out, that's when I start playing with those variables to see what's impactful and what's not.

I think a lot of guys make the mistake.

And I was listening to a previous podcast on you of like, you know, why, why are the open guys missing the mark?

And i think a lot of times you they're you're making the assumption that i'm just holding water and you wait till like the day before the show to make some radical manipulations and then you're like oh damn that wasn't water i just had body fat and so it's like oh

so if you start manipulating these things early to where when you actually get into peak week that variable is removed like your pds are already adjusted to account for water Then it makes it a lot easier to peak for a show.

And then also you'll be able to just truly gauge like how much fat you have left to pull off

yeah um i agree that something uh you know stefan kinzel also says too um it just it seems like with both of you guys it is just easier to just keep everything a lot more simple like now like i don't know if it's maybe you could say more like 10 years ago just things in bodybuilding were just so complicated Everyone was doing everything, changing variables, upping dosages in the last week,

fluctuating carb intake and water intake in the last week and crazy amounts.

It's just like, it's like with so many variables, like it's hard to expect that result to happen.

To be, yeah, to be repeatable or to look back and understand.

I mean, if you come from the engineering background, I'm sure you wanted to know how everything worked and understand it all.

So you're like, oh yeah, we're going to pull all these levers and then it's going to wake up and magically you're going to look awesome.

You're like, okay, cool.

It's like, now I don't look awesome.

It's like, what didn't work?

It's like, ah, I don't know.

I had my hands pulling on everything.

So it's like, if we control all the variables and then if you look great, this is my approach for peak week.

So it's all about for me, I call on J3U finding the look.

So you enter into peak week and you look like you could walk on stage at some moment of the day.

Just do that.

It's like, that's the simplest part of your peak.

Then if you don't, we slowly start manipulating one variable at a time and we do the least and escalate that up to the most as you need.

But I think a lot of times we're seeing that starting ass backwards, right?

It's like we manipulate everything, and then eventually you do that long enough to we're like, Well, this is this is terrible, and then you're like, I should just do less.

So, rather than don't make that mistake for everyone that's listening out there, if you look great, just go out there.

It's as simple as that.

That's uh, nearly how I walk on stage now, most of the time.

Um, I was talking about this with Fuad.

Um, what do you feel like are

some of the biggest differences between uh open and classic?

Yeah, I think with

we already hit one a little bit.

You know, like for one, being in a weight restriction, like you don't have as many cards to be able to play once you're muscled out or maxed out weight wise.

So you just like chase condition as hard because like, how else can you beat some guy when you can't put on any more tissue?

So condition has to be completely just stripped out.

While with the open, there's a flexibility there that, yes, you should be conditioned, but if you start losing so many body parts, chasing that,

you might take away from the overall look of a physique.

And you need that muscularity side.

And I hate some of the terms we use in bodybuilding because we have like the same word for multiple things, you know, it's like the round, full, and muscular.

It's like you just said the three words that are exactly the same, but

for open, yeah, you need a, you need muscularity that has to be present.

And I think that is weighed heavily into the open,

maybe more so than what classic is.

I mean, of course, and aesthetics, I think, is shifting.

Like it's,

I think, with even classic coming about, but also some of the physiques that have progressed up, like they're all extremely aesthetic.

And I think that has bled from classic into open now because we were in a previous era, like in the early 2000s, where muscularity was heavily awarded.

And then, you know, prior to that, with like waists that were kind of not as pleasing uh prior to that in the 90s it was like the condition era like guys were a little smaller but peeled to the bone yeah i think we're entering like a beautiful era in bodybuilding where there's like aesthetics um condition and mass uh muscularity it's all kind of like equally balanced out with with a little more shift towards muscularity for open

this is definitely my favorite well

i was gonna say this is like my favorite era right now except I think the arms are a little too small.

In bodybuilding, or I just think the arms could be bigger everywhere.

Always arms could be bigger.

Always arms could be bigger, bro.

Yeah.

I think in like early 90s to 80s, bro, everyone's arms were absolutely

so big, bro.

Some of them were just smaller.

I feel like I think their, I do think the torsos were smaller, but it's hard to see that, I think, because

it's just the arms are so loud.

so i just think uh it just contributed to this very interesting look in um this interesting classic proportion you know in the 80s and early 90s you know in in that era i think a lot of those guys if they're competing now would have be classic guys and i feel like a lot of our our classic guys now like if you remove classic physique Those would be like the open guys back then in the 90s and that were like your Kevin LeBron, your Sean Rays, your Flex Wheelers, like the physiques that just are immaculately perfect.

I think Classic steals a lot of those guys and you don't see them like come up now into the open.

Yeah.

Would you agree to that?

Or do you think it...

I think so.

I think so.

Because, I mean,

a lot of people really like those proportions.

A lot of people really like that look.

So I can understand how, you know, there's a big reason why it's so, so popular now, aside from Chris Bumpstead.

I feel like in classic, you need a disproportionate, like, bigger arm to torso versus open.

You think so?

If you looked at some classic physiques, like the, and like, like this, think of a front double, like, there's a small waist, and then it flares up to, like, these really big arms that just kind of accentuate a taper more.

I think proportionally, absolutely, like, you're, you're probably,

the arms match the torsos more in open bodybuilding.

I don't think it's as disproportionate to a degree, but arms are bigger and open, like you're just a bigger body.

But uh it just seems that that seems like a classic look to me

yeah i feel like it i feel like it's a super classic look too but i guess i i think of people like chris bumstad and urz for example um they're a little different right yeah like they have smaller arms but they have massive legs and the legs kind of just scream just like pick me for first i feel like in classic i feel like these really big striated legs at one point in time were um

one good indicating factor of i mean obviously if your legs are going to be super striated, so is most, most of the rest of your body going to probably be too, right?

But

yeah, I don't know.

I think I just think of like those two guys, for example, but then you think about like Ramon and Wesley, for example, too, and they have big arms too.

So, I mean, obviously it varies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ramon looks really classic.

I don't know.

Big legs don't seem as classic to me.

I think it's shifted that way.

Like I think of like a Logan Franklin, right?

Like he seems like a very classic physique.

Um, he's, I know he said, like, this kind of an Arnold comparison.

I I always think of Arnold when I think classic, right?

But it's like smaller legs, like big chest arms.

But we see it shift.

It's kind of now what catches your eye and just wows you, which you're right.

Like some shred out legs, a bunch of detail and like big quad sweeps.

Like, how do you, how do you not pick that?

So, no, for real, yeah.

I'm really intrigued to see what it's going to look like this coming year.

It's going to be crazy.

Yeah.

Something I was wondering earlier.

Um,

when you were gaining that weight in the offseason, um, you said this the last offseason where you gained so much weight, you went up to like 260.

I'm assuming that was like maybe what would you say, like around 50 pounds above stage weight, 40.

Yeah, yeah, it was like 40, 45 or so, 45 or so.

What do you think is a were what is the main reason why that was something that you wouldn't want to repeat?

Is it mostly just like coming back down for prep, losing that weight, being

so tedious?

Yeah, yeah, well,

partly that.

Like, I think

the number one biggest mistake people make to not being in shape is, for one, not giving themselves enough time to prep.

And a lot of that comes from putting too much body fat on the offseason, which I think it's pretty easy to get to an unproductive spot with gaining too much body fat.

So in your post-show phase, I think it's important to, in that phase, being the leanest you're able to maintain and remove all the poor, like the contest, prep, um, maladaptive things that happen, like the brain fog, the energy, the poor sleep, all that shit, have that completely roofed and be as lean as possible.

That way you have as much runway as possible for your offseason to grow.

Like I mentioned earlier, like being an enhanced athlete, you have a huge advantage, like to be able to stay lean

and also stay healthy.

And I think gaining body fat and getting overly fat and high in body weight, that is probably the most like deleterious aspect in bodybuilding, in my opinion.

And then add drugs on top of that.

Right.

And it just completely compounds to where now if you're like not as metabolically healthy, you're going to have a harder time with everything.

It's going to have digestive issues.

You're going to have sleep issues.

And you're also going to have poor training because your work capacity sucks.

So you get to just a really unproductive spot when you get too heavy and too high in body fat.

Then on the back side of that, the first part of prep is like a slug to get moving.

You're trying to get all these metabolic processes moving again to like burn, to switch to like utilizing fat for fuel.

And it can just make a really long prep.

And a part of like being able to bring that muscularity you gained.

to stage is also being able to manage fatigue on prep.

And when you have a prep that's so long or so aggressive, you're not going to be able to uphold your training performance as well, which is, I think, the best proxy you have to know if you're retaining tissue or not, muscle tissue.

So that's another part where people just start getting deflated on prep and not bringing out to bring to stage like what they were able to build in their offseason.

So, for several reasons, for health aspect, being productive in the offseason, and also being able to get down to condition stage lean as efficiently as possible and bring that muscle to stage is why I absolutely would stay a lot leaner.

And I'll tell you this too: like, I am by far my most muscular I've ever been in my life.

And even

pushing

gear harder than I have when I was 212,

I have like excellent lab work.

Like my, my health markers are in a great spot.

And I'm able to do this, I think, by staying in a much leaner body fat level than I was when I was previously there.

Cause that's when I start seeing skewing more so in my lipids and panel.

And

eventually just, yeah, sleep turns to shit and everything.

Are there any other particular supplements and medications that you you personally take and you also think are good ideas for your blood root?

That's quickly jumping to a

like a rabbit hole aspect.

I know a lot of people want to want the what to take.

And there's just...

I think it differs per person too.

Yeah, and I don't want that to be like the scapegoat answer because we could definitely like give things that are applicable.

But I just think so many people are missing the basics

that just should be there.

Like, hey, how do you like stay insulin sets that have been the offseason and then like limit body fat gain?

It's like, here's a great tool that most people aren't ever going to utilize

is just get on a sleep schedule, go to bed the same time, wake up at the same time and get seven, eight hours of sleep.

Like that is so underrated.

I can't even tell you how like underrated it is.

No, I think it's easily the most important thing by far.

I think no matter what you do in bodybuilding, no matter what you take, sleep is always going to be number one.

I mean, we have like just such good data on sleep and this like for one long-term health for one but then also uh if you diminish sleep to a degree we see like in a caloric deficit you lose less body fat and you lose more muscle in the off season that flips you'll gain more body fat and you won't gain as much muscle so now you're becoming less efficient in your prep and in your off season just with sleep detriment

And in turn, also like sleep deprivation to a degree.

Not talking like, hey, I missed a whole night of of sleep talking like 30 minute one hour shifts in your sleep you wake up the next next next day and have higher blood glucose and higher insulin levels and not be able to partition fuel as well keep doing that over time here you go you're going to get to a higher body fat state a lot quicker you can have poor metabolic health and all this thing around health you're going to be able to put tissue on more more efficiently.

So I think sleep is one, which you might have some sleep aids or supplements that maybe you need to take to help manage that.

Another very underrated one, which I think is so common in just our U.S.

culture, is just managing stress and how much you actually need for downtime when you're trying to max out your training stimulus and actually adapt from that training stimulus.

And so I

J through you, I teach like about a stress bucket.

So basically we have a bucket which you're filling with water with like trainings, a stimulus.

It's a stressor on the body.

I'm talking about physiological stressors, not just mental stressors, right?

Like your wife yelled at you.

Like, yeah, that's a stress, but the good stressors we see are also adding to the bucket.

So, you know, you're, you're training stress, your boss yelled at you, you got less sleep, your bucket fills up, now it spills over, and you might not be able to adapt because you maxed out your bucket.

Like training probably comes last in that bucket.

So if you filled it all up with all this stress, you're probably not going to be able to have a lot of training input to create adaptations.

So I think managing stress is huge if you want to like keep health intact and also manage body fat in the offseason, stay insulin sensitive, which have some relaxation time.

I just posted this now.

This is like my hot thing that I posted because that's like interest to me, but like I just picked up a piano.

I'm going to learn to play the piano.

Oh, fire.

Just to diversify for one, but it's also like really calming for me.

So I can take 30 minutes every day and just like play and

have some relaxation downtime like something that like i think of relaxation time as to sleep is tonight so that's like your daytime to like chill and bring down stress so having that aspect in in place um

now i mean there there's we could go i could go on and on about just basic things because most people aren't doing right those basic things but those things by the way like when you say allostatic load are some of the things you're referring to right yeah absolutely thanks for the the nerdy nerdy term but absolutely that's like your total uh yeah allosteric load that could be influencing your your ability to just keep growing the offseason and adapt right

so the uh

but but yeah to to your point like

things that i've found helpful

and

if you're getting past the point of like hey you're also managing your calorie surplus you're not

you know, cheat meals and things, like those are kind of rare occurrences or they're extremely well controlled now because that was getting too much in my offseason in the past?

So I'm going to go one more thing before I hit sellments.

But I think that was a big improvement too.

Because what I was seeing in myself was

my weekly weight bump was just after the day or two, I had something to eat, like off plan.

And then the rest of the time was like maintenance weight.

Then the next week it was like a bump on the weekend.

That was it.

So I'm like, all right.

It's like,

it's like, you're not gaining lean tissue just off this one food bump, right?

So like, all right.

Sometimes I feel like it's the digestion too from like, if there's one weird little ingredient in there that's causing my digestion a little bit different than normal, I feel like that contributes a lot to my random weight bump.

Does that, but it sticks with you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, yeah, does the shit doesn't go away?

It sucks.

But that's, so, so my thing is that when I see that, I'm like, all right.

I need to figure out a way to go eat and not have that weight bump.

So that basically means less food is all that means.

So you like sushi.

I like sushi.

Well, I only get to go eat two sushi rolls with no sauce,

no fried crap.

So it's like, it's a, it doesn't impact my, my daily surplus and it doesn't impact my weekly surplus.

That's a, that's a huge one to managing body fat gain.

Like that's a the big ticket item.

Now,

other things around that for like health and bodybuilding that I found like that are very important.

And I know we talked about like insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance, I mean, just health in general.

And what is the driving, the root cause of a lot of this is for one, body fat gain, but also inflammation.

And I think this is the root issue to a lot of the metabolic issues that are occurring.

And

I have disagreements of some things that have been put out there with a lot of people say like, taking insulin will make you insulin resistant.

It's absolutely wrong.

Yeah.

It's like Lantis.

You took Lantis, you're not going to become insulin resistant.

For people that are diabetic, then exactly.

You see improvements actually when you take something like this.

But the root issue here a lot of times is for one contributing factor is inflammation and oxidative stress.

And when you're in a bodybuilder, you're driving a ton out of it with body weight gain.

PDs are huge in driving that.

So it's like, I'm thinking like, well, how do we reduce that?

It's like, well, all the things I already mentioned,

but then your base components are things that we also don't do in bodybuilding.

Like, hey, eat fruits and vegetables like that are colorful and those polyphenols have great antioxidant, anti-inflammatory aspects around them that you should have.

If you're not fulfilling all those, then I think there are some supplements that are some pretty big check boxes that would help.

I found like curcumin

in.

number of different things and has pretty good evidence for it for reducing inflammation.

It's one of the mainstay supplements if you're an enhanced bodybuilder that I would have in place,

omega-3 fatty acids which likely we're not getting a lot of those out of the diet but 100

i i tend to push those higher for guys that are uh in pds so like four to six grams of total omega-3 uh per day um i there's lots of other little food things that i like to do like i drink green tea multiple times a day again it's there's a there was a cool study done

with the Mediterranean diet and then they called it a green Mediterranean diet and in the green Mediterranean diet this group they added some some food components that are really high these polyphenols one being like green tea they also had walnuts and then they also had duckweed which is a weird green that I can't even get in the US but anyway the point of these things is they're high in polyphenols and what they found this Mediterranean diet like both groups lost body weight but there's a large proportion of visceral fat lost in the ones following the green mediterranean diet so these polyphenols that are found in berries walnuts green tea uh help with reducing uh inflammation in the body reducing oxidative stress and the bodybuilder which absolutely could see a greater partition of visceral fat gain which we see like distended belly bellies and bodybuilding yeah maybe just one contributor it's multifactorial but i think being able to bring some of those food components in uh could be of large benefit as well now if you're not eating those foods probably supplementing them would probably be a good idea too.

Other supplements too.

Beetroot powder, I think, is an awesome one.

Maybe you get a little extra

work capacity in the gym from it too.

But man, the vasodilatory effects and the protection for your endothelial cells and lowering of blood pressure would be an excellent food component to have in place too.

Gotcha.

Yeah, I know there's,

I'm happy to say that I believe most of the people that listen to this podcast have all their basics in check, or at least most of their basics in check.

It's not they complain about how hard they're trying to get their basics in check, for example.

Like the people that have like, I don't know, 16 hour, 12 hour construction work jobs, and then they're trying to get training and food into at the same time.

But

granted, like just assuming they all have these things in check, I know you stated a lot of these supplements are really helpful.

I feel like there is honestly just so many supplements that you can take.

There's so many more, like NAC, Natokinase, like

Tutka.

Like I could go on with some supplements, but I think with any supplement regimens you're doing, right?

Like

just like peak week, we talked about assessment should take place

and put in one variable at a time, a supplement at a time to see if that's impactful.

Now, there's some that you might are looking at more prophylactically that you might not see in labs.

But again, before you end up with a pantry of 20 bottles, try to be a little systematic in your approach in doing this.

Because I've been there, I worked at GNC for six years.

And when you first started GNC, you think you should take everything.

Then you wind up only taking just a couple things.

So yeah, be systematic in your approaches.

The same thing goes with medications.

I know what's been really popular are the use of like ARBs now.

or even metformin

or beta blocker like Nebavolol, which with all these assessments should take place.

And

if you need how your influence with PDs impacts that area for you, then that's something you should probably have in place.

I was in the same place as you, man, and I just threw everything on at once, which I kind of regret.

Honestly, I wish I did it, like just added one thing week by week and at least assess how I reacted to it.

Cause there's definitely certain supplements here and there where I realized I started causing myself some issues.

I'm trying to remember because I have it all written down in my notes, but like one example, for example, is I think I was taking NAC a little bit too close to night and I just had insomnia.

And I was having insomnia regularly and it was just wrecking everything in terms of my growth and my happiness.

And it's like such a small example, like where I realized that like I need to take

these supplements such as NAC like early on in the day at a specific time.

Same thing with the stragglers root.

I take that only in the morning because whenever I take it closer to night, I'm freaking waking up too many times to pee and it's causing me disturbances in my sleep.

And there's just like a wide variety of them, but I didn't, I just, just kind of like doing an elimination diet.

It would have been so much easier if I just added it in one by one.

It never goes that way.

With biobrillers, we always start with everything in place.

And I've done the same thing.

Like I, I, I've had some sleep issues and I've had to go like down the rabbit hole of finding things.

And there, there's so many people that are like the anomaly situations too.

Like I've had people that are like, hey, I'm taking metformin four at night.

Like that's, it's been advised.

And like, I have like just poor sleep.

And like, yeah, there's like rare few people that have like poor sleep from metformin or take growth hormone at night when this on paper is a very good time to take growth hormone.

A lot of times it improves sleep.

But then I hear these people like, I change this one variable and my sleep gets worse.

And then it gets better when I remove it.

It's like, okay, well, that's how you know.

So like one variable at a time.

That's the best way to make these changes.

Yeah, that happened to me, actually.

The growth hormone, um, I was waking up in the middle of the night to inject my growth hormone at one point.

Um, well, I always wake up in the middle of the night at least once to pee.

And during that time, I decided I would save a needle like

on my bathroom sink and then just inject myself with my growth hormone before I go to bed.

And I noticed that second half of the night, even though that is the night where you have like the second half of your sleep is normally when you have your lighter sleep, right?

I was just getting really dog shit sleep.

And then when I stopped doing that, my sleep improved.

But now I'm at the point where like, you know, I'll take my growth hormone before bed, a certain amount of time after my last meal.

And that hasn't caused me any issues.

So, I mean, there's just like so many different variables that you have to play with, but that's why I feel like it's fun being a bodybuilder.

Everyone has to experiment on themselves.

It is an experiment.

I know everyone wants the right answer and start there.

And it's like paralysis by analysis.

And some of the times, like in Bible, you're going to have to stop debating.

Like, gosh, I get this one all the time.

Prima bolin versus masturon.

Like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to ever have to answer this again.

Oh, gosh, all the time.

It's just like, you're going to have to experiment.

Like, you're going to hear it all over the place.

Like, someone hates primo.

Someone hates Mastron.

Like, it didn't, this one caused my hair loss.

No, this one caused my hair loss.

I grew great on this one.

I didn't grow on this one.

Like, listen,

these are options or tools, right?

So you're going to have to find the secondary compound to pair up with testosterone.

And the only way you're going to find like the one that gets along best with you for growth, for side effect is to use them and control the variables.

And as you rotate through these things, you're going to find like the best designs for you.

Like some people have like stamped me of like the being the test masturban guy.

It's like, no.

That's not me.

These are my own personal things that I've have reasons and rationales of why I've been using what I using.

But that's not what I would do with all my clients and exactly what I teach.

I teach a framework of thought to come to those conclusions.

I don't teach a protocol.

Yeah.

Do you mind if I go run to a restroom real quick?

Not at all.

I'll go as well.

I'll see you there.

No drug can be the feeling of peeing after a podcast.

Holy crap.

Yeah, I'm in my office, which is like away from my house.

So I just pee outside, which it's like 29, it's like 29 degrees outside right now.

No way.

So

it's not as pleasant to go pee.

That's epic.

There's something that gives me a feeling of achievement when I pee outside.

Yeah, I have no neighbors.

I'm just in the woods.

Where are you living again right now?

Where are you guys based?

In San Antonio, Texas.

I'm on the outskirts of San Antonio, so kind of in the country how cold is it right you wait you just said how cold it was yeah it was it's like uh like high 20s right now we just had a cold front hit so it's pretty rare for texas yeah i used to live in texas when i was a kid i was in cloud station up till i was like 12 years old okay But uh, it still blows my mind how San Diego, like, I'm or not San Diego, I'm living in L.A.

now, but like, you know, here in California, it's like the exact same temperature like year-round.

Even though Texas gets above 100s and is freaking humid as fuck, it gets that cold during the winter.

Still blows my mind.

You're talking about insulin sensitivity, which is something that

I

just love talking about it, and it's something that I focus on a lot, especially for myself.

I'm always a little bit too self-conscious when it comes to me eating my carbs because I'm always worried about my insulin resistance.

Like, is this why I'm getting too fat?

All this shit.

And,

you know,

different coaches have different perspectives on

like

like insulin like medications and supplements for insulin so I wanted to know what your perspective is on those like you just discussed metformin like what's your perspective on like um berberine RALA chromium any of these things for insulin I know um

there's coaches like Patrick Tor that will utilize a little bit of them and then there's coaches like Stefan who like thinks that they should be more avoided I guess I try to find the middle ground with a lot of them I I think for, say, as you're moving like from natural into the enhanced role, like a natural guy,

you're not going to have to worry about insulin resistance or even worry about insulin sensitivity necessarily.

If you're doing all the things right and you don't have some genetic predisposition, but as you do move into the enhanced realm, yeah, you're going to have increased potential to probably get insulin resistant to a degree.

But man, even in the studies where because what's really going to drive this

could be growth hormone.

And I think that's where we see a lot of the issues.

And you look at someone that has like acromegaly, like conditioned with excess growth hormone production, they could be more insulin resistant, but that's not reflective of someone that is more in the athletic population or even a bodybuilder.

Because

there's a great study.

I forget the year.

It's by dressing.

But they take these healthy individuals that are lean in a hyperchloric state, and they give them like super physiological amounts of growth hormone and transiently like acutely I think it was over six weeks you see blood glucose up you see insulin go up but at the end of the study it actually comes back down if you look to your a1c levels they they don't change

So just the time point of when you're measuring someone's serum, glucose, and insulin are going to be up when you're on growth hormone, but that's not reflective of your actual state of being able to utilize that insulin and being sensitive to it.

So I think a lot of people are making the stake of if you're going on growth remote and you're automatically going to become insulin resistant.

But if you're staying lean is going to be number one,

resistance trained, and you don't eat like a total asshole and you sleep like we talked about, like your chances of becoming insulin resistant, having those issues are going to be very, very minimal.

Now, I do think there's like some prophylactic aspects that you should probably have in place

that would be beneficial.

Like I

lean towards using metformin on a lot of guys that are

using superphysiological amounts of growth hormone,

but to a much smaller level.

Like I don't have anyone going over 500 milligram of metformin per day, but I think it aids really well in the what growth hormone does is growth hormone can increase glucose production from the pancreas

and metformin does the opposite and metformin also can reduce inflammation can also reduce oxidative stress and we see metformin has like neuroprotective aspects around it too for those reasons

now does berberine fit into that and so I kind of have between berberine and metformin they're very similar in the mechanisms of action berberine had does have a little bit more direct action as an insulin memetic in causing glucose glucose to lower, which I've had guys in prep using berberine and go hypoglycemic, but not using metformin.

So I see like kind of berberine daytime around meals maybe have application with metformin, a low chance of hypoglycemia, but using more like at nighttime.

But what I come down decision-wise with this is really what's your access

and

your availability to utilize metformin because you get a farm grade drug.

It is what it is, like you know what it does

versus berberine.

I've had stuff that's been completely bunked before, and you're having to rely on like something unreliable, like a supplement.

So, it's kind of a pro and con list, like which can you get for some people.

Metformin causes a lot of GI distress and diarrhea.

It's like oil, berberine seems to cause a little bit less of that.

So, um, I

do like to utilize those, but more so in guys that are using on the tail of the high end of superphysiological amounts of growth hormone.

um

and then you know from there

curcumin was a big one that i brought up um if you're having like issues with like sleep stress like ashwagandha has great data on it and can help with managing cortisol as cortisol can drive up blood glucose quite a bit uh tutka would be another one

lower oxidative stress great for liver liver support and also has been shown to have some improvements with with blood glucose levels too um And I think those are some like basic ones to potentially look at.

I think the GDAs are definitely like overhyped and not everyone should even be needing a GDA, especially if you're not using super physiological amounts of growth hormone.

But the monitoring of fasting blood glucose at one point, I think, was getting a little out of control.

And I think people were

kind of missing the forest for the trees, so to speak, of like, oh man, my fasting blood glucose is up.

Like, do I need to run like a mini cut?

It's like, it's just such a short-sighted only looking at like one part of the equation for a moment of time, right?

So if you're using growth remote, I don't even have guys monitor fasting blood glucose anymore.

When I used to be a like a big proponent of it, that's one thing that I have changed just because, well, we're not looking at insulin.

And then

if you don't have that in place, like you won't really know how that response is.

But even then using growth hormone, just looking at the studies that happened, it's a transient rise.

So if you have growth hormone in your system, like, well, hell yeah, you're going to have high insulin and blood glucose, but then growth hormone comes down in your system and you'd be back to normal apart being all partitioned normally.

But what really matters is over, is the trend line of how that looks.

And then over like 10, 12 weeks, when you look at your A1C,

is that going up?

And then maybe we should look at insulin and glucose all together, the big picture.

We should probably look at your, you know, know your crp levels see what inflammation is like and if that's not moving up in the offseason then you're doing what you need to and we don't need to be monitoring it daily and making adjustments if you if you're at a point where you're having to use insulin to control blood glucose because it's elevated all day long you're already at a point that's too far um in poor metabolic health so that's why i'm not as big on like using even insulin it's hard to justify it anymore i don't see it as like this game-changing anabolic effect when you add it in.

It's,

you know, you can maybe justify it for someone that is on the higher end of insulin, growth hormone usage.

Some people say using it is like a prophylactic means.

Hard to really say it does that.

Like we don't have, you know, data on bodybuilders like we say.

But

I just don't see a lot of guys even go there.

And when you even look at like the guys that I know in open that are some of the biggest guys around and who coaches them, most of them aren't even using insulin.

So I think there's, there's been a hype around insulin for a long time, but it's just probably one of the most overrated drugs in bodybuilding.

I feel like that too.

I don't even have that much experience with it, but just from everything I've heard and all the podcasts I've had, that always seems to be the conclusion.

I've done all kinds of things with it.

And

these past offseasons,

I've had some like some little bit of Lantis in place and then it falls off because I just, I'm already doing enough injections and it just doesn't just doesn't make a difference either way.

I've done the protocols with like, I've done up to like, you know,

was it doing 15 IUs pre and post of Huma log around training and acutely, like you get a little bit more pump.

Yeah.

But is pump the best indicator?

You're having a workout?

And then after two weeks, it fades away.

You just would need to take more insulin and then you need to add more carbs in so you don't die.

And then you probably get too fat because now you're feeding the insulin, which shouldn't work that way.

It should be matching the carbs, your insulin to your carb needs.

So, yeah, I just, I've never seen out like as much result with it, even with guys I've utilized it in.

So

I don't think that's a huge aspect.

But I think controlling, like, like we're talking about the.

inflammation, oxidative stress component is going to be huge for you to stay in that insulin-sensitive state.

Then just pull your labs every 10 to 12 weeks, see where your markers are.

And then you should retrospectively look back on what you're doing and make adjustments moving forward of what you might need in place.

And that's how I got to determine for guys if, should metformin be in place or insulin be in place as how they trend over their offseason when we're doing these things.

Okay.

Yeah.

What would you consider a super physiological dose of GH?

Yeah, for, I mean, it would be body weight dependent, but usually moving over for the four IU mark for most guys is going to to push them into that territory.

Okay, cool.

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This is really nice to hear because

I think

I was on that side of the whole overchecking blood glucose point and I was not even taking GH.

I mean, at one point I was taking MK, so that was having me a little bit of concern.

Um, which

is blood glucose, yeah, I'm never going to take MK ever again.

Um, but, um,

you know, I guess that's just it's nice to hear that

I'm on the side of bodybuilders that are a little bit too paranoid.

So, uh,

I've, I've heard previously and recently too from others that

I think

the fear around blood glucose and insulin resistance is sometimes overblown.

Big time.

It actually is people that are not going to take a GH.

It's just not that common.

Honestly,

when you're doing things right, like, yeah, if you go get extremely fat and you eat like shit all the time.

Yeah, you're probably going to have it because you're eating like someone that has a disease state anyway, right?

Like that's how so like if you're if your habits reflect someone that's obese and disease state, like, yeah, you're probably going in that direction.

But if you're doing all the things like we're talking about,

you probably won't go there unless you had some genetic predisposition around like type 2 diabetes, which I've had, I've had those clients where

we start escalating growth from up in food, and then I'm all of a sudden seeing an A1C that's like pushing over 5.7, getting into towards six.

I'm like, all right, this, this is just a genetic propensity towards that, and we're going to have to like work around that.

And that's the guys where I do have to like use insulin more or even use metformin because we're trying our best to be able to manage bodybuilding alongside someone's genetics.

And, but those, again,

that's the rarity and that's not what you should be applying to everyone.

But like yourself, man, I love data.

I love my Excel sheets and all this.

And it can just get really carried away with tracking

to where you're just tracking too much.

And I, and then you, as a person that does that, you think every client that comes to you should be doing it too.

It just like falls off for everyone.

Most people can't track the way I could, or probably what you could, that are like a super nerd.

Um, it just won't work out, like, they'll just fall off.

So

if I can simplify bodybuilding,

yeah, no, yeah,

if I can simplify it as much as possible, um,

that's that's what I want to do.

Yeah, yeah.

Um,

well, I forgot.

Uh, anyways,

I went on rambling, rambling about Blood Good Coast.

How do you personally try to keep your waist tight?

Oh, man, this is a huge hot topic, isn't it?

I've been asked so much about this.

So

I think

some people ask me, like, well, why are some bodybuilders getting like blown out midsections?

Like, is it a drug to blame?

Is it this?

And I do think it's, I think it is multifactorial.

I think probably some of the bigger detriments are

keeping just a distended belly all off-season long and never having that thing suck back in.

And just over time, you stretch it out.

And especially if you're some guy that has

a shorter torso and wider hips, you could go there a lot quicker when you're...

adding the same amount of muscularity on as someone that has a has that longer torso potentially and and and structurally, you know, a little tighter.

You might see some guy kind of round out to the front before they kind of go out to the sides, but nonetheless, you know, if you're spending all offseason with these high food volumes, with foods that are bloating you, causing a lot of gas and distension,

and then that kind of just propels itself into GI issues, you know, have guys with reflux and indigestion, upper GI issues that can even get down to even lower GI issues with inflammation.

I think this is one variable variable that's in place.

And I think a lot of bodybuilders would benefit.

I've heard a lot of these other guys speak to, you know, protein's been excessive.

There's also lack of fruits and veggies and fiber in a lot of bodybuilders diets, but some guys can't even start there.

But my goal is to create a diet that fills in all nutritional gaps.

I'm a dietitian is my background, so I'm kind of a foodie-first guy, but I think that what is what makes a complete diet if I can fill it in with good food variety to get all those micronutrients.

So

anyway, I'm looking for a guy to have like good digestion, be able to control your waist all offseason and not have food distending it.

From there, also training your waist.

It's a muscle.

So being able to trade the transverse abdominis and pull it in from

I morphed my waist from 2017 to no

2018 to 2019.

2019 was when I did my first Olympia.

I competed in in 2018.

When I got on stage, like my vacuum was just holding my waist flat on stage.

And so it was like a struggle the whole time I was on stage.

I also had like no ab development.

Like I didn't even train abs.

So when I died it down, they would be flat, not full and popping.

So all offseason, I was...

spent my time doing abdominal vacuums like every single morning.

I actually need weight trained abs just from flexion.

So sternum to pelvis, no like abdominal, no weighted rotational work or oblique work.

Just needed some actual development to occur.

But man, 19, like my waist was completely different.

Like I could control it to be smaller.

Did I shrink it?

No.

Like I have my same hip structure like in the offseason.

If I relax, like, dude, yeah, my obliques come out.

My, my, like, abdominal sticks out.

Like, it's always been like that since I powerlifted.

Like genetically, that's it.

So, but I've been able to train the muscle to pull it back in.

So I think training it is going to be huge.

And you also need not a a lot of food in you to be able to do that.

So these are parts to it.

Long term, I think there is the drug aspect to just address,

which

growth hormone is interesting because in and of itself, you see lower visceral fat in people that have growth hormone.

Like someone that had growth hormone deficiency, when you add growth hormone back in, they actually reduce their visceral fat, which it also causes insulin resistance too, which so it seems a little counterintuitive, but that's really on your higher end of growth hormone dosage.

On this, the replacement level, it improves insulin sensitivity, less visceral fat.

But you don't really see that in patients with acromegaly, like having high amounts of visceral fat.

But where I see this potentially could change is with the introduction of androgens.

And the steroid users have a greater degree of visceral fat than non-users.

And where this gets even worse, and you see this in a great example is females when they're they're going into menopause and they're no longer producing as much estrogen, progesterone, and you see a more androgen-dominant environment or the PCOS, the female with picos, right?

They start to partition towards visceral fat.

That's when you see like a master's level competitor female that's been in a long time.

They has like this rounded, distended kind of belly.

It's like a lot of that's probably like visceral fat gain that's been partitioned there.

Wow.

I didn't think it would be that visible.

And

again, this is the culmination in theory like no one has this like direct answers around this but uh i think again it's multifactorial but low low estrogen uh would drive potentially a lot more visceral fat gain and um estrogen is uh reduces inflammation so we definitely want enough estrogen present so i think a big mistake in your offseason is over suppressing estradiol with the overuse of ais and serums so keeping enough estrogen in your sweet spot would be ideal to not partition as much towards like visceral fat gain.

What would you say that would be?

A sweet spot.

Man, it's going to be really individual, of course.

So that, but that sweet spot would be where

you're going to have to find out for yourself to really escalate up testosterone and see what that feels like.

But when it gets too high, I mean, you could look at lab numbers, but it really getting too high is going to be a point where a lot of guys will feel like anxious.

Sleep quality could start diminishing.

Of course, the typical signs of like gyno would be present, right?

Maybe too much water retention where blood pressure could be problematic.

A lot of times when estrogen gets too high, too, you might have, you'll have libido, but you'll have ED.

With low estrogen, both happen.

Like you have no libido and you have ED.

So that could be a culmination there.

But in labs, what I usually see is usually around the 100 picogram per mil mark.

This is with high androgens too, like you're on cycle, right?

For a lot of guys going beyond that, they're usually not tolerating more estradiol than that.

On the low end, 40, somewhere in there, that's pretty normal for guys.

So that's probably that range of maybe a sweet spot.

But don't let a lab number

throw you and think my estradiol is high.

I got to do something about it.

Because there's a lot of problems just with measuring estradiol in and of itself.

If you're not measuring an ultra-sensitive estradiol, this is like an HPLC test for estradiol, taking steroids alone and the inaccuracy of just an estradiol level alone could be all over the place and create enough era to where you could be actually at a 70

and your lab saying you're at 100.

And you're like, oh shit, my estradiol is high.

Well, actually, it's a lot lower.

Trimbolone.

Trimbolone cross-reacts and pops up as estradiol on lab tests.

I've seen this in numerous labs before when guys are crushing estradiol with like like letrosol they're like how is my estrogen high it's like yeah you're taking trimbolone so

so there's a lot to understand about estradiol level testing to go off labs alone i would more so like always coach the person in front of you before you just go off a lab marker like that if you feel great and amazing even if your estradiol is high and you have high injuries like great that's probably around your sweet spot I mean you could play around with lowering it or letting it go a little higher and see how you feel.

There is a point where when you drive up like testosterone high enough that it likely will fully saturate the aromatase enzyme and estradiol doesn't really go any higher.

Like I'm that guy and I could run tests probably as high as high as I could go and my estradiol just won't go any higher because I'm already at that point where it's already maxed out basically.

But not everyone's going to be like that.

And so I have some guys that are like really really low of their ability to tolerate testosterone um

i'll come back to this but just let me to let me finish out the waist thing the last thing to consider

would be uh like long-term like organ growth around using gear and again i think that's more the long-term thing but the more acute thing is is probably the other factors I mentioned.

And a lot of guys that had that big growth spurt too quick, you see their waist grow.

And some of this comes in even naturals.

There's a study I looked at with athletes.

It was in their first few months in college, and I think it was football, I believe.

And they measured their organs in gaining weight.

And even those organ sizes increased because if you're a bigger individual, you're going to have bigger organs.

So even happens in naturals.

So if you're going to gain 100 pounds of muscle tissue, like your organ sizes are going to increase to compensate and support that structure

as well.

So, you know, as far as like something I brought up earlier about weight training the abs,

it's like, yeah, you could definitely like hypertrophy the obliques by doing so, even just doing flexion work because the obliques, they do run at some diagonals, but they're going to have some contribution to flexion.

Again, it's kind of just a balance of how much do you really need for development, but consideration for those points.

I think things to not put weight in would be like just wearing your belt at the gym to like keep your waist tight.

Maybe it keeps you mindful to pull it in, but if it's only for like an hour out of the day, I don't think that's like the big ticket item to do it.

I also don't think avoiding squats and deadlifts is it either.

Um, we have like the pinnacle of what a physique should look at, like C-bum, um, someone that squats over 600 pounds and deadlifts the same.

And he is again, the pinnacle of aesthetics.

I do know he was avoiding deadlifts, though, uh, avoiding deadlifts and free weight barbell squats for quite some time wasn't that for an issue around

i saw him mention it was was his knee because i know he loves to do them but there was something issue-wise no it was his neck right that he couldn't do him

maybe maybe it was i know the only thing about the knee i know is he uh he

did do some Smith machine squats.

I feel like because he said it felt better for his knees.

Okay.

But

it might have been his neck.

I think that's what I

heard him say.

But again, an in of one, right?

Like it, you know, we have plenty of other guys that squat deadlift, but if you're going to put on a ton of freaking muscle quickly, that's likely what's driving the issue.

Right.

So not an isometric contraction bracing for a lift.

I agree as well.

From all the coaches and everything, and everyone I've talked to, it just seems to me that's, it's just food volume and then putting on just size just way too fast from both food and drugs.

Just seems to be, I feel like two of the biggest culprits out of all the different factors.

Like that, that

time I brought up earlier, my big growth spurt to have, like my waist definitely increased over that time period.

And

I didn't know the things I know now to be able to.

control it better or even train it.

But I didn't get those things back in my waist.

So could i have maybe gone a little slower or used different approaches like absolutely i think i could have done it with the same muscle gain but still controlling my waist size

knowing what i i i've known now but yeah if you're if you're getting bigger like your waist is going to be increasing to some degree uh even if uh if even your spinal erectors are increasing right like that's going to make your waist size just just bigger too but um it's hard it's hard to avoid it how much uh weight over how much time did you gain again?

And I know you told me the weight earlier.

Yeah, it was about 30, 35 pounds of stage weight in exactly a year.

Okay.

That's fucking insane.

It was wild.

Like you look back comparisons.

It looks like a different human.

That was freaking unreal.

I'm pretty sure.

Didn't Dorian Yates say something like two and a half pounds per month, which is going to be like...

I don't know how much that is.

I feel like that's about as much as you gained.

Yeah, yeah.

It could be.

I mean,

man, a huge chunk of that was just like post-show as well, too.

But yeah, it was a rapid.

Okay.

So you did gain a lot post-show.

I did absorb a lot.

What was your method post-show?

Did you rebound or reverse or health phase?

Yeah, well, that, I mean, that was.

That was all coaching and guidance under Matt Jansen at the time, which the approach then, which I can't speak to everything he's done since then.

I'm sure he's learned a lot, but it was like keeping gear up relatively high.

You know, into the shows, like there's a, there was a ton of orals that we used,

but like a lot of things would stay in place and hire.

And then I never really pushed food that hard post-show, but being like, that was the first time I actually really got stage lean as well.

And so I was in this just hyper-responsive state and also.

was on more drugs than I think I've ever even taken before in my life too.

And that was also the first time I even used growth growth hormone.

So there was like a culmination, a storm of anabolism brewing, right?

That I just kept growing, man.

Like I would gain like sometimes four pounds in a week.

And after eight weeks, I was like right around like the high, high two, 215, 217s.

And I'm like, Matt, am I gaining too quickly?

He's like, dude, you still have like lines in your glutes.

I'm like, okay.

I was like, he's like, eat more for your cheat meals.

I'm like, all right.

yeah

and then then prep the next prep was better too because

I came to Matt when I was like 12 weeks out from USA's I'm like I was coaching myself I was like hey man I just need someone to like do I don't know the this level of competition and so the whole time was chasing fat loss hard the next show like he had the reins the whole time right so we're able to like actually

refeed me and like fuel performance.

And there was like eight weeks into the show where I was just like recomping.

And so I absolutely was like growing into the show as well.

So it was just

the first time where I had all the variables lined up of what need to happen from the PDs, the training, nutrition, the guidance and structure to be able to maximize the process.

And

that's when I saw a lot of progress.

You got a lot of Q ⁇ A's.

So I got like two more questions that I would love to ask you.

Okay.

But before that, and then we can run the the Q ⁇ A's real quick if you're up for that.

But

hopefully we can make this fast because I'm just really curious.

I do, just so I have like maybe 15 minutes of, just so you know.

Okay, okay, cool.

We'll run this quickly then.

For training, I feel like there's a lot of like interest in the upper-lower split right now.

Yeah.

I know that's something both Terrence Ruffin and

Mike Summerfield have been running recently.

I want to know what your perspective is on training splits and what you found found is the most optimal for yourself.

Obviously a difficult person.

Yeah, of course.

And I, I, of course, all those questions are so common of what should my split be?

Like, I'm thinking about this.

And it's, I understand the question, but usually it comes back to, you know, what is your volume needs and what is your body parts you need to focus on?

And then based on that, how do we organize that through the week to give you the max stimulus and recoverability?

And that's determines your split so there's a few questions back before we get to is this the more optimal split to do

now looking comparatively to like a bro split of training something once per week that works for i think you know it works for a lot of guys i think there's issues those with it right because You can only stimulate so much in one session for a muscle.

Then every setup thereafter becomes just more fatiguing and less stimulating.

So at some point, if you do need more stimulus, you're kind of left with nowhere to go with the bro split.

And then seven days later, does it, how you could think if you're running a bro split right now, like, does it take you seven days to fully recover your biceps?

The next time you train them, you're like, no, man, I was sore for like two days and they felt fully recovered.

It's like, well, at some point getting more advanced, you're probably running into you stimulate the muscle in that session, you have some adaptations, but then you start losing those adaptations because you're not able to stimulate it again.

So these are the problems with the bro split.

And where we've even seen within the scientific literature is probably some ideal frequency of stimulation being two times per week for some muscle groups, maybe three times per week for others because you're able to get the most stimulus before it gets just reduced down and accumulating too much fatigue.

And then you stimulate the muscle again.

So your weekly volume for the week is now more productive than what it would be just trying to cram it all into one day.

So

what does this look like for a split?

Well, there's a lot of ways you could structure this, right?

You absolutely could do upper, lower.

You could do upper, lower, upper, lower, and have like three days off a week.

I still like doing even shorter sessions.

And right now I train six days a week and one day off.

So I do push, pull, legs, push, pull legs off.

And

it's probably the same volume that if I ran upper, lower, but I just keep my session shorter and have that across a few more days.

I've always kind of fallen back into that pattern of frequency, which it's like, you know, every four days I'm stimulating a muscle.

Every three to four, because I have that off day in there.

But it's about the same frequency of what you see with an upper lower split.

The thing that...

I can see problematic with an upper lower split is that if you're strong, you're going to have a hard time building up in weight for a lot of those lifts towards something towards the end of the session might

not get as much stimulus as you'd want out of it.

So opposed to like just hitting it fresh on another day.

Right.

So

I do see some variation of like training a muscle twice a week.

And once you get really advanced, you might find yourself even having to reduce frequency back to training a muscle like once a week.

Like Hunter Labrada did this, right?

He was training training legs like every 10 days and brought upper body way up because

he freed up his recovery to be able to apply it now into more upper body work.

So at some point, you might have to run those specialized splits where it's kind of a hybrid of a bro, like upper, lower, a bro, push-pull legs.

Like there's all kinds of variations, this thing that you can do, which is cool about training because I've even had some guys run push-pull legs off and then upper-lower off.

So it's five days a week, but it's a mix mix of that type of split.

And like, you know, that could work well for the guy that does need to bring upper body up, but maybe doesn't need a lot of arm work, right?

You could get like a lot of compound work in.

So there's just, there's a lot of freedom with these splits.

I think we need to think beyond of like the name of a split and more so like what muscle do you need to stimulate and how frequently bicep training.

Here's a great example.

Biceps for a lot of guys are hard to bring up.

If you saw your arms suck, where do they usually get trained on push-pull legs and upper-lower?

It's like, oh, maybe at the end of the session, or maybe some guys have an arm day, but then you have like 12 sets of biceps.

And man, like your bicep just flexes the elbow.

Like how many different variations do you need of that before your biceps just like totally gassed and you don't get any good stimulus?

It's like, well, what if you train biceps like three to four days a week?

You took those 12 sets and you did.

four sets three days out of the week.

Like your biceps absolutely could recover.

You train them the first thing of the session, right?

They're fully fresh.

You get all the stimulus out of them.

Then you hit them again.

Like your 12 sets would be so much more effective and your biceps absolutely could come up.

So think beyond just a training split and training the muscle as frequently as you need to with the best stimulus that you can.

Yeah, I feel like this is where the art can come in in bodybuilding and like the feel can come in as well.

Like, obviously, we should track everything to make sure that we're following a protocol.

But at a certain point, like for me personally, like, um, I realized that

I was implementing these new training methodologies, like I guess some people call them intensifiers, but

like

the SST sets that Patrick Tor has, or kind of like the FST7 that Hanny has, I would be doing basically like pause rep

sets after my last set of an exercise.

And I was training really, really, really intensely, doing my body parts about twice a week.

And I got to this certain point where I started falling apart.

Like

started having like a over like this just unreal painful tightness in my back, trap and peck on my left side particularly.

Things that were like related to like impingements, all of these issues that just seemed to follow the fact that I was doing too much volume and also training too intense for the amount of volume.

So I think it's just, this is a place where like, you know, there's there's not really anything we can follow.

We just kind of have to listen to our own bodies at a certain point if we are going too far.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you can think of like on paper how much you want to stimulate a muscle and recover, but you also have to recover.

And some of this can lead to like, what about connective tissues where it kind of can recover at a different rate than even the skeletal muscle.

Like that's, that's me.

Like I'll run into connective tissue problems far before like anything else.

And I think a lot of this is the actual art of learning to train.

Actually, how we actually move in the gym and like connect with muscles and the queuing, the setups, like all that is like takes years to learn.

And every time I'm in the gym, this is a thing that I'm thinking about across all my sets, the reps that I'm doing is like, how can I move to get more out of this exercise?

And I think that is part of the art of bodybuilding because we can look all day of like, hey, what split should I follow?

And what should that look like on paper?

It's like, yeah, here it is.

But how you interpret that and I interpret that could look completely different in the gym and so I might give you like 12 sets of biceps you're like dude my forearms are completely inflamed like my wrists are all beat up it's like well what are you doing man it's like you know how you execute those that quality of volume you actually might need a lot less right so there's a there's a quality that we have to look at and that that more isn't always necessarily better, that better is better.

And we're trying to execute our lifts as efficiently and as much quality as that we can and that's that is the art of training and that does take some time but i think man focusing on that everyone wants to know about drugs like dude drugs are so simple like there's not much to them anymore it's all about training like if i get with anyone i always want to talk about training and try to improve that i agree i i'm the same way as well i think uh there's just so many people that maybe don't hire coaches for example so they literally have zero knowledge of the of drugs in general and bodybuilding but then you realize like once you've been in it for years everyone's basically doing about the same thing, just varying it for their own personal

reactions.

Um,

well,

I mean, that was a long answer.

Yeah, we'll wrap, we'll wrap this up real quick.

Um, but uh, Fuid on the last podcast actually stated uh something that I found really interesting.

Um, I personally, I'm on, this is the highest cycle I've ever run.

I'm on 600 tests, 500 primo, and I'm sure that over time, you know, as I grow bigger or bigger, maybe we might be tight trading up or anything.

But this is what my coach and I are personally on at the moment.

Fuits said that,

you know, you know, as you work as a pro, like a lot of times you're just like, like, I need to be better.

Like, what's the recipe for me to be better?

Maybe it's more test.

Maybe it's more gear.

And he said, well, that's honestly just not the recipe.

So what he

ended up happening in his history is he would increase the dose 250 every single year, all the way up to.

a level that was just

very ineffective for him.

His training wasn't good.

He was just a water bag.

I think it was maybe like a little over two grams of tests or something until finally he came down to a sweet, a sweet spot, which for him as an open bodybuilder with however many years was 1250 of tests.

And I'm wondering if you ended up having any experience for yourself regarding finding a sweet spot for yourself.

Yeah, I...

I guess my own personal experience is a little different from, say, someone that only stayed in open because I had been in 212 for so long that I was pretty restricted, potentially like yourself.

I know you're moving up in stage weight, like you're getting close to your cap now, but I'd been like right at 212 for a long time.

So my gear usage has come down and down and down being 212.

Like one of my last preps for Olympia was like less, it was like 900 milligram of total anabolics, right?

And barely any growth hormone present because I got so much better at the bodybuilding process and just maintaining muscle at that point.

So I'm kind of in this phase right now where I am now moving up to kind of find where those limits are.

And I also need the big jumps in stage weight to happen again, which I think you have to kind of look back and

think about what people say and when they're making that progress

and relative to what you're trying to do progress wise.

Because I could easily say like, oh, yeah, you don't.

You don't need that much.

You know, you'll like Fuad found less is, you know, what he kind of landed at.

But what was Fuad's progress when he was at that point?

I don't know.

I'm just saying in general,

at some point, you might have some big pro talking like, oh, yeah, I only use this now.

But he's also probably not making those big changes you need to make earlier on in your career.

So for me, I needed to make these big jumps.

My last offseason where I completely maxed out.

for 212.

Like I was that 217, like I'm not coming down.

That was intentional that offseason.

I had used a total of 2,300 milligrams per week.

And growth remote had never gone that high when I was doing this 212 thing.

It was like five I use.

That made good progress.

This last offseason that I ran to push into the open, I'm like, okay,

that worked well.

Where do I go from there?

And what I've taught in J3U is like, hey, to make similar growth rates, you probably need percentage increases that are going to be reflective of that.

To a point, you're going to find diminishing diminishing returns like you said there's some point where you don't have any more angin receptors to saturate right like your more is just not going to work and do more there's kind of a flat line that'll occur but you might just be driving up inflammation sure yeah you get more side effect aspect or maybe you're completely resilient don't even notice those things but this last offseason

wasn't the most of a ran because the most I ran was in an old prep probably with Jansen uh but I did 3,000 milligrams total per week And nine, I use a growth hormone,

which is a chunk.

And that was

half of that was around 900 milligram of tests and a less filled in with DHT derivative.

But halfway through, I'm like, I want to see if I can take testosterone higher.

I went up to 1.4 grams of testosterone and lowered the rest of the DHT.

And

honestly, there wasn't much difference in the effect.

Like,

even how I felt with it, like it was all relatively

the same.

I am a bit more of a believer that the total milligram amount kind of drives the big process of growth.

Same.

For me, that moved the needle far still, moving from that 2.3 gram to the three gram mark.

Growth hormone was a big impactor for me as well.

This current offseason, seeing that growth response.

Also, my lab markers were great.

I don't think I need as big of a push anymore.

And I have a longer offseason.

I'm doing about the same amount now.

Okay, awesome.

Yeah,

that's

transparent as I guess I can be around that.

Like,

what will you see in the pro ranks?

Like, man, it's all over the place.

You know, there's some freak-ass muscular guys out there.

Like, I...

I talk with some guys that are way bigger than me, and they take less than me.

And that's the way it is, because they have a genetic propensity for that aspect, right?

i don't as much and there's i there's plenty of amateur guys that are running four or five plus grams per week so of harsh harsh stuff so i just don't feel like anyone should ever feel bad for that you know it's just the number and everyone's so different it's just obviously i am here to compete at the olympia i'm at the tail end of my career and i've spent most of my career competing at 212 with very low dosages and my my health isn't taxed so these last years i'm i'm making a hard push but i'm also know that I'm on my last years doing this and to get out while I'm at my peak and not, you won't see me at the Masters Olympia when I'm 50 or something.

I'm so excited, bro.

You're going to look absolutely insane.

You already do, and you just killed at this last Olympia.

So I'm really excited to see you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

My main thing was like, just walk out there and be nailed with your peak, right?

Like, it's okay to not be the biggest, but I won't.

I won't ever walk on stage like not in shape.

I've done that and it sucks.

So I i know you gotta go so um maybe someday we can i'm sorry what i didn't get to do any of your q a's we'll save them um but uh just a personal question for myself i was wondering uh how how often do you do um

uh

medium what is it not medium uh medium state cardio on your offseason because i know you're a very big proponent of steps i love steps too yeah but i need to improve my cardio health

yeah so cardio for me is i am extremely poorly adherent to like moderate pace cardio it is just not fun for me i sucks i'm a hit guy i love hit

uh i love to get pushed so i do hit cardio all off season long nice um and i'll do four sessions a week after my upper training um i'll just i'll rotate between the spin bike and battle ropes.

I'll do a minute

spin bike, rest a minute, minute battle ropes.

And I'll do like five sets of that.

Five minutes is all I need to do.

And it'll crank my heart rate up.

It's fun and I get it done and it doesn't impede my weight training at all because it's literally like, dude, it's like two sets, two minutes of quad work.

Like it's not going to affect your leg training.

It's all concentric.

So there's no eccentric component.

That's what I found has worked the best for me to adhere to and also just keep good work capacity and cardiovascular health.

Okay, cool.

Last question I ask everybody, if you were to die tomorrow or leave the earth and you had one thing you could send to the entire world today, a message, what would it be?

I have, no, no,

that's a big question.

I

last day on earth,

well, I leave, I leave with no regrets.

I

chased my passions fiercely.

I felt love deeply and I gave it it back fully.

If you can't say the same,

start making the changes now.

So when your time comes,

you can leave with peace like me.

I love that, man.

That's awesome.

Thank you, bro.

Everyone, J3 University, freaking epic.

And honestly, you'd probably become genius once you finish the course.

Where else can everybody find you?

I'm mainly active on Instagram.

So at John Jewett3,

I do have a YouTube.

Just look up John Jewett.

You'll find me there.

But my Instagram account is where I'm the most active at.

Sick.

This was epic, bro.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming on, man.

Sorry for holding you up.

No, no, no.

I love it.

This is awesome.

So I was looking forward to this.

It's been a long time coming.

So

glad to get to chat with you finally.

So

it's a pleasure.

Thanks again, man.

Best of luck.

Excited to see it on LP next year.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You too.

What's your next pro show?

Hopefully

this fall.

Hopefully.

That's a classic debut, right?

Classic debut.

Yeah.

Cool.

What show?

We have no clue yet.

There's so many in that gap.

Yeah, there's so fall.

There's so many.

I think I would like to do it somewhere around California, but we'll see.

Okay.

That's when I was planning to compete, like in that August, September area.

I love getting lean during the summer, man.

It just makes me feel good.

Yeah, it's a good time to do it.

It works out.

Well, man, best of luck for your classic debut.

That'd be really cool.

Appreciate it.

Hopefully, I mean, probably won't be, I don't know, in time, but hopefully, I'll see you on the Olympia stage someday.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Might be on the wheelchair division, my master, but I'll be there.

It's definitely going to take me that long.

Oh, shit.

All right.

Later, bro.

Thanks, man.

Later.