Marc Lobliner: Fitness Industry Then vs. Now

Mark Loebliner.

If you want to be successful, nine to five ain't gonna cut it.

When you start a business, you're not working for yourself.

You never do.

You work for your customer.

The internet's like, his arms are too small.

What's the most arm days you've ever had in a week?

Bro, I was doing them every day.

At 27, I got my shit tested.

Everything was fed up.

So I went to a general practitioner.

He's like, I've never prescribed this, but I think you need to go on that there TRT.

I've always been health-centric.

I think steroid users now are different.

I think Pro Bodybuilder is the healthiest they've ever been because they are taking these precautions.

It was winter and I was doing a lot of coaching.

My joints were kind of killing me.

My doctor's like, yeah, I'll prescribe you some deco.

What's crazy about it is I'm able to get there, but mid, it just went away.

And so I like call my doctor.

I'm like, dude.

And he's like, well, it's deca dick.

I'd rather be small and weak than have that ever happen again.

Prepping's horrible naturally.

If you're a good natural bodybuilder, you look the same two weeks out as you look on show day.

I've always been a hypochondriac.

My mom's a drug addict and my dad died from type 2 diabetes, basically complications from it.

You go to a regular gym people their headphones on they're not even making eye contact with you but you go to a hardcore gym dude like you got the best people in the world bodybuilding is an extreme but let's take just being fit it's a life hack if you're in shape take care of yourself you're in a much better position than someone who isn't how did you navigate your business so well to be on such a mass produce retail scale number one is

You uh you have a show in mind coming up?

What's up?

You competing anytime soon?

I just finished the show like two months ago, three months ago.

So right now,

next show is going to be my classic pro debut.

And I need to get a lot of masks before then.

Yeah.

So I found out.

I found out the harder on that one.

Wait, how?

By getting on the fucking New York pro stage and getting destroyed.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

When was that?

How old?

This is 23.

Okay.

Oh, 2023?

Yeah, this is two years ago.

Yeah, a year ago.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, it was fun.

Wait, when did...

Okay, so what was your...

Well, maybe we should just go back to the beginning before we talk about competing history.

But um

yeah let's let's do that first that makes more sense but um

anyways guys i just wanted to state or i felt like it would be important for me to introduce this part but um

uh

mark and i actually met off of a jubilee video that we were a part of i don't know when it's coming out so i don't know if this is um

contentally legal for me to do are we allowed to talk about it i don't know I didn't sign anything that said I couldn't say we did it.

I don't think I signed it.

No, there was nothing that wasn't in the contract.

Okay.

Did I read through the entire contract?

I read through every contract.

I scanned the contract.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it's

apparent.

I think we can talk about it.

Okay.

I think we can.

Well, we were on this Jubilee video was a middle grounds video and it was steroids versus naturals,

which I was kind of like, I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a part of it, to be honest, in the beginning, because I've been a part of a lot of these fucking like Jesse James videos and like

just

other, like, they were like fucking like joke dating shows and shit.

And they, the directors or whoever will always clip you up or entice you to speak in a way or in a form of your own character that is just way more over-exaggerated of a personality that will like tick people off.

Yeah.

Or that will freaking put an exclamation mark over their heads.

Yeah, I was on a reality TV show in 2015, American Grit, and it was now the physical stuff was real,

but the behind-the-scenes drama, they would literally take two conversations and splice them together.

I mean, it was

crazy, and they would instigate fights because we were all kind of getting along.

Like, we're having a good time.

It's like, hey, go call her a bitch.

I'm like, I don't think she's a bitch.

We'll go call her one.

I'm like, okay.

It was, it was just the weirdest thing.

So, I, they're one, they don't pay.

It doesn't, you're not going to get rich and famous from a a reality show unless you're like on the first season of survivor.

Like, nobody even cares.

But I would never do one of those things again.

One, it sucked.

Yeah, we're at the top of Mount Rainier.

It's like negative degrees out, and we're doing these stupid physical things.

Then we're sleeping in these uncomfortable, weird house they had for us.

It was, it was something I'm not going to do again, but I'm glad I did it, right?

It's cool, but nobody knows I did it.

Like, nobody watches Fox.

Like, do you watch Fox anymore?

Like, it's, it's still on Netflix, by the way.

You could see me lose in episode three.

I made it two solid episodes and then I lost.

That was, that was my reality TV.

But, you know, the thing is, they can cut you up, but there's not really much we said that we didn't not align.

In my opinion, I didn't.

We didn't go off what we would normally say.

Like, it was our opinion.

Like, they would have a hard time cutting that up to make us look bad.

No, yeah, exactly.

But I'm sure they could.

Right.

Which is like what I was thinking.

Like, at first, I was pretty like a little bit like, I was pretty disinterested in doing it.

And then Eric obviously convinced me, saying, Oh, no, it'll be fine, whatever.

And it's like a middle grounds episode, so it's a little bit different.

Um, I was like, It.

Well, I'll do it if I can get my friends Togi and Shizzy on.

And he's like, Yeah, easy job.

So, me thinking, like, you know what, if I go down, then my boys go down with me.

So, then I'll be okay.

Toky wouldn't mind going down.

That

was, he's a fascinating individual.

Yeah, he's crazy.

He's he's 22, right?

Yeah, just completely,

but but he's setting his way.

He's he's yoloing it like he's just having to he's doing his thing i'm not mad at that i think he's a great guy i really liked him no he's he's funny and he's chill it's just funny

uh

he's it's we can just go off on on anything related to togi honestly an entire episode i feel like his entire his entire character and his entire like living is based off of people arguing about him well i mean that's that's what builds him if someone talks negative it brings more attention to him yeah yeah so i mean and he's not pretending to be an authority right he's He's not like giving advice.

He's not like Dr.

Mike Israel tell, like, here's the best way.

No, he's like, hey, man, I'm gonna get big and jacked.

I'm gonna take a bunch of drugs to do it.

And I'm doing me.

Exactly.

I'm having fun.

I'm doing my life.

I respect that.

That's the exact same thing I literally said on my podcast with him.

Yeah.

And then Greg Ducet decided to clip it up, cut out a little portion, and say, dude, Nile agrees with everything he says.

That's so fucked up.

Like, I would never do that.

But

no, I literally, I literally just said what you said.

That was my position the entire time.

It's like, there's a lot of things that he does that I would never do and I wouldn't agree with, such as like, you know, the TikTok clips of when he was like small and then him stabbing himself with a needle and then suddenly he's fucking huge and jacked.

I mean, that's just kind of crazy.

But like in the end, if you ever watch any of his YouTube videos, which is the reason why he's so fucking famous right now, he consistently continues to be.

He just says like he does this dumb shit and he says don't fucking do it.

He just does this dumb shit.

It's like it's like watching a reality TV show.

People watch it because it's funny and because the people on there are crazy.

And then people talk about how fucking crazy and how nuts they are, but no one just, no one outright copies them and, you know, follows them like they're a role model.

I've never, I didn't watch him.

At least that's my perception.

I didn't see any of his videos till I met him.

So I'm like, I got to see what this guy's about.

And I'm like, it was kind of fun.

You know, and

look, kids are watching it, but like I have kids very close to his age, right?

My kids aren't like, I want to be like Togie.

They think it's hilarious.

They think it's fascinating.

You know, they already followed him.

Like, I noticed, I'm like, oh, I'm going to follow Togie.

I noticed followed by Thomas Loebliner, my, my 16-year-old.

Thomas, are you following Togie?

He's like, yeah, dude, it's hilarious.

I'm like, all right.

You know, if you're raising your kids correctly, I was like, you got to protect the kids.

Raise your kids correctly.

You don't have to worry about what Togie says.

If you're an active, involved parent, you don't have to worry about what some guy on the internet says.

That's why I'm not one of those who shelter your kids.

How about you teach your kids and teach them that to go out there and digest all the information and do their due diligence and make their own decisions?

That's called raising children, which apparently parents forgot how to do that.

Like it's not Togi's job to censor his content for children.

You know, you put the information out there.

Kids can find information anywhere.

There's the internet.

They have, they're one click away from porn, right?

Like when I was a kid, you had to hunt for porn.

Like you had to go looking through your parents' drawers to find porn.

Now it's like you go pornhub.com, boom.

It's there.

It's crazy the amount of information our kids' fingertips.

They don't go to libraries anymore.

When I was a kid, we had to go to a library if we wanted to learn something.

You had to read books.

Now it's all there, Google, Chat GPT, all this crazy stuff.

And so when I look at the internet and I look like things like, look at Rich Piano.

Like Rich Piano was, I mean, he was extreme.

More extreme than Togi, more extreme than any of these guys.

And that's why he got so popular.

Unfortunately, that's also what led to his demise because you get that euphoric rush, that dope mean rush.

You're making all this money.

People are like getting all these clicks, all this attention.

And Rich just kept going further and further and further.

And that bigger by the day, man.

That was, have you ever, did you watch that series?

Yeah.

Oh, it's, it was, I mean, look, Rich and I didn't get along at all,

but dude, I respected him.

We were in Australia one time.

Dude was the hardest worker you've ever seen.

He was at a trade show once.

We were in Australia at Fitx or one of those.

And dude is literally there from 10 a.m.

and he wouldn't leave till the last customer was gone.

He didn't pee all day.

He might have peed just on himself.

I don't know.

But yeah, Rich was a monster.

That dude had work ethic.

And yeah, you got to respect someone like Rich, but he was extreme.

He was the first one to go on the internet and say, I'm going to take a ton of drugs and get huge.

Like he took it to the extreme.

So, I mean, what we're seeing now is a lot of what we've seen in the past.

Like we were talking earlier about Sam Seleck, you know, Larry Wheels.

Same thing.

You got a young guy who's genetically gifted and gets just super strong in jacked.

And so people like seeing that.

It's what people want to see.

Yeah.

Going off of that, I feel like the extremities are part of what is causing.

There's always like that generalization where when one is extreme, then it's easy for a crowd of people to claim that the entire demographic of that type of person is going to result in the same

consequences, if that makes sense.

So like,

like, um,

if you think of, like, Andrew Tate, then I feel like the moment he's brought up, women think any men that are even remotely like him or follow him are of this kind of demographic.

Or you think of a bodybuilder that uses steroids, and you're someone that is not familiar with the bodybuilding industry at all, then

all bodybuilders are going to probably die of age 40 or 50.

And they're all like crazy into drug use.

which is just, I think, kind of a little ridiculous.

But I think

whenever you're like pointing out all of these things, I think this is something that you and I talked about on the Jubilee episode is I think the most important part here is like Togi's going to post what he posts.

Any of these guys are going to post what they post, right?

Yeah.

But I think the most important part is like, like you said with your kids, you can't really make your kids not do something.

You could try, but sometimes it might just work in reverse.

But the best that I feel like we can ever do is just educate in general.

Well, yeah, I mean.

And then let people make their own choices.

And lead by example.

Yeah.

And lead by example.

Kids are extremely oppressionable.

You know, I have a daughter in college.

She won't drink.

And the reason is I don't drink.

Pretty simple.

My kids are all into fitness and sports.

The reason I like fitness and sports.

So if you're telling your kids not to drink and you kick back a six-pack every night, Do you really think they're going to listen to you?

You just look like a big lying hypocrite.

So you need to set the tone, set the example.

So if you want your kid to live a virtuous life, you have to live a virtuous life yourself.

Again, they don't do that.

Well, don't watch this.

And then people will be like, well, you're on steroids.

That's bad.

Okay,

let's put this in perspective, right?

Like you give your kids the option.

You give your kids the risks, right?

Like, here's the risk of this.

Here's the reward.

Here's what I want for you.

Right.

So, so I think there's a way to navigate those things as a parent.

And it's not just about saying, don't do something.

It's about explaining things to them.

Like you have to talk to your kids.

You have to be a part of your life.

Like when I, the best thing to do is sit around a dinner table and talk to your children.

Hey, how was school today?

How's everything going?

Long car rides.

Let's say you're going to a wrestling tournament in Alabama for me.

That's like three hours, four hours.

That's four hours.

I can sit there and talk to my kids and see what's going on in their life.

What's going on in their world?

A lot of things open up when you have that time alone.

But the thing is, I don't think parents spend enough time.

Dads are too busy on Sunday sitting down with their boys in their friggin, what do they call that?

The man cave.

Man cave.

What kind of bitch move is that?

I got a man house, house like man cave sitting down there drinking beer, watching football.

Their kids just begging for attention, wondering why daddy doesn't love them.

And then you're working all week, assuming you have a job.

So I think parents just need to pay more attention to their kids.

So yeah, it's a whole huge corundrum of what you do, of how you raise your children, of how you set them forth the right way.

And the main thing to do is lead by example.

Just like if you're running a company, if you want your employees to work hard, oh no, maybe work hard.

Don't be that guy in an office just screaming at your employees to do something.

Go out there and do some work.

Go close some deals.

so it's the same exact mindset where we want someone to do something and we're not actually doing that thing that we want them to do it's a very hypocritical standpoint so you know looking at what these guys do on the internet the togies this and that like look they're putting out entertaining content And it's a basic, it's a reality show.

Like if I watch Survivor, do I want my kids to go on an island and run around naked and forge for food?

No, we're watching survivor for entertainment.

So we've got to take social media for what it is.

It's become the new media um for the election people were getting all their stuff from x they weren't even watching nbc fox or cbs so the internet is this new world where that's where people are getting their entertainment that's where people are getting their information and these content creators and these these independent reporters they have replaced the establishment and that's what we're looking at here And I mean, we started YouTube.

There was three other guys on YouTube when I started.

You know, there was the Hodge Twins, Scooby, and Louis Martin.

You started a little bit over 10 years ago, right?

It was 2011.

Okay.

Yeah.

And even before then, I had a little channel

before Tiger Fitness.

So yeah, we, you know, it's been a long time before that was message boards, you know?

And I mean, Facebook wasn't out really till 2008.

So when you look at that trans progression and YouTube blew up because it was bought by Google.

And then YouTube became basically a search engine for videos.

So it was, it was just a

great, perfect storm.

And now you have a situation where I don't watch the news.

I I literally turn on YouTube and I'll watch a Tim Pool or something like that.

And I get my news for the day.

It's great.

And you have independent reporters who aren't, you know, they're not beholden by their, you know, advertisers like Pfizer or someone else.

So they're just going to give you the truth or what they perceive as the truth or just report the news.

So that's where we're going with fitness is fitness used to be just magazines.

Flex magazine, Muscle.

If you, that's all you had.

That's where I started my career at Weeder Publications.

Actually, right up the road in Woodland Hills, California.

Yeah, I mean, I started my career there.

So if you didn't, if you want to know what's going on in bodybuilding, you didn't know the results of the Olympia till like a month later because the magazine had to come out.

Yeah.

Like it's nuts, wild.

And now you're watching shows live streamed.

It's crazy.

It's gotten so much better.

And the thing is, you allow people like you, like Togi, like all these guys to run these independent platforms.

You are the media.

Back in the day, there was an ESPN show.

It was a bodybuilding show on ESPN back in the 80s and and 90s.

We don't need that anymore.

We have a bunch of independents who are bringing attention to the sport, to fitness, to all levels.

You got your natural bodybuilding, you got your enhanced.

So there's a flavor for everybody.

The internet's done wonderful things to just bring information to people.

Yeah, I think it has too.

Real quick, guys.

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Just thinking about back then when everyone was getting their information on steroid use off of the blogs on the internet.

Yeah.

from just anonymous channels or anonymous accounts.

Now I feel like, I feel like at least people can make a better decision off of what they feel is credible enough.

Yeah, there's a lot of information, but

it's still hard.

Like steroids are weird, right?

Because

there's no set protocol.

It's basically what bro one does or bro two does.

And then you have to do your own research.

So it's really hard to find.

And then you have individuals.

Like some individuals do very well with low doses.

Like some genetically gifted individuals, a lot of IFPB pros I know do crazy low, like crazy low, you would not guess how low these cycles are, but they're just genetic freaks.

Yeah.

Whereas some guys got to take it in a two to three gram range to even see anything.

But again, there's androgen receptors, there's, there's genetics, all these things come into play.

But yeah, it's, it's just fascinating how

little people know about the individualness of

how much steroids people need to make gains.

And Togi takes a lot, but he's a naturally smaller guy.

So maybe that's just what he needs.

Is he smaller, though?

Well, you mean smaller as in just like muscle size-wise

for him?

Because he's pretty fucking tall.

Yeah, he's tall.

When I'm saying smaller,

I'm talking about when I was backstage at the New York Pro, that's what I consider big.

Like if you're ever backstage at a pro show.

New York Pro is crazy.

Oh my, what a stupid thing.

Whatever you consider big is literally gigantic.

For my first pro show, that was the dumbest decision I could have made.

yeah I'm back there and my daughter was 17 or 16 at the time and she was backstage with me she had come she was my my guest she was like helping me out oh hell yeah and my daughter's like she looked at so I'm there and Kareth who won obviously he's back there my daughter looks at him passed me on the show and said good luck dad

like damn it Cammy like so you don't think I could beat him she's like no

no no not not a chance dad you look like a child next to this guy oh wow I mean these guys are just so insane.

Like their muscle bellies are just, holy shit.

It is nutty.

And you're seeing them at their best.

Like this is their peak.

So like seeing them like walking around at the gym, that's impressive.

When you see it when they peak and their skin's like an onion,

it's so thin.

And you got these veins within veins, this vasculature.

It's fascinating.

It is amazing.

I want to compete in a pro show next year if I can find the time for it.

It's not going to be New York Pro.

I don't need to get beat that bad.

I want to feel somewhat good about myself, but dude, it was, it was insane just being back there.

And people think bodybuilders are such like narcissists.

Dude, you're backstage at Pro Show.

Everybody's friends.

What division exactly do you compete in?

212.

Now, 212.

Yep.

Is it just open 212 or is there a master's division that you're competing in?

I'm not, I refuse to do masters yet.

I had a feeling.

I'm still holding on to some hope that I could compete in the 212.

And I understand.

Look, I'm not expecting to win and qualify for the Olympia.

For me, it's like, you know, can I still play adult league softball on Saturdays?

Gotcha.

You know, if I could compete, and my goal is simple, middle of the pack.

And I've never done that in anything in life.

Everything I do in life is winning.

In business, I do everything I can to win, right?

When I played other sports, everything I can to win.

But bodybuilding, you got to understand, like, you can't will yourself.

There's certain genetic limitations.

And also, these guys are either younger than me or just way better than me.

And there's only so much you can overcome.

And genetic limitations, like limbs, and limb length and muscle bellies.

I mean, I'll never be able to have the muscle fullness of a Keon or a Kareth or a Sean.

There's no chance.

So I understand where I stand.

So I'm always doing that old cliche, compete against yourself.

And that's what I do.

But I understand that I do want to beat at least somebody.

Like, yeah.

And last time, I think even the Expeditor beat me.

So yeah, it was, it was, it's, look, bodybuilding,

bodybuilding is tough.

It's a sadistic sport.

Like, let me do the unnatural thing.

Let me keep as much muscle and lose as much fat, which is antithetical to living

because fat is stored energy.

Muscle is metabolically taxing.

It's not a good way to survive.

No.

So, just looking from an evolutionary standpoint, it's against nature.

So, we take androgens, right, to keep our muscle, and we, we have our calories obscenely low considering what our metabolic rate is.

So, if your calories are 3,000 for a show, which some people can keep it that high,

that means that they're normally at four or five.

So that's low for them.

Body fat's so low that your feet are so lean that your feet hurt all the time.

When you sit down, your ass is hurting because there's no cushion on it.

It's a weird fucking sport.

It's like, so I'm going to do this for, I know I'm not going to win money doing it.

You're doing it because you like the adversity.

I mean, it's a weird sport to dissect.

Why do people do it?

Why would like any gym of cry, I'm sure you go to a gym now where people are getting ready for shows, for amateur shows, and they're literally nearly losing their job, their marriage is falling apart, but they're like, I'm going to compete.

And they're spending their entire 401k on GH.

It's like,

and I'm like, what are you doing?

And

luckily, I never did that.

Like, for me, it was always kind of like a very, very distant side thing.

But when I look at these people doing it, I'm like, what draws people to do that?

Do you have an an answer i mean how could you not

what's better than bodybuilding sex

sex is pretty good yeah but getting a pump is also pretty good getting a pump is awesome getting a pump is great i will give you that but there's bodybuilding so and it's also a sport where

other than posing practice how you prepare for the sport is not how you actually compete Your practice is not the same.

You're not lifting on stage.

Whereas if you play football, you go practice plays.

Except for the hours of posing practice that I should have done already, but I still haven't.

Yeah.

That's the kind of important.

I should, I've never put together a posing routine.

I do, I do.

It helps a lot.

We call it the white man's semicircle.

I kind of just, I kind of just, I just go.

And guest posing is great because you kind of feed off the crowd.

Yeah.

So I love guest posing, but like.

I should put together a posing routine.

Like next show, I think I'm, I always run out of time because by the time you get done training and you have a normal, you know, I work like 12 to 16 hour days sometime and travel a lot.

I got time for maybe mandatories.

I know what you mean.

It feels like we don't have time, but

that's the thing about bodybuilding.

And I think of this shit is like the people that are at the top are probably spending the most time doing the icing on the cake that no one else is doing.

Like Terrence Ruffin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like

how much time he spent on his posing has was fucking insane.

These guys are just awesome, though.

Dexter never practices posing.

Really?

He's got rhythm, and I don't have rhythm.

I know know by looking at me, you think I have rhythm, but maybe it's because you're white.

Yeah, it is because I'm white.

That was what it was.

Yeah.

It's definitely because I'm white.

Yeah.

I mean, I just, I kind of just go up and again, but when you're an amateur posing, your routine doesn't matter.

The show's done after the morning show.

So you get to the night show and you're just like, okay, if I could just not die before I'm called the winner, then I'm good.

Because by the end, by the end of the night show, I don't know about you.

The worst I've ever felt in my life was between when I I went, when I got my pro card, was between the morning and the night show.

I felt like I just got like run over by a truck.

It was the worst I've ever felt.

I was, I was, it was all I had.

Like there, there is no more I could have put into this prep.

Yeah.

I was too lean.

I know that sounds, but I was too lean for survival and happiness.

Yeah.

And I'm sitting on the couch.

My coach time, Jose Raymond, he's like, get up.

You're going to pose.

I'm like, I don't know, Jose.

I don't.

He literally dragged my ass off the couch and like fed me some chicken and made me pose.

Yeah, it was, it was crazy.

It was just, it's a crazy sport.

It is a crazy sport.

But I mean, as much as sometimes I kind of hate it, it gets a little weird, like annoying.

Like, why am I on stage getting judged by some dudes?

And, you know, and I'm standing being compared to other dudes.

Like, if you dissect the psychology of it, it's

fucking weird, bro.

It's really weird as hell.

But in the end, I think the reason that we all create sports.

Actually, this is probably, I don't know if this even makes sense, but what I feel is the reason that we all create sports is we create this game of something that we love doing, you know, and then the reason that we compete in sports is because we're men and what we love to do, it's fun to put a purpose to it or it's fun to put some fucking, you know, reason to put even more effort in it, you know, something that drives us forward.

Because testosterone makes effort feel good, right?

Yeah.

So what else is there?

for, you know, lifting weights and getting huge than fucking bodybuilding.

It's the only thing.

Well, I mean, it's also when you're training for something.

Like you see, you know, we have a couple of kids at my youth performance facility.

They're, they're going into play college ball, right?

So they have three weeks to get ready.

And they're literally going from having a high school state title game on Friday last week.

And in three weeks, they're going to be at a bowl game at a D1 Power 5 school.

So for three weeks, they're training with purpose.

Yeah, I'm going to go in.

Oh, if someone gets injured, I'm going in the game.

It's going to be awesome.

When you just go to the gym to train because you like to look good or it really lacks that purpose and drive when you go to the gym.

But when you're like, man, I got, I got to get that extra rep because that's going to make me 0.01% better on stage.

It just gives me more of a drive when I'm training for something than when I'm just training to be for anti-aging.

Right.

And I'll still train.

I love training.

Like I love lifting.

I love lifting heavy things.

And

I love doing that shit.

Like that's fucking great.

That makes me alive.

I wake up every morning and I go before work and it's like,

yeah, I get to train.

It's my my time.

Start the day on the right way.

But like when you go in there, you're like, I got, I got 16 weeks.

Then you're like, shit, I only got 15 weeks.

That's like less than 30 leg workouts.

You know, you're like going in and every leg days.

If I fuck this one up, I only got 27 left.

You know, it's like, it's just a wild feeling when you have that deadline and you're just training for something.

Yeah.

And not just training because you want to look better than the other soccer dads, which is where I'm at in life.

And I fucking dominate that.

I'll tell you that.

Fucking crush those dudes.

You're fucking huge, bro.

Your chest, your back, it's fucking insane.

Yeah, if you haven't looked at my calves yet.

And your arms.

Your arms are tiny compared to your chest and back.

The internet lets me know that every day of my life.

The internet's like, his arms are too small.

I'm like, I have a mirror.

I know.

And then people say stupid shit like, have you ever tried hammer curls?

No, I've never tried hammer curls.

I've been doing this over 30 years.

Of course, I've tried everything.

What's the most arm days you've ever had in a week?

Bro, I was doing them every every day.

Whoa, really?

I did it every day.

And it was in my 30s.

And it was when I first started the YouTube channel because I started a YouTube channel in 2011.

So that's, you know, 30, 31 years old.

I think it was 30.

And, you know, so that was when the internet was fresh.

And Facebook was telling me, Mara, I'm sucked a long time before that.

And so I'm like, all right, well, I'm fuck it.

And then I forgot, I read something that's like, hey, you know, for weak arms, train every day.

And I'm like, I'm literally a fucking strength coach.

I know that's bullshit, but I'm like, fuck it, I'll try it.

You know, it's, it's like, even if you know it's wrong, you're like, well, what if?

And when you're desperate for gains, and I've always wanted bigger arms, like people act like, oh, he doesn't know his arms are small.

Like, no, I know, I know, because I'm standing there next to, you know, when you hang out with someone like a Phil Heath and you look at their arms and Brandon Curry and they're fucking this big, you're like, oh, God damn it.

It's like standing in the shower and you're the only white guy.

And there's no Asians.

so i mean you're just it's just us two and some black guys and we're just like oh damn it

what happened like what's going on here

thanks for putting that picture in my head i man i i played football in the inner city i felt very small

you're in the shower it's like yeah whatever

There's a dragon on the floor behind him.

Just goes to show you just how much genetics fucking make an impact.

Genetics.

So fucking frustrating.

Genetics are everything, dude.

Yeah.

and uh how are your genetics what do you what do you think your genetics are if you were to go say average good great

slightly above great to just elite um okay so

i think

so i think my natural muscle building genetics and natural fat loss genetics so basically body composition wise yeah and proportions

a little bit weak.

And the reason I say that is because of my entire family.

My parents, my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents, all of them, they look kind of like they have the body composition of GRU.

And it's, it's a, it's been a, it's a bit rough.

And when I was a kid, I was.

overweight i was obese when i was 12 and i think me being in texas as the only asian kid that's also fucking overweight looks like the poster boy for like a fucking uh bow bun or something or like a meat bun.

Like that shit is what drove me to actually like work out and like lose weight and do all this shit.

And I had to go to the extremes to do so.

So looking at my family as a natural lifter, I don't think it's that great.

But I would not be here right now if I didn't have some phenomenal genetics somewhere.

So I think my elite genetics stand in my shape.

Like

having a

being able to maintain a small waist.

Yeah, yep.

And then

I have low lats.

And that's not something that I can see from my family because none of them are bodybuilders.

But I guess guess my family has low lats, maybe.

Yeah, I would say like the shape and the insertions are pretty damn good.

And then I think my genetics for responding to gear is at least average.

Yeah.

At least average.

It's definitely not bad.

Yeah, I would, I think it's hard to say because your family's never tried, right?

Like, yeah, they've done other sports and stuff.

And obviously, I would would expect it to look a little better doing the sports they did, but but uh, they never did bodybuilding, and that's for sure.

Yeah, I think everybody could look better, right?

Like, I don't think anybody, some people are like, Oh, I just can't gain muscle.

Yeah, yeah, you can.

You've just never truly tried.

You've never, even naturally, you've never truly set out your meals, you've never truly trained with intensity.

Right.

And you see these kids train at the gym.

Now, I go off at this all the time.

I'm like that angry old man.

No one's intense.

They're doing that RIR shit.

Like, oh, I'm going to get three to six RIs.

Shut the fuck up.

Go to failure.

Like, no one ever got huge training RIR.

Like, nobody.

Yeah.

Like, dude, how do you know if you have five reps in reserve?

How do you know?

Like, I think that's five.

I don't know I'm failing till like like dad at incline bench right dumbbell and I was like I went and when I got like

five I'm like shit.

I got like one more then I grinded out another three because I thought I'm a pussy I'm gonna get another three and I got another three.

And if I had a spotter, I could have probably gotten one or two.

I just didn't want to drop the dumbbell on my face.

So, you know, I think if you look at the best athletes of all time, bodybuilding, football, those are the guys who go above and beyond that pain threshold.

Yeah.

The Dorian Yates, the Ronnie Coleman, even Jay Cutler, like his old training videos, he's training hard.

Like he's training hard.

The kids at the gym nowadays, I don't know why I won't grow.

I have an argument against that, though.

And my one argument is

because I'm sure, I'm sure for a fact there are kids out there that are like me.

Not saying that I'm special or anything, but I have learned in the last two, three years, I've been trading too hard for the first 15 years.

You think so?

I have been.

I know so.

And I have also not been trading smart enough in terms of programming.

I think programming.

That's another spectrum, though.

That you can't overdo, right?

Like, I'm not saying, what I'm saying is like one set to failure.

Not 20 sets to exactly.

And I thought I had to do every single set to failure.

And so I would start off doing my first sets of squats to failure.

And I I would go at least put four plates on there.

I didn't care how many reps I got as long as long as I could rip out four plates and squat.

And I knew that I was overdoing it because I'd keep getting my, I'd just keep fucking getting injured.

Yeah.

And I'd keep getting these insane impingements everywhere.

And then I'd have my physio and my active release therapist literally, like, for example, like six weeks ago tell me that I ramped up volume way too fast after my show, got too excited to train too hard.

And now my shoulder and my hip fucking tightened up.

And I just tons of issues.

That's something like I learned that like there is, you know, like you got, there, there is a certain amount of volume I think everyone responds to.

Yes.

And I think that's important to figure out first.

So don't just go balls to the wall doing like 30 sets per muscle group

as hard as you like, you know, to failure every single time.

Like that's obviously ridiculous.

Well, based on this, going back to science, the studies show around five a week per body part of six.

Real sets of real sets, right?

Like not counting warm-ups, like get your warm-ups, boom.

But the warm-ups still count for volume.

Like it still counts.

But when you're looking at the real sets, and if you look at like the data, the first set you do to failure, that gets you 100%, right?

100% muscle recruitment, 100% response.

The second set's about 50% of that.

The third set's about 50% of that.

So you look at it.

If you do two sets to failure for a muscle group, for a movement, let's say you're doing chest press, you're probably good.

You're probably good.

You could probably move on.

You've gotten all the stimulation.

With that being said, like I was saying, with sports, you look at who usually gets the best results, and they are usually genetic freaks, but their ability to train at such a high level for a long time is

insane.

Like back in the day, water look at Jerry Rice running the hills of San Francisco, going out and catching balls from the drugs machine for an hour before practice, an hour after practice.

So there's a direct correlation between greatness and practice.

And bodybuilding is the same way.

Like Ronnie Coleman with a broken back was training through most of his most of his olympia reign he had a broken back his ability to put pain in the back of his head and go above and beyond was just insane so yes he had crazy genetics but if he didn't have that training threshold he would have never reached the mat the this sheer magnitude of size and just greatness that he reached it's that ability to tap in and then you look at phil heath who's a d1 basketball player like this is is a genetic freak.

This is an athlete.

So, I mean, you just have to look at bodybuilding is like every other sport.

It's hours practice.

But you look at the kids in the gym.

They're spending most time on their phones.

They're training with 10 of their buddies, getting fucking 20 minutes of rest between sets.

And they're not really training hard.

Nobody's sweating.

You know, nobody's grinding.

Nobody's getting it in.

So when I go to the gym and I just train how I normally train, people look at me like I'm retarded because I'm in there and I can't train without grunting.

I just can't.

Have you ever seen a shot putter throw a silent shot put?

Have you ever seen a martial arts guy, you know, do the crazy spinning kicks without letting out some noise?

You can't truly exert yourself in Planet Fitness.

Come on.

I'm not allowed to grunt.

Put your headphones if you don't hear me grunt.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

I got kicked out of Planet Fitness once.

I'm sure you did.

It was great.

Dude, I wasn't even doing anything, though.

I was literally just doing lateral raises.

I never got kicked out.

I've trained a Planet Fitness probably 50 plus times.

I'm always like, it's like I'm biting my lip.

I'm like literally bleeding, trying not to make noise.

When you have headphones in, you can't hear how loud you are.

So I have my headphones in.

I'm like,

and I'm like, oh, shit.

I was loud, wasn't I?

Yeah, yeah.

It's those headphones, man.

It'll do it for you.

It messes you up, dude, because you can't hear it.

You can't hear yourself.

You're in your own little world.

You're kind of zoning out.

But I mean, I'm just an audible person.

I make noise doing everything.

Like, you know, it's, it's really, yeah, it's, I mean,

even, even you look at a kicker in the NFL, they're letting out noise when they're kicking the ball.

Like, it's,

I can't imagine training silent.

But these kids are just kind of just going through the movement.

And then they got these crazy little, I'm going to feel my lat and just pull this down.

Everything's all angular in the perfect degree.

But when you look at when, when I started training, you went to the gym and you fucking lifted.

You squatted heavy.

You deadlifted.

You benched.

And everyone got huge.

Like everyone made gains.

Now these kids are like, man, I just can't make gains.

And then they don't eat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then they don't eat.

It's the asterisk.

The eating is the key.

For athletes, too, try and get a, uh, a, try and get a high school football player to eat enough.

These kids come in.

It's like, well, I don't want to get too fat.

I'm like, bro, like, you need to, you're an edge.

You're 6'4.

You weigh 180 pounds.

Like, you need to be like 250.

Huh?

Yeah.

You're not going to get 250 eating once a day.

Like you need to bring food to school.

You need to pack your meals.

And it's the same with every sport.

And that's why kids go to college and they'll put on like 40 pounds without drugs.

We're going to assume without drugs, right?

It's college.

I don't think they're doing that.

I don't know for sure, but let's assume natural.

But these kids will go in 210.

And then like after two months at the college, they're like 240, 250.

And the reason is that they will sit them down at that training table and they will say, you eat every bite of this food or you're not getting up or you're not playing.

So these kids are forced to eat.

And they're literally sitting there.

And you're going to sit here till it's done.

They will tell them what to eat.

And that's why they make the gains.

They're still training.

They're still doing the same weights they were doing, but they're eating.

And kids just don't understand the importance of nutrition or they're under-eating because they're afraid to get fat.

That was me.

Afraid to get fat.

Being fat's weird, isn't it?

Especially when you've been fat before and people made fun of you.

Yeah.

Fat shaming was a thing when I was a kid.

Yeah, bro.

Actually, I kind of wanted to talk about, well,

fuck if it's allowed, but

I actually wanted to talk about some of the prompts that we had in the Jubilee video, but later, later, later, later, like that one about the body positivity one, though, yeah, that was fun.

I just had time, I had a fun time just listening to you guys talk because I didn't know shit about it, honestly.

About the uh bot fat, yeah, that one prompt that was like the one prompt that was just completely unrelated to like not completely, but the most unrelated to bodybuilding and steroid use.

Um, the body positivity movement has gone too far.

Step forward, if you agree, yeah,

It was, so I mean, body positivity, like we should all be proud, right?

But like when you reward bad behavior, like obesity is the number one comorbidity.

So we need to take that into consideration.

So I'm not saying go out and point and laugh at fat people in public.

I'm saying that we should be finding ways to say, okay,

be proud of the body you're in, but let's work to improve your health.

Yeah.

Let's make you healthier because fat might be beautiful.

Like there's chubby chasers out there, right?

Like I like, I like a little cushion for the pushing.

I like some junk in the trunk, but

at the end of the day, is that the healthiest they can be?

Are they living their best life?

And then if you say that online, people are like, well, steroids are bad.

Fair,

fair, but that doesn't make one point wrong and one point right.

You know what I mean?

So also, I mean, steroid abuse is not a, it's not a societal contagion, whereas being obese is.

Like steroid abuse is really a small slither of the population.

And I'm glad.

Like we don't need people running around taking black market steroids willy-nilly and just over not knowing what they're doing with them.

And, you know, there's a lot of risks.

Like with everything you do in life, there's risk and reward.

So it's the, yeah, it's the old Ben Franklin chart.

You know, you get your pros and your cons, you list them all out.

And then you figure out based on that, which is the right decision.

So for most people who aren't aspiring, people who want to get, just look good at the beach, don't take steroids.

I don't think it's worth it.

You're going to look just fine.

Chicks don't care.

Unless you get like chicks, do kind of care, though.

Chicks like muscle.

I think they do.

And they'll say online, oh, it's too much for me.

I think there's enough scientific proof that it matters a little bit.

Not even scientific.

Like, just, look, man, your DMs must blow up.

They actually don't, to be honest.

No dudes?

Tons of dudes.

Okay.

but you're attractive to someone, right?

Okay, so let, let,

so, so, you,

here's, here's what I'm getting at.

Like,

if you take me,

you know, regardless, let's say I have the ugliest face in the world, but I'm jacked.

I have a defined chest, I have a six-pack, lats, arms, whatever, and some veins, a little bit of veins.

You take me next to the average 44-year-old who's obese, can't see his penis, metabolically unhealthy, doesn't keep himself up, doesn't keep his face shaved, just looks sloppy.

Who's a girl going to pick?

Or you take even an average guy with a dad bod who's soft.

Like,

no one wants that.

Women want powerful dudes.

And what is the, how do you exude power?

Muscle, big shoulders.

You know, you look at just all the definitions of power.

So women like powerful dudes.

They just do because women want to feel protected.

They want to feel safe.

So I do think that there's a huge,

huge correlation.

Like women, oh my God, look how dreamy bad Brad Pitt is in Fight Club, right?

Like, oh my God, look at his body, his abs and Thor, whatever that dude's name is.

Like, look at, oh my goodness.

They're not doing, they didn't do that when he was fat Thor in the last episode of Adventures.

They didn't do that because chicks dig muscle.

It just is what it is.

Even in the old comic book ads, you know, like that kid getting bullied and he takes this protein powder and then he's jacked and all the girls are hanging on him.

Like, it's still like that.

that women say that because they're coping with the fact they can't get a powerful good-looking man yeah i i mentioned this on the jubilee video i think um yeah one of my positions was um

uh

what you're saying is true um but

and most of the time but um

it seems that uh somebody will pick their partner or say that they want a partner that is more similar to them.

Yeah.

So, I mean, if you are overweight, then you're much more likely to be good with picking someone that's overweight or even say that you would prefer that over someone that is super muscular or whatever.

Because you probably fear that your partner will leave you

because they're better than you.

Probably something.

It's, yeah, it's, it's a defense mechanism too.

Because, you know, a lot, I've heard of a lot of guys who don't want their women losing weight because they're afraid that should be

good.

Yeah.

It's nuts.

It's, but it's a thing.

It's definitely a thing.

And if you look at a, whatever they call it, you talked about Andrew Tate before, right?

A high value man, right?

Like, what's a high value man?

Is he fat?

Oh, high-value man is jacked.

He's jacked and he makes money.

Like, that is the, in my opinion, that, like, that's, that's when you're at the peak of life.

And also, we know now that fit people, they make more money than unfit people.

They're hired more frequently than unfit people.

So bodybuilding is an extreme, but let's take just being fit.

It's a life hack.

Whether you're four foot seven or six foot two,

if you're in shape, if you're jacked, take care of yourself, you're in a much better position than someone who isn't.

Like in business, the differentiation for me, I walk into, you know, a large retailer, pitching our products or doing whatever I need to do or having a meeting, and it's automatically a differentiating point.

It's like, oh, wow, you know, you work out and there's always some comment about working out or something, but it automatically differentiates me from the my competitors.

And then you talk and they realize you're not an idiot.

And they're like, oh, well, he's not retarded.

So he probably knows what he's talking about.

And they also see the work.

Like it takes a lot of work to be in shape.

There's a few, select few, but you look at people who've been in shape.

You're old enough to remember like high school.

You see people from your high school used to be in shape?

Seen any?

Like right now?

Yeah.

I feel like.

No, I mean, like, they were in shape, and then you see them now and you're like, oh, God.

No, yeah, yeah.

That's probably most people.

most people just lose it they get married they get lazy and they lose it so if you're able to keep it together keep that routine and what does training do like we have to have a routine we have to go to the gym we have to eat a certain way we have to get sleep so

you see someone who's disciplined who has routine so it's it's just like when you're hiring someone i always say hire a wrestler wrestlers are crazy

Wrestlers have the best work ethic of any high school sport.

It's a lifestyle.

Like they live it.

They're wrestling for hours a day and they're training and they're doing conditioning and they have to cut weight.

Like wrestlers are geez.

Like I'm so glad my kids wrestle.

All my kids have wrestled, but that lifestyle is just insane.

And if you go to a wrestling tournament, it's not like a soccer tournament.

The parents are all cool with each other.

Like their kid loses like, good job, your kid's really good because they know the work it takes to get that good at wrestling.

Yeah.

It's just, it's a complete different mindset.

So when I look at bodybuilding, it's almost like a wrestler's mindset because wrestling is not a weekend sport.

Wrestling is a 24-7 commitment.

And that's what bodybuilding is.

Right.

Obviously, why we see a lot of wrestlers go into bodybuilding.

Well, yeah.

I mean, Derek, you know,

he's a, he's a, obviously, he was a collegiate wrestler.

Lunsford.

Look at his ears.

They're fucked up.

Like when I saw him, he actually, the show I came back in 21, when I decided to come back from not bodybuilding for seven years, like he was the guest poser there.

and it was the knox classic and i'm like he's like he's really like he makes me look tall he's not a tall guy and um i'm looking i'm like i didn't know he wrestled i saw his ears and i'm like holy you're a wrestler he's like yeah man i wrestled in college he's legit like this dude's a nobody wants you don't want to fight derek lunsford

don't fight anybody with up ears

If you see someone with messed up ears, I don't care how small they are.

You walk the other way.

You diffuse the situation.

You're like, no, I'm not fighting this guy because they will fucking take you down, get you in a hold.

You'll be a pretzel.

Like, you don't want to do that.

I believe it.

Oh, yeah.

Lunsford's like another great and Jose Raymond wrestler.

You know, it's just like, it's that work ethic, but they crave it.

You leave wrestling.

You have a thing where you have to wake up, conditioning, mat time, go to school, train, you know, and you get out of that and you're lost.

Yeah.

Like, what the fuck do I do?

I have all this time.

I don't have to do like, dude, they do it year-round.

So then it's like, oh, shit, bodybuilding is a 24-7 sport.

I have to starve myself.

That sounds great.

I think I'll be a bodybuilder.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

The one person I would say that one of my buddies that I would not touch with a 10-foot pole is probably James English.

Oh, yeah.

He's a wrestling and his arm wrestling, even his arm wrestling experience.

Really?

I don't even want to touch him with arm wrestling because I know he's going to snap my arm.

And then there's this one time where we had like this young lady, like an afters event for like the athletes.

We're just hanging out and my boy Shizzy Sean got little oh you met Sean at a Jubilee video.

Yeah, Sean got fucking fucked up man.

He got drunk as hell.

I don't think he even remembers this moment.

And he comes up to me and he's like, bro,

tell me to wrestle James.

I'm like, wait, why?

Why?

He's like, because

tell me.

Tell me I'll win.

I'll win for you.

And I'm just like, dude, why are you telling me to tell you this?

I didn't really realize how drunk he was until he actually got in the ring and started like

almost tripping over himself but uh yeah watching that made me realize like i don't want to i'm never gonna wrestle james ever because they were both they're both really good obviously sean is wrestling experience but yeah i mean you're not gonna win when you're blacked out no no no wrestling wrestling man it's it's a such a good i i i encourage every parent to get their kids into wrestling teaches them so much

it's it's such a good sport but yeah wrestling is a like bodybuilding it's a it's a 24 it's not it's a lifestyle like you can't just play it on weekends if you want to be good, like if you want to get your ass pinned in the first 20 seconds, yeah, wrestle.

But if you actually want to win and you want to wrestle in college,

you got to live it.

It's your life.

You can't do anything else.

I think putting your kids in anything, any of those sports or any of those activities that require like a high level of discipline is just a very effective thing to do.

It's probably why my Asian ass parents put me in like

freaking martial arts.

It just makes sense.

Well, I mean, jiu-jitsu.

jiu-jitsu is very close to wrestling.

Yeah.

I mean, other than some, like, obviously, if you're in guard, you pin yourself.

That wouldn't work in wrestling, but yeah, it completely makes sense.

But martial arts are great.

Martial arts are amazing.

I think I had one rule in my house.

You have to do a team sport and a combat sport.

So it started out with soccer and boxing.

All my kids boxed.

Two of them have competitive records.

And then.

Then they all wrestled.

My daughter wrestled, got regional champion in high school.

And then she's like, I hate this.

I made her wrestle.

That was on me.

She was just playing soccer.

She got a speed title and everything.

And I'm like, yeah, you can't be a one sport athlete.

She's like, I'm not going to wrestle.

I'm like, you're not getting a car.

Damn.

She wrestled.

Damn, that's crazy.

And she dominated.

But as soon as she got that regional title, she's like, dad, I don't want to do that.

I'm like, you did.

Hey, you got hardware.

Just you could quit.

Just go go do go do the soccer thing.

Yeah, it was, but it was fat.

It was awesome watching my kids compete.

Boxing was fun to watch them do.

Like you have a, you have a person across from you trying to knock you out.

And you have to figure out how not to get knocked out and how to knock this person out.

It's a crazy sport.

I don't recommend everybody put their kids in boxing.

Like head trauma, not good.

But yeah,

I'm obviously an asshole.

So I put my kids in boxing.

It was fun to watch.

It was fun.

I wanted to ask this earlier before we went off a tangent because we always do on this podcast.

But that's what happens.

I wanted to ask you about like how this entire thing started for you.

Like how did your journey start?

How did you get into fitness and competing and then into business now?

Because I know you have these companies.

Don't you have your own gym as well?

Yeah, I have, well, we have the Tiger Fitness Gym, and then I have Legacy at Carbon's Youth Performance Facility in Franklin, Tennessee.

You know, I never intended on being in fitness.

You know, I started my career.

I was personal training to get through college, you know.

And so, you know, I was offered a position by Weider Publications, which was Muscle and Fitness, Flex Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, Hers.

And so I worked there.

That was in 1999.

So I worked there and they were acquired by American Media in 2002.

And that was when we were, that was the Inquirer, The Star, Mira and Español, tabloids, basically.

So I worked there till about 2004.

And after that, I pretty much topped out.

I was making, you know, I'm not one to throw around numbers, but like my salary for that age was crazy.

Like it was a lot of money.

And, but I wasn't, I wasn't going to move up.

And I felt like I wanted to take a, you know, a nice little move and see what I could do.

So that's when I helped start Sylvester Stallone's supplement company called Instone.

And that was in 2004.

So I was there.

I launched that brand, got fired.

So I was a founding shareholder and the CEO just didn't like me.

And yeah, I thought I did it.

I did a great job.

Like I crushed it.

But the thing is, I was honest.

And we had this issue where the share, basically we had this investment group, Gore Technology, which they're a multi-billion dollar investment group.

I don't know if there's, I don't know what they're doing now, but they were a tech group and they backed because it was sly because sylvester stallone is sylvester stallone and they were doing this deal on consignment with gnc and it was like a million dollars in product and this after we launched it successfully the arnold classic and it was crushing it and i'm like guys this is a bad idea here's why it's a bad idea and i laid out why it's a bad idea and the technology was like oh shit he's right so essentially i just made the the brass the ceo look like an idiot and so he literally like like, first day demoted me, cut my salary in less than half.

Holy shit.

And then two weeks later, he called, he's literally his reason for firing me was, I don't like you.

Dude.

That was his reason.

And I'm like, well, I guess that's that.

So I still hate the guy.

Like, I don't hate many people, but this guy, his name's John Arnold, and he's a piece of shit.

And I've said this on multiple, multiple videos.

I just don't like the guy.

There's nothing I like about him.

He's a horrible person.

Just an egomaniac, just a talentless ass clown.

But enough about John Arnold.

Enough about John Arnold.

So I do, that's the only grudge I hold.

Did you ever watch a Christmas vacation?

National Lampoons?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, you remember the ending with the boss?

I don't.

Not off the top of my head.

All right, never mind.

Yeah, we'll have to put that on later.

But yeah, it was, that's the only grudge I hold out of every business thing I've done because, dude, I mean, I was made, I was doing great at Weeder, but it led to me starting Syvation in 2000, 2004.

And that's where we came out.

We basically pioneered the pre-workout, the inter-workout category with Extend, which was BCA.

It was the first, like, there were other BCAA drinks.

We were the first ones to really market it intra-workout.

So when you see a colored water bottle in your gym, that's us.

Like the whole intra-workout BCAA category was sivation.

Sold that in 2011.

And then I started Tiger Fitness and MTS Nutrition.

Actually, Tiger Fitness existed, but I partnered up with Chad, who's still my partner to this day.

And we launched MTS Nutrition.

And then in 2015, Mike, Sean, and myself started the ambrosia collective and 2018 i launched the outright bar and that's pretty much where i'm at now so i have a couple other projects and then of course legacy at carbon is my youth performance facility that's not counting like i've coached soccer clubs and for strength you know i installed soccer pro strength programs at soccer clubs and throughout the years i've you know enhanced my education with the training mainly on the sports side so hypertrophy training is is boring to me to be honest with you i want to make it i want to so we had a kid this year.

He took his 40, he gained, so he's actually, he's, he's going D1.

He's one of the kids leaving, and he had a phenomenal senior, dominant player, took his 40-yard dash from a 5-3 to a 4-7 while gaining almost 50 pounds in the offseason.

So that's what interests me.

Like, I love athletic training.

Like, I love movement.

You probably can't tell, but when it comes to training movement, like running form and

how to generate speed, that's where I think my best value is.

It's not necessarily in hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy is

much more simple because we're just trying to get big.

It's just one part of it.

Whereas in athletic training, you have power, hypertrophy, and strength.

You have these different phases, then you undulate it.

It's so fascinating.

So I don't get excited talking about bodybuilding training.

I get excited doing it.

But when I'm actually looking at training people, I won't train adults, like not in person.

I'll do some online stuff, but like

it's training kids.

Like, how do I get a kid who's a junior?

How do I get a junior high guy ready for high school?

How do I get a high school guy who's not starting?

How do I get him starting?

How do I get a D3 player to become a D1 player?

How do I get a D1 player to become a power five D1 player?

So that's the fascinating thing because it's all measured, right?

Like bodybuilding is measured.

If you're on the same, if you're the same leanness and you're 205 this show and you were 200 last show, measurable results.

Whereas you can measure.

And also on the football field, how many sacks did you have last year?

Oh, you have double this year.

You're an offensive lineman.

How many sacks do you have?

How many, how many, I'm sorry, how many, how many pancake blocks do you have?

How many sacks did you allow?

So these are all measurable.

So for me, the fascinating thing is how do I make youth athletes better?

And then you're also changing a life.

Like that's the most, to me, that's the most rewarding thing in life.

And that's what I want to do till I die.

I want to be blowing whistles and yelling at kids till the day I die.

I want to do it literally on my deathbed.

I'm going to make them.

You ever see a Creed

where

he's in the hospital, like Sly gets sick, he goes to the hospital, and Creed's in there, and he's making him like from the hospital bed, he's training him.

That's me.

I want to be that guy.

That's my passion: coaching kids.

Love it.

It's it's the because football saved my life, you know, sports saved my life.

And I always feel like I was put on earth by God.

Um, sorry, atheists, I do believe in God.

It's YouTube.

Um,

so I do believe that God put me here and gave me this ability to earn enough money doing something I like to do.

But my mission on earth is to coach kids.

And

that's where I have the most.

That's where I derive the most just joy.

That's where I drive the most pleasure, the most anything is just seeing these kids, having a kid come in, his season's over because he's tore his ACL, but getting him back on the field with seven games left to play in the season.

That's the magic.

That's That's what I think I'm here for.

That's pretty fucking awesome.

It's the best.

It reminds me of my podcast with Tonio Burton that I just uploaded.

But Tonio, he's an Olympic bodybuilder, but all his purpose he finds is in

him being able to talk to these kids and him being able to

spend time or do whatever with family or help his family in this way and him being able to get to these kids before the gang does.

He looks amazing.

For a better life.

What a phenomenal bodybuilder.

Yeah, for real.

God, that guy,

he was at the New York Pro.

He's just a beast.

Like, these guys, I don't think people understand how great these guys are.

Yeah, yeah, he's insane.

He was a champ for the New York Pro one year.

I can't remember which one.

Yeah, and then he lost the year.

He was, I think that was 22.

Oh, yeah.

And then he lost in 23, if I'm not mistaken.

I forgot.

I don't know.

I was too busy getting my ass kicked to pay attention.

I mean, it was, it was, it was a little, but it was fine.

I mean, it was, dude, I mean, I don't, it was such an experience, though.

To be up there, you know, at that time, I'm 43 years old you know it was it was just awesome so when did you first start bodybuilding so i didn't it's not the story this the fairy tale story so i started scivation

in 20 in 2004 and we we had the inter-workout extend and we we weren't selling much product Okay.

And it just wasn't moving.

We couldn't get it out there.

This before social media.

So at that time we had the forums.

One was bodybuilding.com.

And so everybody was doing these like training blogs and vlog blogs, you know, not vlogs.

Like we do vlogs now because there's videos.

Yep.

They didn't have videos.

You would basically like post pictures and write down what you did for your workout and your diet.

I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to do a show.

It's like, I think it was 2007, 2006, one of the two.

And I'm like, I'm going to do a show.

And so I, I went and I competed.

I won the show.

You want to know why I won?

Because I was the only one in my class.

It was called the Carolina Clash.

I lived in North Carolina at the time.

And I'm like, eh, that was whatever.

And then I looked and we actually had a small spike in sales.

I'm like, well, shit, I suck at this.

What if I actually get okay at it?

So I did.

Then I got lean because I was like 170, whatever.

I was a light heavyweight, but I was like the lightest, light heavyweight.

I looked like I was fluffy.

I looked like shit.

I didn't know how to get lean.

So I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to get lean.

So I got fucking shredded, dropped down to like lightweight.

Right.

So So I'm like, holy shit, I'm actually like, I'm doing good.

Like I'm placing, I'm winning a couple of them.

And our sales are going up.

Like I keep blogging this and the blog's like really popular.

And so I just kept going.

And then in

bodybuilding.com.

Oh, nice.

And I put it on, I think I cross-post like anabolic minds.

Like this is old school.

Like the bodybuilding.com forums were the shit back in the day, bro.

It was like, and so Derek Charleboy, who was one of our athletes, who's actually one of our employees, he actually had his own forum.

So we had a contest prep for him.

So it was me, Derek, and Lane Norton just posting blogs about like Lane was doing his science shit and fucking his natural bodybuilding.

Derek was natural and I was natural.

So we were just three natty guys just fucking training.

You know, I'm fucking competing at 150.

And the funniest post is someone back then was like, oh, you're on steroids.

And one of our employees at the time, Rob Moran, he's actually, I think he's with CellUCorp now.

Rob goes, he's 150 pounds, probably.

It was, I was, I mean, I was small, but I got, I got shredded.

Like, cause I can, I can suffer with the best of them.

So that was like 150 was fucking tiny.

Like, I'm weighing less than a fucking female at this point.

How much do you weigh now?

220.

Yeah, that's a lot.

It's a 70 pound.

And, well, I mean, I competed.

So Masters USA, I competed.

I was, I weighed in at 211, but I was wearing all my clothes because I had to 225.

I wasn't close to heavyweight.

But, you know, to get your pro card there, you have to win the overall.

So I didn't care.

Like, Jose is like, just whatever, where you fall, it doesn't matter.

You have to beat everybody.

So, you know, I got up.

I'm fucking wearing like fucking hoodie.

I'm wearing basically what you're wearing, but with a hoodie.

I got like 10 layers of clothes.

I'm like, do I have to make clothes off?

He's like, well, unless you're, I don't care.

All right, I'm 211.

So, you know, I post online, I weighed in at 211.

I was actually more like 206

because the clothes were probably probably fucking like six or seven pounds and uh but i didn't lie i did weigh in at 211.

and uh new york pro i weighed in at i think 207 and a half how tall are you getting i'm 5'7 and a quarter yeah bro i mean that's pretty damn fucking heavy for 5'7.

it's yeah you're 10 pounds over the classic weight limit yeah so i was thinking of going down to classic and i started prepping for the um i was actually i did a prep last year and i had to drop out because i had this like one of our so ambrosia was majority acquired by an awesome group so I just had to travel a lot we had all these expos and shit there was no way I could pull a prep together so I actually started logging every vlog and everything on the YouTube channel I'm like I'm doing it and I'm like fucking I'm a pussy I can't do it I can't dude it was like but it was crazy travel I'm talking like four days a week you can't prep with that I'm I'm I'm struggling right yeah dude you can't prep on chipotle like and I'm not I can't pack a fucking week's worth of meals so I'm like unless I could bunker down and do eight weeks without traveling longer than a day or two I I can't, I can't fucking do that.

Traveling is really stressful, bro.

And it just, it's not for bodybuilding.

The time zones, too.

Like, have you ever tried prepping your meals?

Like, when you gain three hours, like, I flew here and I, if I was dieting, I'd be like, I'm so fucking hungry.

Like, I just fucking, I just gained two hours.

Then I go home, I lose two hours.

I'm trying to slam in all my food.

It's like, good luck on that.

Traveling time zones.

So, yeah, it's, but I mean, you know, my thing with bodybuilding is,

you know, I don't think,

that what's happened is people doctor their pictures so much and they do the perfect angles and everything.

I'm not good at that shit, so I guess I look small on the internet.

People are like, man, you look small.

I'm like, I guess I do.

I'm like, just your arms, man.

Yes, the arms.

This fucking arm.

They fuck me every time.

Your arms aren't even that bad, bro.

You got great biceps, too.

They've, they've cut.

I've put, dude, it's 30.

I think it's just proportion-wise because the fact that you're two

oh seven, say something

old torso, dude.

Like, I am old torso i have decent legs but like my my torso has always been pretty thick even when i was a smaller guy so i mean it's just genetic proportions and i can't do anything about that like i have my arms are also extremely long like even my kids like my son is good in wrestling he has extremely long legs and arms so he's able you know what leg riding is it's when you kind of hook your legs and you kind of just tire them out trying to do moves and shit So his legs and arms are just, our appendages are just fucking ridiculously disproportionate to the rest of our body.

So I know that, you know, and there, but I don't, I don't have the genetics to go to that level.

Like I just, I'm not.

And I also, I'm also old.

Like, and I took seven years off of bodybuilding between 2013 and 2021.

So there, I can't, like, I'm not, I have no aspirations of being, and I can't anyway.

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So, when did you turn on natural?

When did you jump on tests for the first time?

I didn't want to.

It was, it sucked actually, because I was a militant natty.

Like, I wasn't like everybody's a cheater, yoga.

And I wasn't one of those guys.

I was like, drugs, whatever, but my testosterone.

So, to put myself through school and beginning my career, I didn't sleep much.

And I just burned out my system.

My testosterone came back below 100.

What was weird is I felt to what I thought was okay.

What age?

I was 27.

Okay.

So at 27, I went, I got my shit tested and prepping didn't help.

You know, prepping's horrible naturally.

Naturals think they're really healthy, but there's no natural.

Do you remember how many shows you did before this?

Probably 10.

Oh, damn.

I did a lot.

So, I mean, I did a in a year.

Like when you're natural, you compete every week.

Like, you can because you stay lean.

If you're a good natural bodybuilder, you look the same two weeks out as you look on show day.

Then just eat a couple grams of carbs and you're good.

Like, what are you going to do?

Like, you carb up a little bit.

So, I mean, I was competing.

Like, I do like five shows and just whatever.

I don't even remember what shows they were.

I threw away all the trophies.

Bro, it takes a huge hit to your thyroid and your test.

Everything was fucked up.

So I went to a general practitioner in Burlington, North Carolina.

And this is not.

an edgy doctor.

We're not, this isn't a clinic.

He's like, I've never prescribed this, but I think you need to go on that there TRT.

You know, and I'm like, well, he didn't talk like that.

It was hyperbole.

But I'm like, what the no.

So I didn't go on for, it took me like six months or like, I remember, it was a long time ago.

It took me a long time to actually leap and

take TRT.

What, what, what inspired it finally?

Were you just like, I'm fucking done with this shit?

This sucks.

What's weird is that I was still sexually, you know, I wasn't as, fuck, how weird do you want to get here?

So I wasn't as like, like, I'm, I'm a, I'm a very sexually driven guy, but I was still like attracted to my wife.

I still kind of wanted sex, but it wasn't like, I need sex.

Yeah.

Right.

It was like, yeah, sex is great.

I was still able to perform poorly, but I was able to,

that's to this day.

Um, yeah, not that some things didn't, didn't help that, but no, I mean, I was like, you know what?

This is wrong.

And then I'm reading all this data and this is what we had internet now.

Like, like, well, shit, dude, having low test is really unhealthy.

So I took my first shot and it was, I think it was like a hundred milligrams, if I'm not mistaken.

And it was, it was, and I remember it was enanthate because they prescribe either Cipionate or

my pharmacy now does a 90-10 Cypionate to Nanthate.

I don't know why the fuck they do it, but they do.

It's just what.

Yeah, I don't understand what the purpose is.

I don't know.

It's whatever.

It's prescribed.

But anyway, so like, so I got the, and I injected, I swear to God, like a day later, it was like, I saw Jesus.

I'm like, this is fucking amazing.

Like, I woke up.

I always got morning.

I woke up with the greatest morning, whatever.

Like, this thing could have ran through a brick wall.

I'm like, what the fuck is amazing?

I don't know if it was psychological, but dude, it, TRT

improved my life a thousand percent.

It was, it was crazy.

And I get, and all of a sudden, like, I gained like 20 pounds, like lean.

I don't remember the time time frame, but I wasn't eating different.

I wasn't measuring my food.

I was just eating like normal.

And I'm like gaining fucking size.

It was crazy on a hundred-something milligrams.

It was nuts.

So my body needed it.

It was like, it was like putting water on a thirsty plant.

I was, I just started growing.

And all of a sudden, you know, I went from being a lightweight to a middleweight.

And most of my games were made on TRT.

Like in 2013, I did go to the trend side.

I didn't like it.

What did you do?

I didn't do anything.

I didn't like get aggressive.

I just felt like shit.

Or what did you run?

I ran.

So my by, this is to my, in my opinion.

Like your first non-TRT cycle.

So the best cycle, the prep cycle was simple.

Everybody does this fucking cycle.

I think every coach does it.

A lot of them.

At least the beginner ones, right?

Hunter test, hunter master on, hunter trend every other day.

and then i finished off with halo testing which that was fucking wild yeah halo is wild don't take halo kids tell me about it well i mean so i would i was really strong at the time in bench press bench press i've always been pretty good and i would hit 405 for like one or two and we're like the week of the show

and i literally I just kept putting weight on.

I'm like, I'm not going to go over 315.

I put on 315.

It felt like 135.

And this is at the rush gym, just a normal commercial gym in Burlington, North Carolina.

I'm training with this dude Tyson and my wife.

I'll never forget this day.

And I was, I felt fucking great.

I'm like, I felt like shit, except when I went to the gym.

When I went to the gym, like, I felt like fucking Superman.

And I put on, I'm like, put on 225.

Fuck.

315.

I'm like, holy shit, 370.

I'm not going over 360.

I said 365.

Not going to do it.

Fucking

fuck it.

Put forward.

I got fucking eight reps.

Whoa.

I was like, it's on YouTube somewhere.

It jumped from two reps to eight reps.

It was fucking the week of a show.

I'm at like 0% body fat.

That's crazy.

In hindsight, that was retarded because I could have torn every fucking muscle in my body.

I had no body fat.

But that was when.

And at least you weren't on Winstrel, right?

Yeah.

No, I wasn't.

I wasn't.

Is Winstrell bad for that?

Yeah.

Ah, fuck.

Okay.

This is not good for your joints.

Yeah.

Does it dry them out?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can imagine, because it has that kind of anti-estrogenic dht kind of effect i can't tell you why why it does but it just does yeah i but i mean holy shit and that's when i got my naba pro card in 2013.

i ran that cycle i don't i think it made me about maybe five to ten percent better

but it was it was fucking and the the hardness like just your muscles look fucking different yeah halo Halo and Trend,

fuck, dude.

It was fucking wild.

Now you're making me want to jump on a cycle.

I'm going going to fucking come out.

But if

to this day, for some reason, Halo is the one thing that I've just never been able to, I've never really felt.

Really?

I feel pretty good on it.

Like, I took literally, I don't care who doesn't believe this.

I've talked about it a thousand times, so I don't know why it would be hard to, but I've taken up to 150 milligrams of trend for the first time for my last

set of pro shows.

For the week?

No, no.

So I never, I

wanted to hold off taking trend for the longest time.

That's a good, that's a good, good good choice.

I kind of just wanted to be able to be the fucking, it's a really stupid reason.

I'm not

on trend.

Exactly.

It's the same fucking reason.

Now, everyone, everyone wants to claim that exactly.

I wanted to name it this, and then I wanted to be like,

you know, I just compete as a pro and never took trend just because I know there's people who just don't take trend because they don't need it.

Like, I'm, I can tell you, C-Bomb most likely did not take trend this last, you know, this last, this last Olympia

for his health reasons.

But dude, I didn't feel anything on Halo.

But then I took Trent for just 150 milligrams a week and I felt nothing.

And then, like, maybe after four or five, six weeks or something, bro, all my thoughts just started changing.

What were they like?

Like,

when I'd be just driving out and like someone cuts me off or something, I'd be fucking pissed off, man.

I didn't get that.

I fucking hate them.

Halo didn't.

So I don't know if I convinced myself to be more Zen like when taking that shit, but

yeah, it's those are, I think Tren and Deca are the two that have that ability to kind of, I heard Deca.

I definitely,

I can't take Deca.

Trent and Nandalyn.

I can't take Deca.

What happens when you take Deca?

Oh, my dick doesn't work.

I found that at the heart.

So I had it prescribed, literally 100 milligrams a week.

100 milligrams.

And like had a prescribed instead for your

oxygen therapy?

I was, yeah, no.

So I was taking, my test was at like one, I think it was 150 at the time.

And my joints were, it was winter and I was doing a lot of coaching.

My joints were kind of killing me.

And so, like,

my doctor's like, yeah, I'll prescribe you some DECA.

I'm like, sounds great.

DECA sounds awesome.

And like, what's crazy about it is I'm able to get there, but mid, it just went away.

Damn.

And I didn't even think about the DECA.

I didn't even think about Deca Dick.

I know I've read about it.

Yeah.

And so I like call my doctor.

I'm like, dude.

I'm like,

what happened to my penis?

You know, and he's like,

well, you are taking, it's, it's DECA dick.

He's, I'm like, what the fuck, man?

Like, you didn't say he's like, well, it doesn't affect everyone.

Well, it does me.

I would rather, I would rather be small and weak than have that ever happen again.

So you're on 150 tests and you just added 100 DECA and just killed it.

Killed it.

So it was a 1.5 to one.

Yeah.

And I don't feel everybody's like, well, if you go two to one or three, I'm like, none, man, I'm good.

Like, I'm good never knowing what will happen.

If I, I don't need DECA.

Nothing, there's nothing in this world

that would make me want to get rid of my ability to fornicate.

I'm just, I don't want that.

Like

you could be like, okay, now you could gain 50 pounds of muscle and you can't fornicate.

I'll be like, I'll choose the fornication.

I'm plenty big right now.

I'm plenty big.

I'm not fucking with that.

Sorry.

It's my thing.

No, it was, so I won't take Deca.

But I am, I am wrestling with that.

Like, if I do another show, like, we know now

how to mitigate a lot of the risks from steroids, right we know how to mitigate and yeah

so the question is like do i give it one more

go and see what i see see what happens well what does your blood work look like my blood work's perfect like i have a my my my blood pressure is 110 over 70 resting heart rate's 46.

like i am literally in triathlon shape right now because realize i i'm cardiovascular like when you coach and especially with football season and our performance system when you're coaching for two three hours a day we're not just standing there like our high school football coaches blowing whistles.

Like, we got to demonstrate shit.

I'm pop skipping.

I'm doing all this crazy shit for two, three hours a day.

And then 6 a.m., we're out doing conditioning on the field.

So, you know, book end of the day, 6 a.m., I go coach, usually at a high school.

And then, you know, I get my training done after that, 7:30 and 8:30 or so.

Then I'm in the office by like 9:15.

So, and then at the end of the day, I go, you know, coach the, you know, five or 6 p.m.

sessions.

So, yeah, I'm constantly moving.

So, my heart is phenomenal liver values everything's perfect um so the the question is is it worth one more go and even then i wouldn't tell anybody it's like hey are you on more than trt i just won't answer it i'll just ignore it

like it's but even if you tell people the truth it doesn't matter

people either assume you're on you're saying you're on more than you're on you're saying you're on less than you're on like people want transparency that's the problem that i learned about this podcast is i really wanted to just be able to give people what they wanted and be able to help by doing so.

But you're right, like there's always going to be those people that no matter what you say, they're going to just

fuck those people.

Like, those people are just giving you money by watching, but they're not your viewer.

The people who watch you for the information, they're not the ones.

Like, if you, who was I talking to?

Like, you read like people get all upset by like a couple Reddit comments or threads on how shitty they are.

There's a hundred people, bro.

Your videos get a hundred thousand views.

They don't fucking matter.

They're a microcosm.

They're not, they don't matter.

Those are the losers.

Those are the haters.

They just go out and hate on everything.

You could say, you could do everything perfectly.

Dude, like Mother Teresa had a book written about her saying how shitty of a person she was.

She's a saint.

Hitchens wrote a book saying how Mother Teresa sucks.

She's a saint.

There's nothing you can do to make everyone like you.

So I think that took me a long time to realize on the internet because I was in the first wave, maybe

second wave, right?

Where you come in and the YouTube's new and the comments section has gotten a lot better.

Back in the day, dude, YouTube comments were wild.

Really?

They were crazy.

Worse than comments these days.

Oh, my God, dude, because they didn't have the censorship they do now.

So YouTube just started censoring recently for political reasons, but then they also started censoring for other shit.

So, dude, YouTube comments were wild.

You didn't have the filtering options.

Like, now you can have the held comments.

Oh yeah, I guess, yeah.

No, back then it was like, you name it.

I remember the first video I did with Chris Jones, like so many comments with the N-word and all this shit.

I'm like, damn.

I'm like, y'all racist.

I didn't know this existed.

Holy shit.

Yeah, it was nuts.

And yeah, it was wild.

And that's changed a lot for the better.

I mean, I'm not for censorship, but I could do without seeing.

racial slurs on my freaking comments.

Yeah.

Because I trained with Chris.

It was like nuts.

And you still get a couple here and there, but you're able to filter it a lot more.

Just rolling back a little bit, what's your worst experience then that you've had with PEDs?

Deca dick.

Does it get worse than that?

I haven't had, I haven't done enough to really have a bad experience.

I mean, the DECA thing was the worst.

That was, you can't get worse than that other than dying.

But even then, like, might as well kill me if that doesn't work.

I'm just playing.

Don't kill me.

No, I haven't really, I mean, for me,

trend was fine.

It was fine.

Mastron's great.

I think Mastron's great.

I think Mastron's probably the best ancillary out there.

Is it because it increased your desire to fornicate?

No, it's not always about fornication.

I just think it's, I just think it's like, because I would say Primo because the safety profile, DHT, whatever.

But

Primo, you have the issue with getting real Primo.

Like it's the most counterfeit one out there.

It is, but I think someone made this argument.

I can't remember who, but they say that these days, honestly, it's not that hard to get real Primo anymore.

It's not hard to get real anything.

I mean, if you know where to go.

Like, Primo is just so popular now.

And so it's like, it's just so much more widely used now than it was before.

You're going to have a lot less of a chance than back then for someone to really try to fake some shit on you.

Plus, you know, there's still methods to test it.

And

long story short, for example, I got my, my, uh, I got mine tested, and I mean, it was fucking pure.

So that's awesome.

Yeah, it is awesome.

Another thing about Primo, it's and Mastron as well, usually it's, it's 100, it's only, it's only 100 milligrams per mil.

So that's a lot of volume to inject, you know, where testosterone beginning.

Yeah, it's just gonna, it's just, it's a lot of stuff.

I don't know where people put their steroids.

I'm like, don't you like, even with TRT, I'm like,

I just did that.

Even with TRT?

It's like, well, I only use an insulin pin.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, so TRT is easy.

You backload it.

But like, I look at a side, I look at some people's cycles like

Paul Barnett.

Like, he's doing like, he was doing like 2,400 milligrams.

Yeah.

Paul is pretty crazy.

Where is he putting the steroids?

Like, where is he injecting it?

I don't understand how he was able to do any of the stuff that he did at his age.

Not just the steroids, but the amount of carbs he fucking ate too.

I mean, just anything.

Well, I mean, look, he has good muscle mass.

He's eating a good amount of carbs.

And I can honestly have a similar metabolism.

So sometimes when I used to increase calories, like I'd actually lose weight.

It's wild.

Dude.

Yeah, it's, but I see my metabolism has gotten better as I've gotten older.

Better than like, uh, I can eat more food.

Like, I can get away with a lot.

For me to get up to 220 was a chore.

Like, I had to, I had to junk it up a little bit.

Like, I had to throw in like, fuck, man, I just ate my chicken and rice.

I might as well have a couple cookies.

You know, that was, I was like, shit.

But yeah, Paul, I mean, he's, he's 50 now.

Isn't he?

I think he turned 50.

Isn't he?

If I'm not mistaken.

He's at least 50.

Yeah, he's for sure.

He's gotten better.

I mean, he didn't start doing it.

He was like 40.

Like, that's the crazy part.

He bodybuilded when he was in his 20s for like a very small period of time.

It wasn't very much.

Yeah.

And then he just went into

got like obese or something for a small period of time.

Yeah.

And now he's...

Now he's the drug guy.

Yeah.

I mean, he's awesome.

I love that guy, by the way.

Paul's, he's just a nice, good guy.

Yeah, he's super awesome.

Yeah, he's he's chill.

Just does his thing.

But yeah, he was, I was looking, I was watching, I was like following his prep for his pro for his pro qualifier.

And I was like, holy shit, that's a lot of drugs.

Like, it was insane.

But I just don't know how I don't see abscesses.

Yeah, I don't know either.

I'm like, I'm wondering, is he just that fucking huge being at like what, 6'4, however tall he is?

Because he has enough volume in his freaking shoulders and glutes and and shit.

Well, I mean, my favorite place to inject is lats.

That's one of my favorite places.

Latz the best.

Actually, that might be.

Yeah, glute mid, like not the glute glute, but that area, you could pretty much, you're not going to get an abscess there unless you get some really crazy, dirty shit.

It's not going to give you an abscess.

Delts are weird.

They'll welt up sometimes.

Sometimes they won't.

Yeah.

Just depends on frequency.

Justin Harris told me he actually doesn't like glutes and that he actually says or believes that, you know, like you can basically inject anywhere in the delts, and you're normally like you can inject in the delts like multiple times, and you'll be fine.

Like, he recommended like upper side delt, and then like upper and lower rear delt, and then in between the side and the rear delt.

And I'm like, How do you even get to your rear delt at all?

How do you train shoulders?

Well, you have to have someone do it, right?

Like, I have to like

cross.

Yeah, there's no chance.

Yeah, it's it's it's tough, especially when you have mass, like getting to those areas.

And my wife's not injecting me, dude.

She's not.

She had there's limits to our relationship, and that's that's the limit

she she hates needles she's like no i'm not i'm not doing that i got my girl to inject me for the first time yesterday with bpc how'd that work so that was cool well it was like it's it's bpc through an insulin needle so it was nothing yeah i

just couldn't reach this freaking spot in my rhomboids that was like too tight from the shoulder impingement issue i was talking about had her stab right in there so Yeah, I'm wondering where people inject.

That's one thing.

And then you get the fucking people with like taking all this injectable carnitine, this, that, the third.

Like, where are you putting all this stuff?

Bro, that's my least favorite thing to inject out of anything in the world: L-carnitine.

It is painful.

It's fucking painful, bro.

I'd rather inject a tub of glutathione than L-carnitine.

Glutathione sucks, too.

That's painful, too.

But something about L-carnitine is worse because glutathione hurts when it's going in.

But L-carnitine, like, stays hurting.

It's the fucking post-it injection.

It is crazy why carnitine hurts so bad.

There's one brand that doesn't hurt.

But I like carnitine, but I'm just, fuck man i can't like and especially if you're you have to choose like it gets when you get to a certain amount of gear you have to cut out the carnitine yeah there's no way you can inject all that and still get a cc of carnitine in there right i kind of just gave up the carnitine to be honest i just didn't use it at all even though do you think it do you think it do you think it does what they say the fat burning and did you notice did you notice it different receptors

I don't ever think anything that says that it increases fat burning I ever noticed, to be honest with you.

I'm going to be real.

Like I took Clan for the first time for my prep.

Um, the only thing I noticed was the fact that I felt like I was always stimulated.

That's about it.

I never understood.

I never took it, I never liked Clan.

I never took it.

I never liked the science behind it.

I'm like, uh,

you just diet harder.

Yeah, no, I didn't like I kept it at 20 milligrams and then I ramped it up to 40.

So most people who've taken it will understand that that's a very low dose.

Very low.

But it was enough for me to at least just feel a little bit of stimulant purposes.

That it was just nice that I didn't feel like I was always sleepy and hungry.

I was, I was less in like a rest and digest state, which I know is good for recovery.

But like when you're fucking starving to death during prep, like the first, the only thing you want to do is at least be stimulated or caffeinated so you don't have to think about just eating.

Oh, yeah.

So did you do that?

Did you do thyroid stuff?

T3 and any of that?

No, well, the thyroid thing is complicated that I can talk about another time.

I had thyroid issues in the past for the same reason that you did as a natural from

doing like fucking six shows back to back as a national.

But

I mean, when it comes down to it, honestly, like I agree.

If there's anything, like the first step before touching any of these things, it's just learning how to fucking diet properly and eat foods that are good with your digestion.

Don't use it.

That's the most important thing ever.

That's the problem with steroids, right?

And the problem with GLPs, too, I think these days.

It's like, yeah, it'll help a lot of people, but

I think it's a very bad idea if someone hasn't put in their 110% into just getting healthy first.

Well, GLPs are just going to slow digestion and make you not want to eat more.

I'm always like, you know, like,

I'm kind of, you know, I do see the obesity epidemic, right?

I see that.

But I also know that there's new data in rodents.

I actually talked to Dr.

Sean Baker about this, the carnivore diet guy, that it can cause hyperplasia of fat cells.

So when you gain your fat back, which you're going to do if you come off of it, because you're not having the appetite suppression.

And also, like, you have, it slows digestion.

You have food just sitting in your stomach.

That can't be good.

No.

Like, so we don't know the long-term effects of this at all.

And I see bodybuilders using it now.

And I'm like, bro, just fucking stop being a pussy.

I feel like if a bodybuilder, if an actual like real big pro bodybuilder uses that during prep, it's going to cause issues and it makes his gut bigger.

I feel like one of the biggest issues is just

digestion.

I think that's the biggest issue for guts on stage.

Oh, absolutely.

I think it should be a last resort.

But if you're competing and you need GLP-1, find a new sport.

Like, just fucking learn how to prep.

Prep's not going to be fun.

You're going to be hungry.

Deal with it.

Find a new fucking hobby.

Like, you know, you see a lot of these science guys, like, yeah, I threw in GLP1, these guys who compete in the bodybuilding, you know, science circles.

I'm like, bro, like, fucking.

They never win.

It's like, fucking learn how to diet and train harder.

It's just a weird, it's, it's the one, it's one of the drugs that is kind of weird because it doesn't necessarily help you look better on stage in terms of like hardness or dryness or fullness or anything.

It's just the one that makes it easier to diet.

Yeah.

Whereas like the other things that at least have a purpose, for example, Clenn will help preserve muscle to a certain degree.

All the rest of these, all the rest of the gear that you're taking on prep, a big majority of the reason is like cosmetic look as well, or at least preserving muscle, you know?

Yeah, that one's just, oh, I'm not as hungry.

But

the reason I look forward to prep is it's kind of like the fucking grind, right?

Like you're fucked fuck, man.

I'm fucking

almost look forward to it.

Like, man, I can't wait to suffer a little bit.

Like, we have it too easy in this world.

Like, bodybuilding gives you this fucking adversity that you just don't have.

Bro, it's easy for you to stay as a hard gainer.

The rest of you.

Like, fat asses really miss food.

Okay.

Okay.

I guess I'm lacking empathy.

Like, I understand, but I've been there though.

Like, when I was a lightweight, I used to have to cut my calories down to 1,200.

That fucking sucked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it was terrible, but I mean,

I was okay with it.

Like, it didn't really bother me.

And, and also, like, I boxed for seven years, so I cut weight for that.

Like, you know, me getting down below like 203 so I could, so I could box at a lower weight class, like that fucking sucks too.

Dropping water, that sucks.

Yeah.

Can't take diuretics for a boxing.

Dropping water sucks a lot.

You'll die.

Like, have you ever tried boxing after taking diuretics?

It's not going to work.

I haven't, and I don't plan on it either.

Right.

So that's, that's the thing is that I think, and that's also look at, look at Lunsford, wrestler again

dudes

starved much more for wrestling because he has to make weight every week so even to this day though like almost 20 years later you feel like testosterone has greatly improved your life testosterone oh trt changed my life trt is the fountain of youth so weight training is the fountain of youth now i'm not saying super physiological year-round right like i'm not saying jack your testosterone up to 10 000 take a gram a week i'm saying getting your levels up to normal to high normal like i like to keep mine around 900 year round, my T levels.

And that's when I feel the best.

I've kept it at like 170 to 200 gets me at like the anything over 1,000 or 1100.

It's like, I can't explain it, but I just don't feel as good.

Whereas that 900 to 1,100 range is like fucking great.

That's when I feel my best.

I sleep.

When I go to bed, I sleep like a baby.

When I wake up in the morning, I fucking go all day.

I don't get tired in the afternoon i don't have the luls

obviously barring traveling like traveling will you up like you know your time zone changes and getting not enough sleep but if i get a good night's sleep i'm good like i can crush it all day get it get a workout in uh work for you know 10 plus hours behind a desk and go coach and i'm fine then i lay down for bed i'm i'm asleep like that's where i feel my best and i'm still performing great but but again like if it yeah if you're competing yeah those those other drugs really help like but if you're looking at longevity and living a long life, it's, we know that having low testosterone

is more detrimental to your health than having normal to high testosterone, to normal high testosterone

on TRT.

Like, we know this, even for cardiovascular events, we know that's the case.

We've seen, we have the data, we have the meta-analyses.

So, for people, what's crazy online is they equate all steroid use to being bad.

Like steroids, think about why they were brought here to prevent atrophy from, you know, or sarcopenia from disease, cancer, AIDS, things like that.

So there is a, you know, clinical application for steroids.

So if you have low testosterone, if you're just an aging male, testosterone is definitely going to improve your life.

No doubt about it.

So if your testosterone levels are low, a therapeutic intervention with TRT is definitely going to help you.

Yeah, I know.

I'm in the same place too, which is why I found

that conversation really interesting on Jubilee that we we had when they asked the prompt

regarding steroids are dangerous and should not be normalized

because

people kind of just use just lumps testosterone in general, too steroid, steroid use in general.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you see all these shit with RFK, right?

Like, I'm in the political arena a little bit, and these guys, oh, T's on testosterone, he's a steroid.

No, he's on therapeutic, bio-identical TRT.

And he's 70, and he's fucking jacked and benching shirtless and blue jeans on the beach.

Like, yeah, that's the guy I want in charge of my fucking health.

Like, I feel like he looks like he has the physique of someone who could be like 40 years old.

Bro, and I feel like that's what TRT would be.

I met him before, dude.

He's, he's a fucking, he's a, he's a monster.

Like, he's in shape.

Good guy, like, energy, just fucking,

he's the guy.

Like, I'm happy to see what he does.

But yeah, I want to see, like, that's who I want to charge of our health.

Like, there's nothing wrong with medical intervention or chemical intervention, let's say, prescription intervention.

It's okay for a girl to take birth control.

That's completely normalized.

Just shove her full of estrogen.

It's going to fuck her up the rest of her life.

But if a male wants to get normalized with TRT, we're like, oh my God, he's on fucking steroids.

Come on.

Yeah.

Like, that's okay.

It's okay for someone to change their gender and jack themselves with testosterone.

But if I simply just don't want to feel old and have energy and be able to go to work and crush it and then come home and have sex with my wife, like that's, that's wrong.

That's a problem.

Like, I'm fucking cheating.

Fuck yeah, I'm cheating.

I'm cheating out of being a fucking loser.

Like this is cool.

Why would I want to age?

Why would I want to feel old?

Why would I want like what makes you old?

One of the reasons people get old and start feeling like shit is that their hormone levels just drop.

If we can prevent that, why are we not doing it?

Why are we not encouraging men to go get their testosterone levels checked?

Okay, your testosterone is low.

We're going to try some lifestyle intervention.

Clean up your diet, start exercising, lose weight, boom.

Test it after they do that.

Oh, shit, it's still low what do we do now oh trt

productivity will go through the roof

think about it think about how like dude my neighborhood so i live in a an affluent area of of tennessee called brantwood

there are so many normal men who don't even lift on trt just they could crush it in the office Like TRT is a thing.

We have fucking testosterone clinics in town like

because these dudes understand.

And then they're, they're like, fuck, man, I'm able to go all day.

Then I go exercise, you know, play my weekend softball and hang out with my kids and they have a sex drive again.

Their wife's happy.

Why would you not do that?

I'm not telling people who have normal testosterone to go out and fucking inject themselves testosterone.

But if you are in the low range of testosterone, you should definitely explore TRT.

Of course,

after lifestyle intervention.

Absolutely.

Yep.

I'm with it.

Damn, that's crazy, bro.

I'm a Cali guy.

That's why I still say say dude a lot.

I'd like to think I still sound Californian.

Yeah.

Even though I...

Sound a little bit more Nashville-you know.

Oh, God damn it.

Fuck, they've rubbed off on me.

I'm going to start saying shit like get gone.

Get gone.

They say weird shit.

They conjugate words that shouldn't be conjugated.

Yeah.

In Nashville, it's weird.

Well, it's a southern thing, man.

North Carolina was worse.

But Nashville is a bunch of transplants.

People aren't really from Tennessee.

You know, they kind of moved there like me.

But yeah, it's

it's um

I thought I still kept my Cali dialect, but

I guess I'm turning into a hick.

How do you think I talk?

I mean, I would, I would guess California.

California?

Really?

I would.

Just from what I sound like or what?

Yeah, just, I mean, that would be, I would guess not South.

Hmm.

Move your mic a little bit to the left.

Not south.

Not south.

Not Boston.

Not New York.

Hmm.

Where are you from originally?

Texas, Arkansas, and then college in Indiana.

Yeah, it didn't rub.

Where'd you go to Indiana?

Where'd you go to college?

Purdue.

Oh, my daughter goes to IU.

Oh, dude.

Fuck IU.

Yeah, I know.

You know what?

Fuck, I agree with you.

You know how much I have to pay those bastards even?

Fuck IU.

Fuck the Hoosiers.

Hey, but their football team this year, man.

Not bad.

Yeah.

Purdue's, though.

No, I know.

It's always been like that.

No, not that bad.

Not that bad.

This is a bad year.

Didn't they just fire the coach?

I think they did.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah.

My daughter goes to Kelly's School of Business, so that's the only way I would, if it was only if it's an exceptional school.

Um, but I have a couple friends who went to Purdue, and yeah, they're like, fuck I you.

I'm like, well, Kelly School of Business, that makes sense.

She's not playing ball anymore.

So it's,

yeah, she gave up soccer.

She just burnt herself out.

The only sport we really ever cared about at Purdue was basketball.

Yeah.

Was the basketball team.

Yeah, that's why most of us just spent our time at the corec, honestly.

Indiana, too.

Lifting.

Indiana.

Yeah.

Indiana used to be a basketball school.

Now all of a sudden they got a good coach and they're a football school.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

But yeah, so fuck, that's funny.

Anyways, back to steroids and bodybuilding.

Do you do anything to manage your health markers?

Or any, like, do you monitor your health in any ways?

I do blood work

very consistently.

So I do, I consider these the main screenings.

In no particular order, a skin check for skin cancer.

I did have skin cancer from probably been there since I was a kid.

When I was a kid,

we just, we would go out in the sun until we peeled, right?

Like that was a thing.

So I had skin cancer here.

That's this bald spot.

And then I had skin cancer right in my, between my, my pecs.

So skin, number one is skin check.

Number two is blood work, right?

At least every 12 months.

Number three is calcium scoring of the heart.

You know, see arthrosclerosis, all that good stuff.

Number four, if you're over 40, prostate exam.

That's my health marker checks that I've done videos on it where

you're not going to get the whole picture.

And they do more stuff, right?

They do the full body scans.

Like there's so much you can do.

But if you do those four things, the body scans aren't usually covered by insurance.

Those four things are covered by insurance.

And if you go to the doctor for prostate, look, man, oh, prostate exams are a waste.

Look, man.

My wife had had one.

She had some non-cancerous polyps.

She has to go every three years just to get them because

they come back.

So they snip them and they go because they're pre-cancerous.

So that means they can form into cancer.

Mine was clean.

So I don't have to go for another 10 years.

Okay.

Prostate exam, skin check, obviously.

You know, after I did, after I got my skin cancer, I did a video on it.

I've had like four people, four people, I think it's four from that video find they have skin cancer because they went and got their skin check because I did that video.

No way.

Yeah, skin cancer is prevalent.

It's very prevalent.

There's carcinoma, which is really hard to die from, but you could have, one guy had the melanoma.

He had to get a big chunk of his ear cut out.

Yeah.

What age did you find that out?

That was, I think it was 40.

40.

Okay.

It was, so this one, no, it was actually like, it was only a couple of years ago.

So I had this one and I got checked again.

I had one right here.

So they cut, it actually made my chest look better.

Tighten the skin.

Oh, that's what I need.

Kind of happy with that.

Yeah, just get skin cancer between your pecs.

That'd be good.

Cause, you know, as you get older, your skin's not as elastic.

Yeah.

So I thought I had, I actually, I went to a, I thought I had gyno.

And I went to a plastic surgeon.

He's like, nah, man, your skin's just not as tight as it used to be.

And that's how your nipples are.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Fuck.

You know, so much to look forward to.

I didn't have gyno.

Wait, so are there any supplements that you take then?

Oh, I take a lot of supplements.

What kind of supplements?

So health supplements.

Yeah, for health, harm reduction.

I know you're not really taking steroid cycles or anything, except for like, well, if I, if I,

if I do a pro show and I start looking bigger, just realize I was telling the truth.

Look, man, I mean, so ambrosia nectar, that's for health.

I like that for overall organ, overall health support.

I've always had high bil rubin levels.

When I was 19, they did an ultrasound on it.

And we came out with that when I was in my mid-30s.

Like it was 2015.

I haven't had high, high liver enzymes since, regardless of what I've taken, what I've done, anything, my workload.

So one thing I've added in is 10,000 FUs a day of natokinase.

So natokinase is great, especially

it's YouTube.

So, and also without it, like there's there's been a lot of something that happened in the last four years seems to be causing an increase in blood clots.

I'm not going to say what I think it might be, but this has an ability to break up blood clots.

And also, my good friend Jerry Ward died of a pulmonary embolism.

So that gave, and also with me flying all the time, those, those are.

Natokinase, there's one supplement I travel with.

It's nectar and natokinase.

Vitamin K, again, it's been shown to help decrease calcium in your heart.

If If you do have

authorsclerosis, it can decrease it.

So that means, in my opinion, if you don't have it, it might prevent it based on the data.

Citrus berginator.

There's so many good reasons for vitamin K in general, anyways, that you should.

Yeah,

citrus bergamit.

Citrus bergamet has some beneficial effects on HDL.

I take niacin.

Don't get the flush-free.

Get the extended release called Nia Extend.

I think Now Foods makes it.

So I take that twice a day.

I think it's 500 milligrams.

I don't remember what the milligram, but one pill of that a day.

What's the reasoning for that?

Niacin raises HDL.

HDL.

For the NIA extend.

Because you want the flush kind, but also if you take that milligram dose without the extended release, you're going to get the burning ears.

It's going to be terrible.

So take the extended release.

Take that twice a day, morning and night.

I love fish oil.

I think the benefits are there.

Data is wishy-washy on it, meaning it's good to do it.

Data is very confounded on fish oil.

Some say it doesn't work.

Some say it does.

Some say it, but all I know is that we want our omega-3 to omega-6 ratio to be good.

That helps point in the right direction.

So I take three grams of total EPA DHA per day.

Yeah.

So I think focusing on the EPA and DHA is what's most important.

Absolutely.

So, yeah.

So just go for three total grams.

It's recommended by even CrossFit.

recommends three grams.

So I'm like, if those guys got that up,

yeah, they got one thing right.

Right.

And I'm a CrossFit certified instructor, by the way.

Really?

Yeah, I got the cert.

Damn, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not, I'm not like putting people to trust.

For me, it's just another tool and toolkit.

They do, they do some things right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not black and white.

Like, my training methodologies for athletes are all over the place from Exos to Conjugate.

Thinking what else, I take Immortal.

It's a multivitamin pack by my brand, MTS Nutrition.

Man, I take a lot, Golden, Turmeric.

So that's a, use a cool thing called HydroKirk, which is very well absorbed.

I'm just thinking of the health subs because I don't want to get into like, oh, I pre-work, then it becomes a sales pitch.

99%, 90% of these things I've said, I don't sell.

sell.

Like these are things I buy.

Like I purchase them.

I do take a glucose disposal agent.

I used to take metformin.

Now I take something called alchemy.

It has dihydroberberine in it.

Also, this thing called NC2.

How do you feel on berberine?

Do you ever feel off?

I only take it at night.

I only take it at night.

And the reason is I go hypoglycemic really easy.

My metabolism is so fast that if I take a metformin, which I have taken and I do like it, I like the health benefits of having the lower lower blood sugar and all the insulin effects, right?

Because insulin, if you have chronically high insulin, it's not good for your health.

So that's why metformin has the health benefits it does, is because it controls that.

High insulin, high inflammation, high inflammation, not good, not good.

So NC2 is another ingredient in alchemy, but I only take it before bed.

So I'll take

whether it was metformin, but I can't take it during the day because I go hypoglycemic really easy, really easy, no matter what I eat.

It's just my metabolism is really fast.

Um,

I mean, those

obviously, the muscle.

I mean, we're not talking about muscle shit, but everybody should take creatine.

We should talk about that for just overall health, especially if you have a kid who plays a contact sport, make them take creatine.

The neuroprotective benefits in case of concussion, things like that.

So, yeah, I mean, there's, there's, those are the bulk of the health supplements.

I'm trying to think of what else is in my carry bag right now.

But, yeah, I try.

Do you take anything for kidneys?

Um, nectar.

Okay.

Yeah, nectar has that in there.

So nectar handles my liver, kidney, heart, a lot of things like that.

What was your reason for nanokinase with flying again?

Well, blood clots.

Like, do you, is there anything that you like feel from that?

No, I don't feel anything from natokinase.

I don't think.

I mean, I take so much shit like on a daily.

And also, like, also,

I want to be totally transparent.

With my TRT, I also take two IUs of HGH five days a week.

And I also do take PPC-157.

I try to do it every day.

I'm not traveling.

So I take 250 micrograms morning and night.

Okay.

I do it year-round.

You don't do that.

You don't do that like

prophylactically.

I don't know.

I can ever say these things.

Prophylactic.

It's fucking embarrassing.

I inject.

Like you

like.

You just take it regardless whether or not you have an injury.

Well, I mean,

I mean, the heart, the cardioprotective benefits of BPC-157, I I mean, that's what really interests me.

Okay.

And that also interests me about carnitine.

I'm just, it just hurts too bad to inject.

Yeah.

Like carnitine does have in rodent models, it's been shown to kind of remodel the heart.

So carnitine is fascinating.

But again, we're looking at rodent models.

It hasn't been replicated in humans.

So

but sometimes we got to work with the rat data.

Like with BPC 157, we're dealing with mostly rodent data.

In fact, we're dealing with rodent data.

Let's just be honest.

And then empirical data, like, bro, I tore my peck and it healed in like four days.

Like we're going of rodent data and bro data.

Yeah.

And that's okay.

Bro, data is great.

Bro data is amazing, but but I mean, it works, right?

Like, how did we find out?

How did Arnold find out that his training methodologies work?

He didn't have any data.

Dude, whenever I have problems, I'm gonna say this straight up because it's only helped me so much.

Uh, whenever I have problems and I look up shit on Google and I'm like looking up for where my problem is coming from, how to solve it, Google just gives me a bunch of scares, making me feel like I have cancer and hardly ever helps me because every single symptom under the book is literally related to every disease.

However, when I look it up and I type in something like Reddit or I type in some kind of blog post, I can see a list of how many people agree and disagree with that same thing.

And then I can actually deduct for myself what is the potential like probability of me being one of those people that feels that from this.

And it fucking has helped me so much every single time.

And from it, I'm always able to deduct like maybe this is an actual real thing and I'm feeling it from this supplement or I'm feeling it from this lifestyle or I'm feeling this from this food and then I take that out and I feel much better yeah well if I didn't call my doctor and my doctor wasn't an actual hormone guy right and I got DECA dick where do you think I'd find out that it was from DECA I'd be like what am what what steroid can or does DECA cause penis problems and then

the internet opens up Like the internet's, that's why we need, we need to, we can't have censorship.

We need to have these open dialogues because that's where you can find out like what's really going on yeah and that's where we found out a lot of like what was going on in 2020 was from the people online asking questions

because the government wasn't going to tell us the truth we had to go and go to the deep dark recesses of the internet youtube was suppressing things so it was just crazy and yeah so with health supplements you know it's we know so much like we have we are so blessed to have all these tools now where you know what if you do want to jump on a cycle is there is it going to be no risk there's risk in everything i could step dude there was risk for me walking to your apartment from the uber someone could have robbed me like nothing in life comes without risk but can you mitigate the risk can you mitigate that risk and i think a lot of times we can not even talk about like you got things like telmasartin which appeared apparently is very good for blood pressure.

So you're minimizing the impact your heart is at, you know, you don't want your heart beating fast for a long period of time.

So you have that you have telmasartin but even beyond telmasartin we know that we could take things like citrus bergamot for cholesterol and lipid profile we know that niacin will raise your hdl we know that natokinase not only has the effect on the anti-blood clotting but also has the effect on your hdl ldl and other markers it's a miracle supplement natokinase i don't think i don't think we praise it enough i think everyone should take it i think i think i agree with that i hear citrus bergamot more than i hear nanokinase yeah citrus bergamid's great great.

They're both great.

Citrus bergamin is great.

But again, when you measure something in FUs and I can't pronounce it, fibrilum units, it's basically the ability to dissolve blood clots.

That's wild.

And it's, it's natural.

It's from natto.

It's from a Japanese food.

That's what's so crazy.

So, I mean, we're able to mitigate a lot of issues.

And let's say you've done stuff in the past, right?

That might bite you in the butt.

Like, let's say you ran some huge cycles in your 30s or or your 20s, and you're 45 now.

Like, holy shit, I fucked everything up.

What if you, what if you can mitigate a lot of that?

What if you can actually reverse a lot of that?

Yeah, so I, or what if you, you're your age or Togi's age, and you want to

uh, yeah, we're talking about supplements.

Um,

talking about citrus berg mine, kinase, what else were we?

Netokinase, niacin, the, the extended version, niya extend,

vitamin K.

I mean, mean those are all things that we have vitamin d vitamin d3

i mean you definitely want it especially if you're like

yeah it's sunny in nashville year-round but i'm not going to go outside shirtless in 40 degree weather i'm just not doing it the only time i'm outside half naked is when i go on my cold plunge you ever cold plunge yeah but i haven't recently they say it's not good for hypertrophy and the data does show that but My question is, we don't know how much of it, right?

So I like doing it in the morning for like 60 to 90 seconds boom

done and throughout the day you just feel better all day

you just feel better I don't know I feel like I would use it for like my rest days or like basically whenever you're like recovering from say like a show for example oh yeah taking like a health phase or something I feel like that's a good time to do it yeah I like it kind of gets my brain right

the bane of your existence

This doesn't normally happen, sorry.

No, it's all good.

That's what I said when I had the DECA dick.

It doesn't normally happen.

But yeah.

So for my kids, they wrestle.

So it just, it does, it does wonders.

Like just for soreness, inflammation, recovery.

It's, I like them.

But if you're trying to make gains, don't do it.

If you're hypertrophy over everything, if you don't mind being a little bit in pain, don't do the cold plunge.

Sauna's, sauna's great.

Just the morbidity, like it decreases based on the studies we have out of Finland, it decreases your morbidity risk.

You do do it four days a week for 10 to 20, I think it was five to 20 minutes, four days a week.

This is a finished sauna, so it's hot as fuck, but you're looking like, you're looking at a 40% decrease in morbidity risk.

Yeah.

And all-cause mortality.

That's crazy.

So before, I mean, you might be a little bit different of case, but before you started TRT or steroids, would you have said you had, you were this much of a health nut?

I've always been a hypochondriac.

So my, man, how long do we have?

Like, so my, my mom's a drug addict and my dad died from type 2 diabetes, basically complications from it.

So I've always been health-centric.

Like, I mean,

it's always been a priority because I didn't want to be like my parents.

My brother is the same way.

He was actually a natural pro-bodybuilder.

So my brother and I both went all the way opposite of our parents.

So

not as much, but I think that's more related to age than it is to steroid use.

But also, I think that

I think steroid users now are different.

I think pro-bodybuilders are the healthiest they've ever been.

I do think they are because they are taking these precautions.

A lot of them are.

Obviously, it differs, right?

There's like, there's bodybuilders that are just straight up taking cocaine and there's bodybuilders that really care about their long-term health.

But I think in order to be, you know, in order to care for your long-term health as a bodybuilder, God, you got to be fucking on top of shit, man.

Way more than anyone that's natural.

Yeah.

The recreational drug use is way down from what I can tell.

Like back in the friggin early 2000s and the 90s, bro, Cormier, Titus, they'd have these after parties.

They'd be fucking doing drugs and drinking.

It was crazy.

It was crazy.

Now you don't really hear, you don't hear about it, right?

Like, I don't hear about it.

I can't see Derek Lunsford going out snorting lines.

Like

while praying to Jesus.

Like, Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a different world.

I think the body, I think bodybuilders

gotten better.

Everybody's, oh, they're more unhealthy.

I'm like, I don't think so.

I think we know more now, and I think they're taking a lot more precautions than we did when I first started bodybuilding.

I think we have social media to think for that.

Social media has made the world better.

It just has.

I mean, we met each other through social media.

My friend circle is social media.

My business partners, I met Mike, social media.

Like social media has made the world so much better.

It's connected a bunch of people who think alike, where I could live in Nashville, you could live in LA, and we could be boys and know that, okay, here's two, here's people who have so much in common who we would never know.

And now we're in the same circle.

So we can see each other, meet up.

We have this whole circle and you can meet a lot of good people.

So I encourage people, especially the haters, instead of fucking hating on people, like just fucking get to know them, like associate with them, network with them.

Yeah.

I think it's just like our, I mean, I can't really, no, maybe I can speak for myself, but I think it's just our natural born tendencies when like you see a dude at the gym that like I don't know has that broccoli here or whatever or like fucking my son is a little bit bigger than you're just like who the fuck is this guy but then you end up meeting them and you're like wow this guy was like one of the nicest guys in Manhattan

that just tends to happen all the time well again like I was saying earlier like the nicest the best experience I ever had was backstage North Pro everybody was dope everybody was nice you have people who are vouching for first and second helping each other with their oil It was fucking wild.

I was like, dude, they're going to be back.

Cause like,

what sports did you play as a kid?

Did you play football?

I played a little bit of football, mostly soccer and tennis, mostly tennis.

So before the game, you go, the captains, my senior year, I was a captain.

You go shake hands with the other team for the coin toss, right?

So you go out there, you shake hands with the other team, but you're like, fuck this guy.

I'm going to fucking murder him.

In bodybuilding, so I went backstage.

I expect motherfuckers to be like mad dogging each other.

Nah, man, it was all love.

It's fucking, it's a great community yeah the body the pro now amateurs is still a little weird because it's but like the pro bodybuilding community is the fucking greatest community on it's pretty cool man it's the best it's the greatest there's a lot of respect there and that's one of the reasons i want to do it again just for that like fuck man this is great it's just kind of cool to just be around other pros man you're just like damn you guys worked hard like we all have insane physiques and that energy remains there it's like hey can you imagine being a fucking amateur now i'm just kidding

we just stand back there ratting on people who don't have pro cards.

Now, actually, it's all love.

Like, and there's a respect.

Like, when you go to a gym and you see someone who's jacked, like this guy, he actually moved back to Minnesota, Felix Norman.

He got fifth at the Chicago Pro this year.

Like, I remember the first day I saw him at my gym and I was like, what the fuck is this thing?

Like, Felix is, he's a fucking monster.

If you don't know him, look him up.

He's a fucking monster.

And we be, obviously, we started training together.

Like, I didn't even give a fuck where he came from.

I don't care if he's a fucking Satanist.

I'm like, dude, you want to get jacked?

Let's go get jacked and talk about chicken and drugs.

Like it was great.

Like, so bodybuilding this community is so fucking awesome.

And if you've ever been to a hardcore gym, like they call Planet Fitness No Judgment Zone, dude.

there's no more welcoming place to someone trying to get in shape than a hardcore gym metro flex long beach back in i think it was 2016 this is rich piano was training there and all this callie muscle like everybody was there and so we're back there we're training this this like obese woman is pushing a sled

and everybody stopped what they're doing because she was starting to struggle and they clapped her through they motivated her and she finished it everybody's dabbing her up you don't see that shit at planet fitness if you want to go to a no judgment zone go to a metro flex go to a hardcore gym that's where you're going to see people who give a

that's where people are going to dab you up you need a spot 20 people will help you You go to a regular gym, go to a lifetime, people have their headphones on.

They're not even making eye contact with you.

But you go to a hardcore gym dude like you got the best people in the world bodybuilders are the nicest people you'll ever meet the real ones the real ones not not not the fake ones they're the real ones yeah but yeah the broccolihead kids i actually like seeing that because we have a whole generation of kids who are interested in fitness and like dude as long and and a lot we got to credit a lot of that to bumstead we do Bumstead has a whole fucking generation of kids training barefoot fucking their broccoli head and it's all bumps so when you when you see a gym with these kids taking up the bench presses yeah and they mob deep dude there's like fucking 10 of them and you're like fuck you bumpstead now you're like you know bumpstead did a lot i don't think we give enough credit for what he's done for fitness getting kids interested in in in fitness yeah dude i mean i got into this first because you know i was just being called fat when i was 12 years old when i was freaking 11 years old so before that era like when i was doing fitness and bodybuilding and all these things this was way before chris bumpstead even anyone even knew his name.

So to like be here in this age, and I know that you are in the same place, but to be here today

and look back and be like, wow, the industry that I do work in has grown so much.

Yep.

And

now it's just, it's fucking, it's even more fun now than it was before to be a part of it.

And it's like all thanks to.

to bodybuilding and to Chris and to just this growth in social media in the last like, what, five years plus.

Yeah.

And I think we have this this drive and we're gonna see i'm very optimistic if we have a drive toward towards health and fitness like i love new years i love seeing all new people at the gym i know people get mad but i'm like sure i'll wait let's can i work in i love that shit i love seeing new people there our goal is bodybuilder how do we keep these motherfuckers here How do we keep them involved in this lifestyle?

How do we keep them lifting and enjoying what we enjoy?

Because the quality of life, like it's the fountain of youth.

Lifting is the fucking fountain of youth.

It really is.

And I'm not talking lift like an idiot, right?

Like I'm pretty, pretty good health.

Although I will say, I'll make an admission.

I fucked up.

So the week before I turned 44, I wanted to deadlift 600 pounds.

So I like just, it was, it was a bar that weighed 73.

So I put hex bars.

So I'm pussy.

So I put like fucking sick, it was 613.

It was 613.

And I fucking pulled it up.

I felt good.

Man, I was fucked up for like three weeks.

My fucking strained my back, fucking adductor sprained.

But dude, it went up great.

But then I put it down and I walked away and I'm like, fuck yeah.

And they're like, oh, fuck.

And my wife's like, my wife's like, are you okay?

I'm like, yeah, I'm not a pussy.

That's been, for some reason, that's become like what I say all the time.

Like today we're doing a video for Ambrosia.

Yeah.

And they're like, hey, man, can you do a couple more reps, B-roll?

I'm like,

like, you don't have to, I'm not a pussy.

I just keep saying that.

For some reason, that's become, I need to make a shirt.

Just I'm not a pussy.

But my wife won't let me.

She won't let me.

And it's probably not a good look for the youth performance facility

having pussy on a shirt.

I'd buy it.

Well, we had a shirt.

Don't be a pussy.

It was one of our best sellers of all time.

And then my wife and Chad's wife made us not make it anymore.

Dude, I'm such a fucking, such a pussy whip motherfucker.

I don't care.

I'm happy.

I'm married.

Fucking love it.

I'm okay.

You're successful.

Dude, marriage, the reason I'm successful is marriage.

Yeah.

My wife, I would be, I'm not saying I'm going to be nothing but my wife.

I'd be really lost.

Like, my wife keeps me.

Like, I'm all over the place, dude.

Like, I'm fucking ideas.

She kind of puts everything

just right in a line, organizes my thoughts.

She's like, slow the fuck down.

Like, I would make so many more mistakes without her.

She's great.

Cool thing about having a partner, right?

It's the best.

I mean, I don't know any better.

Oh, I've only had like marriage.

Yeah.

I was married at like 10.

Now I've been 21.

I can tell you, I was in a,

I was in the huge fuckboy phase for the longest amount of time.

And I tell you, like having a partner is just the best thing in the entire world.

It's amazing.

Obviously, if you can make it survive, which is fucking hard in this day and age.

I think it's hard in any day and age because personalities.

And also when you grow older, like my met my wife when I was 16.

I'm not the same person when I was 16.

I'm more immature than when I was 16.

I still, like, she's actually matured.

I'm still a fucking idiot.

Like, I'm still, I'm still an asshole.

And she doesn't understand.

Like, and rightfully so, like, you know, okay, I'm gonna give up bodybuilding.

Then I start boxing.

She's like, I fucking sucked, but I still tried.

Right.

And then, like, I can't, I want to bodybuild again.

She's like, can't you just like not compete?

I'm like, no.

And she looks at me like I'm weird.

And I'm like, what's wrong with you?

How can you not?

How can you not do this?

Right.

Like for me, it's about life is about winning.

That's why I love, I love youth sports because I get to live vicariously through all these kids living their dreams.

Yeah.

My, look, man, I'm, my, my dreams, I still have dreams, but I'm not gonna mr.

Olympia, right?

That's not a logical dream, but I don't understand not wanting to do something competitive.

I just can't fathom it.

It's just weird to me.

So my wife's had to grapple with my constant need to compete in life, in business.

Yeah.

I can't just do something normal.

It fucking makes life fun, man.

Bandit, you know, some purpose of the shit we do.

You get complacent, dude.

Yeah, like it's just like if you're not striving for something, you get complacent.

That's when you become mediocre.

And that's through that guy in the fucking man cave watching football on Sundays with bros.

That's weird.

Why are you in a basement?

You have a whole fucking house watching on the big screen in the living room.

I don't understand man caves.

Well, if you can, um, I feel like your success honestly just leads the way for a lot of us.

And I think it's something to take a lot of, um I think um

pride from and

if there's anything that I want to do when I get older

is have a beautiful family

have a stain of sustainable living being able to support them and hopefully creating some kind of

some kind of empire or some kind of at least like

living and like company base or whatever that I've created that I can be proud of.

And I think you've done that to like a great extent.

So do you think there's anything that, any advice that you would give anyone younger than you to be in the place that you are now?

Number one is if you want to be successful, nine to five ain't going to cut it.

You start a business, you're not working for yourself.

You never do.

You still have to pay taxes.

You work for your customer.

So if you think it's going to be easy, it's not.

But at the same time,

it was a necessary mistake, but like I missed both of my first kids, first two kids, first steps.

You know, I missed out on a lot of things building what I'm, what I was after.

So I think, and then you get older and you realize that, you know, your time on earth is limited.

Yeah.

Right.

So I think just being able to balance, which is impossible, that's, it's, it's all, this advice is wish lists that might not be possible because to build a business, you have to sacrifice.

There's never going to be balance.

Yeah.

So one thing I did is when I was home for weekends, for games, I was there.

Like I was the dad.

But now that my life is less hectic, I'm still grinding.

I'm still working, but I'm able to coach.

I'm able to go to games.

I'll go to, well, I always went to games.

I'm able to be there more.

So I think that knowing that you're going to have to suffer.

in some way, whether you're going to have to give up on sleep to be able to work before, like we go on vacation, I'll work before anybody wakes up and then i'll work when everybody goes to bed so vacations are the hardest thing for me because i have to i only get three hours of sleep because i have to balance all that yeah but i'm still like are you there for your kids are you there for your wife are you there for what really matters because when you die

when you die no one's gonna

what kind of car you drive No one's gonna care how big your house is.

No one's gonna care about any of that shit.

They're gonna care if you're a good person and they're gonna see you through your legacy that you created which is your kids if you do have kids so

when you look at it in that perspective like money is just a means to get to where you need to be.

It's to provide comfort and to provide stability.

So you could do the cool shit, send your kids to the nicest soccer clubs, have your kids to the nicest wrestling camps and do this.

But, you know, putting things in perspective, you can't take it to the grave.

So you need to live your life while you're here and make an impact on people.

And the most important people is your family.

So you need to leave them with that.

So,

you know, there's, there's not much I would change because it all led, I wouldn't change anything because it led to who I am today.

And I've made some really stupid mistakes, but it led to who I am as a person.

So embrace the mistakes.

And in sports, there's a saying, there's no such thing as losing.

There's, there's just, there's, there's not winning and losing.

There's winning and learning.

Right.

So every loss is a lesson.

So I think that's the one thing I'd say.

Real quick before we go, I completely forgot we had a Q ⁇ A with a few questions.

I love Q ⁇ A.

So yeah, I'll do the Q ⁇ As real quick just so we can get some of them out of the way.

Take your time, man.

This is kind of something that we discussed already, but Joseph Daniels asks what subs should be included in every cycle.

Well, supplements, just exactly what I said.

The health supplements.

Do you use a straggler's fruit at all?

I don't.

Okay.

What do you think about that?

I like it.

Okay.

I like it a lot.

Yeah.

Are there any other tests that you recommend for someone that's doing more than TRT?

As far as I think, I think if you get just more frequent blood work,

I would say do it every up to every eight weeks.

Like I know, I think Bumpstead was doing like every four weeks.

Yeah, Bumstead was doing some crazy shit.

I think Ian said on one podcast, he was doing it every two weeks at one point.

That's crazy.

I would say just more frequent blood work.

But again, calcium scoring, I think it's every three years, push it up to every one year.

Prostate's prostate, I'm not going to worry about that.

And yeah, that would be, that would be the main thing.

I don't know if full body scans.

I know Chase Irons does that.

Yeah, that's something that I actually wanted to do too.

But my doctor actually persuaded me not to do it because he said that things like the Pernuvo scan can normally alert a lot of false positives, which can lead to you spending a lot of money down the road on tests that...

aren't actually needed or are just kind of i don't know much about them so i've never done it yeah i think personally I think if you have the money it's always a good idea is as long as you're not crazy too much of a hypochondriac but um

otherwise what my doctor personally recommended is to do the echocardiogram the CAC the and if needed you know later on down the line depending on what the

brain fighting right now, but whatever the doctor says, you know, probably do those tests as well.

EKG, you actually have a decent function on Apple Watches.

My wife had to get heart surgery.

She had an extra heartbeat.

So they had to burn off some tissue in her heart.

And the doctor had her buy an Apple Watch.

Damn, wow.

So she can, and she literally was able to die.

The doctor diagnosed her problem through an Apple Watch.

Really?

Yes.

Because she got an episode.

She fucking did the EKG thing.

And he's like, yep, that's it.

Through the Apple Watch.

Wow.

Yep.

Crazy.

That's cool.

So buy an Apple Watch.

Buy an Apple Watch.

I think that's the moral of the story.

Ryan Barr asks, thoughts thoughts on Fitness YouTube demo versus 2014.

2014 was awesome.

I say it from my perspective.

We used to plan drama, like Chris Jones and Matt Oaks.

Oh, really?

Thing going back.

We'd all talk shit.

Like, we'd be like, hey, man, let's.

It was orchestrated.

Some of it was real, like the Jason Blaha.

Nope, we actually did not like him.

That was crazy.

A lot of people didn't.

Well, I mean, he still does stuff.

His channel still exists.

He's still doing some awkward workouts and stuff.

It's fantastic.

I'm not lying.

I'll peep it every once in a while and just see what Jason's doing.

He was the original like John Bravo kind of guy, except he was meaner and would say just slanderous shit like, you know, Mark fucked a midget.

You know, there was a thing he said about me fucking a goat once that people actually ran with.

Jesus.

I've never fucked a goat for the record in case you're wondering.

So the best part was like, we used to, I used to do a lot of collaboration with the Hodge twins.

That was the funnest time ever.

Like we had a blast.

They were fucking epic.

They still are.

They wanted to just do more politics.

They're They're all politics.

But yeah, those guys, we had, man, Chris Jones, like Matt Ogus and Chris Lovato.

Chris Lovato just stayed at my house a couple months ago.

Like we all stayed friends.

Like we still communicate.

It's really great.

Chris is still a business partner of mine.

So like, yeah, these guys, like,

that's how you know it was real.

Like Jerry Ward was rest in peace.

Like just great people.

Like I told, I told Matt this, but.

He was like one of my original inspirations because I don't think I ever would have been able to understand or get into macro accounting if it wasn't for his fucking like 5,000 calorie days and giant ass salad bowl YouTube videos.

Yeah, Matt was, it was fun.

I mean, it was, it was smaller.

Everybody knew everybody.

I almost see a fitness channel fucking pop up in my feed.

I've never heard of with like a million fucking subs.

I'm like, where did this come from?

You know, um, yeah, I think now it's just evolved.

I think it's a new school.

I think they're, I think people are more savvy, more algorithm.

We didn't have our algorithm.

We just, we would, we didn't even do thumbnails.

We would just do the fucking YouTube is like in an awkward spot.

I think I think a lot of the results of the changing of the changing of like the style of social media was from TikTok to be honest.

I think TikTok just brought like a different type of culture when it came to social media.

It did and the young people are much more savvy.

Right.

And TikTok is kind of how most of these big creators now blew up.

Yeah.

Like

Togi, Sam Sullik, Shizzy.

It's how I gained my audience, to be honest, originally too.

I'm garbage at TikTok.

So, I mean, it's something I'll never grasp and I'm okay with.

Most of us also stop using TikTok TikTok after some time.

Really?

Yeah, like me and Togi don't use TikTok anymore.

I think he only uses it to literally cut clips for his YouTube.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Promote his YouTube.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I, I think they're both good and bad, but you know, I'm reminisce on the old YouTube.

And, you know, that's obviously where my heart is because that's, that's where I blew up.

And now I'm.

Fucking, my 15 minutes is up.

But yeah, I completely, yeah, I still, people are like, you still do videos.

I'm like, yeah, I'm just not in your algorithm for some reason.

Well, I do a video a day man

it's it's cool though i mean i'm i'm okay with it like it's fine but i'll still do videos because i like doing them yeah like people like whoa would you even do this video i'm like well there's a couple thousand people really think they're cool and as long as i always said if i get 10 viewers i'll still do them yeah like who cares man you're i'm not i'm not speaking to somebody i'm not trying to make money from it you know i'm just doing it because i always thought it was what i need to do yeah well that's my that's what makes it cool yeah

i actually enjoy doing it yeah um this kind of goes along that question, but John Scandovel asks, how did you navigate your business so well to be on such a mass produce retail scale?

I had to learn.

So we started out, you know, but actually, no.

So I started out more B2B, more business to business than D2C, direct to consumer with sci-viation.

So I was able to learn the ins and out of retail with the growth of Xtend and the brand of sci-vation.

And then, you know, after,

you know, once we had Ambrosia and we decided to scale that and, you know, had the partner involved, I was able to parlay that from the niche industry, which would be your vitamin shop GNC, into more grocery like Sprouts and Hy-V.

So it's all, it's all part of the sales process, you know, the willingness to put together presentations, to do paperwork, to do spreadsheets, to get data, to get numbers.

And it just goes down to the process of sales.

And of course, we have a marketing department that's really great, really fantastic that we're able to really promote the products and get it through.

So, you know, scaling from D to C to B to B,

generally speaking, I would recommend against it for most because you need an investment group because you're going to be in the negative for about a year for the free fill and everything else they require to get into the store.

But after about 12 months, you hopefully start to realize some, you know, some positive and incremental gains in revenue because your top line will really grow well with retail, but your bottom line is going to suffer.

Hopefully that wasn't too gibberish for most people.

Yeah.

So scaling in retail is just knowing how to, it's old school, man.

Yeah, you have to get the contact, you have to make the relationships, and then you have to sell the product.

So, it comes down to your presentation skills and if your product is good or not.

Right.

And I'm assuming, did part of creating your YouTube also kind of tie into your reason for starting the blog and competing in the first place?

Basically, originating from your company?

So, the YouTube started in 2011 after I sold Syvation and I partnered with Chad and chad vortemesh he's the he's my partner at tiger fitness and chad's like dude we need to do a youtube channel i said that man i don't want i don't want to be on videos it's weird i actually said another word that might get me canceled but i'm going to be honest it is the transparent podcast i said bro youtube's gay

that was what i said okay back then gay was an okay thing to say and um he's like nah dude but you know it's but youtube is owned by google so it's basically google video so i did a video just on a fucking it's still on the channel on this potato camera.

Like the resolution's like 22 DPI.

It's fucking crazy.

And it was Oxie Elite Pro.

It was a review.

And I did the video and fucking sales went through the roof and there was nobody on YouTube.

So it got in the algorithm, just blew up.

And then I started doing videos on other product reviews like Kaspari and this and that.

And then

people were like, hey, you competing?

I'm like, yeah, I do.

Like, why don't you post training videos?

It's like comments.

I'm like, okay.

So I started like just fucking have my wife like film between sets.

And

then like on a fucking, like, a fucking old camera, not like a good camera.

This wasn't 4K.

This was negative 4K.

And then, then, like, then I do like product views.

Then I do like topic videos.

It kind of grew from there.

So yeah, it was.

It was just a matter of, I wasn't good at it.

I was just one of the first.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was just, I did a review on Oxie Elite, went over the ingredients.

And

I was like on a fucking weird background.

Like, if you look at the backgrounds through the years, they're wild.

Like it just shows you like the progression.

That's fucking epic, dude.

I mean, I remember, I don't even remember how long ago this was or what the content was, but your videos would always pop up my feet.

And I know for a fact that I watched like

tens, 10 plus videos of yours over the years when I was like in high school.

Yes.

And I couldn't even talk about what it was, but I know for a fact it helped me and it was related to fitness because I wouldn't have been able to do any of the stuff I did in high school or past that if I wasn't watching videos or looking shit up on the internet.

Yeah, I think right now you need a good blend of content and drama.

You need to have some drama or else nobody will ever watch your channel.

I mean, unless you're Mike Isratel, for some reason, you could post like bicep curls and get 400,000 fucking views.

I don't know how he does it.

3 million subscribers.

God bless him.

No, I'm really happy for him because he was one of the people I was watching too originally in high school.

He's a great person.

I was also listening to Jeff Nippert's Ice Cream for PRs podcast.

I don't even know if anyone even remembers that existed.

Jeez.

But this was before they were all doing anything real on youtube and like mike was posting like lecture videos so he was more in like his little like professor type personality stance where he was a lot more professional and shit and now i think he just decided like fuck it it seems like personalities i'm gonna do gay jokes yeah he just decided to be himself i think more just like let out his little he's like that in real life too no for real yeah he is yeah he is um but i'm happy for it because i remember him doing those videos like freaking 10 years ago and now finally he's popping off and like how cool is that to see somebody who's been doing the same thing for so long, but now they're finally gaining a lot of recognition?

I like Mike a lot.

I mean, we, we, you know, I'm, I'm less of a science trainer, although I, I like science, yeah, but I'm a more chaos kind of guy.

Like, just I think people overthink things, and I think what he's doing is great, but I also think that people take it too literally and they got to realize Mike trains like a fucking animal.

So, if you don't actually train with the guy, you don't understand that, bro, he's, he's fucking training hard.

Yeah.

And it's not like, man,

I did legs with Jared up there, and bro, I was fucking sore for like a week.

Like, yeah, that shit, they did those MIO reps.

I'm like, bro, that's that's fucking beyond failure, asshole.

They made me do a fucking chest day for like one of their YouTube videos, and it was like 45 minutes long, and it was the most pain I've had for the next two days afterwards.

Yeah, it was crazy.

We did, we did belt squats.

We started with some like did the belt squat for for um good, um, what was it, fucking RDLs, and then we did fucking belt squats, squats.

And it was like fucking like rest, like the set, then another set.

Then I'm like,

we were doing like 15, 20.

I'm like, dude, this is not what I hear on your YouTube.

This is much harder than I thought.

I'm like, fucking three RIR.

Let's go.

Like, nah, it was hard.

Vlog Digital asks, is your McDonald's aka fast food diet?

Was it true or not true?

And how did you feel?

I never did a McDonald's diet.

I did, in high school, I did,

during football, I would eat five Big Macs a day.

That sounds like a big, that sounds like a McDonald's diet, bro.

But I don't know if it's not recent.

Like, I was like fucking 15.

I gained weight.

I mean, that was when I hit my growth spurt.

I had to just gain weight for football.

And McDonald's had Big Macs for 99 cents at the time.

Damn.

Yeah, it was amazing.

That's crazy.

So I would get five Big Macs after school.

Wow.

So we would do like, we would go after school.

So the football weight training was 130 to 230.

Then I would train with coach Miles and Leon, two guys.

So we would train between like 2:30 and like four.

Yeah, and then I'd go get McDonald's, eat a bunch of Big Macs, then we do conditioning with the basketball team sometimes.

That's fire, bro.

So, yeah, so that was, but that was my football days.

Like, I would not wreck, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, but dude, I gained weight, bro.

None of us knew what the fuck we were doing.

No, no, I had no idea.

The high schoolers now do, though, because they have ass, they have access to the internet, they have bumstead, yeah, they have all this shit, yeah, yeah.

And if they're eating cereal, we know know they're watching Sam Sullik

if they're just eating fruity pebbles and shit.

Well, you guys, don't be me and eat two bowls, do giant bowls of cinnamon toast crunch after middle school every single day.

It'll fuck up your upper mouth, man.

Oh, no, it's cap and crunch.

Captain Crunch is the one that fucks up your upper mouth.

Really?

Oh, they're sharp, man.

It'll fuck you up.

Oh, shit.

It was a little bit sharp.

Yeah, it'll fuck you up.

I used to like waffle crisp.

That's crazy.

You ever eat waffle crisp?

Fucking amazing.

No, but back when McDoubles and chicken, no, fucking McChickens were actually a dollar at McDonald's.

My mom was buying that all the time for us.

Like every time we were on any vacation or anything, I was using that to bulk because

my mom just bought the cheapest things that were possible.

Bro,

when I was in college and I was poor,

they had cheeseburgers on sale at McDonald's.

I bought like 50 of them and put them in my freezer.

I had a little fridge in my dorm and I would fucking like put it on the, so it's a freezer, you know, put it all cold.

Yeah.

Just shoved them in the freezer no

yeah man that's i needed crazy bro i needed to eat man so i have there's there's some things you're talking about what i'm not proud of

bro it was cheap when you're broke you do a lot of no i get it i get it i brought those five pound jars of like you know optimum nutrition emptied out to the dining court with me in college and then i'd just fill it up with the cookies

That's genius.

Yeah, it was genius.

Again, 40 pounds freshman year.

The cookies?

Cookies and alcohol and having a girlfriend being a fraternity.

Yeah, I didn't do any of that.

Man, that's that's another thing I missed by being engaged at 19.

Yeah,

not the best decision I ever made.

Okay, well, I ask one question at the end of every podcast.

But if you were to leave the earth tomorrow, whatever method that would be, and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would it be?

I used to say if you were to die tomorrow, but I think

leave the earth is a little bit more.

That's much, much, much, much more easy.

One message to send to the earth.

you know be see

trying to think of how to eloquently state this

basically be what you want to see in the world right if you want the world to be a great place how do you make the world a better place like how do you leave your legacy for the next generation you know we complain a lot do we ever do something about it right do we do we ever actually do something to fix the problem Like we're always going, oh, these kids these days, what are you doing to help the kids?

What are you doing to help the world?

So basically be the change you want to see in the world and if we all did that if we all got involved locally got involved in our community imagine if we all did that how much better the world would be you know so that that would be my message but hopefully i don't die i don't i don't i'm not ready yet but i'd be comfortable i'd be happy if i did i'd i know if i died tomorrow My family's in a good place.

And, you know, some people really don't like me.

And that's okay because not

everyone's going to like you.

But I do think that people at least respect what I've done.

And I think that's all you could ask for.

I think it's just you're, I think it's literally just because you're an outspoken individual.

Yeah.

That's what happens.

I mean well.

I try to do the right thing.

But again, like people are jaded on the internet because they get lied to a lot.

So when you come forth and you're trying, they're like, oh, no, he's he's snake oil salesman, this, that.

But, you know, that's not my intent.

If that was my intent, I would have sold pro hormones.

I would have sold SARMs.

I would have done underground shady shit.

I've never done that.

I've, I've made my career by having transparent labels and, you know, being honest and giving out free information.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's, I understand why people see internet personalities the way they do.

We kind of earned it.

The internet's kind of brought this on itself.

I like that you say that a lot because I feel like there's just so much cynicism in the world, and it's just something that I fucking hate to see.

Like, you'll see on any comment section, there's always a ton of cynicism.

Like, people not believing the truth, or people not believing anything that's positive, people not believing people have good intentions,

people believe everyone's lying about steroids, people believing everyone's lying about

anything that they did, is it

new?

But we earned it, like, our industry earned it, and it's and it, it, the, the, the consumer almost should

be hesitant.

And you have to earn their trust.

I don't, that's the thing is I don't, I don't think the industry necessarily earned it.

I don't, I think affectionately.

I think it's just, no, I think it's just that humanity likes to talk about the negatives.

And that's what we've heard.

So a lot of people hear about negatives.

A lot of people

like this is just what revolves a lot around people's lives.

But

there are negative people.

Things that are good, things that are positive are not talked about very often.

I do think we've had a lot of people lie and cheat in in every industry right so like if a guy calls you selling insurance you're gonna be like oh here's another insurance salesman yeah exactly right a used car salesman they kind of earned that right selling lemons yeah so likewise in our industry how many people have been scammed by people in our industry like i mean just there was a i'm not going to mention i'm not that i'm not going to do that here but like we recently had a fitness influencer scam people on a crypto coin and we've had so many different things in this industry.

Remember the NFTs?

Yeah, fitness people were doing that too.

Like, oh, my NFT and where did the NFTs go?

Like, I never understood that one.

That's a whole other podcast.

But like, yeah, I mean, you got to be kind of cynical because there are people trying to take advantage of you.

But also, I think you need to be vulnerable enough to trust people up to a point.

Right.

Like, don't trust everybody, but, but just understand that not everyone is out to screw you over.

There are a lot of good people who have really good intentions who just want to help you.

And hey, if they help you, they have to make a living.

Support them by buying their stuff.

That's how the world works.

You know, it's a barter deal.

They're going to give you information.

They're going to be good to you.

They're going to give, give, give.

And then in return, you can give back.

And I think that's a transactional world.

Yeah.

You know, that's a great, great place to live in.

But I understand

why

people are

apprehensive at being susceptible or being vulnerable to people trying to give them information.

So, but that's,

I'm not saying I like negativity, but I kind of get it.

Right, right.

I mean, it's, it's a natural reason to protect ourselves.

You know, everybody has it to a certain extent, but absolutely.

I just want to continue to believe that.

For the same reason that I want to put good in the world because the people that were good to me made my life so much better, such as my best friends who are no longer alive, such as the people in my life that have done good things for me that are no longer here.

I just believe that you know, maybe if I can do the same thing that they did for me for others,

it'll make me happy too, and it'll make them happy too, you know.

So, it's just like,

you know, I just, I, I just, uh, I understand there's a lot of reason to be cynical, but I just would like

to see

like to see more rainbows and flowers.

Living a positive life is a much better place to be.

I think it is.

It's hard, though.

Optimistic.

It's fucking hard, but I think that it's something that I want to try to do.

Well, here's the deal, man.

There's a lot of people who would give anything to be where we're at in life.

A lot of people.

So always put in perspective.

If you look around the world, a lot of suffering.

There's a lot of suffering.

Look at Haiti right now.

Look at Syria.

All this crazy stuff going on in the world.

We're living in the greatest country on earth.

We're living in a place where we can fly and do these podcasts and we can go to the grocery store.

We can walk down there.

There's so much that we take for granted that a lot of people don't have.

And we're alive.

We're able to walk.

Like certain things, like you put that in perspective.

You look at people who are truly suffering.

There's people who are literally missing limbs who are enjoying life more than us because they appreciate it more.

And that's, you just got to appreciate every, every moment on God's earth.

Like you have to appreciate what we have.

And especially in a position we're in, in a first world country, you know, you want a coffee, there's the coffee shop on the corner, like simple things.

Like waking up in the morning, you know, I back to the friggin' beautiful forest area, right?

Like, like, fuck it to look at these trees.

Like, I didn't expect to be where I'm at in life.

It's unfair for me to be depressed when so many people are truly suffering, right?

Like, that's how I look at things.

And I have beautiful children.

You know, it's like, God, life is good.

And I always enjoyed life, even when I was having, I look back, like when I was, when I was poor, like when I had, when I had real problems, I was still kind of fucking happy.

Like, I still kind of was like, fuck, this is kind of good.

So.

I just think having that positive outlook and just understanding that there's always someone who wants to be you because you have it so good.

And we're in a situation where

we can, we can, people who really suffer, they can't afford to be depressed because they're too worried about surviving.

Like survival.

Yeah.

Man, it's, it puts it all in perspective, just hearing stories.

And it does.

Yeah.

It, it, it does.

And that's how my, my mindset is.

So again, though, it's up to us to make the world a better place.

And I know you have a younger skewing demographic, but man, y'all have your entire friggin lives ahead of you, you know?

And once you get stable, you get older, give back to your community.

Like, trust me, if everybody did that, just imagine how dope the world would be.

It'd be pretty sick.

Thanks for coming on the podcast, bro.

It's been an honor, man.

That was awesome.

Yeah, I'm glad.

I'm glad I made the driving traffic over here.

Yeah, I know.

I'm glad you did too.

We went about an hour over time, so it was definitely worth it.

Yeah,

I'm a very chatty guy.

Like, you probably figured that out the first time you met me.

like i talk too fucking much yeah but it's what it's what it's what we need it's what the podcast is for well i mean yeah it'd make for a weird podcast if i just sat here like that one guy on the show you guys will know you guys have to see it feels bad man

anyways where can everybody find you uh they can find me so my store tigerfitness.com that's partially I'll pay my bills.

Ambrosia Collective is another brand of mine.

We're available on Sprouts, Vinema Shop, GNC.

Also at Mark Lobliner on Instagram, my YouTube channel, although no one watches anymore, is still there, youtube.com slash tigerfitness.

And yeah, all social media other than the YouTube channel is at Mark Lobliner, M-A-R-C-L-O-B-L-I-N-E-R.

Fuck yeah.

Thank you, bro.

Thanks for watching.

Appreciate you having me, brother.

Thank you so much.

Everybody, that's it.

Again, if you guys would like to support the podcast, you can by rating us a five-star on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you find a podcast, or subscribing to the YouTube channel and clicking the bell button because that's what gets us super epic guests like Mark here and hopefully gets them here in person as well.

Because I know

in person is just so much better.

So much better.

So much better.

So thanks for coming on again, bro.

Appreciate you, brother.

All right.

Love you guys.

Peace.

Yeah.

All right.

Fire.