Terrance Ruffin: The Comeback of 2x Mr. Olympia Classic Runner-Up

A two-time Arnold Classic Physique champion celebrated for his flawless symmetry and classic posing, owner of Iron Eden Coaching.

We have the one and only.

There's a lot of things when it comes to genetics and gear, and I think a lot of times people correlate or like very low, and like it's not the case.

The level of competition improves like a crazy amount every year.

And I think a lot of these new guys coming out, it's gonna be very interesting.

You want to be more transparent, but then you also got 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 14-year-olds also in that same room with you.

And you end up with 14-year-olds doing cycles now.

Yes, you have them, so it's just don't use any type of

or anything like that.

In my opinion, I know everyone loves the 70s, but I personally think the 80s is the best era of bodybuilding.

I was 12 pounds heavier in a month, and I was doing an upper lower split that entire time, too.

And like Hunter, Roy, and Jordan, they were all there seeing it happen.

What do you think about the next Olympian classic with C-bomb out of the mix?

Okay, I got a few things to say there, probably.

It's okay, man.

technical difficulties i'm getting old too i get it

you don't know it's like you put that you take the headphones out you can hear you but like i've never connected headphones and they're at 0%

no it's okay I get it bro off-season off-season brain digestive brain I get it

okay

okay if that's not if that's how your headphones work bro okay but I've

all right all right it's something new to me just playing just playing how you been dude how's everything been going with you bro Everything's good, man.

I'm out in

just getting settled in Houston.

Yeah.

What do you think about Houston?

I like it a lot, man.

I like it better than Tampa.

It's a lot to do here, man.

It's like always something going on.

And there's stuff to do in Tampa, too, for sure.

But I like it a little bit better here, man.

I think the culture is a little bit closer to how I grew up

in the South.

I mean, I wouldn't consider Tampa really the South.

It's just Florida.

Florida is its own thing.

you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I'm asking because

I grew up in College Station, so I'd be in Houston literally every month with my family.

Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I know College Station.

Yeah, hella crazy.

They got hella crazy Asian food, bro.

Houston's got some good ass Asian food.

It's like the highest Vietnamese population in Houston.

So, okay.

There's a lot of them.

There's a lot of them.

There's a lot, bro.

It's a lot.

So, yeah, it's nice, man.

And then the guy, I was at the bank the yesterday.

He was telling me some good places to eat.

There's like this new,

this Thai place that just got a Michelin star or whatever.

So I got to check that place out next.

Have you been to Alphaland yet?

Yeah, I've been to Alphaland.

That's where I was training when I first moved here.

But now I train up with Hunter at his gym most of the time.

Oh, yeah.

How is his gym?

It was pretty fucking sick, huh?

It's like pretty private, right?

Close quarters?

Yeah, it's a private gym just for whoever they feel like letting me in that day.

But yeah, it's attached to the company.

So like, you know, they got the warehouse there, the offices and everything.

But

it's nice, though, man.

Like, he's got Hunter has everything he wants in the gym.

He's getting some more stuff pretty soon.

It's really, really good.

I feel like it changes the game being in a nice private area.

A nice Young Lee's been nice for me personally just because I don't have to deal with,

I don't know, it's kind of nicer to just be in your own own personal space when you're training with your head down I love it dude a lot especially like dude when I because I've been training with Joe all these years it's just a private it was a Batista's private gym so um it was literally would be just me me and him and then I went I came here and started training alphaland and even though like the times I went weren't busy

there was obviously almost every day it was a time where like

a machine is taken and then I have to wait like a fucking like 30 minutes for this machine to free up and I'm like

it became an issue, you know what I mean?

And I felt I started to understand how my clients are like, oh, I swapped this here, that, there.

And I never really like complained about it because I'm like, yeah, gyms are pretty crazy, but I just completely forgot like personal experience.

Oh man, yeah, there's a ton of other people here, and like you gotta realize it, it's tough to kind of stick to a

exercise order when you never know when the machine is going to be available.

Yeah.

When'd you move to Houston, by the way?

You said when?

No, why?

Why?

I just was really unhappy in Tampa, so

I prayed about it, and

the TV was on while I, when I was doing it, and as soon as I opened my eyes, Houston in big letters popped up on the screen.

So I was like, okay, let's go see.

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I came down and stayed in some Airbnb for a couple months to see if I would like it.

And then, you know, after

that, I got a place.

I think

I've had a place for about two months, but I've been here for about six.

Damn, okay.

Okay,

that's quite a bit some time, man.

Damn, bro, I'm starting to feel like I'm getting these signs that I should be moving to Texas right now.

I don't know what's going on.

Let's do it.

There's lots of gems here.

I mean, in terms of like

in terms of like competition, it's great.

Like, lots of competitors, lots of gems.

There's obviously Alphaland, there's Roman Empire, Iron City, Apex.

um there's some smaller gyms like uh

i think level red what's some smaller gyms in the area believe fitness uh

there's a ton i know there's like at least like

like six or seven good gyms all around houston i'll figure it out i'll figure it out where i'm going but um texas has always been like a place close to home since i grew up there yeah but it's just so

I always get worried that the culture is just going to be so different because I came to California for like the diversity.

It's going to be different, bro.

It's going to be hella different.

It's like, I got to pick.

I got to pick, like, I got to pick opposite sides.

I either go to Austin or I go anywhere else in Texas.

Austin might be a good spot.

Yeah,

for sure, for sure.

That would probably be closest bet to

Cali.

I'm worried if I go to Austin, though, I'm just going to start taking shrooms and stop working out.

I don't know, dude.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I feel like you could do both, but

if you take shrooms, you don't want to work out, I get it.

I think you can get it.

If Microdose, you'll have great workouts.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, probably.

How's the offseason been for you so far?

It's been good.

I wouldn't call it great, but it's been good.

So, I mean, I take the win.

The elbow stuff has been an issue.

But

I found, like, also, you know, since moving here, I met up with Hunter.

Hunter actually knew a guy that offers stem sales down in Columbia.

And I'm leaving Saturday for the treatment.

So, oh, fuck yeah, dude.

Yeah.

So I'm excited.

A little nervous.

Yeah.

So I'll do that on the, I go there on the 16th.

The 21st is when I have the treatment.

And then I'll have to take two weeks off from the gym, which is kind of a pain in the ass.

Dude, that's crazy I don't remember the last time I took two weeks off the gym to be real.

I had to take two weeks off for the hair transplant and it's coming back pretty nicely.

It's still growing, but like yeah, it's like it was like, I mean, you can still see a little bit of thinness here, but.

Bro, that hairline's looking clean.

Yeah, dude.

I mean, we cleaned it in mud.

Dude, this, yeah.

So, the, so I had to take two weeks off of this.

And, cause, and people,

my buddy, uh, Michael DeBo,

he got one too.

He didn't take the two weeks off, and the shit didn't take.

Like, he has to go back again.

I said, what?

I would never, yeah.

Is it because you like sweat?

Uh, probably, probably the, the sweat and maybe just the stress from training.

I don't know, but yeah, it said it didn't, he didn't, it didn't work at all.

Oh, damn.

I would not want to do that again, dude.

Like, it wasn't, it was, it was, it was was very brief, but in that brief, like, two, three minutes was probably the most painful thing I've, I've experienced.

Like, uh, it was the numbing three minutes.

No, the whole procedure is like eight hours.

Oh, I was about to say, but when they're putting in the, the numbing stuff is,

like, really, really painful.

Damn.

Okay.

Yeah.

And it was.

But, yeah, I wouldn't want to do it again.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

But that's the only other time I've taken like two weeks, two weeks off.

Besides, oh, yeah, my gynell surgery, that was two weeks.

So I've done it a couple times, bro.

Loki, I bet like you're gonna be so responsive, though, after taking those two weeks off.

That's what happened after the hair transplant, dude.

I blew up, dude.

I, I, I,

like, it was, it was crazy.

It was really crazy how much I gained in such a short time.

Like, I gained more.

I, I was, I was 12 pounds heavier

in a month.

Like, I started training for a month.

I was 12 pounds heavier than before the procedure.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, it was insane.

Yeah, I was like, I don't know what's happening.

Whoa.

How much did you weigh after the two weeks of resting?

So before the surgery, I was, yeah, yeah.

So before the surgery, I was 200.

After the two weeks, I dropped down quite a bit to 187.

And then a month after that, I got up to 212.

Damn.

Yeah.

Damn.

Now you're the heaviest you've ever been.

Damn, bro.

Yeah, so, and I was doing an upper-lower split that entire time, too.

And that was, it's pretty cool.

It was pretty cool to, to, and like Hunter and this two other guys, Roy and uh Jordan, they were all there seeing it happen.

And uh, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Just seeing, like, seeing you gain all that mass so quickly, yeah, yeah, because I mean, what, 187 to 212, that's almost almost 40, yeah, almost 30 pounds.

Yeah, if you don't mind me asking, did you like come off of compounds for like before the hair transplant or anything um

for me i i just dropped down to like uh 200 megs of test okay yeah

and then did you like go back on it like when you started training again or something or once i started training yeah yeah i went up uh an actual full-on cycle after that like what i was doing when i was weighing the 200 uh pounds okay so it was about the same thing as you were on before you even came off for for the hair transplant.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's fucking crazy, dude.

That's insane.

That's fucking nuts.

Yeah, so I, I, I, yeah, we'll see how this, this next

little break, because I mean, like, I would like to do a show earlier in the year.

I think after the surgery, after the two weeks, it'll put me like at

six.

weeks out.

So

maybe 15.

So I'll be pushing it.

I might.

So it depends on how I look and how I feel if I do that show.

But I would like to.

Were you eating the same amount of calories before and after?

So, started off,

I was eating the same.

And then,

like,

I had a conversation with the hypertrophy coach.

And I was telling him, I was having a hard time growing my

arms.

So, we started doing two a days with the upper lower split.

So,

I started eating more after then.

So I went up to seven meals a day once I started doing two days.

And it's honestly

people asking me how out of the two a days, how's the seven meals?

It's just a full-time job, dude.

Like, I don't have time to do anything.

That's fucking crazy, bro.

Wait, so how many rest days do you have a week now?

I have three.

Three rest days.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah.

And then how many days are you training twice a week or twice a day?

Sorry?

Four.

Yeah.

So

what's today?

Thursday.

So

Monday and Thursday is upper body.

I'll do buys and tries in the morning, chest and back in the evening.

And then the next day, I'll do shoulders in the morning and legs in the evening.

Yeah.

And like

for the upper days, two by, two try exercises.

Most of the exercises are two working sets.

For the dips, I normally do one.

So like

total volume for that morning workout would be four bicep movements three tricep

four bicep sets three

tricep working sets yeah there we go total total that's the total sets for that morning workout yeah yeah okay gotcha for the afternoon it's basically the same i'll do two and two uh two chest two back

two sets of each.

Two sets of each.

How many exercises?

So two

chest movements, two

back movements.

And is it two sets of each movement?

Okay.

Gotcha.

Two sets of all of it.

Damn, bro.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, my workouts are, I feel like they take about an hour apiece.

So I'm really working out two hours a day.

Yeah.

Right.

They're pretty.

Dude, I feel, I'm pretty excited to hear about this stuff too, just because everyone's so intrigued in this new upper-lower split.

I know the science-based community has been very hyped up about it.

Um, yeah, I heard you told you're the one that told me Mike was doing it.

I was like, Oh, shit, okay, that's pretty dope.

That's good to hear.

I mean, he kind of just like let it out on the podcast that that's what he did to gain those 60 pounds in like four months and basically gain 12 pounds of lean muscle or at least 12 pounds of stage weight.

So, like,

I mean, it's just so interesting because you know, there's as you know, there's this huge little divide between our science-based community and our gearhead bro bodybuilding community right now.

And

like a lot of the pro bodybuilders, especially if you like listen to like Fowl's podcast or the real bodybuilding podcast, you'll know that like a lot of past Olympians, a lot of

high-level pros have always done this thing kind of like a bro split or like a pro split where they're hitting maybe each muscle group maybe once a week.

But

like

It's just kind of very interesting to hear that like you guys are both doing this upper lower training split.

You know, the funny thing is, is like I don't keep up with like how like those guys train, but I was watching again, Hyper Trophies YouTube the other day, and he broke down Dorian and Ronnie's training, and they weren't doing a bro split.

Ronnie was doing like a push-pull legs variation.

And I'm not sure, I'm not sure what Dorian was doing, to be quite honest, but Dorian comes from the camp of Mike Menser.

So like it's definitely not your traditional like bro split.

So two of the dudes that they love, you know what I mean?

Like weren't doing bro splits, you know?

I feel like, I mean, what I know from Dorian's crazy blood and guts workout, though, is he'd do like what, like seven different exercises for back, all one working set, and um, or maybe it was like seven to ten exercises or something, but it would be like that whole workout would be like for back, him just doing that many different exercises for back, and then he'd go in and do that one whole workout for like chest, doing that many exercises for chest.

It was pretty intriguing, but it was always very high intensity.

I feel like Dorian's workout methods were just just the most different from anyone else's, to be honest.

But I think

I'm just, I'm so curious how

this upper, like whether or not upper-lower splits

still

are more beneficial for enhanced athletes versus naturals.

And I think that's the thing that we don't have any science on.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I don't think they'll ever do, they won't ever have like full resource for that.

But

it's been going pretty well, man.

Like, I, I, yeah, it's been going pretty well for me.

I, I think I just base things off of how well I recovered from it, you know.

Um,

I'm like Joe, like if you're doing, if you're growing just fine with a bro split, stick to it.

Like, you know, good for you.

Lucky you, you can do whatever you want and see progress.

But if you're not, I would definitely um switch over to something a little bit more high frequency, and that's what's worked best for me.

I started out doing bro splits, and I remember in particular, like the year I got the year, um

the the year following you know me winning my pro card i was like okay i'm gonna take this year off i'm gonna grow um there's no classic so i'm like i'm doing 212 i turned pro 155 pounds so and then i i i did that whole year bro splits pushed myself whatnot and uh come you know 2016 i weigh like how much did money did i weigh i competed at like 159

160 total.

Like, I was like, so I gained maybe five pounds.

No, no, like four, four, four pounds maybe

in like a year and a half of an offseason.

And I'm like, oh, that's not that great.

But as soon as I got with Joe and we started doing a little bit higher frequency, like a push-pull legs variation, I gained like, you know, quite a bit more in that time frame.

I think I gained about 10 pounds by doing something like that.

You know, I base it off of that.

You know, same with, same with, you know, best with what you told me from Mike.

You know, he's been, this is like 12 pounds from a guy that's been competing that long,

it's got to be some proof to it, man.

That's insane.

12 pounds and you're just starting out.

You're like, you know, 23, 24, just starting using stuff.

Okay, I can see that.

But like 12 pounds and you've been competing for like, I don't know, I feel like he's been competing at least like eight.

eight to six years, you know?

Yeah, that's tough.

Haven't you been competing for like at least eight years now, too?

I've been a pro 10 years.

Pro for 10 years.

It's 10 years this month.

Yeah, yeah.

But Olympia, is this going to be your eighth or your seventh Olympia?

The first Olympia was in 2016, but it's my, I've skipped two now.

So what is that?

I don't know.

Half a

math.

Math is kind of hard.

I think that's seven.

I think that's going to be seven for 25.

Okay.

Okay.

What have you, so what have you been.

focusing on improving for this Olympia 2025.

I know there's a lot of people that are curious what whatever you feel like has held you back from winning the past Olympias.

I think I'm pretty balanced now.

I think I mean I still would like my arms to be bigger in certain poses.

Like I'm pretty happy with my front double.

I think overall size would be is needed especially like I saw those pictures of some people put pictures up of me back last year versus

Mike.

I was like, okay, yeah, I need to be a bit bigger now.

He's gotten a lot bigger.

In my side chest, I definitely would like a little bit more in my tricep and that pose.

A little bit more in the hamstring as well.

And then the back pose, just more back.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe some more lats in the ab and thigh.

Like my waist is small, I would say, but not the, I don't have the widest shoulders.

Like Mike is very wide up top.

Chris is very wide.

So I think a little bit more lats would benefit me to kind of build up that taper a little bit more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's how I break it down now, man.

I don't break it down by just muscle, like muscles

in general.

I break it down pose by pose.

I um I think physiques like Ramones are so phenomenal where like you got just giant limbs,

giant ass fucking arms, bro, giant ass fucking legs.

But I think without a doubt in both bodybuilding and classic, you can never go wrong.

Well, honestly, in all three divisions, you can never go wrong with more lat.

It just seems like you can always have more lat.

I feel like that's the one body part, bro.

It's crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

I agree, agree, man.

I agree.

There's some body parts that, like, yeah, you can get as big as you want, man.

Yeah.

And seeing Mike too this last year, I feel like that just confirms it a little bit more.

Just, I feel like his lats were insane.

Like, the width.

No, for sure.

The V-taper that created.

It's fucking good.

He's been had a small waist, but a lot of, and it is, for him, it's still a little bit of an issue from the back and the rear, the back lower body.

But like, usually when

usually it's way worse.

When I see a guy with a very, very small waist, it makes certain things harder to grow.

Like maybe their

legs are a little bit smaller or their glutes are a little bit smaller or their lats.

Something usually struggles to grow.

And I think of like,

I forget his first name, but Buchanan.

He's that old school black bodybuilder that had like the really small waist back in the day.

And like his legs struggled a bit.

But

Mike is Mike's body is pretty complete, man.

Do you think Serge Newbray struggled with anything?

Any body parts?

I would say no based on his time i mean if i compared him to day standards yeah for sure but like based on when he competed i think he was pretty complete um

yeah yeah it's crazy man too i look at those guys back then and like

his i mean he had some very weird stuff from what i understand he ate like he was just he just ate meat i think he did like he was like on a carnivore diet no

I could have swore I might someone could fact check me, but I'm pretty sure that's what he did.

What?

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

From what I remember, it might be a different bodybuilder, but for what I remember, he said, when I look at a lion, I see his physique and I see how lean they are.

But

are you Googling it?

Yeah, let me know.

Yeah, you're going to Google this, bro.

Serge New Bray was known for eating up to four kilograms of horse meat.

Yeah.

What?

What?

Yeah, yeah.

Up to seven pounds of horse meat.

Bro,

what?

Yeah, so shit is what I'm saying.

That's fucking savage.

He was in, I think he's French, so I guess that's what, maybe that was normal in France.

I don't know.

Yeah, it is more normal in France.

I actually had horse tartare.

Tartare.

Really?

A little raw horse.

Okay.

I'm not going to lie.

It was kind of gas.

Okay, okay.

But

one of these, I mean, I don't know how, obviously, I don't know how credible these blogs are, but one of it says he also ate fish, chicken, rice, and vegetables and fruits at an older age when he switched from horse meat to beef.

That's fucking savage.

Yeah, shit's wild, man.

What people used to, some of those guys used to do.

I'm about to tell my vegan girlfriend I'm going to start eating horse meat.

She's from Kentucky and rides horses.

Oh, yeah, she's going to love that.

Sick.

Okay.

Hmm.

Bro.

Well, I feel like that's one of the,

I mean, I was having a podcast with, you know, Coach Justin Harris.

Have you ever heard of him?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've heard that name.

Yeah, he has, he's known for his little like carb cycling protocol with insulin and then some other variant things.

But he's been like coaching since like 2004.

But he states that he believes

the upper lower split is very beneficial, partly because aside from the high frequency, if you just need to gain mass overall, it's probably the most optimal.

Like if you don't care about building up your arms, then strictly an upper lower split would be beneficial.

But like for you, for example, you guys have tailored the upper lower to prioritize your arms right yeah yeah that was that was definitely key i totally agree with him especially like most people can't go hit the gym twice a day so like i would

i would say if if you really need to prioritize something and like deprioritize other body parts

like a push pull legs variation not like not just a push pull legs rest push pull legs but like a push pull legs rest and then those second two days kind of tailor that toward what you really need to focus on, and then rest.

So, like a five-day, uh, well, not a five-day, but uh, you're training, uh, yeah, you're training five days a week, and you take like Wednesday and Sunday off, or Thursday and Sunday off.

Okay, I think that's probably best for a lot of people who are like at a higher level.

But if you're if you're newer or you don't need to focus on a certain body part, you can train once a day up or lower.

It's been great for great for that.

What are your calories on the high or what are your calories on training dates versus off days?

I haven't uh last time I calculated was around 5,800.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, dude.

I mean, is it 5,800?

Like, does it change when you're on your rest day versus when you're on a training day?

Rest day,

yeah.

I'll take out, um, I'll take out probably two meals, honestly.

I'll do usually five meals on a rest day just for my sanity.

Um,

yeah, so,

yeah, because yeah, seven, because I'm, I

six was already a lot

for me.

Five is what I like to be at.

Seven is, like I said, it's just like, just like non-stop morning.

I don't even understand how you can do seven meals and two training sessions all in one day.

Like, I don't even understand how that's possible.

It's a pain in the ass.

Some days it is a little, so most, like, ideally, it'll be, I'll do.

four whole meal like chicken rice beef rice turkey rice something like that with a veggie and then the other three meals will be like a shake and something else.

But if I'm running late, it'll be four shakes and three like full meals, you know.

And when I mean, when I say shakes, it's usually protein and like cream and rice or protein and bagels, something like that.

The bagels is great because like for me, like

eating two bagels is easy, it's quick, it digests very fast.

Sometimes cream and rice can take, still take a while, even though it's supposed to be quicker, you know?

Right.

Okay, gotcha.

Do you happen to know like around what kind of carbs you'd be eating on your training days any like rough idea of how much a little under 700 about 700 about 700 that's fucking savage yeah a little under seven 694.

oh wait no i'll take that back wait wait wait it was already at seven i thought it was at six okay so no it's actually

616.

how uh how tall are you right now right now right now right now

right now

right now i'm 5'5.

we'll see you on show day damn bro that's crazy that's a lot of food for 5'5.

That's insane.

Yeah, you know, I'm like, and it's funny, man, because people don't realize this stuff.

Like, it's they think like different classes are very consistent on how much they eat, how much drugs they take, how they train.

I'm like, no, dude, like, it's hugely person-dependent, dude.

Like, I was, I saw Brett post it the other day for him to go to classic to the open, he was eating 6,000 calories.

And I'm like, bro, like, I'm just eating 6,000 calories trying to get to my weight cap.

Like, it's a fucking pain in my ass.

So, no, it's just, it's, it's, dude, it varies wildly.

Do it.

I like, again, when people say I should try to open it, I was like, there's no, there's no way I would, I would survive that

journey.

That's crazy.

So, how do you, how do you personally try to maintain the size of your waist and keep it from growing?

I haven't done anything in particular ever, man, to be honest with you.

Like, I don't, I don't know.

I do vacuums, I guess.

Right now, I like I in the offseason,

it's crazy because in my opinion, and like when I'm just standing, I don't think I have the small, I don't have the smallest waist.

Like this guy's much taller than me with the same size waist.

My waist is like maybe a

29, maybe a 28.

Well, pan size is 29 when I'm lean.

So maybe my actual waist is probably like a 28.

I think you might be a little biased, bro.

I think a 20, I know, I'm just saying, like, who people like pros, they're pros much taller than me with the 28, 29 inch waist.

So that's what, that's what I'm basing it off of.

I understand, like, when I hit a vacuum, it's definitely very small.

But just compared it, like, to, again, the people like my high, like, if you're, you're, like, a couple inches taller than me with the same waist, obviously, like, that's, that's something.

Yeah.

But, uh, I don't even know where I was going with that.

Oh, waist control.

But yeah, I do vacuums.

Um,

I used to think wearing a weight belt during training would help, but I don't really think so anymore.

I thought about it.

I was like, that's just, it's like an hour of your day.

No, you're wearing a belt.

So I was like, I don't see a huge, huge need for that.

Especially after I saw like Joe, Joe training for as long as he has, his waist never got wider.

Ben Pukowski, he doesn't wear weight.

I don't think he wore a belt too often either.

When I was training in my 40, his waist did get pretty shitty at one point, but he brought it back.

No, he really did.

But then he brought it back and did vacuums, but it was nothing to do with him wearing a belt in the jam.

Right, Right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah.

I really don't think the belt actually does very much.

To be honest, bro, I think I just wear the belt in the gym because it makes me look a little bit more aesthetic sometimes.

No, that's good.

That's all that matters, bro.

That's all that matters.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

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Do you do anything to focus on digestive health?

I don't do anything to focus on, but it's always been pretty good.

I'm not like...

I don't have the ton of, I'm not bloated.

I'm not like gassy and stuff like that.

So I do think digestive health is

important with all of that

a lot of rice.

A lot of rice

veggie-wise, I eat a lot of fruit.

So like blueberries, bananas, I'll do mixed fruit.

I vary my fruits a lot depending on what I just feel like eating in the off-season.

Same.

Same with vegetables.

Like I'm doing kimchi right now.

Fire.

Yeah, no, right.

Kimchi and like in other meals, I'll do like just steamable, uh, mixed veggie bag.

So it's like corn, green beans, sweet peas, like a mix of that.

I don't do things that did cause me issues was like broccoli, broccolini,

uh, Brussels sprouts, um, and bell peppers.

So, if anything gives me a lot of gas, I just don't eat, you know, so yeah, okay, and then what are your proteins normally?

In prep, it's usually

ground chicken and uh

either salmon or beef and pro and and whey protein

even the offseason i do i i vary it a lot more like uh i vary that a lot too so personally if i haven't been able to get any deer in a while but um i've been doing a lot of bison uh and in turkey lately i don't want any chicken in the offseason i'm tired of chicken

too bro

so there was one prep i literally there's this place in florida called wild fork where they sell like like exotic meat.

So that whole all-season, I did nothing but like elk, bison, boar, uh, venison, uh, that whole off-season, and that was great.

That was great.

I felt the best doing that.

I need to add some bison, bro.

I miss red meat, to be honest.

I stopped eating red meat for like a couple of years or something just because I wanted to be

a little bit paranoid with health when it comes to bodybuilding, which is probably why I have this podcast because I like to do bodybuilding, but then I get really paranoid about what's going to happen to me.

So I'm like overly conscious about my blood work and shit.

So I like have this obsession about eating salmon because i always feel like the more salmon i eat the better my blood work gets which is kind of true but um yeah i'll just fucking smash salmon it makes me feel good and then

i find that i haven't had very i just don't end up having a variety of proteins because of that i like salmon though but i definitely like to vary

yeah Yeah, yeah.

I think it's Mari.

I'm trying to remember what I was getting at.

So it sounds to me like you are, like, I mean, honestly, I think it just sounds to me like you are pretty on top of your diet.

So even though you might not have anything that you consider like you focusing on digestive health, I feel like you already have over the course of the long run because like you're not consuming things that are like causing you gas.

You're not consuming, seemingly you're not like

Tony, I just had a podcast with Tonio

and he was telling me that right now, even though he ate clean in his offseason and when he he did, he made the most gains.

Right now, his coach told him that we need to lose your abs.

Like, we need to try.

And Tony was like, I've literally been trying, bro, and I fucking can't.

So his coach gave him the go-to to literally eat whatever the fuck he wants right now.

And so Tony was eating like burgers and pizza and shit and just smashing it.

It's pretty sad.

Dude, oh my God.

Okay, okay.

But I'm assuming,

I'm assuming that's not something up your alley.

It sounds like you've always been pretty on point with your diet.

At least.

Dude, if I did, then I would lose weight.

I would lose weight because I wouldn't eat as much.

Like, I would, I would probably, like, if I ate burgers and stuff, I would probably eat like three times a day because I wouldn't have an appetite.

Like, even now, like with my cheat meal, I'll do cheat meal still, like, once a week or so.

Uh,

I usually try to wait till the last meal because I won't want to, if I do it earlier, I'm not going to want to eat anymore.

Interesting.

But do you have an appetite right now?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm getting hungry in the, in the times I'm supposed to.

It took a minute to, like, so when I first started doing the seven meals, like,

he put a full like i was shocked he put a full meal like a full on this is what you need to eat meal and like i couldn't finish it so like for the first uh like week i would just eat i wouldn't eat all of it but i would eat a little bit and then in about a week my appetite started to pick up at that point to be able to finish it i noticed with me it's like i really have to stay on top of like uh meal timing and if i don't that my appetite like disappears very quickly okay that's cool yeah um i i was at one point where my appetite actually disappeared because I'm on my offseason right now too.

Like I lost my appetite because I was just eating a lot of food.

And then I started hitting a plateau and my coach just upped my doses.

So I'm running like the highest test in primo that I've ever run.

And my appetite skyrocketed again, bro.

Like I've been starving recently, which I'm assuming that's to be expected, right?

I don't know, man.

Like I don't.

Maybe I'm not the most aware.

I'm probably not as aware as other people, but at the same time, I don't feel a huge difference with what I'm taking, how much I'm taking, any of that.

Like, I remember I came completely off everything because I knew my, my,

to get a prescription for, for a test, and my, my strength was fine.

My recovery was, was crap.

So that's the only thing I do notice with my recovery.

My recovery will change drastically, but my strength doesn't.

And my test was like.

like bottomed out.

So I'm, I'm pretty much have to be on TRT, you know, forever.

I mean, I've been doing it a 10 years, so I'm kind of not, I'm not surprised at all.

And even at this point, like, I would, I'll do it.

I mean, I mean, I don't know if you coach anyone, but like, I've seen like 20-year-olds now that have like tests like in the in the dirt, you know.

Yeah, so I'm not, I'm not too too stressed about it.

Do they normally seem to be people that have like done SARMs or done PEDs in the past?

SARM.

SARMS is a big one, dude.

Yeah, SARS, dude.

SARMS is a fuck, dude.

SARMS is taking over Gen Z.

Dude, it's a big one.

It's crazy, dude.

Like, and then like,

I don't, I don't have anyone do SARMs, but anytime I have a guy come to me with SARMs,

they have all the side effects of gear, but none of the progress.

That's usually what I see, dude.

I'm like, what the fuck, bro?

That's hilarious.

I don't know.

I don't know if other people feel that way, but

that's how it's been for me.

But

where was I?

But yeah,

I haven't noticed a big increase in appetite.

But maybe it is maybe I maybe it is I mean maybe so I mean you're also smashing a lot of calories right now and you're doing pretty well like do you feel like I mean this is the heaviest you've ever been But do you feel like your body fat percentage tends to plateau at a certain level at a certain percentage regardless of what you're eating?

Yeah, I'm not happy with my

The body fat right now

I think dude.

I really it's been Again, since I've been doing this so long though, it's been really interesting to see like the new guys coming up.

They stay much, much leaner than you know, guys did like you know, when I got into it.

I know, bro.

Bro,

Erst is fucking shredded.

I was like, even Logan, Logan, those down the road from me, Logan Franklin, he stays shredded year-round.

I was like, I don't get it, dude.

I feel like there's just something with, I think there's just, I think it's genetics for those two, though.

Like, fucking Urs, just, I feel like Urs is,

you know, third place partly because he's got these fucking crisp genetics to just come in extremely detailed.

You know, I can just get conditioned.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, a certain part is true.

Like, you, you need to suffer.

Not every, like, honestly, like, I've, I've, I've saw Martin did an interview.

He didn't do any cardio.

Uh,

he's a good prep.

I've, there's been a prep where I didn't do any cardio.

It's not normal, but it was just that one.

But, like, when people say, like, I like, when I see people out of shape, I don't always assume like they didn't do the work.

You know what I mean?

I think the ability to get lean is definitely somewhat genetic as well.

I think so, bro.

Because I've talked to a lot of bodybuilders, and I always thought, like, I need need to suffer, I need to fucking suffer.

But

some of us really, I mean,

I think all of us work hard, and sometimes we push ourselves a little harder than maybe our body can take.

And I've noticed that a lot of these bodybuilders, or at least the people I've just talked to, have experienced the part where you just push yourself too much, and then your body starts to revert back a little bit from stress levels.

Like, maybe you did too much cardio or something, you're a little bit too high of stress, like coming out peak peak week, and then you just end up being a little bit too watery.

Yeah, yeah.

Like,

I totally agree, dude.

I mean, I've had, I've coached a lot of people over the years, and I remember I've had, I mean, their jobs were pretty active, so they were burning calories other ways.

But I've had like, especially like

I had an EMT and a construction worker.

Like.

The construction worker didn't do any cardio and the EMT, once we got to a certain point, we cut them back down to like 30 minutes a day.

And like those two are like some of the most shredded guys I've had.

Right.

Yeah.

It's unreal, bro.

Sometimes I feel like just staying on your feet and getting a little bit of steps in throughout the entire day is

better for weight loss than, I mean, I'd really, I mean, obviously, though, when it comes to us, like the 30 minutes or hour of cardio, whatever is primarily for cardiovascular health.

I agree.

The most shredded I've ever been was always when I was doing some kind of like back in the day before I had like a proper job or before I was making money in bodybuilding, I was working for Insomniac.

You know, the Insomniac is the company that owns like EDC or EDC and like Ultra.

Okay, okay.

All these festivals.

And I was just helping set up the VIP section.

So I'd just be walking around, like climbing on ladders, zip-tying wires and shit to things.

And bro, I got diced, man.

I got fucking diced.

In fact, I think I was doing that around the time I was competing for my pro card.

And I think that's how I won my pro card, to be honest.

Pretty cool, man.

Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, not all of us have that lifestyle opportunity, especially the people working a nine-to-five in an office.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I got my pro card and did my first, almost first two Olympias.

I got out a month before the last,

a month or two weeks, something like that before the last one

in the Air Force.

Yeah, so I've had the experience of

somewhat of a normal job.

I've never had a,

I've literally never had a normal 9 to 5 in my life.

Like I've worked in the military and I've done bodybuilding, but never like a corporate job or like, like a, even like in high school, like I didn't have like a, I wasn't like a waiter or anything like that.

I did, I did one like after school kind of like work program where I was like, I helped out as like a non-secretary.

But that's, that's literally it.

That's like the closest I've had to like a normal, normal job.

Bro, you know my least favorite job I've ever had?

It was when I finally, it's when I finally got my engineering degree and I was working for Butler Aerospace and we were basically creating parts for sikorsky helicopters and even though we had a factory where we create all the machinery i spent like probably a good like seven hours just sitting at a desk creating excel sheets as an engineer and that was like my least favorite job i've ever had in my entire life yeah dude like i i

my last like year or two in the military

I started to feel like really closed in because I worked in a vault because we worked on like,

I guess, classified stuff.

Some of the parts for the jamming system I worked on were classified.

So like we would just be in this room all day, like no light, no lights or anything.

And

I just got tired of it, man, being stuck in that one place.

And now getting to do this, I get to at least have some sunlight.

I can work anywhere I want to.

It's so much nicer.

You know what I mean?

That's fucking awesome, bro.

If I can just take a day to just work outside somewhere, anywhere outside where there's like sunlight hitting me, it just makes my day that much happier.

And I feel like that much more productive, too.

Too bad we're in the gym twice a day and eating seven meals,

dude.

It's a mess, man.

Oh my god,

yeah, I'm yeah, the seven meals is oh my god, anyway, yeah.

So, I'm, I was wondering, um, because I was having this conversation with um,

I had a podcast with Stefan Kinzel, and I had a couple conversations with some other top coaches, um, including Patrick Tor.

And there's varying, I, there's varying,

there's varying beliefs on this but it always seems to involve either a mini cut or not bulking for longer than a year

and I was wondering if you personally have had an experience where you I guess

take it back in your offseason like is there a point where you're like okay it's time for a mini cut or there's a point where you're like okay this offseason needs to end because now I'm not now I'm not getting as many as much progress as I could be

for me personally

I've never done a bulk for more than a year.

It's literally just been a year this time,

the 2018, no, 2019 when I took that year off.

I didn't do the Olympia, but I still prepped for a show at the end of the year.

Even in 2014, I probably

should have done a mini cut.

But

I don't know.

I don't know why we did.

I can't remember why we didn't.

It was 2014.

Yeah, that was 2014.

Or

yeah, 2014, 15.

In between, I got my pro card.

Even that was like

the nationals.

It was November 2014.

And then I did my first classic show

like July 2016.

So that was maybe a year and a half.

And probably that half of that year was medium prep.

So even that was like a year-ish of an offseason.

gotcha okay but i've had prep people man and it's all i would agree um the people i've seen it's never been like a just a straight prep i mean not prep but straight straight offseason for more than a year what are you guys planning right now because i know that uh i mean it's basically another year until olympia right so yeah what's

qualifying

uh i would love to do the detroit pro but i i can't promise that because uh with this the stem cells uh treatment and the time off it'll like i said it'll be cutting and close uh So you may see me there depending on how I'm looking.

My coach is interested in me doing it, so maybe, but we'll see.

I do like the state.

It's the last weekend in March.

I think Ben Chow was telling me like the 29th or something like that.

So it's like three weeks after the Arnold.

And then

for sure doing Pittsburgh.

Nice.

If I can't do Detroit, I'll probably do Pittsburgh and new york okay new york oof yeah yeah it'll be fun man it's funny because like

i was talking to to mike uh debull he's do he's doing literally every single show that i'm doing he's of course he's so his goal his goal is to have the most pro wins and he already told me that we joke about it and he's honestly he's gonna have he's gonna have it because he he likes to compete more than i do like i like to do like three shows a year but he he's got like five shows planned yeah so

so like even over time he's gonna have that number on me for sure he gets fucking peeled yeah yeah yeah because right now i have the i have the most wins i think i have i think i i think it's eight or nine i love i should i should know but um he's like one or two away from uh from beating it like uh this year as of this year i was like god dang man but god dang

yeah

so i don't know next year will be pretty next year it'll be pretty close he we might end up like tied and then the year after that he's probably gonna he's probably gonna have more than me then for sure do you think you're gonna let him i'd like to compete too man i think like my like my usual number is like three

like two shows well actually four i like

three to four between three and four because i'll do i'll do definitely two years two shows before the olympia and then one show after so that'll be that'll be for this for next year and that's what i did

Last year I did

the Olympia.

I did India.

I did more shows.

I'm losing track.

Oh, Dubai.

I did Dubai.

And I did Legion.

And I won all those shows up.

So I went three shows

last year.

Do you ever find that hard on yourself or difficult?

Because, I mean, for me personally, I don't know what it is in my body, but I just feel like my body starts responding less to either the lack of calories or the compounds or something when I do way too many shows.

So what shows up?

I did.

Okay.

So I usually put them close together.

Like, so I did

Legion and Dubai were two weeks apart, and the Olympia and India were like a week or two apart.

So I think for me personally, keeping shows very close together helps.

Like I wouldn't, I hate doing shows like a month apart.

I'm like, that's going to suck.

Like

three, anywhere, three weeks to like,

like maybe like six weeks, it would probably, that's like my, I don't want to do that

zone, you know, because you don't really get a, you don't really get a break with stuff like that, you know.

But yeah, yeah, so that's the way I usually like to do it.

I mean, the only time that I've really noticed like a decrease in my physique was the first year I competed.

I did, I was in prep from March that year until October.

Now it was long, yeah, because I got really fat

trying to get to 212, you know, that was the first year.

So I did,

what show did I do?

Prestige's Crystal Cup, where Brian, that was Brianne's first pro win in classic.

I took third at that show.

Then I did the Tampa Pro.

I won that show.

Then the Olympia

was a couple weeks later.

And then I did

the Diana Kadoo Classic, where that was

Chris's first show.

Damn Charles won that.

I got second.

Chris got third.

And then I won a show a week or two after that.

And I looked, even though I won that show, there was like three people in the show.

And I honestly looked like garbage, in my opinion.

I was not very happy with how I looked at all.

Yeah,

like if I was to do something like that again, I would not, with the quality of people competing, I wouldn't win it at all.

Why weren't you happy with your physique then?

My physique was just run down and tired.

Like, I wasn't as lean.

I was, it was conditioning, it wasn't the same.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the part, the exhaustion of the physique that gets me.

But I think last time, the second show that I did this year was just a lot of stress, a lot of lifestyle factors.

Stress will get you really bad, dude.

I found that out.

That's what, that was my biggest issue in what, 2021, 2022 when i dropped from second to six was the stress um too much too much work i didn't realize how much like just thinking

dude thinking a real thing

well your brain you know like like we don't talk about it in bodybuilding but your brain uses calories your brain uses carbs to to function you know right and um yeah the more you think the more you you're working you know uh

the more you're burning.

And I can feel it because my training, I remember me and Joe talking about it.

My training wasn't the same.

I was weaker.

My recovery was worse.

So, no, it plays a huge factor.

My second show this last year, I went to meet my girls' parents and family, go to their home for the first time.

And then immediately after we flew to Florida for the Florida Pro.

And

right before our whole trip, I got my knee just bursted with this injury and it was called prepatellar brusitis.

So for the entire week and a half before my show, I couldn't walk and I and

like I was just limping everywhere and I couldn't really do cardio and I was wearing a brace and I was having trouble even getting up from like chairs and getting up from beds and shit.

And

I can tell you, bro, if there's any time that I've thought more, I don't think I can even tell you when because I was fucking in my head for that entire week.

That week was fucking rough, bro.

Yeah, bro, the best thing you could do is not think bad.

Yeah, yeah.

It's tough, dude.

But yeah, I like, yeah.

Best thing you can do is just try not to stress about it.

Because, I mean, yeah, dude, like, I don't, the injury would, like, obviously affect your body with like water retention, whatnot, inflammation.

But, like, I've seen, I mean, obviously, especially Chris, all his injuries he has, like, going into a show.

Like, don't stress too much about it.

I think there's ways to kind of

get around it.

I'm amazed that he's able to do that with all his injuries going into shows.

Cause, like, I thought I'd be okay.

Cause I'm like, oh, it's a knee injury, but I'm doing men's physique this time so it's not like I have to pose or get on the ground for my posing routine but something about that knee injury and the inflammation that just went around my leg I guess I don't know if it was the inflammation in the leg that caused total body inflammation or if it was the stress level about thinking about the injury it was probably honestly more the stress level that just made me look like absolute dog shit

It's probably a bit of, obviously it's a bit of both, but you know,

it's tough, man.

I totally get it.

Yeah.

Okay, Okay, that's kind of cool to hear, though, because it seems like these coaches, like Petor,

Stefan, they all feel like, like,

say, for example, that you need to gain 20 pounds, which you need to gain like 17 pounds, right?

I know Patrick Tor would take, would recommend doing it in two contest preps.

So, like, having one full year where you're making gains and then prep for your show then and then do a rebound or reverse of sorts, depending on where your health is, and then do another off-season and try to

close the weight gap.

Then, and I think, um,

I think, uh, I think Stefan was mentioning doing a mini cut just to make sure that you're still insulin sensitive by the point that you get to a body fat percentage that's too high.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

I think both, both, I mean, yeah, I think it just depends on like who's the athlete.

Like, if you need to gain 20, like 20 pounds just to be competitive, uh,

then I don't see important in a prep.

But if you, if you can be really really competitive with an extra 10 pounds, then go ahead and do the show.

You're already lean.

And then you can get your name out there.

People see your face.

And then the next year, you can really, really make a statement.

So I could see why both

could work for sure.

I can't wait to see you with fucking 17 pounds on that frame.

I definitely didn't gain 17.

I think I've probably gained about 10.

I don't think I've gained 17.

Yeah, but that's pretty fucking sick already in the time being, man.

That's insane.

So, how much weight total have you gained?

What was your stage weight last?

So, when I talked to the judge, the two best showings,

one show I was 169, the other one I was 171.

Okay.

I definitely think that,

yeah, about, yeah, so just to say 170.

And I'm 212, so that's 42 pounds over the

mic gained 60 pounds over his.

I was like, holy shit, dude, that's crazy.

That would put me at, what, 230?

I mean, that's how much like Keon is in all season.

You guys are just making me feel a lot better, though, because I get in my head about getting too fat.

Like, I'll see myself lose my abs.

Like, I'm already losing my abs now.

And I'm like getting my head that I'm like, I'm not, I'm not partitioning my nutrients well enough.

Like, I must be getting insulin resistant.

Like, maybe I'm eating a little bit too much sugar during my workouts or something.

Like, I need to pull back, but then I realize, like, I'm only like 13 pounds over my stage weight.

And

all of these guys that are successful, super successful, like you guys, have gained some crazy lean mass, but you'll go up to like 40 pounds over your stage weight from your last show, or even 60 pounds over your stage weight.

Like, you do put on some damn water and fat, you do.

It just seems to be part of the process in order to make the proper gains as an enhanced individual or an Olympian.

Yeah, man, and I see all the, I've seen these reaches, this recent talk about like you don't need to bulk anymore.

It's interesting, man.

Frank Duset's little main gaining Greg and

Paul Carter.

There's this girl, too, that I've been following lately.

I can't think of her name now, scientifically something.

But

yeah, I've been seeing a lot of these people talking about that, like the mechanisms and stuff.

And I'm like, huh.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think it differs per person.

I think there could definitely be people that can make gains without having to gain so much weight.

But I think I personally believe that it applies a little bit more to those who are natural personally.

Just because you know that you do need to eat more calories when you are on compounds.

But

whether or not it helps you partition and prevent the fat gain, I don't know.

But there was this funny comment, though.

I think Greg Dussett said,

I don't know in whose post it was like yesterday, but Greg Dusett said something about like, yeah, I mean, gaining is the way or something.

And the top comment that replied to Greg was like, I followed your advice for an entire year and gained absolutely nothing.

Thanks for nothing, Brad.

Oh shit.

Dude, that's got to suck, bro.

Honestly, I'll be pissed.

I would be pissed.

Dude, a year is a...

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

No.

Holy shit.

Shit.

He's also mad.

Oh, yo.

Yeah, you got to be smart about it.

Like, when I,

yeah, stuff.

I mean, in my opinion, man, like, you should kind of take it by like, like, how much you're gaining.

And, like,

with John Jewett, I took his course a while back, and he had a really good viewpoint on it.

He's like a pound a week.

Like, he's like, he could be gaining, but like, um,

but, like, just tracking-wise, like anything less than a pound is very difficult to like really know that you're track, like, things growing properly, that you're tracking everything and stuff like that.

If you're getting a pound a week, you're even if it's a little bit of fat, you know, you're gaining muscle with that, you know, to a certain degree.

You know, you're putting tissue on.

So, I think that's probably the safest, the safest bet you know i like that idea it definitely helps for sure because all there's there's always this fighting that like oh you should only have 200 calories in a surplus like say that you're natural or even say you're enhanced but now your maintenance has changed because of whatever you're on like you should only have 200 calories and a surplus i mean that's not going to be a pound a week you know not at all Yeah, it's going to be a little more determined.

Yeah, yeah.

Just to be safe, I would, that's how I would, I would play it.

Yeah.

Cause yeah, you do, I think some of the people that are hopping on the bandwagon, they don't realize you have to you have to change your calories still because your maintenance is going to change because you're growing but like like you said like if

the minuscule amount of muscle you gain from week to week or even in a month a lot of times like

how would you just know that without just bumping up your calories a little bit from week to week or every other week or something you know i think it's just safer bet to kind of do it uh

and potentially gain a little bit of fat along the way.

All right, I got to run into the restroom real quick, but uh, then if you're down, you want to come back, we'll uh run up this QA real quick and then we'll close up.

Okay, okay, okay, I'll be right back.

Oh, bro, you see me dancing?

Fuck, yeah, I was wondering what you're doing.

That is the best feeling in the universe.

Whoa,

oh, what the hell?

I pulled out my uh earplug so fast that I broke it in half.

Shit,

getting too strong.

Oh, hell yeah.

Let's go.

Coach, I'm making PRs.

I'm just looking at this comparison with

Keon and

Samson.

Oh, geez, what the?

It's actually

pretty close.

Wait, can I see that shit?

Yeah, yeah.

What do you think if Keon went to open?

I know everyone wants to talk about this.

I think he'll do well.

I don't know, man.

It's tough.

Wait, there we go.

It's tough to

tough to say.

Damn.

Yeah, yeah.

That's crazy, bro.

That's such a good

thing.

He really is.

Especially the

front double.

Wow.

And the...

Oops.

No, wrong.

God damn it.

That's insane.

Where is it?

The last spread?

God damn it.

Wow.

That's pretty good.

Elon's looking crisp in that.

That one.

And he's only

201, I think he is.

Keon is?

Yeah, he's like maybe 203 tops.

Somewhere around there.

He's not 212.

Yeah,

I know he had more weight, but I didn't realize it was that far off.

Like a whole 10,000.

I mean, Sean, yeah.

It's crazy, dude.

Like, weight, it's just structure, dude.

But

Sean is, Sean is like 270.

I'm not 170 or something on stage.

Granted, he's a little shorter, but like, he's like in the 170s somewhere, I think.

Damn.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

He doesn't look like it, bro.

That guy looks straight up 200.

Yeah, he's a thick one.

I'm excited to see him next to Chris and

Martin.

Yeah, this weekend?

Yeah,

I feel bad because people aren't talking about him as much as they should.

Yeah, it's always that way.

I remember when he was doing,

he won his pro show a couple years back against like Cedric McMillan, Patrick Moore,

Sergio Leva.

He like, I was super happy, first of all, but dude, like those guys took it really, really hard.

They were really upset that he won.

So I'm excited.

I think people underestimate him a lot.

So I'm excited to see how he does.

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What do you think of

this Olympia?

Well, actually, before you ask this, are you going to stream it this weekend?

Yeah, I'll probably do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was thinking about streaming it too, but like, can we stream pre-judging too?

It said finals when I looked at the webpage.

That's stupid, bro.

They could make

just like, yo, like, you, you literally have probably the third best, most, like, the third most like wanted show of the year, and you're not maximizing on how much money you can make.

Yo, just have a pre-judging finals, have people pay separate prices for it if you want to do that.

But like, I don't understand why they're just doing finals.

I hope it's weird.

Is it just finals?

Do you know for sure?

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay, I'm gonna check it up again, but that's what it said at least.

And I'm like, that's kind of frustrating because finals, our time, or like, I guess your time would be a little two hours later, but for my time in LA,

pre-judging would be at 11 a.m.

and finals would be at 8 a.m.

the next day.

Which is a little fucking early.

It's a little fucking early.

8 a.m to stream 8 a.m is early

it's not early i would fucking i would i'd get up i've been getting up at 7 30 right now so you know good good good yeah i don't know i don't know be proud of me bro

what do you think about um this next olympian classic with sebum out of the mix what do you think it's gonna look like i think it's gonna be fun dude i think it's gonna be fun i i mean like i'm always gonna bet on myself like i feel pretty good about about how i'm gonna do um bro i feel pretty good about how you're gonna do

but you know i i don't know man like to be quite honest with you like with me doing as long as i have like like um

the level of competition improves like like a crazy amount every year and i think a lot of these new guys coming up like they're they

It's gonna be very interesting.

Like there's one, there's the, I forget his name, Niall Neil out in the UK.

Crazy small ways.

yeah yeah there's uh

it's uh one punch man one punch nas yeah no one punch now

because he and I have the same name oh oh

I'm thinking people uh so yeah

there's a Brazilian uh kid um uh Matteus looks incredible as well

um and there's a few more I'm coming up dude where like it's just really really impressive so uh yeah I think I think I think class is gonna

we're hitting like a bottleneck point because like, there's only so good you can be

because you can't get, there's a weight gap.

You can't get any bigger, you know, only have, it's only, you know, so, you can only get so lean.

So structure is going to, structure is going to be like the thing.

Super important, right?

Yeah.

And some of these guys coming up have very, very good structures.

I think that's why I was asking you earlier about the whole like your thoughts on, because I think one of the Q ⁇ A's, this guy who's like, this, one of these, one of the guys in my my audience is freaking dope.

And he like follows me and Faud's podcast, like religiously, and he's fucking cool.

But my boy Cam wanted to know whether or not you feel like you're like a low-dose guy or if you like feel like you have to push things like a lot of other people.

And I think my thought on that was because

when I was speaking with Patrick Tor,

he was stating like the thing about classic is like you really want to preserve your structure, your beautiful shape and everything.

And he believes that pushing the compounds too too hard can start to blur lines and um

kind of reduce your shape or like you know change how pretty your shape can be okay i got a few things to say there probably i so like i would imagine that

so okay so first with me i believe like

based on some of this this crazy stuff i heard i think i'll i'm more like moderate i'm not super high i'm not super low because I've coached guys that were just like

that reached the top of their weight limit with just like 500 mix of tests.

Like structure, structurally, he's not the best.

He's a pro.

I have he structurally is not the best, but he maxed out his weight limit.

Like, I'm like, holy crap.

So I definitely, I definitely do more to him.

But I think with me, like,

like, there's a lot of things when it comes to genetics and gear.

I just genetically, like,

I can't push, like, I've seen, seen, I've heard of like crazy cycles like of Chad or and Matt, like some of the crazy things like people here.

I couldn't do anything like that because, like, I already have, like, I have to really like watch my blood pressure and stuff.

Like, liver is fine, but blood pressure in particular is like the thing for me.

So, if I was to ever do anything crazy, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to compete for very long at all.

So, I would say I'm not, I'm not near, I'm not high whatsoever because I've seen some crazy shit, but I'm not like a genetic freak.

And I think a lot of times people correlate, oh, that guy has a very pretty shape.

He must be on nothing or like very low.

And like it's not the case whatsoever, you know?

But I do agree with Patrick Moore,

Patrick Tor,

because what I find is a lot of guys that

get really, really big in the open, they don't have the deepest lines anymore in their physiques.

It's very rare.

nowadays like even like me when you were looking at the pictures of Samson Samson's huge he's aesthetically very very um structurally very aesthetic, but like he didn't have the deep lines that even Keon had on the 212 stage.

So I definitely think that could be a factor.

Like if you push things too hard,

you could lose those lines.

You can lose a bit of your shape and stuff.

Yeah.

I believe it could be possible in the offseason too.

I've definitely, I feel like this like combination of anabolics and food volume.

can be something that people should watch out for.

But the thing that I've personally experienced myself just through competing is I have competed in the past on stage where I have run almost nothing just because of certain situations.

And then I've also competed this year where the coach I was with, he's a little bit, I think he's,

I would say he was a, he's a little bit more used to

open bodybuilder coaching knowledge, if that makes sense.

Like, I feel like if I, like, I've competed in men's physique.

And I feel like if I ran less going into the show, I would have fit better into the category of men's physique.

I think because I was running what I was and that I probably responded better than maybe he projected or it was just a lot for my body because I never ran that much before.

I was really full, but a lot of the lines that they want to see in men's physique, especially around my core section and like certain other places I noticed, did not reappear in my body until I dropped all the compounds and I was in and I stayed on my low diet after the shows were over.

So I dropped the compounds.

I stayed on the same calories for like a week.

The next weekend, I had more lines in my body.

I was like seeing more glutes striations and some other things that I was like, oh shit, like that's crazy.

All this shit came back and I do look more flat and I'm smaller and I'm three pounds lighter, but I'm definitely more defined.

Do you think that was because of like

the compounds you're using?

Maybe you caused a little, you had a little bit more water retention just because

they're just specific compounds, or like, do you think that was just like,

I don't know if you looked at your labs close to the show, maybe you used a bit much, and then like your lab work, your blood marks were so off that you were inflamed.

And then like being off for a week, that my blood work got better.

I feel like it might have been like just a little bit of water retention from the stuff you're using, but I don't know.

I don't know.

I think that's what it was, though.

That's like if I had to, like, I don't know everything, but if I had to say something, I would feel like it was the extra water retention from upping some doses higher than I needed it to be, especially for that division.

That makes sense.

Makes sense.

And then in open bodybuilding, obviously size is kind of king.

So you want to be as full.

You want to be as round as possible.

And I think that's probably partially part of the reason why it seems to blur some lines.

It's harder for them to get as conditioned, in my opinion.

Yeah, dude, I agree, man.

Yeah, I mean, like, it's very rare.

Like, Hottie's very lean from the front.

You got him.

You got Derek very lean from the back.

Like, line-wise, You can see the most details in those guys.

But a lot of the other guys, you don't have those crazy, crazy lines

in their physiques like you see in like, you know, even like classic or even T12, you know, I think.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Actually, you brought him up before, and I remember John Drewett saying something about this too.

But I know John actually chooses to keep his GH going consistently through the show, as well as I think maybe even his test.

And his reasoning is even though his reasoning was for him, the sacrifice of size was not worth the extra definition or the extra conditioning that he got.

I could see that in the open.

Yeah.

I mean, just based off of visually what you see from the other competitors, like

I could definitely see that being the case.

Yeah.

It's a very...

intelligent, like thought-out reasoning.

I could see that.

What do you pack when you go to your competitions, like Olympia, by the way?

I had to ask this because I wanted to ask this earlier and I forgot.

Like, what I in terms of what?

What do you mean?

Like, what do you bring in your luggages with you to your shows or like to Olympia?

To the Olympia.

Um, I bring it, it depends.

Like, I mean, for the when I was when the Olympia was in Orlando, I was like an hour drive away, so I would literally cook everything, I would bring my lights, I would, I would bring, you know, whatever clothes I needed to bring,

uh, all my food.

Um,

yeah, yeah.

Um,

when I go, when I have to fly to a show, uh, I don't bring as much food.

I usually cook when I get there.

I don't bring as many lights because

I can't put it in a car.

I can't travel with it.

I bring like two lights when I travel, but I'll bring like my big, huge soft lights if I'm just driving to a show.

Yeah, I normally don't bring anything I have to inject.

And I'll take like any of my supplements.

So like all my supplements or really taken, just all of them.

I'll bring those.

Yeah.

Nice.

How many luggages does that end up being?

Especially if you had to bring your food.

It's not that bad, dude.

Honestly, I usually two check bags.

So, one check bag with the food and whatever junk I could fit in there.

And the other check bag would be my clothes and stuff.

And then I'll have like a carry-on with like the meals I need to eat while I'm traveling.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

All right.

That makes me feel good.

I feel like I'm packing my fucking life when I go to these shows, dude.

Sometimes, I swear to God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not too bad at all.

I need to get better.

Shit's like a pack a lot of clothes.

Like, I never know, like, I never wear half the clothes I bring, but I always just bring extra just to be safe.

Yeah, me too, bro.

I'm like, what if you go to a nice-ass dinner afterwards?

Like, I wear like a tie or something.

Exactly, yeah.

You bring, yeah, I bring one pair of nice clothes.

I'll bring like two pairs.

Those are just normal clothes.

I don't even know why because I don't even go anywhere to wear the normal clothes.

And I'll bring like

maybe like four

with

no usually like two to four workout things

and like pants pants shirt shirt I guess and then some clothes to walk around the house with so like some sweats or something yeah okay cool cool nice all right let's run this uh Q ⁇ A real quick um Ben Hunt asks uh how do you come up with your posing routines what's the process okay yeah um it depends on the song so first like it's getting harder and harder because I like I got

i need maybe i need to really really like expand where i'm looking for songs but i feel like

the amount of songs that i like to the style of songs i like to pose to are are not they're not dropping me as much you know like the cinematic style type stuff maybe it's becoming less popular i don't know but um a lot of stuff i i don't know but usually i find a song And I base the routine off the song.

So a lot of songs, like I've done a couple posing breakdowns on YouTube of like exactly like why I did certain poses and why I did certain things in the routine, so people can really understand the process.

But yeah, I choose a song, and like

a lot of my movies are based on the words and the tempo and the beat of the song.

Like,

if the

so with the blinding lights routine, like she talked about a clock, I think, or time.

So I did like that.

I remember the move you did, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

so yeah, I try to do that as much as I can.

Like a lot, that's very spot on, very like, like an overt type thing, but a lot of stuff is a little bit more subtle, I would say.

Like, if she says something like, I'm, if this song starts to slow down, and or maybe like she says, I'm falling, or I don't know, some type of down

like verb, verbiage, I'll do something, I'll get down and do something.

Uh, so stuff like that, yeah.

If she's saying, like, oh, I'm looking towards the sky, or I'll do something high.

Or if it says something like, I don't like you, I'll like point and like look away.

So, stuff like that.

I don't like you, fire.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, something, yeah.

You,

but yeah, a lot of my poses correlate with the song, and if not all of them, but a good amount.

Okay, hell yeah.

Do you do any uh posing coaching ever?

Uh, I used to.

I'm getting, I'm gonna probably get back into it pretty soon.

Uh, right now, I just send everyone to uh Chris Bearcat, or not Chris Barrett, uh, Chris, uh,

Christopher, I forget Chris's last name, Christopher, cb3

cb317 fitness christopher i can't think of his last name right now but cb317 fitness where does he live do you know he lives in cali somewhere i'm not sure where okay cool all right i'm gonna hit him up and say that you referred me yeah yeah he's he's honestly amazing like i i did some mentoring with him and he's done mentoring with pretty much every posing coach so like in terms of like knowledge and like flexibility he's probably one of the best he's in po he's done mentoring with you said pretty much every posing coach or a lot of posing coaches.

Yeah.

Oh shit.

Okay.

Fuck yeah.

Cool.

Cause I did a little bit with him and then he he did a lot with

my guy.

I'm so bad by names.

Jacob.

He's done stuff with Grass, Grass Fitness

Fitness.

Grass Fed Fitness and the other guy, Daniel Cofine.

Okay, cool.

He's done, he's done, he's learned from all of us.

So I'm like, he's he's very well around it for sure.

Okay, that's dope.

I'm just saying this on the podcast, but for anyone who's interested in posing, though, I think he's really underrated.

I did some posing stuff with the posing sensei.

He's in Florida, I think in San Jacinto.

Oh, that's Jacob.

I think.

Is that Jacob?

I'm sure that's Jacob.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I paid for Chris to do a mentorship with him.

So, yeah, Jacob is, especially with the way he does the...

Like, I've never done it, but he does like the lion stuff.

That's where Chris Stephrig gets that from.

Ah, okay.

That's cool.

That's cool.

Hell yeah.

Oh, fuck fuck yeah.

That makes me happy.

Let's go, Jacob.

Let's fucking go, bro.

You making it.

Yeah.

I've known him for a long time, dude, when I was living in Florida.

Dude, Jacob's a real, real ass dude.

Yeah, he's a good guy.

I hope he gets more clients.

Okay, cool.

So you can see Jacob too.

Yeah.

What's his Instagram again?

The posing censor.

There you go.

He's got my approval as well.

Let's go.

Fire.

I just got to say this question because it's fucking hilarious.

The cursed Asura asked why his wife deploys so many drugs for her female clients.

And then he said, oh, wait, wrong person.

I have no idea.

That sounds good.

It's crazy.

Tuchi asks, what have you learned over time that impacted consistently stimulating your muscle to grow?

I should probably go back to that last question.

So me and Tiff aren't together anymore, but

from my knowledge, dude, like, I don't think I've never seen her

have people on a lot of stuff.

Obviously, I'm not in her coaching page like that, but

yeah, I don't know that guy.

I don't know.

But what was that the question?

I think he made a mistake, honestly.

Like he said, like, wait, wrong person or something.

So I don't even know if he was talking about Tiff, to be honest.

Okay.

The other guy asked.

Tucci asked, what have you learned over time that impacted consistently stimulating the muscle, your muscle to grow?

I mean, the simplest thing is just progressive overload, to be honest with you.

This really

hasn't been anything.

That's what when I started working with Joe,

that was the main thing along along with just really let's um executing the movements properly.

Gotcha, like it wasn't anything fancy, no, yeah, I don't want to put anybody on the bus intensity techniques or like fancy

ways of doing it was nothing like that, it was just simple shit.

Yeah, so I'm assuming that you write down like your weights and your reps, and then you also try to remember how well it was moving, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, I uh I used to keep it in a, I used to write it out, but now I uh I just

have it okay

there we go uh write it out and this is east is a is a different

day so that's what the way better way of writing it out than i am yeah i just put that

in the routes

bro all right i'm about to fucking put myself on blast but i've been writing my

Dude, I've been using the notes app for forever and I've been writing my workouts for like two years at least and then I accidentally deleted it.

Dude, it fucking notes for like two years gone.

So now I have workouts too.

And look how freaking unorganized this is.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

It's like day by day.

So if I want to see

how much I progress on this exercise, I have to scroll back to like

the last day that I hit that exercise.

It's so unorganized.

Oh, I see.

Okay, I see.

Okay, okay, I see.

Yeah, I need to do it by exercise.

I don't know why.

I've been

it's just so dumb.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like, I used to use like Excel, but then I got lazy of having to go back to my computer and shit.

So I just wanted to use a notes app and

whatever.

I guess I've been lazy.

And it's easier to when I travel.

Like, I was talking to another friend of mine, Chloe, and

she, like, she tracks stuff.

Even like, even like when she's traveling, she's just using a random machine.

She'll still track it.

She'll keep it at the bottom of her notes.

And like.

So whenever she goes back to that machine later,

I guess she's like, knows what she did last time.

So I don't know how useful that is because you're going to probably, like, if you don't hit it, you don't go to that machine, but like once every three months,

then

that number is not going to be super helpful.

You're going to be much, hopefully stronger.

But I still think it's interesting to do that too.

Next question.

Joey asks,

hey, Nile mentions that Stefan Kinzel talked about how you should be choosing your off-season compound based off of how you react to it in your blood work.

So like EQ,

don't do it if you have hematocrit problems.

Um, NPP, if you have mental or libido problems, do you choose a certain compound?

Or is there one that's not?

Especially smart.

I mean, I don't, I don't use EQ at all, to be honest with you.

Yeah.

Um,

but no, I mean, that definitely makes sense.

Like, I'm like, as much as people

try to glorify a trend, I don't think it's needed in a prep at all.

I don't know.

Like, I'm, yeah, so I definitely agree.

Like, if you have mental issues, don't use any type of Nangelong

NPP or train or anything like that.

I agree with that for sure.

Is there, I mean, you don't have to answer this, but is there like an off-season compound that you choose personally?

Mine, I just choose Primo just because it's, you know, I think it's the cleanest.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I just do test and Primo or Test and or Masteron.

And I will, I'll do MPP too for my joints, especially with the elbow stuff.

I keep it really low, though, like 100 mix a week.

So uh but you feel like that helps you i i don't but make

but the research says it's supposed to help with your joints so i was like okay well maybe it's helping a little bit and i just don't know you know like i said i'm not i don't feel uh

a big difference from taking anything i think i've done the exact same thing as you bro and i think it helps like i've done like my normal tests in primo and at one point i was i added like 200 mpp to it and i felt fine and i feel like it helped me personally when it came to just feeling better better when I move.

And I was also a little bit more,

I felt like I was a little bit more full and dry, but it could just be me in my head.

So, I don't know.

See, great minds think alike, bro.

A lot of things, yeah.

I just basically like, okay, this says, this says this, so let me just do this, you know.

Yeah, Marky Gaines asks, do you think that classic physique is now a tall man's division?

I mean, Mike just took second, so that's a no.

Mike, I don't know if people, Mike is maybe, what, five, seven Tops, I think.

No, I don't think so either.

I think the funny, like, especially even when I was placing second, like, they would still say that.

And I'm like,

even if Chris is much taller, and even if Chris is winning, that's, there's 60 other people at the Olympia that I beat.

And I'm literally like the shortest guy on stage.

There's maybe one other guy from China who's shorter than me.

But I'm like,

I don't get why people say that.

I think it's interesting.

And I'm like, even if I play, even when I place fifth and Brean placed, I think,

fourth,

even though there's three people that beat us, again, there's 40 other people that we beat.

So like,

I don't think that's the case whatsoever.

I know a lot of people like to say that just because there's a lot of tall guys on

the Olympic Stage.

There's three guys taller than

me that are placing better than me out of the 200-300 that are actively competing throughout the year.

I think it's a bit silly, but like,

yeah, I do personally.

Especially considering me and Mike aren't at our weight limits either and our weight caps.

Yeah, I think it's just a structural thing.

I think

Urs is very consistent, especially and very good when it comes to conditioning.

I think that's why he's doing the best.

And

just physique-wise, I think it's just, and Chris, just, Chris is just like, just was, Chris was just out of bounds, even for the tall guys.

Like, no one was touching Chris, you know,

and even to, even going further, like, I got lots of reasons why I like to dive in on this, but

the only person to, to have a, like to, what, uh, Tyler said, Mike, it was three to, what was it, three to four poses?

I think he only lost by a poles.

So, like, the closest guy to beating him was, was under, like, was five, six, five, seven, Mike, you know?

So

Ramon didn't push him that hard urz hasn't pushing that hard so i don't i don't i think people get caught too caught up on the high stuff it's it's just uh who fits the criteria the best and i don't agree when people say that the winner is the standard you don't need to chase the winner of the division you need to bring your best physique um because the the

each division isn't defined by a person it's defined by the criteria and whoever fits that criteria best is the is the winner you know because if it was defined by a single person, then

I wouldn't even be in the first call-outs, you know?

I have a completely different facility.

I would have never even played second if it was defined by Chris because there's a lot of dudes that look more like Chris than I do, you know?

Yeah.

Same with the Open.

There's a lot of guys that look more like Derek than Samson placing third at the Olympic, you know, or

was Samson placed first this year?

How do they place second?

Those guys don't look anything alike, you know?

So it's based on criteria, not the the athlete in first.

I like that, bro.

I like that.

It gives us hope, man.

Because there was like, there was like seven other questions from the short homies in my audience that asked the exact same thing.

Yeah, dude, I get to, I do.

And I feel the fight, dude, but no, it's, it's not a thing at all.

Like, like,

I think people get caught up with just first and I get like you want to be the best, but like realistically, there's percentage-wise, it's going to be like 0, 0, 0, 1% of people who are going to reach that spot.

And, you know, everyone wants to get there, but there's a lot of, there's still something to be proud of, but even winning a pro show, getting your pro card.

I think people like to say it's easy.

Like, it's too easy to get a pro card.

And I'm like, say that to the fucking 20, 30 people who didn't get that pro card that year.

It's not fucking easy, dude.

Like, I get like back in the day.

I get back in the day, like, there was less giving out, but there was also less people competing.

So there was a lot less people competing.

Way less people.

Way less competing.

Joe.

Yeah, bro.

Yeah.

So

I got, I guess, hot takes on a lot of this stuff.

Like, I still think it's a good thing.

Like, anyone who makes it to the Olympia stage is impressive.

Anyone who, even, yeah, I don't know.

That's just my thoughts on it.

But yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Here, Bod asks peptide use?

There are any peptides that you like?

No, I mean, I've used, I'm using, I'm taking orally BPC and TB500.

Yeah.

I don't feel, it hasn't helped at all.

I've done the injectables.

But again, dude, like the research says, I even, and I had my cousin do it, he had, he tourist back a couple years ago, and he was in Houston recently

doing some type of reconstructive surgery to make it look better.

And he was pretty much healed up in like three weeks, he was telling me.

And I had him do like that protocol.

I don't know, man, maybe, maybe my injury isn't,

it's different than what it can heal, but I don't know, dude.

I don't don't know.

I hate it.

Yeah, I wish that would have worked, dude, because I did the textbook for a while.

Now I'm just taking it orally because why not?

You know, yeah, that's it's hard to tell if that shit works sometimes.

Some people swear by it, dude.

Some people really swear by it.

Some people swear by it for real, but

I feel like it's hobby, but I don't.

I'd be a liar if I told you I swear by it.

Uh, when 98 asks how not to quit when you get second call out, so that's the crazy.

So, the thing, obviously, like, it's like from my perspective, I've always done pretty well in competitions.

But I would, I would say, man, I've known a lot of people that haven't, a lot of people that I respect.

One in particular, John Meadows, that took him like 30 years to turn pro.

You just got to one, love the process.

And it sounds silly, man, but I think that's the biggest thing.

And if you're improving from show to show, I think that's probably the most important part as well.

And I like to draw a lot from history and other people.

That helps me quite a bit.

Like if I could see someone else that's doing something or has done something, then it gives me more faith that it can be done multiple times.

So I look at people like even Samson.

Samson wasn't placed in first call loss a couple years ago.

And sometimes like

There are some people that they are checking all the boxes.

They're doing everything possible and just aren't getting there.

But there's quite a bit of people on top of that where they just haven't found the right tools or the right key to unlock that door to their potential.

Samsi was one person, obviously, that we know now.

My favorite example is Michaela Acock.

She's a women's bodybuilder.

I know a lot of people aren't into women's bodybuilding.

I got a lot of respect for women's bodybuilders because, out of everyone who does bodybuilding, you know, women's bodybuilders do it just for the love of the sport.

There is no benefit to being a women's bodybuilder, bro.

There's zero.

So, 100%,

every one of those ladies love that shit fullheartedly.

So,

her transformation with her legs was insane.

Her training was already good.

Like she trained with Dallas McCarver, she trained with my trainer, hyper trophy coach.

And all it took was a drastic change in her training for her to have like the worst legs in women's bodybuilding to place in top three at like or top five at the Olympia.

I think she's placed and maybe third at the second biggest show they have.

And it was went from her training like maybe push-pull legs or a roll split to I'm going to train legs three times a week and that's it.

That's what she did for a year.

and now she does legs twice a week and upper body once a week wow and if you see if you see her transformation dude it is literally insane and i say that too because it wasn't like oh she's just a newbie and um everything grew it was like oh she's already a pro and her legs suck she's already got her pro card she's been doing this a while and her legs suck

and then she changed her training after years of already training and her legs blew up damn so that's what i say like you can find a real exactly

You know, same with me.

Me finding Joe drastically

changed my

trajectory in the sport, you know?

So sometimes, yeah, it just takes the right person or the right training style to kind of really bring you up.

So it could be either one.

Maybe you need to do, maybe you are seeing progress and it's just a little bit slower than other people, or maybe you haven't found that right key to unlock that door.

So I should be doing hamstrings three times a week.

There you go.

Get it.

fucking hamstrings man that shit does not want to grow for me hamstrings a tough dude for me it was a very slow process for me very slow uh

but it's it's i'm i'm getting happier uh with the with the results now uh finally you know how come it's been slow for you i think it's just i don't know um

I was very weak in that movement too.

So, I mean, it kind of correlated.

Like, the stronger I got, the better they are.

Like, detail, like, and it's funny because people didn't realize it.

Like, detail-wise, from the back, it looks fine, but when I'm doing, like, a side chest, it just doesn't hang like

I wanted it to.

So, um, yeah, it took a very, a very long time,

but

now we're here.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a lot better than what it used to be.

Hell yeah, let's go.

See if I can find this photo for you real quick because it's really wild.

Oh, do you mind me asking while you're looking that up?

But

what

have you like?

whoa that is so if you see the upper body yeah and then the legs what

what and so basically her upper body she did once a week lower body twice a week that's after a like i don't i i don't know if it was a full year but she did just leg just three leg days a week for a very long period of time for the very long period of time right yeah and then now she does legs twice a week and upper ones

that is sick exactly so you see that

and when you see stuff like that's why i love i love learning as much and seeing as many people not just the popular people and stuff like that because nine times out of ten the popular people they're just genetically gifted like everywhere no for you and you gotta you gotta search for the people that have shit like that dude because it'll it really motivates you man like okay maybe i just don't know the right thing yet i gotta try something different you know yeah yeah that's sick dude that's fucking i love seeing that

that's why uh this year honestly low-key just between you and i i was thinking about literally just hitting only legs, lats, and arms.

It could be good.

Even like to the opposite of that, Tom Platz, he stopped.

His best placing at his Olympia was when he didn't train legs to hold prep.

So like you, you really got to tailor shit towards your body.

To your body, yeah.

Yeah.

Further confirmation for me doing literally only legs and lats.

Get it, get it.

Oh, G Bilt asks, how many hours on average per week do you practice posing off-season and in prep?

I'm sure you get this all the time.

I've been very un

as an artist, very unmotivated as of late.

I was talking to a buddy of mine, Eclipse, and he's like, bro, you just got to get out there and do it.

Like, I feel like even in every single way, like clothing-wise, I felt very unmotivated.

Like, photography, I haven't been taking pictures like I normally do.

Posing, it's all forms of it.

So now, right now, it hasn't been a ton.

I mean, I actually, I've just been doing mandatories

pretty much after my workouts.

So

I am doing mandatories and for check-ins, but like

to music, no, I haven't done a lot of it at all.

But for me to get good, like everyone, I think everyone likes to say like the survival routine, the survival routine was the first good routine I did, in my opinion.

And when I was getting ready for that, I was practicing every single day for like an hour.

Damn.

Like an hour, every single day.

Like it was a problem because like I wasn't eating enough, yeah, I would spend like three hours at the gym, dude.

And I'm like, okay, well, you know, I would, so uh,

yeah, an hour a day, like pretty much every day.

That's like, yeah, yeah.

How long was that lasting for that you're doing an hour a day for?

That was years.

I mean, 2018, I started really getting the posing

when I started competing.

So that was 2012,

2013.

So, yeah, 2000.

So, about five years.

Obviously, there's some days I miss, you know, going out somewhere, I'm doing something, but like pretty much like an hour

all the time.

I would stretch, then I would pose.

And yeah, it was,

yeah.

Gotcha.

Personal question for me: Is there a classic bodybuilder

that

influenced you the most in your posing routines?

Yeah, I wish I could.

I see him right over here.

I got a picture with him.

Lee Labrada.

Yeah, I think he's the best poser of all time.

There are other poses I really liked.

Like,

in my opinion, too, man, I know everyone loves the 70s, but I personally think the 80s is the best era of bodybuilding.

They had the size.

I think about as big as you can get and look very aesthetic.

Lee DeBrada, Francis Benfado, Bob Parris, those guys.

And that's when the routines really started to take off because they could choose their own.

I don't know what was going on in the 70s.

I don't know if they could choose their own music, but they didn't have those routines like they had in the 80s.

You know what I mean?

Like where they had those big stages and they can move from one side to the other.

And it seemed like in the 70s, they, I don't know if they could choose their music or not.

Or maybe the music was a little, like the choices weren't as good.

Like, but I think in the 80s, man, like Lee, one of the coolest routines that Lee did, like, he went to Spain to learn from a,

I don't know what he calls people, with the red, the bulls, the matador, isn't it?

He went there to learn from them to

incorporate that into his routine.

And I'm like, holy crap, that's that's the level of detail that takes is insane, you know?

Yeah, uh, Lee, by far, without a doubt, is my favorite.

Uh, Bob Paris has some really cool things that he did that I really like.

Uh,

Mohammed Makawi was just a really like a master of all his side poses.

Like, I don't use him as much because we had very different physiques and the stuff he used to highlight his physique, I can't really do.

Yeah, he had very broad shoulders, so when he would do those swissing shots, his back would be huge and it would come into his tiny waist.

But yeah, I don't have the same structure, so I can't do that.

So

Lee, I guess, fits Lee probably fits my body type the best.

Like his arms are a little bit bigger, my legs are a little bit bigger.

But overall, I think we float or are similar.

But yeah, Lee, Lee, I got a whole picture with them signed and everything over here.

That's fucking hard.

I got huge.

It's like, it's huge.

That's tight as fuck.

Bob Parrish was an aesthetic mother.

Both of them are aesthetic motherfuckers.

I really like Bob.

I like Bob's little poses that he kind of created or I guess.

Those kneeling shots.

The kneeling twists.

Very nice.

He's very, he's very, like, I don't know.

Like, Lee's very in the music.

So he's very artistically inclined, like, in a lot of different areas.

And I think the same thing is true for Bob because I think Bob either became like a writer or he did some acting or something.

I'm not sure.

And he, I just hate that how his relationship is with bodybuilding now.

He like hates it.

Wait, really?

Yeah, he had an issue.

He popped up on Instagram a couple years back.

And a lot of his fans found out and he just did not want to talk about bodybuilding whatsoever.

Oh, damn.

And

I talked, I got to meet Francis Benfado because, you know, he was gay and he left America and moved to Canada because

I think something to do with that.

And Francis said he just didn't have a good time in the sport, which shocked me because, you know, the first black African-American Mr.

Olympia, Chris Dickerson, was also gay.

So I was like, oh, well, you know, I think Chris came before, yeah, Chris came before Bob.

I don't know.

I guess, I don't know.

But yeah, it seemed to be an issue for him from what Francis said.

And he also wrote this book, I think, called The Gorilla Suit.

I haven't had a chance to read it, but from my understanding, it's about how he didn't like his physique being that big.

So

super unfortunate, but

I'm still happy that he did give his time to bodybuilding, even if he's not too happy about it.

No, for sure, Sam.

That is really interesting shit, though.

Yeah.

It's always, yeah, it's always interesting to hear such different, varying perspectives from the bodybuilding past.

Dude, dude, I've been really blessed to meet a couple, man.

I've gotten to meet him, Francis, Lee,

and Robbie Robinson.

Robbie Robinson is super interesting.

His story is really sad, too.

Like, super sad.

And I never thought about it.

Like, if you think about it, have you seen any pictures of like Robbie in his prime, like in his 30s?

You see pictures of Robbie from pumping iron?

You see pictures of Robbie when he was like in his 40s or 50s.

Like when he's older, he's got like the gray hair.

It's because he wasn't able to compete in the U.S.

in his 30s.

So I was like, God damn, dude, that sucks.

But

yeah,

he did a whole interview on it, too.

But

so you guys can watch that because I don't want to get into the, it's depressing.

But yeah.

But yeah, it's been a blessing, man, to at least get to meet him and chat with him and talk with him.

I would love to meet

Frank Zane.

And, you know, I kind of have to hurry because these guys are getting older, man.

Yeah.

Frank's pretty dope.

Frank's pretty cool.

Have you ever reached out to him?

I have not.

I don't know why, dude.

I probably should.

I probably should.

I don't know.

He'll respond for sure.

Okay, because I know he did some cool stuff with Sadiq a few years back.

And I was like, dude, that's really cool, man.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have a lot of respect for what he did, too, with the posing and everything, man.

I'm pretty sure if you just shot him a DM, he would respond.

And if not, shoot him an email.

And I think he'll definitely respond too.

Okay, okay.

Next year, I mean, if I can, I would love to do like a little series where I meet up with a lot of these guys and just train with them and ask them questions.

It's fucking cool to hear that, hear their perspectives and what they did in the past.

It's very interesting.

I think Frank probably has one of the most interesting perspectives.

Like he was just telling me about how he would really like limit his food volume to keep his waist small.

Obviously, he practiced the vacuums, but like sometimes he would just

drink EAAs.

God damn.

Yeah, just straight up drink EAAs.

Interesting, man.

Isn't that crazy?

It's cool, man.

Obviously, that wasn't the best approach, but it's really cool to see the stuff they tested and stuff they tried at that time, man.

Cause like sometimes they would get it right.

Some, not all the time, but a lot of times they got a lot of stuff right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super, super cool.

Oh, just a bunch of dudes experimenting on ourselves,

dude.

It's yeah, dude, I love.

My favorite subject in school was history.

So hearing, like, learning that stuff and hearing that stuff is a lot of fun.

I would love to be an historian, but I don't like writing.

So I guess I won't do that.

But

I don't know.

I hate it.

A lot of these questions are just like they're excited to they're excited about the podcast.

Really intrigued to hear it.

Tim Graham says, sending love and

blessers, bless, I don't know, blessings today.

Case's life asks, did your time being a veteran help influence your bodybuilding passion?

It kind of led to it, yeah.

So

I started, I kind of got into bodybuilding because of the military.

I was trying out for TAC P, which is like a special forces job in the Air Force, and I did not end up making it.

And

I thought, in my opinion, partly was because of like I was just a little too small.

I was like 120, 125 pounds.

So I started lifting weights to come back and try it again.

I just never stopped.

Basically, I got into bodybuilding, you know.

Damn.

Yeah, yeah.

So when I watched, I gained like 30 pounds naturally.

Obviously, not all muscle, but I was still very lean, I would say.

In the first like four months, four or five months of lifting, obviously I was very underfed and over, I did, I was burning so many calories doing this special sports and shit.

Like the amount of running, the amount of rucks, the amount of exercise we were doing and the amount of thinking we had to do,

I definitely was, you know, obviously,

I guess, flat, bodybuilding turn flat.

And I wasn't eating enough.

I was probably eating two, three times a day because I don't know if you ever like, like ran a ton or like you've had a, like, so think of like after a leg day and you in my after my leg days i have no appetite so we wake up eat breakfast and then we would we go training you know cardio whatever you know all this other stuff we had to do and after that my appetite would be gone so i would struggle to eat uh my next meal and then i'll eat you know dinner so going from doing that to like eating like you know uh two

two, four.

I was eating five times a day when I first started.

I gained, yeah, I gained a lot.

I couldn't afford food, so I would do like the breakfast they did in the in the chow hall, and I would take a meal with me.

I would eat the lunch in the chat hall, take a

meal with me.

Fire.

And then dinner.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's awesome.

That's fucking cool, dude.

This cool year.

Yeah, yeah.

Dude, honestly, man, like when people, nowadays, I know a lot of people get like hung up on like, oh man, I'm not doing the perfect diet, dude.

I just started, man.

Like, I just ate what I could.

You know, I knew I had to eat chicken and rice or protein and carbs.

And I just did that

until I got my first bodybuilding magazine.

And then I started doing more chicken.

And then I got, I finished,

they call it tech school.

I got to my first base.

So they give you some money for food.

And then I started to do more chicken, rice, and eggs and stuff.

And even then, it was just, I didn't know what to do.

I just would eat chicken and rice a couple of times a day, eggs and oatmeal in the morning, and whatever I wanted for dinner.

And it worked for a while.

You know, you do what you can with

what you know.

Yeah.

And then you slowly get better.

But it's crazy now, dude.

Like there's fucking teenagers that were probably smarter than some of the coaches back when I started.

The knowledge level.

I was talking to

JPG because I think he's a little bit younger.

He's around my age.

And he was like, bro, yeah, the amount of knowledge from like

back in the day to now is completely different.

It's insane.

I mean, I wish I had that knowledge because, I mean, that's kind of one of the reasons why I started the podcast is because

I had no fucking clue what I was doing, bro.

And I fucked myself up, dude.

So

hopefully,

hopefully.

It's a good and bad, man.

I don't know.

You need to find a guy to do a podcast and kind of talk about the effects of like social media on bodybuilding.

I talk to a lot of people now.

I saw like this 14-year-old kid doing, he was on a cycle.

I think Ron Harris made a video about about it.

And I'm like, this is it.

I'm like, in my opinion, it's because

people wanted bodybuilders to be more transparent.

And that's obviously a good thing.

You want that.

But at the same time, with bodybuilders being more transparent,

they're also in the same places as teenagers and kids.

So when they're,

you, you,

it's kind of difficult.

It's kind of a difficult thing, man.

Like, you want to be more transparent, but then you also got 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds also in that same room with you, talking, you know,

and yeah, you end up with, yeah, I guess 14-year-olds doing cycles now.

Yeah, yeah, it's fucking hard, man.

It's um,

I uh, I actually ended up

I was kind of unsure about wanting to do this, but I ended up on a Jubilee show literally just like a few days ago, and uh

yeah, it's pretty cool, but it's gonna be an interesting one.

Basically, they decided to create a middle grounds of steroids versus naturals, um, and Eric Janeke moderated it, and um, we had Shizzy, Josh Minoy, and

Hussein something, and some other guys on the other side.

And then we had Togie.

We had Mark Loebliner.

Do you know Mark Loebliner from Tiger Friday?

I know Mark is.

Yeah, I know Mark.

Mark.

And then freaking Togie.

And then

a couple other guys, and then me in the enhanced side.

And the discussions were intense, bro.

It was actually a really good discussion.

Obviously,

I'm a little worried because I don't know if Jubilee is going to be like all these other stations that cut up clips and cut up the editing process to make you look a little bit more polarizing.

But I've heard, I've heard, I watched one and this lady did say they did that, but for the most part, it seems like it's pretty.

That was like the only time I've heard something of them doing that.

It was like a transgender one or something.

But I mean, we'll see how it goes.

But it was interesting because we were discussing how, like,

it's just nowadays, everybody knows that

everyone takes takes PEDs, even sports, and a lot of different sports.

They just don't talk about it, but the PED use is so prevalent.

So a lot of these guys are still going to try to use these substances.

And I think we, from the entire discussion that was like three hours, we all kind of just came down to the conclusion that like there's not really much we could do but just educate.

So just

whatever they can know so they don't fucking kill themselves or wreck themselves.

become a male version of a girl on her period.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

that's my conclusion, too.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can't, you can't, yeah.

That's the, yeah, that's all you can do for sure.

Yeah.

Only other thing that you could do is separate the spaces for like teens and adults, but you can't.

That's all.

You can't really do that either.

All right.

Last question.

Tom Cole asks, what is your favorite anime?

My favorite of all time would be Naruto.

I know everyone loves.

Yeah, cool, cool.

Everyone loves DBZ, dude.

I haven't watched Dragon Ball Z in forever, to be honest.

I didn't watch

the new Arc, the favorite.

I haven't really watched Super, but Dragon Ball Z was my favorite as a kid.

Now, then I started writing Naruto when I was maybe...

20, 21.

That became my favorite.

Right now, I'm liking a lot of different ones.

I like Solo Leveling.

That was really cool.

Kaiju, number eight.

I really like Promised Neverland, but then the second season kind of fell off really hard.

Yeah, I like a lot of different anime, man.

I've been trying, I haven't watched any a while.

I've been trying to get into the Dan to Dan or something like that on Netflix.

I heard that's good, but I haven't really finished, gotten really into it yet.

One that's not an anime that I just, I'm loving right now is Arcane.

i think arcane is an amazing show like story-wise visually like audio like every sense like it's it's amazing i don't play it's like from this game league of legends i don't play the game oh no bro

you don't play the game no

though so like you might like it even more than me oh

I do especially dude it's it's it's literally amazing like I have a buddy he's he's not into anime at all and I had him watch that he loved it.

I was like, oh, shit, dude.

It's dope.

Damn.

This looks cool.

It's really good, dude.

I was being really productive.

Now you're going to suck me in.

Just watch that one.

It's only going to be two seasons.

And

I think there's going to be like nine episodes total on this second season.

And they dropped the next three on the 16th.

So I think Friday is tomorrow, maybe.

Oh, no, Saturday.

Yeah, it's like maybe it's probably going to be like,

I don't know, maybe like 19 episodes total, something like that.

Okay, cool, cool, cool.

All right, I'm gonna check these out.

Everybody, write this down, all of it.

Arcane, my second favorite, dude, I could my top five go through my top five because people, it's funny when I talk about anime, everyone's always like, What about this?

And what about that?

One?

I watch a lot of fucking anime, so I know most of them, but Hunter X Hunter is up there, Full Men Alchemist, Brotherhood, bro.

I like that,

yeah.

Um,

I like Berserk.

It's fucking depressing.

Like, I've only watched it once.

Yeah, but.

Berserk's on another level, bro.

That's just like a story that everybody needs to read or listen to.

Just everybody needs to, bro.

Seriously.

I don't know about all that, but I mean, maybe.

Maybe.

If you want to be traumatized, for sure, check it out.

Holy smoly.

I think those are some of my favorites for sure.

There's more, but

definitely though.

Oh,

Death Note and Code Geos.

Yeah, yeah.

All good choices.

That's enough.

Enough for now.

I run through the whole list.

Death Note is one of my favorites, too.

All right.

I ask one last question at the end of every podcast, but if you were to disappear from the world tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would it be?

Oh, shit, dude.

Oh, my God.

Yo, honestly, man, I would say,

I don't know, man, be more understanding and be more empathetic, especially now with the election and shit.

I saw the way people were fucking acting, dude.

Like,

just like understand like people aren't doing things that you, nine times out of ten, they're not doing it to like hurt you.

They got their own shit going on.

And it's just, it's not because of you.

It just, it just so, just so happened to you, you know?

Like, so

be a little bit more understanding, be a little bit slower to anger.

That's what I would say.

Yeah.

Be more willing to talk.

Talk it out.

Yeah.

Yeah, bro.

I agree.

I love that.

Thanks for that, man.

That was fucking sick, dude.

Where can everybody find you?

Rough diesel everywhere.

Everything.

Rough diesel.

Rough diesel, baby.

Rough diesel.

Next Olympian champ, potentially.

There we go.

Two-time Mr.

Olympia runner-up.

Two-time Arnold champ.

Oh, I'm fucking up.

I got this.

I don't know if you'll see this in the corner down here that says,

oh, there we go.

I have, I've had this for like three years now.

And number four, I put number four because

when i win it'll be i'll be the fourth mr olympian classic you know it's been danny breon and chris so that's my way of like reminding myself every day you know yeah

that's awesome bro that's so dope well thanks for coming on the podcast man of course of course thanks for having me man it's good to see you man and um shoot hopefully i'll be out in in in cali soon i haven't been there in years but i'll hit you up if i'm if i'm there soon bet bro please do please do.

I want to get a lift with you, that would be savage.

Tristan's been hanging out here, too, and he also goes to the Young Lady gym, so maybe all three of us can hit it.

Some uh, Tristan

I'm with young LA.

They

I'm not cool enough for them to fly me out yet, so

uh,

soon, soon, though.

Yeah,

well,

I'll catch up with you again sometime soon.

Young Lady's not cool enough, or I'm not cool enough for Young Lady to fly me out either, but I'm gonna be sitting around in LA for a while.

So just hit me up whenever, bro, and uh, catch you soon, dude.

All right.

Eager to see you win this.

Peace out.

Yes, sir.