John Jewett: How He Coached The Best Shaun Clarida Ever & PED Use To Maximize Growth
Press play and read along
Transcript
Speaker 1 John Jewett, four-time Open Olympian bodybuilder, registered dietitian, coach, and creator of J3 University, transparent educator, and coach of athletes like Sean Clarita for the 2025 Olympia.
Speaker 2 Two weeks out, he still had some growth remote in. That's what I'm like, let me just pull it out and see how you look.
Speaker 2
Four days later, there was a minuscule drop, but it wasn't anything vast that I was expecting. He didn't really change either way.
It's like, man, was your growth remote legit?
Speaker 2 If you could take one steroid with no side effects, only the benefits, which one would you pick to this limo? It's been some of the wildest stuff I've taken.
Speaker 2 it does everything you're full you feel like a bull strong for my first show i took it i had 300 megs of test and at the end i had just my weight jumped up three pounds and i just looked as conditioned or full i pulled my labs the next day after the show my crp was crazy high my liver enzymes were still six times normal they were close to the 300s i was like damn was that just from four days i usually tell guys add percent total milligram amount on top of what you previously did to probably see a pretty similar effect from the year before with Sean, he was a little heavier before Peak Week, where I found the best look for it.
Speaker 2
It was like this 182-ish mark. And why it came down was because we pulled out: if you experiment, I'm not judging you.
I take all kinds of crazy drugs, run and trend and all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 Well, who am I to say to not take this experimental drug? I'm just putting out the warning. And why? Because people have a discount code and people can make money and they're super profitable.
Speaker 2 I even made a post on the J3U forum with clients that we've ultimately changes made where
Speaker 2 we mutate people, put 20 pounds of stage weight on guys over a year.
Speaker 1 What are your thoughts on the comment Mastron builds less muscle than all the other compounds?
Speaker 1 Before starting this podcast, I just wanted to say that ideating steroids for a full show is not widely accepted because it discounts the real work which is the backbone of this sport.
Speaker 1 And unfortunately, spreads that an unsafe chemical solution is all you need for results. Both of these are antithetical to society's understanding of the sport.
Speaker 1 And while there will always be some that claim that PEDs are all you need, I would like to deliver an honest message of what is required for achieving top performance as well as the dangers associated with this route.
Speaker 1 I received this comment from a user named Night Scarens.
Speaker 1 But just as a rock climber, the athletes undergoing this path in the sport are willing to put their life on the line for their passion. Just the danger between the two sports is different.
Speaker 1 Luckily, we do have safety nets in the sport, such as organ imaging and regular blood work.
Speaker 1 But that doesn't change the high risk one must accept in taking on this competitive lifestyle.
Speaker 1 Congrats on
Speaker 1 huge congrats to you and Sean Clarita showing. And also, as well as your
Speaker 1 last two shows at your Texas Pro and Tampa Pro. You looked fucking huge.
Speaker 2
Thanks, man. I know.
We got a bit to catch up on here. And, well, congrats back to you because I would talk to you.
I know, for your classic physique debut.
Speaker 2 I know how it is, though, man. We both are, we want to win.
Speaker 2 But you brought a very respectable package and you were conditioned, posed great.
Speaker 2 It's like both of us, we just have to go get bigger. Okay.
Speaker 2 No, right? For sure. It's
Speaker 1 a very simple, and I guess it's a, I mean, what better like feedback can you get, right?
Speaker 2
So you can accept that one, right? Like, yeah, hey, you just need some more size. Cool.
That takes time. But if you showed up, you're like, hey, man, you were just fat.
Speaker 2 Like, you could have like worked a little harder or you could have timed your prep better. But oh, that's on me.
Speaker 2 So to know that, you know, you did did everything you needed to gives you some self-satisfaction and I can charge the offseason.
Speaker 1 I think it's that feeling of just knowing that like with all the hard work that we put in, it's like that, that
Speaker 1 like that peak, that look, that hardness, that conditioning, all the stuff that we need to achieve
Speaker 1 was achievable with what effort we put in, you know, and like maybe what calculations we made.
Speaker 1 I think that's a fulfilling feeling to know that like, you know, even if we do gain size, I know that the variables change slightly, but I think, I think
Speaker 1 you know that you can get there regardless.
Speaker 2 It is nice because we see guys, right, like they've never gotten there and it still like seems tricky for them to have to keep figuring that out. So to know, like, you at least have that checked off
Speaker 2
is a nice piece of mind. And then you can now just refine the prep.
And just like for my preps, right? Like.
Speaker 2 realized like, hey, I can do a lot shorter preps and I don't need to like diet for so long anymore and been able to ease the burden of prep too to make them more efficient. So it's nice.
Speaker 2 Nice to get the condition, then you can have a prep to be able to adjust from there.
Speaker 1 What's your plan right now now?
Speaker 1 Now that
Speaker 1 the show's over, I'm assuming like taking on an offseason.
Speaker 2 Yeah, offseason's full throttle right now.
Speaker 2 I planned since I didn't do the Olympia to be able to offseason earlier. And I kind of, my initial plan for this year was to hit Italy and Germany.
Speaker 2
I actually was going to go to Europe and start there just to have the experience. I thought it'd be a lot of fun.
And of course, the idea of it's a lot better than the reality of it.
Speaker 2 And I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1 tell me about it because I want to travel.
Speaker 2 Okay. Oh, so
Speaker 2 once, once you're like getting up to it and you're trying to sort out, all right,
Speaker 2 where should I stay? What's food going to be like? How do I get to the venue or all these aspects around it, right?
Speaker 2
It becomes kind of daunting. Like, I've never been to Europe.
I just went, so we can talk about that. But I'd never been either.
So that was already kind of a hurdle for me.
Speaker 2 And to want to just nail it, right? Like, be able to control all your environment really well,
Speaker 2
it just had me pretty concerned about it. And then it was too, like, it's only two shows there, and that's it.
So I'm like, man, what if I had like, I was so close, so I wanted one more show.
Speaker 2
So I was like, you know what? I'm going to push prep a little more aggressive, and I'll do Tampa. I'll do Texas.
I'll have a real good gauge if I should keep going or not.
Speaker 2 And then I have the chance to do Italy and Germany if I wanted to. Now, like, seeing, like, hey, man, I felt like I really brought something great to Tampa, especially Texas.
Speaker 2 And the feedback was like, man, the guy, it's just the whole year has been super competitive. And now it's like.
Speaker 1 And that show was super competitive too, man. Like, the packages, the new packages that came in were absolutely insane.
Speaker 1 um i mean i don't think i mean it already speaks for himself just how how amazing that chris and jordan were able to peak for those two shows i mean yeah they nailed this jordan the hardest coaching the yeah the definition was was insane
Speaker 2 joe uh palacios man great uh
Speaker 2
i think that was his pro debut if i'm not mistaken I believe so. Justin Compton coaches him.
But man, like mass monster coming out of nowhere, right?
Speaker 1 Yeah, dude.
Speaker 2 dude's fucking massive, bro.
Speaker 2
He's young in it. He's young in it.
So he's like, has a lot of him, him in 2026 will be really exciting to see.
Speaker 2 But anyway, I feel like, man, that look, if I brought that like last year, like that would have been,
Speaker 2
probably could have won some other shows as well. But this year, man, it was like more guys, greater depth, and even.
I think improved physiques as well.
Speaker 2
So anyway, the thing, you know, it comes down to just bring your best look always. And that's the thing that you have to get satisfaction in.
It's like, well, John got worse.
Speaker 2
He didn't even qualify for Olympia. It's like, man, no, like, I was like 240 on stage.
You know, at the Olympia, I was 233. Doubly added stage weight.
I feel like the condition was
Speaker 2
there and still just a better lineup. So you can't really say like your placings determine your success and improvement.
It just has to be like off show to show at your individual self.
Speaker 2 But yeah,
Speaker 2 it would have been tough to probably peak going to you out of the country.
Speaker 1 No, I can understand it now, especially now I had the conversation with Andy and quite a few other people about how important it is to get your surroundings
Speaker 1 very
Speaker 1 similar to, I guess, what you're used to.
Speaker 1 I mean, even like in terms of just going to bed at night, you get better sleep when all the same settings are on, even like the white noise, the level of white noise.
Speaker 1 So, or even the side of the bed that you're sleeping on, right? So,
Speaker 1 being in another country where you don't even know what fucking groceries you're supposed to get for your meal prep.
Speaker 2
So, I went to this world bodybuilding summit. I don't know if you saw it advertised.
It had a bunch of speakers. It was wild.
We had like a thousand Italians there.
Speaker 2
And they handled our arrangements. They did a great job.
They had a lot of hurdles to work on. It was the first one.
Speaker 2 But I flew Italy, which was like, I had one leg of the flight that was like 10 hours overnight. And I have a CPAP, right?
Speaker 2 Like, I got, I didn't get the business class to lay like almost flat, but I got like in between.
Speaker 2
But like, I couldn't sleep at all. I slept like for 24 hours, I didn't sleep because I just can't sleep on a plane.
I got hot. I ended up hitting my CPAP and kept turning it off.
Speaker 2
Like, right, fuck this. I'm just going to stay up.
And I had like my compression socks on, so I didn't get like water retention, but then they're huge compression socks.
Speaker 2 So now I'm like getting hot the whole time. And
Speaker 2 uh then like there was such a language barrier that our driver was supposed to be arranged for us and so we're waiting for him but it ended up we had to call so we were sitting at the airport for like an hour and a half and then we get to our hotel there wasn't a booking and the hotel didn't have ac
Speaker 2 oh my gosh
Speaker 2 there's no ac man in italy like what is going on with this place
Speaker 2 um so it's stuff like that right yeah like if i'm not in prep so it's whatever i can make it work But if I was in prep, like, damn, that would have thrown me off big time.
Speaker 2 Like, in that, to catch up on that sleep, especially being that, that lean, like, oh, that, that could have, you know, diminished a look.
Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Dude, it's hilarious you're saying this because I, I have the blessing of being able to travel with my family for a bit as a child.
Speaker 1 So I was in Europe a lot and I completely forgot about all of this.
Speaker 1 Like, I remember when we would go to Europe, yeah, you'd just go to random hotels that just didn't have air conditioning or didn't have, you know,
Speaker 1 it was kind of hard for you to source water properly or even just like
Speaker 1 dude just like the weirdest conditions or even like not even be able to find like meat in grocery stores nearby it just ended up being just a very
Speaker 1 strange
Speaker 1 thing that like you just get used to this being in another country and having a new perspective of like okay well In America, I can just like run to the grocery store and get everything I need and then I can go home and I'm lucky enough to have AC and all this shit and phone signal signal and all that.
Speaker 1
And then you start competing for shows. And I realize like, we're like princesses.
And I feel like I need to have everything absolutely perfect to make sure that I peek properly.
Speaker 2
So yeah, it's total, totally like first world problems. And I was there with Sean Clarita and he's, he's still prepping.
He's still, he's doing Japan Pro.
Speaker 2 And so for him, this was a big deal because he was staying in the same situation that I had. And he had his wife, his daughter with him in this little room, right?
Speaker 2 That's, you don't think about a lot of the European places you stay are very small. Um, and then also Mike the Badass was there too.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2 I've never met him before, but he he doesn't have like a home location, right? He just travels, he has no like actual homestead, yeah. So he just
Speaker 2
goes all around, man, which is cool. Like that, that's a great idea, I think.
But man, it just wouldn't be for me.
Speaker 2 It'd be so, so hard to to make bodybuilding successful at least at least with my genetics and how i have to nail everything man because i don't i can't slip on things like that and not saying that like mike does but there are issues like i think he got food poisoning when we first got there ate like a bad salad that he would got and traveling and you know stuff like that happens so right
Speaker 1
And that's something I want to get better about, dude, just the level of spontaneity, being able to handle any of those. But I'm still just a passenger princess right now.
So
Speaker 1 I got a little work to do.
Speaker 1 I interrupted you when you were talking about your feedback, though, by the way, which is totally my bad.
Speaker 1 But what did the coach, or not the coaches, but what did the judges say about what they wanted you to bring specifically?
Speaker 2
Yeah, so Bill Silbel, he judged Tampa and Texas. He saw me four times, right, with a week span.
And he said,
Speaker 2 you know, by far, like Texas finals was my best look.
Speaker 2 And I wasn't that comfortable going on stage at that point, actually, because I had been monitoring my look throughout. And
Speaker 2
I would hit a body weight low of like 2.35 in the morning. Then around like 2.37 is like a couple meals and fluid in.
I was like, all right, this is
Speaker 2
the look. And I kind of missed it a little bit in Tampa.
I was like 236 going out there. I was just, I was too, too conservative with fluids in the morning.
Speaker 2 And with like being posing and stuff, I ended up just kind of fading out. But it's, hell, it's still a good look for me.
Speaker 2 And so in Texas, I'm like, all right, I know I need to come fuller because Tyler told me that. He's like, you full is like what we want to see.
Speaker 2 So, you know, for me, I'm like, I still have this 212 thing of like chasing the conditions super hard because,
Speaker 2
but it's still a muscularity show. And I feel like the size weighs a little harder in the open.
So yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 So I'm like, okay, my issue in Tampa was that like I was only doing five meals a day and getting one day out, I was just getting so full, man.
Speaker 2
And, and, uh, with my waist, I'm like, I, there's a, there's a limit here. Like, yeah, you can keep eating, but if you lose your waist, you lose everything.
Like, you lose your entire look.
Speaker 2 So, for Texas, I'm like, all right, I need to feed harder two days out and wake up heavier. So, I was waking up at like 2:37 instead of that 235.
Speaker 2 Okay. And I fed aggressive earlier on.
Speaker 2 And then on Texas, I woke up and I was 2:37 on show day. And on pre-judge, I came up to like 238.
Speaker 2 So moving up, it was good,
Speaker 2
but I kept pushing. I was like, let's see what it looks like.
Because the night before, I was 242. And I had my, my two friends with me, and they're like,
Speaker 2
you still look, you look crazy full of conditions there. But I'm like, but the glute line, you know, it's not as like deep.
And
Speaker 2 I think I kind of lose sight of the big picture sometimes, but I keep in mind, like, again,
Speaker 2
you can hit some shots and pose and it looks great, but you have to be able to do that for an hour and hold your waist in. So, I'm like, full of food all day long.
Like, I can't go on stage at 242.
Speaker 2 Like, I need to keep the waist in check. So, but at finals, it went on like 240, right, right on the dot.
Speaker 2 And that was like Bill came up to me. He's like, Man, what you came with for finals? He's like, That was the best I've seen you out of all the four showings for pre-judge and Tampa.
Speaker 2 He's like, That's what you need to bring. Um, so
Speaker 2 and at least, so coming fuller for one, um, from a long-term development perspective, like Tyler said, he's like, hey, you could use more chest, um, more quad sweep.
Speaker 2
And that was kind of like, oh, it's uh trap, some trap thickness. So like just some size, basically, basically keep building out more of an X-ray, you know? Gotcha.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 It's a little tough for guys like us that I feel like you and I both have longer inserted quads. So we don't quite have like that Urs crazy wild mid-quad sweep, you know?
Speaker 1 And I feel like we have to like almost supercompensate for that by having just bigger quads.
Speaker 2 Yeah, and like big adductors, you kind of you do the uh, what do they call it, like the motorcycle uh stance, right? Yeah, uh, kind of flare your legs out, like Derek Lunsford does it too, right?
Speaker 2 Like, hey, you know, show what you got, like, if that's your advantage, but right, I obviously doesn't like hinder necessarily, but I would say I did have some better quad sweep early when I was younger back in 2016.
Speaker 2 I tore both of my rec femmes in 17 and 18. And man, my quads were just like never the same since then.
Speaker 2 It's like, you know, when you pose and you, you, you like flex your rec femme and it like sinks down, but you keep like your leg will like spread apart when you do that pose. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 Like your vassus lateralis, your quad sweep pushes out and your like rec femme like smashes down.
Speaker 2 Without not that ability to contract my rec femme is good anymore. Like I can't like sweep out the quad, but okay.
Speaker 1 I see what you're saying.
Speaker 2 So, yeah, it was just never quite the same since
Speaker 1 then.
Speaker 1 Um, what did you do to injure your injure that, you know, asking for a friend?
Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, I was doing uh, first time with the Smith Machine split squat and just moving too quick when I was younger and
Speaker 2 shifted too much load onto that back leg. And it was a lot of stretch and a lot of load that I just wasn't ready for.
Speaker 2 And then just pop felt massive. You feel all that muscle shift out of the skin and it turned purple and
Speaker 2 was a pretty, pretty decent one. And the other leg, I did the exact same thing, nearly the exact same exercise, but that one was on a hammer strength.
Speaker 2 It was like that hammer strength trap machine.
Speaker 2 But I was doing a split squat in it. No way.
Speaker 2
Man, I felt so stupid. And both times we're in prep.
I was 12 weeks out and eight weeks out. Oh, no.
Speaker 2 Oh, man.
Speaker 1 Oh, fuck, bro. This is my perfect excuse to not do split squats ever again.
Speaker 2
That's what I needed. Damn.
Okay. Well,
Speaker 1 I'm excited for the package that you're going to bring soon. I've had this conversation pretty often, actually, with
Speaker 1 I even had this conversation with my coach, Patrick Tor and a couple other people about this interesting,
Speaker 1 this interesting conflict between bringing conditioning versus fullness at shows.
Speaker 1 And I've had a lot of people that have, I know quite a few athletes like Logan Franklin, for example, who have been instructed to bring maybe a fuller package by the judges, and then they attempt to do it at the best of their ability, and it doesn't work in their favor,
Speaker 1 or vice versa.
Speaker 1 You know, like, um, I guess, I mean, this is a little bit different of an example, but the only thing that I can think of that's probably a good example of vice versa is Samson trying to shrink down and get the conditioning, but then this also hurts his full package and his most optimal,
Speaker 1 I guess, physique to bring to the stage. So I just find it interesting that we do try to like adjust these to try to bring what they want.
Speaker 1 But man, I feel like the long-term answer is always just like try to build more mass and continue to bring the same level of conditioning.
Speaker 2 It's right. And man, those terms can be misconstrued, I think, when
Speaker 2 for who's saying them and what athlete's taking that, right? Like for some,
Speaker 2
like they see you and they like, and Bill commented on a post I made about flat versus spilled. And he said something that I thought was awesome.
He's like, we can't tell as judges which you are.
Speaker 2 I was like, yes, that's how it should be. He's like, we just see you're soft.
Speaker 2
It could be you're flat. It could be you're spilled over.
He's like, but we'll just tell you you need to get harder. Right.
That's what a good judge should say.
Speaker 2
A judge shouldn't go and say, yeah, you're flat. Because then it might actually not be that.
You might actually just be fat.
Speaker 2 So, you know, that was straight from like Bill Silva, Ivy Broch Edge.
Speaker 2 Like, and so, like, when someone says, like, hey, you need to get fuller, it is, you can fill out the balloon so much, but eventually, you got to upgrade your balloon size, right?
Speaker 2
So, it might just be a muscularity thing, too. Right.
And I think we see that in some guys where they bring the fuller look, but actually, you need
Speaker 2 more muscle added
Speaker 2 because then that full look is just softer.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Well, I think this is
Speaker 1 where it's so
Speaker 1 fascinating to see what you have achieved with sean because this most recent showing was a phenomenal peak bro and i think it's without a doubt probably one of the best seans that we've ever seen so i have to ask you about this but um
Speaker 2 It gives me chills, bro, just talking about it because it was so, it was so meaningful and exciting. Like I,
Speaker 1 yeah, everything was the hardness, the fullness, um, even the, uh, even like the size in certain parts of his body part, or certain parts of his body part that didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 Um, certain parts of his frame versus the year before
Speaker 1 was just so fucking drastic, dude. So, I mean,
Speaker 1 I think this is a good example of a place where we can like analyze, okay, well, how did you guys change and adjust a lot of these variables to, I guess, I don't know, could be a lot of different variables that have like, you know, reducing cortisol or just filling out correctly without him spilling over.
Speaker 1 That just brought him this best package.
Speaker 1 When did you guys start working together? Was it, wasn't it like after the Arnold?
Speaker 2
Yeah, after the Arnold, he came up and wanted me to do his training. Okay.
So up until then, he was following like John Meadows had done his training for a long time and he passed.
Speaker 2
And then Sean just had still those training programs. So he'd been running that for a long time.
And
Speaker 2 I think after the lip of Sean, he's he's like, man, I need someone that can fully take the reins here and probably make sure I'm like pulling every lever, not leaving anything on the table.
Speaker 2 So that was kind of like our start.
Speaker 2 And I think with the training piece, at least,
Speaker 2
for Sean, Sean is one, man, he was a wrestler in high school, like coming up. So.
I don't know if you know anything about wrestlers, but they are probably one of the hardest working athletes
Speaker 2 if taken to a higher level. Like that Sean can work, man,
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 2 to his own demise.
Speaker 2
So it's like he had a problem of like, I worry that I'm not doing enough. And that wasn't the problem at all.
Like, Sean was doing way more than enough.
Speaker 2 So, a lot, a lot of things for me in the programming was pulling back into the volume and also making it his sets more effective. You saw Sean Train, like, he came up and like clanging and banging.
Speaker 2
Like, let's throw some weight and move it. And that works.
And he's built an amazing amazing physique, but he's also 43.
Speaker 2 So it's like, if we can make these tighten him up and make that stimulus more precise, you might not need as many sets and also less wear and tear in your joints.
Speaker 2
So that was a big thing. It's not like, hey, I need to get Sean to train hard or he's already done a ton of great exercises.
It's more just refining, giving him the little cues.
Speaker 2 that get more out of every set. And we end up just pulling volume way, way back for what he really needed.
Speaker 2 And through that, if you're not having to work out as long or for as many sets, like you're not making as much fatigue, like it makes being able to retain tissue on prep a lot easier.
Speaker 1 Did he communicate with you? What made him just like pull that plug and just be like, okay, I need someone new for training? Like, I can't just keep following these programs.
Speaker 2 At that time, no, I didn't really dive too much into it.
Speaker 2 Later on, I understand though, because coming off the last Olympia, man,
Speaker 2 it destroyed him pretty hard. Like he took that really hard because he went from 2000,
Speaker 2
my years at 23, coming in with the really full look. And they're like, hey, your waist is too big.
Like you need to suck it back down. Like 2022 was like one of his best.
So he came back in 24.
Speaker 2
That's when he like really dieted hard. He got really peeled, but man, he probably lost like seven pounds of like stage weight to do it.
He was just, he just kind of got over dieted.
Speaker 2 And that's like Jansen was coaching me at that time. So he,
Speaker 2 people were kind of riding Sean off, which
Speaker 2 is tough, man, because he's still like
Speaker 2
one of the best in the world. Like, absolutely.
And he's not even in the conversation at times, which,
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 2
I won't get in the coaching side. I mean, I can, but like, for some, for someone that's the best in the world, you should have a coach that's like 100% all in on every aspect of your life.
Like,
Speaker 2
like, I would want someone for me. And I know what it takes to like prep myself.
And it's super hands-on. Like it's so consuming.
And so
Speaker 2 I think Sean, like coming off that Olympia, he, he was looking for something that was more than what he was previously getting and to keep refining what he needed.
Speaker 2 And what's awesome about Sean is that he's been doing this so long, man, but he's also so open to learn and change. Like there was, there was no ego or no no dogmatic approach around anything he did.
Speaker 2 Like he's not tied to an exercise or how to do something.
Speaker 2
He just wants to be better. Like that's the focus of his goal.
Everything else doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 I think that gets in a lot of people's way that, like, no, man, I got a deadlift because that's going to build my back. It's like, why don't you just focus on like, what do you need to be the best?
Speaker 2 If I tell you how to do that, like, who cares if it's deadlift or not? Like, that's just a tool. And so Sean had that viewpoint.
Speaker 2 So it was cool working with him because he was so open to do things differently.
Speaker 1 That's something that I recall you mentioning in, I think, your own personal pod that you had regarding y'all's peak
Speaker 1 that I thought was honestly, man, so respectable and so admirable.
Speaker 1 And I don't want to like, I'm not trying to like shoot any shots or anything, but I know it's just been a recent conversation regarding coach and athlete relationships, right? And trust involved.
Speaker 1 But I recall you mentioning that you guys had a situation where I think maybe show day he was like, like, I don't want to eat or drink drink anything
Speaker 1 and you were like sean we know that when you have these two meals in you you look your best we've done it before we have the results you know like trust me on this and he did and
Speaker 2 lo and behold bro so i mean i think that's a very cool thing yeah and you know to
Speaker 2 so so with sean's look right like a lot of that i think was
Speaker 2 creating less fatigue for him throughout his prep to where you actually retain a lot of that tissue tissue and just not die it down.
Speaker 2 And with, you know, when I actually started taking over all aspects about four weeks out from the show, and you know, we had a call with him, his wife was there.
Speaker 2 He's like, well, he usually want to know, like, what are the expectations that I can get from you? Like, he wants to make sure that he's going to have someone that is all in.
Speaker 2
He was like, man, we do this. Like, I'm going to come to your house.
next weekend and we're going to like, I'm going to see you in person. We're going to train.
Speaker 2 Like, I want to see every bit of your life and where I can optimize it.
Speaker 2 And that's where we even started that piece. And so, like, Sean,
Speaker 2 Sean didn't have like
Speaker 2 before that, he was asking me about cardio too. And he's like, hey, should I do the spin bike or should I jump on the stair stepmill for cardio? I'm like, why are you asking me this?
Speaker 2
Like, I'm doing your training. Like, don't you, you know, he's asking me stuff about PDs.
It just seemed like there's a lot of gaps that he didn't have clarity on.
Speaker 2 And so just the communication piece wasn't there for him. But anyway, it was stuff like that of like refining some areas.
Speaker 2 Sean, I was like, hey, you probably heard from the podcast, like he's a bodybuilder, man. So he trains, he does cardio, and he like rests and recovers the rest of the day.
Speaker 2 But it also means he sits around a lot. So it's like, hey, we can get you doing steps and walking and like an easy way to do cardio or
Speaker 2
burn calories. And so like getting him to do that, he's realizing, oh, wow, my legs feel really fresh.
Like, I don't feel like I'm beat to death. Like, I can go through posing rounds.
Speaker 2 so it was a much fresher prep towards that tail end and we were 11 days out and i looked at him and i i was looking back from his past shows uh from 2024 the same time period because i wanted to make sure like that was it was super lean then so i'm like all right that's the standard like i want to make sure he has those condition points and lower back his glutes and hams
Speaker 2
But it was there, but he was like eight pounds bigger. And I'm like, damn.
I was like, I don't think it makes sense to keep dieting. Like, you're there.
Speaker 2 So I just pulled the plug on fat loss for him then
Speaker 2 and started raising food up.
Speaker 2
Wow. It was just a very simple peak.
11 days out.
Speaker 1 You don't happen to know
Speaker 1 in 2024 how far out of show he started filling back out.
Speaker 2 Do you?
Speaker 2 I don't.
Speaker 2 I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know what that exact like peak looked like for that show.
Speaker 2 But what I would say is that like a typical thing with Sean
Speaker 2 was, you know, one day out, you know, diazide goes in, diuretic, water's cut. And on show day, it was very, very little water, if any,
Speaker 2
and very low amounts of food. And that's what Sean, like, Sean wakes up and fasted.
He looks crazy round. It's, it's wild.
It's like, holy hell. So I know for Sean, like, yeah, that actually is flat.
Speaker 2 It just looks full and round still.
Speaker 2 But
Speaker 2 I think it worked for him for a long time because he does have that look.
Speaker 2 But like, what does that look like if we give you some food and fluid? And so that's what I was looking for. And so I flew out.
Speaker 2 We were, I think it was, got there six days out for Vegas and just watched him between every meal and looking his weight usually would go from 180. to 185 like throughout the day.
Speaker 2 And so I was just mapping out like how much food fluid and how much time does it take to where I see his best look.
Speaker 2 And for him, it was like 181 to 182 was like bang on. It was wild.
Speaker 2 Like it looked exploding full
Speaker 2
just as hard. Going up higher still looked really good.
But my concern was kind of the same thing with me. Like the food it takes to get there, like I think the waste was kind of
Speaker 2 going to get limited.
Speaker 2 And if he gets too, too full, his abs get a little washed out. I think more so because you can't contract that waist down small enough to get the ab detail to pop.
Speaker 2 If it's like spreads out, I think that's when people's abs kind of smooth out, right?
Speaker 2 So yeah.
Speaker 1 I also have a genetic disposition to hold a lot of water in the abs as I continue to feed with both sodium and carbohydrates and probably water as well.
Speaker 2 So is that like your first place where you start looking?
Speaker 1 It was always the abs, which is why men's physique was like the worst division for me.
Speaker 2 It's like, damn it, why can't I spill in my my glutes or something, right? No, for real.
Speaker 1
No, that shit stays peeled no matter what. It's annoying.
Well, so it's good now, I guess.
Speaker 2 Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 So yeah, show day. Show day for Sean
Speaker 2 was different because we had about, well, I think it was like 1.1 liters of fluid in before pre-judge. And also like a pretty solid meal.
Speaker 2 They'll look back in the notes, right? It was probably between two meals we had was was like 140 grams of carbs, like 20 grams of fat, and no protein, no protein.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 And so that's what he went out for
Speaker 2
the pre-judge. Nice.
And just came back and basically just try to maintain that in the finals, which,
Speaker 2 man, that I'll say, man, like, people don't know, like, it is tough peaking for the Olympia because one day out for 212 guys at least is wild. Like, there is.
Speaker 2 Yeah, there's meet and greet. There's the press conference, which takes forever, uh, tanning.
Speaker 2 Uh, what else was going on that day? I had some oh,
Speaker 2
you weighed, you got a weigh-in that day, too. So it's just like back and forth all day.
So you think I'm gonna sit in the hotel room and watch Sean the whole time.
Speaker 2 I have to run around, and maybe I don't even get photos most of the day. So a lot of the work had to be done on two days out.
Speaker 2 And the one day out was just like, hey, let me reconfirm.
Speaker 2 Like, I like that visual with a couple meals in, and then make sure I get Sean to the right body weight at night so he doesn't wake up too light or too heavy.
Speaker 2 And that's so anyway, but for
Speaker 2 show day,
Speaker 2 it's also tough because as a coach, like it's so hard to get backstage.
Speaker 2
And for finals, like they, they told those guys to be there at like six, and they weren't on to the very end. It was, I think it was like 11 p.m.
Yeah. So it's like, man, to hold that for that long.
Speaker 2
And I was having Sean like come out to the lobby. We found found some little like weird janitor closet thing with wheelchairs in it that we could like he could strip down and pose in.
So
Speaker 2 like we stayed on it. And I think that's where some guys can probably trail off pretty easy if they're not having someone like on them, on them to like make sure their look's holding.
Speaker 1 Like posing in between meals and things?
Speaker 2 Oh, no, just to make sure enough food fluids going in.
Speaker 2 I think some guys could fade out. You know, I have a lot of guys that came in flat for the show.
Speaker 2 And hey, you have some guy cutting water and you're like, All right, we're gonna be on in like two hours, cool. Then it's three hours, it's like, Oh, should I have somebody to eat a drink?
Speaker 2 Like, is your coach looking at you and making sure you're still good?
Speaker 2 Uh, then does he know you're gonna be posing like forever out there? Um, and you see guys fade, so like with Sean, I'll know, like, hey, over the hour of judging, like, he'll drop like a pound, right?
Speaker 2 So, I know I need him sipping on fluid to be replacing that as we go so he doesn't fade.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 2 You're usually terrified of water and showty.
Speaker 2
I'm still super conservative in my own head about it. Like, well, I don't drink anymore.
I just want to bring the condition. And then you start fading.
Speaker 1 Do you remember how much water exactly before finals?
Speaker 1 Or at least between pre-judging and finals?
Speaker 2 I know right when he came off, I put in like 16 ounces of fluid just to replace like the pound he had dropped.
Speaker 2 Then I told Sean
Speaker 2 to eat a meal, and then I had went back to his normal rate. His normal rate of fluids is 300 mils per meal, per meal, and then 500 mils between each meal.
Speaker 2
And so I'm like, all right, we're going to just go back initially to this and see how you respond. And so I come back to check him for his next meal.
He's like, oh, man, I just woke up.
Speaker 2 Like, all right, man. You didn't drink that fluid, did you?
Speaker 2
He's like, no, no, I was asleep. And I was like, all right.
He was down to like 179. I'm like, oh, shit.
All right.
Speaker 2
I mean, don't get me wrong, it looked pretty cool. He was like super sharp, but just not as full as what he needed to be.
So, all good. I just like went back to that same rate.
Speaker 2
I didn't want to add more in. And I did that once, and it pulled them back up to like 181.
So I'm like, all right, cool. From there, I tapered it back.
And I think I had,
Speaker 2
I think, from that 500 mils, it was probably another 400 mils all the way to 11 p.m. So it didn't need much to hold once he got there because it was like him like laying around backstage.
So
Speaker 2 in the in the total, yeah, it was 1.1. I think we probably, I think we had right at like, I have in my notes, like 2.4 liters total for the day.
Speaker 2 And his consistent intake was 4.5 liters every day. So it was about half of what we normally would do.
Speaker 1 Okay, gotcha. How did you guys decide to not use any diuretics for Sean this show?
Speaker 2 Yeah, easy.
Speaker 2 when I see him wake up he was already a little flat so if I had used a diuretic the day before it's only going to make him worse and flatter right so it's like a bigger hole to fill in right so that's like kind of the the first test that I look at and then if if with Beals and Fluid if he looks better then I'll know right away like I don't need a diuretic there
Speaker 2 it would be enough if I just just pulled from fluid back on show day and just to hold him.
Speaker 2 I think the situation where it would be is like when you have someone where their facet look is pretty close to on,
Speaker 2 and then they need to hold it for like a two-day show. And so, like, man, they're holding it low fluids, and anything starts to start retained.
Speaker 2 You might need the diuretic to keep that moving and keep fluids going in.
Speaker 2 Um, the other situation I use them in is usually triage, it's like just something happened, right? Like crazy flight, someone didn't sleep.
Speaker 2 Um, we need like an immediate movement of water to happen, and I don't don't have the time to just hold fluids and get them moving and pumping up and stuff. So
Speaker 2 it's been pretty rare that I've actually used diuretics anymore.
Speaker 2 Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 Did you use it for your show?
Speaker 1 We experimented with a quarter of hydrochlorodiazide.
Speaker 1 I think it was 6.25.
Speaker 1 with HETZ. And then would that be 12.5 of whatever the other thing is?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Triumph Treen. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 Triangle.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, we did a quarter, I think, around 11.
Speaker 1 No, um, an hour after
Speaker 1 meal one or meal two. And then we did another quarter
Speaker 1 like sometime in the evening, like six-ish or something before the show day. And then show day, we didn't take anything.
Speaker 1 And I feel like that was my most dry and conditioned look I've ever had. And that was my first show.
Speaker 1 The second one, we just did a full, or we just did a half, instead of splitting it into two different quarters, we did
Speaker 1
a half of one of those. And I'm trying to remember when it was.
I think it was just sometime midday.
Speaker 1 For some reason, I felt like the second show was a little bit less calculated. But
Speaker 1 I don't know.
Speaker 1 Sometimes the variables, like, you know, you, I'm sure you've experienced this a lot where it's like, bro, variables happen, and sometimes the body just isn't responding as you expect it to. And
Speaker 1 I've had a lot of people saying, like, oh, like, this was like your best look or whatever.
Speaker 1 But when I personally see my physique from the second show, I'm like, it just looked less defined or less conditioned. But then again, I mean, could that be the lighting?
Speaker 1 Could that be, you know, I was in Florida instead of California. So, I mean, I don't know what I was seeing in the mirror or in the pictures or in the whatever.
Speaker 1 But
Speaker 1
yeah, man, it's there's so many variables. So it's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly.
But I do feel like the diaside, I feel like the diuretics can help a little bit for me since I tend to,
Speaker 1 it's hard for me to get the same detailed look than when I'm flat, but I don't have the pop, you know, like I always have a trade-off.
Speaker 1 Like for more pop, I also, some of my lines start getting less defined, less deep,
Speaker 1 less pronounced.
Speaker 2 So I guess.
Speaker 1 Do you ever deal with those issues with yourself and with clients? And if so, like, how do you kind of choose the perfect middle ground?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 Yes.
Speaker 2 It's a lot easier when you have like
Speaker 2
the very conditioned guy that gets grainy without a problem. Like he's the guy that needs the food fluid and likely the diuretic just makes them worse.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 But the guys that just wake up and they just still look watery. Like it's either if I use it, it's something to trial.
Speaker 2 Like, that's why I like try to get guys ready earlier or at least trial the diuretic, like two weeks out, doing a quarter or a half, see the response and see how they wake up.
Speaker 2
That way, we're not waiting right till what because I've done that. I've done you, I've had coaches do that.
Wait, I'm like, hey, take this diuretic. Like, we weren't even taking this before.
Speaker 2 A lot of times it's been okay, but sometimes it hasn't.
Speaker 2 So, if I can at least trial it and see if, hey, if the look is better, and then we can have some food and fluid a little bit go in on show day and the trial, I'd be like, all right, we at least have some framework here to go off of.
Speaker 2 But yeah, I think that is the approach. It's like you said earlier, it's just being in your best version to stage and and especially for classic like
Speaker 2 you can't skip on the condition in classic like you know you you you lean you have to lean harder into it so that that drier look might need to be there and you're you sacrifice the fullness side a little bit um i think the issue too is like making sure you have time to come back to life once that goes in But yeah, like you said, it's with the timing of shows and the variability, like it's a lot easier to miss it sometimes with the diuretic once it does go in.
Speaker 2 So I try to do it without it because with someone guy that needs to pull some water, I could just do that one day out and taper down some water to where they are going to and keep feeding them is the thing.
Speaker 2 And a lot of times that can do enough to accomplish it. But I really think you kind of need to go through a peek with the coach.
Speaker 2 try all the least variable manipulation, put them on stage, and then layer in complexity from there.
Speaker 2 Because if you start with all of it, right, like we'll use the diuretic, we'll do some water manipulation, we'll do loading like this.
Speaker 2 It sounds like, damn, like, what should I adjust next time? Versus if I just have a couple variables, then we build upon that peak and refine it for the next time.
Speaker 2 We actually will be able to say, like, okay, this does this, and that does that.
Speaker 2 So that's at least how I'll start with guys.
Speaker 2 Then, leading to using, like,
Speaker 2 if we need diuretics or pull someone down a little bit more,
Speaker 2 um, I do.
Speaker 2 Oh, I'll say, like, I mean, I don't want to say that. Uh, James Holling said that said it really good.
Speaker 2 There's like, you know, you get, they have Caucasian dry, or uh, you know, you know, what do you, what do you say?
Speaker 2 Black and round or something? I don't know.
Speaker 2 I don't know.
Speaker 1 I know what you're talking about. I don't remember exactly what it is.
Speaker 2 Whatever. I mean, it seems like there's like, there's, there are, there are the black guys that like stay super round, right? And fully don't have that like hard condition.
Speaker 2 And those are the guys that they can sacrifice a lot of that fullness and come in harder by using diuretics or cutting water or doing more manipulation in that way.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 2 But we see like the
Speaker 2 anomalies in that too, right? Like a William Bonnick
Speaker 2
held a Sean Clarita. Probably, I don't know Tonio.
his protocol, but he seems like he's a very conditioned guy, like all the time. So it likely he's not the guy that needs a lot of manipulation.
Speaker 2 The guy that I do see it would be like an Akeem, Akeem Williams, right?
Speaker 2 So, yeah, I think like there's, there's a spectrum of an approach you need to be able to use as a coach.
Speaker 2 And it's not like John only puts water on show days and does use diuretics. It's like, no, it's like you just have to work in the spectrum to bring the best look.
Speaker 2
That's like a diuretic and cutting water. Like, that's what you do.
But I try not to go there first, right?
Speaker 1 Well, I think it shows that you have such a really good eye that you were able to just see Sean.
Speaker 1 And when he woke up, you know, it was like a little bit flat already, and you understand, kind of like how I feel like Chris Tuttle does it whenever he discusses how he peaks people.
Speaker 1 That, all right, well, if we're going to add this diuretic in, then you're going to be more flat, and that's not going to be the look that we're going for, et cetera, whatever.
Speaker 1 Like, you guys have this familiarity with what you're going for with this client. And on top of that, obviously, you guys are
Speaker 1 logging data in metrics such as like their weight after each meal or their weight after how many fluids and all these things, which I do know a lot of coaches don't do.
Speaker 1 So, something I've been a fan of that coaches have been doing in the last few years is the whole weight logging and
Speaker 1 kind of just making sure that you get to that weight.
Speaker 2 Man, I don't know how I could remember otherwise, like,
Speaker 2 just not just weights, but like the visuals, right? Like, to compare someone across like seven days, look back and to really, really look.
Speaker 2
Like if someone is that, has that type of memory retention, like, wow, like, I'm sure there are people out there. I don't.
So
Speaker 2 I need those things to make sure like I'm analytical and meticulous with it. I don't miss the mark.
Speaker 2 But don't get me wrong, like
Speaker 2 I, there's moments in the fly, like with Sean in finals that we're jumping in the closet.
Speaker 2 We're looking at him and we're like, all right, this is, I'm having body parts that pop out that I know to look for that fade, and I can know these on, but all the other things kind of like corroborate the story for me, right?
Speaker 2 Like, I have like the visuals, the weight, and everything to look at. It's like gives me a little bit more guidance.
Speaker 2 But I'll tell you how many times, like, someone's at a show, you're coaching them online, they send you some whack photos of like
Speaker 2
you know, light behind them, and they're like shadow. Just that's me, just a silhouette.
You're like, well,
Speaker 2 the silhouette looks really good
Speaker 2 and so it's like if i if i had them get on a scale and be like all right i like someone at 180 pounds is not going to vary that much their look at from 180 pounds yeah um and i'll i'll speak to when they do but if i know they're around there like okay we're we're good even with these shitty photos i have to go off of uh the the thing with weights you had you got to account for is like what can throw off weight So you can't just take it as like the end-all be-all.
Speaker 2 Because with Sean, like he was a little heavier before peak week, where I found the best look for him, right? It was like this 182-ish mark.
Speaker 2
And why it came down was because, hey, we, we pulled out veggies. Uh, probably some inflammation dropped off.
And then having some carbs out, he does have a little bit more glycogen filling in.
Speaker 2 So there's a weight exchange that happens where he looks better at his, at a, either a lighter body weight, or you could look better at the same body weight too.
Speaker 2 So, but once you have those variables set and you did it early enough in peak week, it's a little bit more predictable from there.
Speaker 1 Did you guys ever drop off anything else, even at even a percentage, just such as like, I don't know, testosterone other injectables or GH or anything like that at any point?
Speaker 2 Yeah, man, there was some interesting stuff with that. At least Sean came to me when he was four weeks out and he had a pre-set protocol, right? So
Speaker 2 there was things that I wanted to do that I would have done more so if I had more time. uh because
Speaker 2 when he first started asking about pds he's like man my joints are killing me it's all like, well, he's like, I think it might be this masturbat I'm running.
Speaker 2 Like, all right, well, let me see everything you're doing. And it had like
Speaker 2 two different, he had a Nolbidex in, he had a Rimidex in, like, taken together, right? So I'm like, all right, not a lot of testosterone either.
Speaker 2
So I'm like, okay, you probably have like no estrogen in your body. And it's probably not the mastron.
It's more so these. you know, estrogen blockers or rum taste inhibitors.
Speaker 2 So let's like just cut that back in half to start.
Speaker 2 It's like I don't want to pull a plug on him. And then like
Speaker 2 his like
Speaker 2 water shifts up. I'm like, oh, damn, I should have like, let me just do a little mild thing here.
Speaker 2 And that gave some like positive, subjective feedback for him. Like, he started feeling better.
Speaker 2
And there wasn't a ton of pull labs. Like, I don't know, people are like, whoa, just check your labs.
Like, man, it could take like a couple of weeks. And then we're already coming to PG.
So, anyway.
Speaker 2 So that was one thing.
Speaker 2 Then I believe it was two weeks out. He still had some growth hormone in.
Speaker 2 And that's when I'm like, let me just pull it out and see how you look.
Speaker 2
So I dropped that. And like four days later, there was like a minuscule drop, but it wasn't anything vast that I was expecting.
Like he didn't really, didn't really change either way.
Speaker 2
It's like, man, was your growth hormone legit? It was. I know it was.
It was like farm grade stuff. So
Speaker 2
making that adjustment, it didn't really impact anything. So I just left it.
out.
Speaker 1 Like his weight, his weight didn't change at all.
Speaker 2 It did come down. It just stayed relatively the same.
Speaker 1 Holy shit.
Speaker 2
So, yeah, when I, when I dropped his growth remote, there just wasn't a drop in weight or, or anything. So it just wasn't impacted.
So I just left it out. Okay.
Like one less thing to worry about.
Speaker 2 The testosterone piece, though, when we were 11 days out, like he was running test prop. So I know I could make an adjustment quick if I wanted to.
Speaker 2 But 11 days out, like I mentioned, he looked solid, man. Like he he looked like
Speaker 2
we could do this thing and go on stage. So I just left it in.
And I did stop. It was five days out.
Speaker 2 I just pulled the plug on the ejections just to limit localized inflammation or the random terrible shot that could happen, but
Speaker 2 not dropping it from the need of getting the drier, harder look or anything.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 2 Then,
Speaker 2 yeah, we tapered some Clint Butoler down a little bit.
Speaker 2 But until like one day out, he still had a little bit in place, just kind of gradually bringing it down.
Speaker 2 In retrospect, like looking back, I would have lowered that faster just because I end up, Sean kind of ramped up on me in peak week to where he went from a diet, he was dieting on 150 grams of carbs as lowest.
Speaker 2 And then one day out, he was up to 630 grams of carbs. And remember, he's 180 pounds, which I was not expecting to have to put that much food in.
Speaker 2 I was thinking like, all right, Sean, we might come up to 300 grams of carbs and that's, he's going to be able to maintain that and just ride that into the show.
Speaker 1 And just wasn't filling out enough each day.
Speaker 2 No, every day he'd be like, start to pull down or be the same body weight. Or during the day, his weight wouldn't start moving up.
Speaker 2 So I'm like, all right, he's just starting to like get really efficient here with this. And stuff happens, right? Like one day out,
Speaker 2
he's walking all over the place. He was super active and stimulated, too.
Like, you know, you sit on a press conference, like all the couches up there with TVs on you or whatever.
Speaker 2 Uh, it's stressful, it makes you burn calories. So, uh, yeah, it just like had a really high output on one day out, so it had to really catch up.
Speaker 2 So, I would have probably pulled back on the Clin just because I would have been able to put less food in, but again,
Speaker 2 I was just working with where we were at for our start point for our peak.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 1 If you feel like any of the medications that we spoke about today may benefit you, such as BPC-157, GH acreagogs such as tessamirellin, IGF-1, Oxandrolon Troche, semaglutide, then you can obtain these from Transcend HRT, and the link for that will be in the bio.
Speaker 1 If you feel like you're experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, such as depression, anxiety, lack of motivation, as well as lack of sex drive, then you can get this checked out as well by getting your blood work done at Transcend, and they will provide you expert medical analysis.
Speaker 1 Transcend HRT has worked with many professional bodybuilders and pro athletes, such as Thor Bjornsson, Phil Heath, and Jeremy Bundia.
Speaker 1 And if you feel like this podcast has any relevancy to you, I do believe that this clinic will provide of great benefit to you as well.
Speaker 1 I know that this is kind of a tough question, I feel like, to answer since there's so much generic variance, but
Speaker 1 do you ever have you ever found it almost more beneficial
Speaker 2 to
Speaker 1 say, hypothetically, leave in
Speaker 1 testosterone and GH rather than leverage more food and carbs going up to the show.
Speaker 2 I mean, I could at least speak for myself. Like,
Speaker 2 I leave all that stuff in for me because I would totally fade away
Speaker 2 if I didn't like that. It only brings fullness for me.
Speaker 2 We talked about this before.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2 for what I need for Eopen, right? Like, obviously, if I was doing some other division, that would be adjusted to be harder.
Speaker 2 But
Speaker 2 for me, yeah, like, I don't think,
Speaker 2
I don't think I could lower it, offset it just with food either. I don't think it would be a better look.
Like, I think with food and that, I'm still so much fuller.
Speaker 2 But also leaving in, like, I probably don't have to put in as much food, it would say.
Speaker 2 Like I was saying, I don't think it's this even trade-off.
Speaker 2 Because that like that water pool and the muscle, it's not separate. Like you don't have a glycogen pool that holds your water, right?
Speaker 2 And then there's other pool of water that, like, growth hormone is storing, right? It's like the whole thing is like water and holding, right?
Speaker 2 So, you can't just like compartmentalize, like, well, I'll fill out glycogen more to make up for this water loss here. It's like affecting all in one.
Speaker 2 And there's only so much you can push that before you're either like right spilling over or flattening out.
Speaker 2 Um, so there probably is some balance, though, of like like modulating test or growth hormone and adjusting carbs.
Speaker 2 My approach is like on peak week, I like the least amount of variables I have to adjust as possible.
Speaker 2 I've heard some guys have the idea of like, well, I'll weigh in that I'll do like, I don't know if anyone does this, like some big growth hormone shot to like hold some water overnight.
Speaker 2 Like I've, yeah.
Speaker 2 Have you ever heard anyone do this?
Speaker 1 No, but I was honestly just thinking about that as you were, as we were having this conversation.
Speaker 2 like what if someone tried to leverage growth hormone in addition to the additional carbs like right before show i don't know and and then the same thing goes with like anadrail like of like doing like the anadrol load right um i just a lot of times i just see that with carbohydrate alone does everything i need it to to fill out someone
Speaker 2 i think a lot of people that haven't been in it long enough just think like just get as full as possible and you won't it's all good but it's like no you you really don't need that much much food to get full for most people.
Speaker 2 That's done, at least how I would do it. I know there's people out there that load like, fuck, like 1,500 grams of carbs one day.
Speaker 2 I think there's a different approach I would take there. Like, it looks like they're digging a hole in the beginning of peak week to have to fill it back in heavier later on.
Speaker 2 So, yeah, it like I would do that different and not have to put in that much food. But most of the time, I think it doesn't take a lot of carbs to get someone that full.
Speaker 2 And so, I'd rather go into into peak week. Like, I have like tests set and growth remote set.
Speaker 2 I know that it's already adjusted for the condition and hardness I need than I just be able to toggle carbs. Makes it really simple, right?
Speaker 2 Yeah, brother versus like, well, I'm going to toggle carbs, then I'm going to bring growth remote in andadroll. And it's like, well, they did backfires.
Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 I think, I mean, that's one of the things I liked about your approach the most, too, is there's just way too many variables in the past that were thrown in that make everything way too confusing for you to be able to like do the same thing every time and make sure that you peak right every time.
Speaker 2 So, and um, I'm about to it's cool, like I, my peak process isn't that like exciting, I guess, but I did like when I worked with Janssen, the first peaks I did, I'm like, all right, we're gonna do a real peak, and it was more complicated, and I didn't really understand it.
Speaker 2 Like, what, why would you do things at certain times? And
Speaker 2 what are you looking for to know to do that? And then we're seeing this response, like, what does that mean for what just happened?
Speaker 2
And I had had asked Matt these things, and I think Matt had a good eye and just kind of knew what to do. But I also think it still was a bit protocol based.
And a lot of times it just worked out well.
Speaker 2 Yeah. Um, for certain, for certain people, but I had a hard time like
Speaker 2 trying to use an approach like that because I just could never
Speaker 2 really understand.
Speaker 2 like when to put that in a certain way and then what do i look for off these things because there's just so many moving parts.
Speaker 2 It seemed like, and now speaking outside of Janssen, just when I see approaches like that, it looks like I can tell it looks like an approach that was given to another person, an athlete, and they coach people.
Speaker 2 And now that's just getting passed down and down and down to where you don't really know why you're doing it. It is literally the cookie cutter approach.
Speaker 1 I'm almost 100% sure that's exactly what it is. Does that work really well for an athlete or whatever?
Speaker 1 And a guy, just a coach, decided to continue using that and then it got passed down and maybe adjusted slightly, you know, here and there.
Speaker 1 But I mean, honestly, there are just way too many variables for you to properly, like, really pinpoint what's affecting what. And everyone reacts so differently to each substance, man.
Speaker 1 So, and just even like everyone has different body parts that will, you know, lose their pop first or, you know, spill over first or something, or whatever.
Speaker 1 So, it's like each of these things I think really need to be analyzed prior to a peak, prior to an actual show for someone to really hit it properly.
Speaker 1 I'm about to have a pod with
Speaker 1 I'm about to have a pod with Martin. And so I'm really excited to ask him too about his last two peaks considering just fucking how awesome his package was at both Olympia and Prague.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's fucking insane.
Prague, you looked wild. What a cool package.
Speaker 1 No, for real.
Speaker 1 So, I mean, just responding to what you were discussing about.
Speaker 1 A lot of people just like trying to drop down really hard and then trying to almost try to make up for it in the last few days.
Speaker 1 I'm very curious what he did because I know that him and Stefan added cardio in throughout prep, which was like a you know a big thing for him since he didn't really do any cardio in the past.
Speaker 1 But I'm curious now how he filled out properly because I know there's a lot of open bodybuilders that have problems filling out properly if they do things like that, such as Samson.
Speaker 2 So, yeah, that'd be interesting. I know Stefan he kind of uses an approach like that and loads guys pretty hard towards the end.
Speaker 2 Um, I don't, I've never worked with him, I just know what like what he was kind of doing with Sean and what I've heard.
Speaker 2
So let's see if what he did with Martin. But Martin seems pretty unique in that he can put it in a lot of food and he diets a lot of food.
So
Speaker 2 I think Martin's a different case with
Speaker 2 like you look at the Samson dieting down versus the Martin dieting down. I feel like Martin dieting down was just him coming in like flatter, depleted, but super hard.
Speaker 2 I think the Samson thing happened so far out that it was like muscle tissue loss, right?
Speaker 2 So like Martin could fill out and come back to Proc and just be rock hard and full. The Samson thing, we saw Fuller, but I don't think we see like the aspect that Martin can achieve.
Speaker 2 Like, there's still like tissue that needs to be added back on.
Speaker 1 That's tough for Samson, man, because I'm just like wondering, is it a genetic thing for him that he just can't really acquire the same amount of detail?
Speaker 1 Or what, like, why is it so tough for him to get to that same level of almost like dryness and detail without losing tissue?
Speaker 2 It's tough.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Kind of like you said, though, like, you know, the black and pop versus the, the white and what is it?
Speaker 2 Whatever the fuck you said.
Speaker 2
Again, we will always throw James under the bus for this and say that first, that's like Caucasian dry or black and round. I think it's what I said.
Caucasian dry.
Speaker 2 So
Speaker 2 dude.
Speaker 1 Well, I think I'm a little bit more like Martin in terms of
Speaker 1 that he
Speaker 1 finds that he gets a little bit more watery watery if his sodium doesn't go down with his water, or if his sodium almost goes up as his water goes down.
Speaker 1 I feel like I find my physique will get more watery if I'm not adjusting my sodium at least downwards somewhat as my water goes down. So, um,
Speaker 1 probably obviously just sodium retention, right? But, um, what did you do with sodium with Sean?
Speaker 1 I'm assuming you kept it like constant in the beginning, but if you dropped it down two, or if you adjusted it at the end, how did you guys adjust it
Speaker 2 with Sean? Since we didn't really have to go do anything radical,
Speaker 2
I kept it pretty consistent. It wasn't, didn't need to make a big change there.
So he was doing, I just do, I measure off volume first for salt. So a quarter teaspoon of salt with every meal.
Speaker 1 How much is a quarter teaspoon of salt in
Speaker 2 500 milligrams of sodium?
Speaker 1 500 grams of sodium. Okay.
Speaker 1 And I weigh all my sodium on a fucking
Speaker 2 a drug skill yeah line it line it out here we go buddy let's get it
Speaker 2 yeah totally get doing it that approach um
Speaker 2 yeah i think it's uh measure as accurately as you need to for the results right so if you need if you need to get down to that measure it like you you definitely won't miss the mark that way i think like tuttle right he does I think he does salt cranks is what he said.
Speaker 2 Does he really
Speaker 2 do five cranks on the salt shaker? I get so nervous nervous doing that, bro.
Speaker 2 I was like nervous. I was honestly like, Chris, like, I, I, there's one salt shaker where you can, like,
Speaker 2 crank it. Or, you know, are they just doing like teeth tick? Or I guess it's consistent, whatever they do, maybe.
Speaker 2 Um,
Speaker 2
I don't know. Anyway, yeah, so I, I'll just do like teaspoons.
Is that all?
Speaker 2
I'll do that. So anyway, uh, yeah, we had it to standardize.
And
Speaker 2
Sean, with his meals, he was doing just like, uh, his normal condiments is what I said. Hey, just your normal condiments.
We don't need to like weigh these things out. Just be consistent.
Speaker 2
So he had some intrinsic sodium that was just already there. And then the teaspoon is what I was just measuring out with them.
And how many meals? A day? It was five or six.
Speaker 2 We moved to six.
Speaker 2 So we moved to six meals. So when did you move to Rex?
Speaker 2
That was five days out. Okay.
Gotcha. So we got out to Vegas.
I'm like, hey, I want to do like some smaller meals. Make sure I get twos in before pre-judge.
Speaker 2 It also allows me to assess you a couple times before.
Speaker 2 I've messed that up for Tampa for myself. We had one big meal, and then I went out and it was like, I should have had two small meals.
Speaker 1 So, anyway, that's the thing that I don't like when coaches will add like a random muffin or something, or a random, like, I don't know.
Speaker 1 I don't really like the burger and fries approach just because it's a little less calculated and like you don't know what the hell they're getting from what restaurant.
Speaker 2 Yeah,
Speaker 2 yeah, the five guys in a die design. That's like the good old,
Speaker 2 good old
Speaker 2 cookie cutter approach now then in the morning you have pancakes um like why don't i get full it's like oh yeah you forgot water um no but
Speaker 2 but yeah like i i'm pretty rare i use i would use something like that it's i feel like that's the triage moment of like someone was like flat on stage and they put in diuretics and you're like oh we need some big hit of sodium but i still rather i still rather control it like what are you getting out of the burger like what are you trying to get out of that like just a bunch of sodium like there's fat there's carbs It'd be nice to even at least know it just for the future.
Speaker 1 Like, you have next show, and you're like, oh shit, if this problem happens again, now I know this amount of sodium and this amount of whatever.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Versus no clue what I'm getting for five guys.
Speaker 2 You've got five guys
Speaker 2
smashes. Right.
I know.
Speaker 2 So, anyway, with Sean, though, like,
Speaker 2 yeah, like, I didn't have to do some like
Speaker 2
radical water pull. Or our carbs were consistent on show day.
Like, we saw that one day out to where I needed to start adjusting sodium down to make sure he kept like expelling water.
Speaker 2 Um, or we didn't even do
Speaker 2
like a big sodium bump before he really went out. I was just a normal amount of sodium before.
So
Speaker 2 we, he had had like some like backstage, he had brought up to me. Like, he's like, I've been told to like have all kinds of shit backstage, right?
Speaker 2 Before it's stuff is too voluminous, it's a problem, or too much fluid, it's a problem. So I just had him doing like some rice krispy treats like with meals is what I started adding in.
Speaker 2 So we had already had these things.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2 also
Speaker 2
I got him on the raisin kick going too. So I had like some raisins that we were putting in meals just to make it condensed carbohydrate meals.
Like that was a big thing for him.
Speaker 2 Like, I don't want to eat 500 grams of rice if let's do 250 grams and I can add in like a rice krispie treat or some raisins and make it like condensed. But anyway,
Speaker 2 yeah, backstage, we had like a rice krispie treat and then a honey packet, which we got these like 12 gram honey packets. So measure, like tear it, rip it out and go.
Speaker 2 And then just had a quarter teaspoon of salt like with that little concoction and started pumping up and did his deal.
Speaker 2
And then I told him like every round when you come back, just take a rip of one of those honey packets just to keep it and some sips of water. Yeah.
Just to keep some carbs and water going in.
Speaker 1 The honey packet is a secret, bro. That shit hits different.
Speaker 1
Especially when you get out there and pose on stage, like as long as you don't do too many honey packets and then start sweating your ass off. Yeah.
God, that shit's fire.
Speaker 2 Yeah, you don't want the sugar sweats, right? And I think, I mean, I've seen, you've probably seen some crazy shit people eat backstage, right? To go before they go out.
Speaker 1 I feel like these days, I've seen, these days it's been more constant. These days, I just see a lot of like
Speaker 1 there's rice cakes, some almond butter, there's candy, there's honey.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Both I and my Matt Grego had honey at the last show, and I actually thought that. I thought he stole my honey for a second because my honey went missing.
Speaker 2 I got so upset, bro.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I think
Speaker 2 the bad ones to do would be like,
Speaker 2 not bad, but like, I think people use like jelly or jams, which has a little bit more fructose in it, which has to go to liver first. And if you need this immediate thing, we want glucose.
Speaker 2 So honey wouldn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2
Fats don't make a lot of sense if you're that close to stage. Right.
Yeah. Probably just sitting around.
Speaker 2 So we want some of that conveniently be absorbed in the mouth, which like your honey absolutely could.
Speaker 1 So I'd say the only time I hear about almond butter is like in between like pre-judging and finals, like the bringing with them backstage or bringing with them to the show just to have on hand in case they need it.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Absolutely.
You can see that.
Speaker 2
But yeah, anything like that's like I'm seeing candy bars and stuff. And I don't know.
I feel like that's just going to be a little slower to get into the system. And
Speaker 2 also, man, if man, if you're like that close to stage and you're not full enough, I don't think you're going to be able to really recap that by much.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 1 I'll find myself being like during the pump up too.
Speaker 1 It's almost like if you feel like you're just not full enough and you're trying to make up through the pump up, like it almost exhilarates your heart rate and then makes it tough to like go on stage properly.
Speaker 2 Yeah, it's
Speaker 2 it
Speaker 2
that's why I have guys practice the pump up one day out. A few years.
I like that.
Speaker 1 No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 That's dope though.
Speaker 2 Sean did. Sean didn't like that.
Speaker 2 Because
Speaker 2
it was like, it wasn't going to go full blown. Like he's like, when I'm backstage, like I'm in my zone.
I know the level I want to pump to.
Speaker 2
So like it didn't quite go there when we were one day out for what he was expecting. And it kind of got into his head head a bit.
Like, I didn't feel how I need to going on stage.
Speaker 2
I'm like, that's all right. Just for me to assess the look, too, of like, I knew this much food fluid was in.
We kind of had to do a practice pump up and we could see like how it looks.
Speaker 2 We might need more, we might need less. So, but anyway, I do that with almost everyone I coach, just so, more so from a stress reduction point of you know what to do when you go backstage.
Speaker 2
I've had experiences where I go back there and it's just like winging it, man. Like, I don't know.
Like, I'm just, what do I pump up? I'm not given a pump up routine by a coach.
Speaker 2 I've never really gone that before.
Speaker 2 So I'll have people like, if you're a feet, a bikini, you're wellness, like get in your heels. You're going to put, you know, bands on your heels.
Speaker 2
You're going to pump up glutes just like you would backstage. Like, you need to experience that before you do it backstage.
So you know exactly what to do. You don't have to think.
Speaker 2 And then we could time it of like, all right, you're going to do this at this point. And you hold that pump for this long and could give just some rough estimates, right?
Speaker 2 Like nothing's like being backstage, but
Speaker 2 yeah, just do a do a practice pump up.
Speaker 1 How long do you pump up before stage? When do you start?
Speaker 2 Yeah, you usually, well, it depends on the on the show, but usually when
Speaker 2 for like these pro shows,
Speaker 2 right when they're doing the final call out for the division before me is when I'll when I'll start because it doesn't it doesn't take much.
Speaker 2
And like you said, man, I can't go out there full-blown, like a workout pump. Like, that's not realistic.
Like, it wouldn't be able to last for anything or get into my poses being that pump.
Speaker 2
So, it just like if I have 10 minutes, that's all I need. They just kind of keep moving as I go out there.
And then, as I pose, like, that's enough to hold it for me. So, okay.
Speaker 2
Okay. Cool.
Do you do more than that for your shows?
Speaker 1
I'll aim. Recently, I've been aiming for more like 20 minutes just because I think it takes me a while.
And, like,
Speaker 1 i don't know if i'm doing too much or if i or what but it you know i also i also have to like meditate to calm my heart rate so i take enough time in between pumps to just relax and try to bring my heart rate back down because it's already kind of elevated from just anticipating going on stage so
Speaker 1 um yeah i just try to give myself more time because i feel like making my mental making my mind state like bored almost helps if that makes any sense you know like going backstage 30 minutes early and putting my feet up and then just relaxing
Speaker 2 totally get that and i think that's part of like hey do the practice pump up you kind of know what you got to do but at least you can time it out to know like all right i can calm myself down and pump up for what's realistic for posing
Speaker 2 so i can pump up one day out run through some poses and be like all right i can I can hold this and sustain it.
Speaker 2 I think the issue, though, with that is that if you do do some manipulations
Speaker 2 one day to show day, you might not get that same type of pump sensation.
Speaker 2 So just something to
Speaker 2 be considered of and don't get in your head about. But
Speaker 2
yeah, everything, everything on, like, I can do it kind of last minute. I like that.
I like, I don't like sitting backstage.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I've had a lot of pro shows where I walk back and it's like, all right, we're lining up. And I'm like, strip down, pump up, let's go.
Speaker 2 Nice.
Speaker 1 Is there any amount of sets or reps that you go for or that you have your clients kind of aim for?
Speaker 2 As a, as a base, just to start, I'll usually pick three or four exercises that'll cover the body parts that they really need and then generally do 12 reps of each, kind of in a circuit.
Speaker 2 And then tell them, like, hey, take three minutes and just relax. And usually by three or four rounds of that, they're they're good to go.
Speaker 2 I'm kind of usually like for myself, like I'm like three rounds of that. And I'm really solid.
Speaker 2 So I'll do like, and I'll have a band and that's all, just because usually that's what might be backstage or be people's way. So
Speaker 2 usually it's a combo of like push-ups, like some dumbbell, like not dumbbell, band laterals, maybe a bicep curl, then like a band pull apart for rear delts.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 2 So and then that anything for like lats?
Speaker 2
I don't, nothing for lats. I haven't pumped lats for myself.
Now I have for other guys that really need that, but at least for me, like mine's like chest, delt, tricep.
Speaker 2 When I have that pumped, is when I look more gnarly. So okay.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Makes sense to adjust per person, also.
Speaker 1 Um, okay, so uh, reeling back to the sodium, so
Speaker 1 for Clarita, uh, the sodium you would say stayed around maybe three grams each day, even Thursday, Friday, like the two days before the show. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Just about the same. Okay.
We kept it consistent of like the direct salt adder, right? Like it was higher than that.
Speaker 2 I would, I would say it's probably closer to like the five gram mark of what with the intrinsic amount that was coming from his like his foods and also his condiments.
Speaker 2 But the sodium that I could manipulate, yeah, that would have been still around three grams of direct sodium.
Speaker 1 But you guys eliminated the condiments too, right? Like a certain amount of days out?
Speaker 2 No, I left them in.
Speaker 1 Oh, I thought you said, okay, that was my mistake. For some reason, I thought you said, um,
Speaker 1 I thought you had him remove the condiments earlier.
Speaker 2 Just kept, just kept him consistent because it,
Speaker 2 even like weigh and stuff like that, like, uh, we had that in, like, no protein on show day, but even for one day out, yeah, we still had some in because he asked about it, like, what do you think, Sean?
Speaker 2
Like, we have this stuff, like, should I take my pre-workouts? He's like, like, dude, you look, you bang on, man. Like, I don't think we need to.
Like, if
Speaker 2 there was a standout of, like, Sean, you don't look right. Like 11 days out when I first saw him, why are you still like not getting hard?
Speaker 2 Like, yeah, I would pull through all those things and maybe just drop them all out, just be safe. But for him, and being an experienced guy that has done this for a while, I wasn't concerned with it.
Speaker 2 So I left him in. Now, I don't,
Speaker 2 don't take this from me, who's listening and be like, John said,
Speaker 2
you can have way in your sugar-free stuff or whatever. I didn't say that.
It's like person-dependent. For a lot of clients, if it doesn't add to the physique, I just drop it on peak week.
Speaker 2 It's another variable you don't need, right? So
Speaker 2
cut your veggies out earlier. That's one thing you could do.
Cut out your sugar-free crap and your like your condiments and replace it just with salt just to be a steady, consistent intake.
Speaker 2
That way you'll have a lot less variables to worry about. Gotcha.
Okay.
Speaker 1 Is there anyone that you have worked with where like you do have to adjust sodium before the show?
Speaker 2 Nothing that's been drastic.
Speaker 2 Yeah, it's usually
Speaker 2 like titrating up and down with their carb intake. You know, it's like the larger meals will have more sodium to them, but as they come down, usually it drops.
Speaker 2
I've never done anything really radical with sodium. I've done like harder water cuts, but usually I leave sodium intact for it.
And I have a need to make further drops.
Speaker 2
So I feel like dropping that, I think dropping that is when you really want to push someone down and like pull a lot of water out. I just haven't had to do that.
So,
Speaker 2 so no, I don't have a standout of like when I've gone really, really wild to sodium. Okay, okay, cool.
Speaker 1 Um,
Speaker 2 is there
Speaker 1 so? There's been like a lot of hype recently around Super Droll before stage. Um, have
Speaker 1 I'm sure you've heard of it. Um, did you guys happen to play with any orals at all for prep peak week?
Speaker 2 Uh, no, we were pretty standard because it was
Speaker 2 a well, right when I actually picked Sean up, like right around the four-week mark, he had just started like Winstrawl, like a couple days.
Speaker 2 And he had on his plan,
Speaker 2 his plan was fully mapped out all the way. Little PDs.
Speaker 2 He had Halo to go in and also Proviron.
Speaker 2 And he had already started Winstrawl, Annabar, Annabar.
Speaker 2 I looked at training performance and like
Speaker 2 that was solid. Like his training performance was improving and holding.
Speaker 2 And then I was like, let's hold off on the other orals and just see how your look changes with just the variables I already implemented because I shifted some food around a bit.
Speaker 2
I'm going to spread his carbs out a little bit more. I was getting him to do steps.
So I'm like, all right, we're going to get you moving more. So I might need to be able to put more food in.
Speaker 2
I'm able to put more food in. I might have more energy to have even better training.
And then what does the oral bring, right?
Speaker 2 I know there's a thing where it could bring this hardening aesthetic aspect, but if I'm getting everything I need just out of the anivar,
Speaker 2
we might not use it. So I just said, hey, hold off.
And from that part on, like, man, he was just getting more conditioned and harder. And the look was there.
Speaker 2 So we just didn't use him. We just left in the annivar.
Speaker 1 Okay, just the anivar and the windstraw that he was already on, but no halo.
Speaker 2 No windstraw.
Speaker 2 I told him just to drop the windstraw because he just started it.
Speaker 2 So
Speaker 2 I was like, I don't, I don't think you're going to need it.
Speaker 2 Let's just see how you go with the variables that we've already adjusted
Speaker 2
and to go from there. And we ended up not using those things.
It's like,
Speaker 2 cool.
Speaker 2
You know the bodybuilder and everybody. It's like, but what if you did? But what if? Mind blown, right? That's me.
Imagine what Sean would have looked like good.
Speaker 2 No, for sure.
Speaker 1 I actually did that out of an experiment with myself because Patrick only put me on
Speaker 1 obviously since this is our first prep and as Patrick is he likes to, he likes to start really slow with all his clients.
Speaker 1 So, we started at like a lower stack than I was the year prior, um, my shows prior with Kyle and stuff. So, it was just a test, prop, master on trend,
Speaker 1 and
Speaker 2 and then provided.
Speaker 1 Um, and I've always run menstrual for every show, and I have this like the this fucking predisposition to believe that I look like a god on menstrual like dude, menstrual is like the god's nectar, and this is where I get all really defined and hard, and I get liny, and I look more like Jose when I'm on Windstroll.
Speaker 1 But the first show that we did together, yeah, the detail was really amazing. And
Speaker 1 he let me experiment with putting in the windstrol for the next two shows, just since we had the first show off of Windstroll, and the judges felt like I wasn't as big or as full as the other guys could be on stage.
Speaker 1 And then there's a couple of people in the audience who also said that they felt like I looked like I was running amongst the least amount of gear on stage, especially compared to the top five.
Speaker 1
So we're just like, all right, let's play around with it and see how it goes. In my opinion, honestly, just adding the windstrol is a difference.
Like,
Speaker 1 I've gained maybe one to two pounds in my body weight overall, but the look just looks a little tighter, but it's not very much of a difference. It's like a trade-off.
Speaker 1 Like, the look looks a little tighter, looks a little more full, but some of the lines are maybe a tiny bit less deep because there's a little bit more pressure, I guess, you know, muscle to skin.
Speaker 1 But obviously, like, glute striation maybe isn't quite as deep as it was off of wind straw certain striations aren't quite as deep it's just a different slightly different look if that makes sense so you had brought up on that so you had brought up on that second show that
Speaker 2 the the the peak was oh yeah the diazide was a little different right and
Speaker 1 It was the same amount of diazide. It just wasn't split into two pieces.
Speaker 2 It was a little time different, right?
Speaker 2 Like, just to like play Devil's Advocate, like, could it still have not been the straw and just been like, hey, how the look came to be with some other variables or just dieting more? And
Speaker 1 wait, what exactly are you asking?
Speaker 2 Because, because,
Speaker 2 unless we're talking about completely different shows here, but you said from the first show to the second show, like the peak was a little different, right?
Speaker 2 But you said putting in the win straw gave you this fuller look, but you lost some lines in certain places.
Speaker 2 Do you think it was the wind straw that did that, or could it have just been like other variables of the peak?
Speaker 1 Okay, so what I'm analyzing is how my look looks day to day.
Speaker 1 So we're repeating the same diet, the same cardio, the same everything going into every single show.
Speaker 2 This is like
Speaker 2 showday look.
Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not comparing showday look because I feel like the show day look has way too many variables.
Speaker 1 I'm comparing peak week and I'm comparing two weeks out. And I'm looking at all my check-ins.
Speaker 1 And at all my check-ins, like every time I dip at my lowest weight possible, for example, before we pull everything out like my weight was like a pound heavier and then like now it's like two pounds heavier but the look in the check-ins with the same lighting same room everything in my little office space the look is just slightly different like i look less
Speaker 1 i just look
Speaker 1 i gotta be real i feel like i just look how people would expect i just looked a little more geared out just like a little bit more fucking you know what i mean so but um aside from that it's like not very it's not like a it's not like a crazy difference like i think maybe I can come in with more detail if I left it out.
Speaker 1 I come in with a little bit more fullness if I keep it in.
Speaker 2
So it's a tool. You have a tool.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 What you need to, what you need to bring. And right.
Speaker 2 You know, I think for I do this with myself because like when I, when I prepped with Janssen, like for USA's and my pro debut, like, man, we would use every oral, like all of them, whole stack, right?
Speaker 2 Like,
Speaker 2 only one that was there was Anadrawl. So,
Speaker 2
you know, Winstraw, Halo, Anivar, Provirone. And so they're all there.
So it's like, if you do that every time, it's like, well, that's how I look for stage.
Speaker 2
And I guess I have to use them all to keep in that look. And so it's like, damn, like, so in 2021, I just implement them kind of one at a time for all those.
I did a lot of shows.
Speaker 2
So I used like Anivar for the first one, then I would rotate to Winstraw for the next one, Halo for the other one. I did Super Draw for one.
Just to see the difference.
Speaker 2 Like, I'm like trying to figure out which one like really really brings a look that was worth it for me.
Speaker 2 And I feel like for anyone, that's kind of what you do need to do to be able to see if it's worth it for you on stage.
Speaker 2 And I don't want to get dogmatic in my approach and think, like, hey, only use oral stuff, whole training performance, that they don't bring some aesthetic things.
Speaker 2 We know that they can, but it's just like, is it worth it? Like you said, like a trade-off? Or
Speaker 2 some of them might not bring anything worth it.
Speaker 2 It might just be the psychological aspect, but I don't, what I don't want to get into that of the cookie cutter approach or the kitchen sink approach, where now that is how you peaked and you have to use everything.
Speaker 2 I think we not to get off on a tangent, but I think we see that now with all the peptides that are out.
Speaker 2
Like, I'm doing the mitochondrial stack and the KPV and all these things. It's like they all go in at once.
It's like, what's doing what? You're like, well, it's working well.
Speaker 2 It's like, well, shit, now you're stuck on six different things. But
Speaker 1 anyway, I think newer to this like hey sure rotate through the different flavors see which one you liked which tastes the best and go with that right yeah i i would say one of my experiences with this too one of the reasons why i felt like coming to this conclusion was a good idea and like experimenting with this was a good idea is because my my show the previous year i haven't had uh too much experience running high doses doses of cycles and stuff so when we did run this heavy
Speaker 1 this heavy prep cycle with like anivar and windstrol and like a lot of these orals I almost felt like I had this insane blasting full look.
Speaker 1
People were just like asking me, like, holy shit, bro, what are you on? And stuff. And I was like, dude, this is awesome.
Like, my veins are popping everywhere.
Speaker 1 I can't even see my leg striations because I've got fucking veins everywhere.
Speaker 1 And when I went on stage, like,
Speaker 1 yeah, I'm like, damn, I feel full and huge, but I just felt like I almost fit more of like, man, like, this is a look that I would want to go if I was trying to compete in bodybuilding with my current physique rather than like men's physique, you know?
Speaker 1 Like, there were certain things that are just like, you know, if I'm competing in a different division that seems to prioritize lines and detail, I would drop some of this, if that makes sense, just because it's a little bit over the top, at least where we were at at the current time.
Speaker 1 So, yeah, that's kind of where this all came from.
Speaker 2 But what's your have you used all the orals? Like, have you
Speaker 2 not at once, but just at different times of your
Speaker 1 I've never used Super Droll or Anadroll.
Speaker 2 So
Speaker 2
another, I was on another podcast. Yeah, I love this question.
I'll ask you it.
Speaker 2 Like, if you could, if you could take one steroid with, with no side effects, only the benefits, which, which one would you pick to like, just live on?
Speaker 1 Oh, just to live on.
Speaker 2
Oh, you could. Like, if there's no, there's no issue.
You could just stay on it, I guess.
Speaker 1 But yeah. Well, I mean, that's tough because I think
Speaker 1 I feel like I'd have two different answers. Cause like the, if it was just like to live on and be just live on for on day-to-day life and stuff, it would obviously be testosterone.
Speaker 1 Like, I feel like I have to have testosterone no matter what.
Speaker 2 Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1 If we're saying like, like an add-on to test or something, or like
Speaker 1 the add-on, if I like want to look, if I want to look
Speaker 1 shredded, it would be Winstrel.
Speaker 1
If I want to just like, I don't know. Otherwise, it would probably just be primo just because it's a little benign and the side effects are.
Oh, well, I guess you said no side effects, huh?
Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, shit, bro.
Speaker 2 I know. It's like, well, I have probably even taken the things that are, I could go with, right? Like some type of oral methyl trin or
Speaker 2 yeah.
Speaker 2 I would say
Speaker 2 the super draw was my pick when they asked me. Okay.
Speaker 2
That's been some of the wildest stuff I've taken, the most fun. Like it does everything you'd want.
Like you're, you're full, you feel like a bull. You're strong.
Speaker 2
It was amazing. For my first show, I took it.
I had like just 300 megs of tests. And at the end, I had just some super draw.
Speaker 2 And my weight jumped up like three pounds. And I just looked ass conditioned, but full.
Speaker 1 Holy shit. That's sick.
Speaker 2 It was so fun. No,
Speaker 2 I took it for Tampa as a 212.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2
I only did it for like four days before the show. And I don't know, it just didn't really like bring a lot that I wanted.
Okay.
Speaker 2 But it's hard for me to say because I also got COVID at the same time
Speaker 2 and I pulled my labs the next day after the show and my like my CRP was like crazy high, but my liver enzymes were like wild. I was like, damn, was that just from four days of Super Draw?
Speaker 2
Or it could have been just like the sickness. I don't know.
So
Speaker 2 it is a pretty rowdy, taxing stuff because even back when I took it a long time ago, I was trying to get life insurance at the time, still in my 20s.
Speaker 2 And I had been off that super draw that I ran for like two weeks and my liver enzymes were still six times normal. They were like close to the 300s.
Speaker 2 I was like, holy crap, like this is some rough stuff.
Speaker 1
So I've experimented with something. I don't know if people have done this before, but it's been helping me a lot.
And it's like, honestly, it has been consistently in putting antioxidants throughout.
Speaker 1 peak week and up to show, including injectable glutathione.
Speaker 1 And I know like a lot of people like to pull the injections, but if I take glutathione, and this is pharmagrade from Annazal, which is like a sting-free version, you can get from like Transand HRT or like probably even other HRT clinics or whatever.
Speaker 1 But I even got like a, what is it? Like a
Speaker 1
quarter-inch needle or something. Yeah, like a insulin syringe.
And the liquid is just so
Speaker 1 not viscous that you put it in there. Like I can even put it in my front delt, inject a whole, like
Speaker 1
inject half a milliliter with a quarter inch needle and like the liquid's just gone. It's just not even in there.
It doesn't show or anything.
Speaker 2 No nodding, nothing.
Speaker 1
No nodding, nothing. And I can just do that on both delts.
That's like 200 migs of glutathione already. And then I can do that again at night.
That's another 200 mgs of glutathione.
Speaker 1 And I just feel like as I've done that with my shows, I feel like it's really helped to just,
Speaker 1 I mean, could it be psychological, maybe, but since I've been doing that, I've noticed no issues with like inflammation.
Speaker 1
I feel like my weight continues to drop off as long as I'm just continuing to manage these variables. Even sometimes, using liposomal glutathione in the mornings fasted.
And then also,
Speaker 1 I've been doing the whole oral BPC and KPV as well in the mornings,
Speaker 1 especially throughout peak week,
Speaker 1
just to continue to make sure that my gut health is good and inflammation is lowered. And I don't know, just like, I feel like utilizing these has been helpful.
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 It's just a thought if people are. ramping up things like Super Droll or whatever before the show, I feel like it could be helpful.
Speaker 2 Yeah, we drive so much oxidative stress and people, they underdo, they worry so much about the antioxidant piece.
Speaker 2 I think like you'll see some approach of like, oh, what about taking these antioxidants close to training? Like, or you eat fruit post-workout, like, won't that inhibit the hypertrophy outcomes?
Speaker 2 Dude, like,
Speaker 2
do not worry. Like, we are driving so much like oxidative stress.
Like, I will take, if there is a drop off, I'll take it just to combat like the negative health ramifications of the stuff.
Speaker 2
So, I mean, obviously, with what you're doing, there's, there's not a negative coming from it. We know those things like have some very, you know, good efficacy for health outcomes.
So,
Speaker 2
um, right. Yeah, I think the barrier for the glutathione is the worry about injection sites.
But man, if you've got some quality stuff that doesn't not up, that's, that's excellent.
Speaker 1 Yeah, it's, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 Um, I mean, it was really just an experiment at first because whenever I would do deeper injections with like a longer inch needle, like in my like glute, ventriclue with a glutathione, like that shit would not up.
Speaker 1 But whenever I did these insulin needles with just like half a milliliter, like in a front delt or something, something simple, shit's fucking fine, man.
Speaker 1 I've had literally zero issues and I've done this for, I don't know, months now. So
Speaker 1 it's just something to try. But I mean, then again, I don't know what source everyone's getting it from and if it's just my source or not, but I feel like, I feel like most glutathione isn't viscous.
Speaker 1 I wouldn't expect it to be fucking fucking mixed in like an oil or something, you know? No, no.
Speaker 2 I see more issues with guys using like the injectable L-carnitine. Like, yeah.
Speaker 2 Like, the higher dosage stuff is problematic. And
Speaker 2
man, for the gain from that, for the pain from it, fuck, bro. Really, really hard to weigh that out, especially with how many injections are going in.
Like, right?
Speaker 2 Screw it.
Speaker 1 That's the last thing I'm worried about injecting ever, ever, bro.
Speaker 2 Wow.
Speaker 1 Um, ah, fuck, what was I going to ask? It was, um,
Speaker 1 oh, I wanted to,
Speaker 1 because you got a lot of questions, of course, like you always do. So I wanted to make sure that we got to a Q ⁇ A first before, before you had to go, but
Speaker 1 I also wanted to ask, because we didn't really get to go over fatigue management, training, or your nutrition with Sean or coaching in general very much. And you were mentioning how
Speaker 1 with Sean, your training was
Speaker 1 you guys reduced it, but you wanted to keep the same stimulus, but reduce fatigue so that
Speaker 1 I'm trying to remember what you said in the beginning. Fuck.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, not to like make it get overcomplicated right now.
Speaker 2 Sean had a rough plan he'd follow, but he was also like from John Meadows. Yeah.
Speaker 2 And basically that was, it was kind of like a push-pull leg setup. Like back was once a week, and he would split his legs, both ham and glute day, in a quad day.
Speaker 2
With like the goal for Sean of whatever we wanted was legs. Like, that's his priority point.
His back is nutty.
Speaker 2 And, like, man, his back like came back up, and I think more than what it's ever been with training back, like, once a week, with just like eight sets, which is on one day, which is pretty wild.
Speaker 2 Sean has insanity for shoulders and arms. And a lot of times on prep, he would pull in an arm day.
Speaker 2 So he's like, he had this, this like, kind of like a push mix day but he's like on prep i'll divide that out and i'll i'll have this arm day that i add in i was like all right sean you're you you do not get an arm day like ever
Speaker 2 because your arms are wild so like let's not take up our like recovery bank on just arm day and make sure we can allocate all that to legs so that makes more sense gotcha so like okay that's how i look at it like we have so many sets we can work with here like i might have to lower some in one area to where i can raise it another area so with him it was
Speaker 1 did you feel like he was ever doing like too many sets overall and you have to reduce like the overall amount of sets and volume or yeah definitely did too okay definitely so it was both so i guess i think i'm trying to remember exactly what you said before but it gave me the idea that like reducing the amount of sets while it reduced fatigue it also helped continue to preserve his muscle mass right so could you explain that because normally i think the idea is like oh shit like if you do more training if you do more volume, then that stimulates more, I don't know, either hypertrophy or preservation of muscle to a certain degree, as long as you're not hindering too much recovery.
Speaker 2 Yeah,
Speaker 2 I think what we a lot of times want to do on prep is like train harder to like
Speaker 2 recomp and grow muscle into prep. But at least what I've seen across preps is like, man, I can take the number of sets someone does and reduce it down a lot and still retain tissue.
Speaker 2 And so I don't ever really add in sets as we go.
Speaker 2 But with Sean, like I saw the way he was doing his sets, there's like momentum there. Like sometimes they weren't quite as accurate.
Speaker 2 There's also points of him, he might do like a drop set or like some forced reps, right?
Speaker 2 So like the amount of like gain of stimulus in some of these things versus the fatigue cost to it is really high. So the trade-off wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2 So I'm like trying to get Sean to make the sets really high quality.
Speaker 2 And a lot of that was like, all right, we're just training to the last hardest rep you complete with full range of motion in the form that I want you to do it with.
Speaker 2 And that was that part that we set the standard in.
Speaker 2 And then like from there,
Speaker 2 like if the sets are really high quality, we're not going to need as many anymore to like retain tissue.
Speaker 2 But we're doing so many sets that I hate to say they're poor quality because I don't want to say that about Sean. It's just there's a lot of effort put in for a lot of sets and like that much work.
Speaker 2 There's just a threshold that was really needed to take place to retain tissue. And I think he was going beyond that.
Speaker 2 But so the stimulus is there, but you keep building fatigue.
Speaker 2
And so what else is fatiguing on prep? You're at a calorie deficit. You're doing cardio, you're doing steps.
Like, hey, there's daily life stresses as well.
Speaker 2 So like you can only tolerate so much stress before you start losing the adaptations to the training you want.
Speaker 2 It's what we see guys that don't really grow well, like under really high stress conditions or they're not sleeping, right?
Speaker 2 Or in calorie deficit, like you're not going to, you're not in an ideal scenario to grow muscle. So
Speaker 2 if we make that situation even worse,
Speaker 2 less sleep, hard stress, you know, more training volume. like it's going to be even harder to retain tissue.
Speaker 2 So if I can just give like the quality stimulus without a lot of of the excess of fatigue present, like we're going to make it a lot easier to retain tissue and be able to sustain that calorie deficit
Speaker 2 for a longer period of time or, you know, for a more aggressive deficit if we needed to.
Speaker 2
So, at least that was like the training part. And then the cardio part too for Sean.
So, I got Sean off of like he had just moved to the step mill to just doing like inclined treadmill walking
Speaker 2 in the morning. And then he
Speaker 2 to get him to do like a pedometer and stuff and track like steps like four weeks out was a bit of a barrier to get that rolling. And then he ordered a walking pad.
Speaker 2 And I felt so bad because like it came and didn't, it didn't work. No,
Speaker 2
dude, he was like, I had the like, he's like, I got the manual out, John. I was like, troubleshooting this.
And eventually, you know, if you're on prep, you're like, fuck this. Like, you know, like,
Speaker 2 so I'm like, all right, all right. Let's
Speaker 2
like, you had a tremulous garage. So I'm like, cool.
Just walk 10 minutes after your meals. So I don't need your county steps.
Like, I'll just, I'll give him time.
Speaker 2
And he's, you know, they're check-in. He's like, man, John, I think you probably listened to the podcast.
He was like, I'm sweating, like, and taking five showers a day. Like, what is going on?
Speaker 2 So he was like gearing up, like, hoodie on, like, to put in work for all these, like, just steps I want him to do, which I'm like, no, this should be like easy, right?
Speaker 2
I want activity that doesn't feel stressful. So moved that treadmill into his house instead of his garage.
And just another way to create a deficit with less fatigue cost.
Speaker 2 It's a lot harder if you're in the Texas heat.
Speaker 2
It's over 100 degrees as garage, hoodied up, doing that. Like heat is a stress.
So I think of stress and fatigue as like
Speaker 2 a whole load, you know?
Speaker 1 So saunas you wouldn't really recommend for some people in peak week?
Speaker 2
I would not. He asked me about this too.
He wanted to do some sauna work. I was like, no i don't i don't think you i don't think you need it like
Speaker 2 you have to ask like how does the sauna work like why does a sauna like good for you right
Speaker 2 the it is a stress response yeah it's a stress response and the heat and everything mimics exercise to a degree so i i would say likely through like cardio and training you're getting a lot of those adaptations that are beneficial for sauna use
Speaker 2 I'd say like, hey, if you want to do Sana a couple times a week, by all means, like, do it.
Speaker 2 But in a prep scenario where you're driving a lot of stressors already it's not something like i want to add in additionally gotcha okay as for a wire cut a weight cut yeah
Speaker 2 maybe you have to
Speaker 1 okay gotcha um
Speaker 1 what percentage would you say that you have uh dropped his total volume versus his off-season training
Speaker 2 Yeah,
Speaker 2 at least off the initials, hard because there wasn't really a measured amount. It kind of gave me a rough idea of what he was doing.
Speaker 2 But at least what I would comment on was from like where we started to where we ended up, there wasn't a vast drop that needed to take place.
Speaker 2 I think I ended up pulling maybe like a couple sets off of each day that he was training.
Speaker 2 Going into our last final weeks, I dropped off a couple exercises each day. The things that like just did need to be there, like
Speaker 2 hip thrusts that we was doing. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2 we could do without that one for the last week but it wasn't it wasn't vast because from the arnold to when he was starting to get into prep we had already refined training enough to where i had him at a good amount of volume that he could recover from and then the prep for him was well paced so he didn't get to a point where he had to like really dig down to like drop a lot of fat off so with running like a less aggressive deficit he's able to like have a little bit more recovery to uphold that same volume level he was doing.
Speaker 2 But he would report to me like just a couple sessions that would start like moving slow or hard to hit his numbers on.
Speaker 2 And so that's when I would look at that session, see if I needed to like reduce volume from, was it a previous session impacting the one he was going into, or was it just within the session needing to make adjustments?
Speaker 2
And so like his push sessions were ones where we got down. to probably like a 20% less volume than what he was doing.
For him, like chest is a weak body part.
Speaker 2 And that's like one of the first things to drop off in training performance. So that one was where we had probably more adjustments made versus the other sessions.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 2
Gotcha. But yeah, so that's how we go.
Like every week, I just look at, hey, what's training doing? Are you upholding training performance? Is certain things dropping off?
Speaker 2 If it is, I make sure there's not like a recovery variable that should be addressed.
Speaker 2 If we've like done all the things that we can around recovery and it is just part of being on prep, then I look at, is it an exercise option that I should be swapping out?
Speaker 2 Like, does he, is it a, let's, I mean, I have him doing dumbbell press, but let's say he's doing a dumbbell press and that's dropping.
Speaker 2 It's like, maybe that's more about stability and bracing over like his other lifts maintain, like his machine press and his pec deck fly are all good. It's just like one lift dropping off.
Speaker 2
Like that's a different thing. Like just maybe move him to something more braced.
Is it across his push session? Like all the lifts are dropping, right? There's a systemic drop. Was that a one-off?
Speaker 2 Like, hey, Sean, like, did you not sleep well that night? Like, was it something different happened that day? And then is it across like all the days?
Speaker 2 Like, hey, no, it's just all this week has been really hard and there's not like a refeed in sight.
Speaker 2 It's like, all right, that's when we should probably make the call of making the volume reduction to keep tension, to keep tissue by holding up training performance. Okay.
Speaker 1 Gotcha.
Speaker 1 Would you say that it's about the same percentage with some of the other clients you've worked with as well, dropping from off-season volume to, I guess, prep volume, especially as the show comes around?
Speaker 2 No, not necessarily. It depends on if they needed something.
Speaker 2 I'd say for one, the more advanced guys, it's not as vast because I see that that volume range is pretty small for them.
Speaker 2 Guys that are earlier on that have like
Speaker 2 more sloppy volume and I have to rein in more.
Speaker 2
As I'm improving them, I can start dropping volume too. So there might be a bigger swing.
The other situation is the guy where we have like
Speaker 2 to really bring up a body part and we're running a very specialized split in the offseason.
Speaker 2 And like, uh, this could be the guy that needs to bring up chest, and we're training chest like every three days, like 30 sets total for the for over cross these three days.
Speaker 2 And we have like a little bit of leg and uh uh
Speaker 2 back volume.
Speaker 2 I don't want to do that on prep.
Speaker 2 I want to be able to maintain the other body parts so we start shifting a lot back into more of an even split design.
Speaker 2 But relatively, like for that specialized program, it's still always skewed for that guy to have a lot of like chest in. So, in that situation, yeah, it adjusts quite a bit.
Speaker 2 Um, for a lot of the other people,
Speaker 2 not as fast.
Speaker 1 Okay, gotcha. So, what, I guess, what are your thoughts of some of the older guys believing that a step melon step climber brings a more detailed physique to the stage?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 Yeah,
Speaker 2 I'm not on that train, I guess.
Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like just squeezing the muscle over and over and over would change the way that it looks.
Speaker 2 If anything, I think just that repetitive bout amount, we see tissue probably get more adherent and and fascia like binding to itself to where you see less detail like see someone that preps with a step mill and look at their legs like a lot of times they they lose their legs from training them for cardiovascular like adaptations right and most more like it turns into like an endurance training adaptation right
Speaker 2 um
Speaker 2 and then they also get really inflamed and so
Speaker 2 For that, I don't see that bringing in more detail. I see detail being brought in, like putting priority and resistance training and pulp holding that muscle tissue.
Speaker 2 When the muscle is full and expanded, those muscle fibers are going to expand. And then when the skin lays through them is when you're going to see like the striations and detail.
Speaker 2 But if you're doing something like that, that's going to have a high recovery demand and like, yeah, centric work of a step mill, like, man,
Speaker 2 it really challenges like leg recovery.
Speaker 2 You usually lose your legs to where, hey, that muscle that's spread out, big fibers, skin thrower, it like shrinks down.
Speaker 2
That muscle, now that skin now doesn't have those laying over of the striations to where you're going to look smoother on stage. So at least that's how I look at it.
So I'm looking at,
Speaker 2 I want to create the calorie deficit through the easiest way possible.
Speaker 2 And for most guys, it's just like walking because you're not going to get muscle endurance adaptations from just like walking throughout the day. And I've put priority around resistance training.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 I've found the same experience with me.
Speaker 1 And I feel like for those guys that do feel like they might bring like a drier or leaner package, it's simply just the energy expenditure in the last several weeks before the show.
Speaker 1 That's just like a higher, a higher deficit, I think, than normal package that they tend to bring.
Speaker 1 Cause I always feel like there's like this level of like, once you reach a certain body fat percentage, that's very low. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 You do kind of have to push the barrier a little bit, even if it means reducing other things that are causing fatigue, just so that you can make sure that you get lean enough i guess and then you know at that point then you can start reversing and whatever yeah it's like coincidentally right like it happen
Speaker 2 um
Speaker 2 but could there been a better tool there to get there maybe so but like yeah through their experience that they're accurate right like they they're not telling a lie or they just i did the step mill and i saw more detail come through so in turn the step mill brings more detail um
Speaker 2 it's like the same thing of like hey murder rates increase in the summer and you saw more ice cream sales.
Speaker 2 So
Speaker 2
it's like, yeah, so murderers like ice cream as well. Or I don't know.
It's like,
Speaker 2 it's an association, but not causation, right?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 I've been training for over 15 years now, and I was too lazy to track anything training-wise for about the first 10 years because science-based training is for pussies.
Speaker 1 But I kept hitting plateaus from burnout, fatigue, joint issues, and injuries, and other factors that at the time I didn't really fully understand, Realizing not everyone is built to handle the intense, insane workload and injury resilience as Tom Platts and Ronnie Coleman, Sadface.
Speaker 1 I wanted to speedrun that shit, but the reality is dudes that have always known their body best are the ones that have been lifting for at least a decade. Shit takes a long ass time to figure out.
Speaker 1 I started tracking all my training on the notes app on iPhone because I don't know what paper is. Until recently, I started using the RP Hypertrophy app.
Speaker 1 The RP Hypertrophy app spoon feeds you step-by-step workouts tailored towards whatever your focus is, or you can customize the workout yourself.
Speaker 1
Well-educated coaches have always cost 250 to 500 or more a month. I'm paying 500 bucks.
That's like 10 bottles of testosterone.
Speaker 1 But if you're not competing or you don't have the money to spend, the app will adjust your program for you every week to maximize your long-term growth.
Speaker 1 It'll basis on your pump, how fatigued you feel, how your joints feel, and more. It takes in everything into account.
Speaker 1 None of which I took into account in college because the only accounting I did was counting how many dumpies were in my class.
Speaker 2 Look, there's a titty.
Speaker 1 If you don't believe in science-based training, you don't got to do no three RIR shit.
Speaker 1 You can just hoist heavy steel and track it because we all know that the people who say that they remember their weight sets and reps every week are full of shit.
Speaker 1 IMO, there's a sort of middle ground where you track your progress and make sure all the variables are right in your food, sleep, gear, progressive overload, and then you go to the gym and slam those heavy PRs until your blood pressure is higher than Miley Cyrus.
Speaker 1 If you're still unsure, they've got a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you still don't like it and it gives you a bad tan, you can get your money back.
Speaker 1 That way, when you compete at your next show, your tan doesn't cost you the first place that you so well deserve.
Speaker 1
So go to the link in the description below or you go to rbstrength.com slash nihil and use code nile checkout. That's rbstrength.com slash nile.
Code nile at checkout.
Speaker 1 You guys, uh, you guys implemented uh, you implemented fruits, or I guess, like, maybe, um, I guess inserted more fruits in this program.
Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 We did, we did, yeah. He's,
Speaker 2
I try to get a little too adventurous with him probably. He's like, hey, John, I just like blueberries and bananas.
I'm like, all right.
Speaker 2
That works, man. I'm doing like a berry medley.
He's like, I don't like a lot of that. I was like, that's okay.
Like, we'll
Speaker 2 do work with what we can. So,
Speaker 2
yeah, I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it too.
It's like it just made the diet a little bit more enjoyable for one, but of course, bring in some more micronutrients and fiber. And
Speaker 2 he had quite a
Speaker 2 GI protocol he had been doing, and we ended up cutting way back on that. I think just with improving the diet side, doing some basics, right?
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 1 Like saying, like, the GI protocol wasn't as necessary after you added in some of the food variety?
Speaker 2 I think a lot of it probably wasn't necessary to begin with.
Speaker 2 It was from what he was explaining, it's like, you know, if you prep for so long and have coaches for so long that you have one supplement that comes in and then it just kind of lives there.
Speaker 2 Then another one comes in from another coach. You pick something up along the way.
Speaker 2 Then all of a sudden you have like a protocol that looks like eight supplements deep, and you're like, Hey, why are you taking this? You're like, I don't know, I'm just always taking it.
Speaker 2 And that was kind of like how things were like, Well, you know what? Let's like go through this. And like, and if I was like, Do you buy a lot of these?
Speaker 2 And it's like, Well, shit, let's like see if we can cut some costs back here, too.
Speaker 2 So, end up dialing quite a bit back just supplementation-wise of what probably just came staying on board for a long time. Okay, um,
Speaker 1 um, are there any of those supplements that you guys kept in
Speaker 2 A few of them. He was doing, there was like one by Revive, like GI.
Speaker 2
It's just Revive GI, I think that's what it's called. Okay.
We ended up bringing that one back in.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2 then he had some glutamine that we kept in, too.
Speaker 2
Was there anything else? I think that might have been the gist of it. Okay.
Cool.
Speaker 2
Nice. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Nothing, nothing really,
Speaker 2 really complicated.
Speaker 1 I'm assuming you didn't really have any GI issues really beforehand.
Speaker 2 No, no, yeah, it wasn't like that. He wasn't having GI problems.
Speaker 2 I think with a lot, what he did notice, like when we took a lot of it out, is that he was having kind of just a little bit drier bowels.
Speaker 2
And so like bringing a little bit that, I think that robotic GI had some fiber in it. So we could have just used like a psyllium seed husk or another fiber supplement.
But he had these things on hand.
Speaker 2
that I had. He liked using glutamine.
I have no issues with that either. So just bringing those back, it like resolved.
So it was like, oh, good, let's just keep rolling with it from there. Nice.
Speaker 2 But I don't think, yeah, he never mentioned that he had some crazy GI problem that he had to problem solve, you know.
Speaker 1 Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1 Maj
Speaker 1 Maj Chowy asks, what are your thoughts? Sorry, bro. What are your thoughts on mitochondria enhancing peptides during prep?
Speaker 2 Distro Brown. You've heard this a lot, right?
Speaker 2 Oh, man. That's a rabbit hole, isn't it?
Speaker 2 I haven't, I guess I have been slower, honestly, to
Speaker 2 take them on board myself.
Speaker 2 I feel like a lot of people jump to the next big thing, but a lot of these are very in their early stages of research or hasn't even been put into a human, just like rodent studies and try to translate that data to humans and assume that the outcomes could be similar.
Speaker 2 So a lot of us are like guinea pigging these things.
Speaker 2 i would be earlier to like use that for myself and try it out but i
Speaker 2 not to sound like i'm up on some big pedestal here but i feel like i've been given a responsibility in the industry to have a lot of influence um and people want to know where i stand on these things and if i go out and say like hey these are great we should be running these mitochondrial enhancing protocols and then later on we find out there are issues with them and more more research comes out that
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 2
would have been too soon for me to like comment on that. And I feel like that's where I do stand on a lot of those things.
As it is too early, like if I was a general scape to bring these in,
Speaker 2 I would be slower to take them on board. There's a lot of them are research chemicals and a lot of them are hard to source and have quality.
Speaker 2 even peptides for that matter like there's so many companies selling peptides where i've seen they're just totally bunk peptides they're putting out.
Speaker 2 So, I would say I would get something from, for one, like compounding pharmacies or HRT clinics if you're going to be doing that. Uh, and
Speaker 2 the whole aspect around enhancing mitochondrial function, man, a lot of people don't do the basics with what
Speaker 2 is like anything, like with fat loss or whatever it may be. It's like
Speaker 2 sleep at night, like do cardio, like eat fruits and vegetables. Like, those are the basics to enhance mitochondrial function and lower oxidative stress.
Speaker 2 Like, if you don't do those, you probably don't need to start with like the five mitochondrial stack compound in place. So, anyway, I find it really interesting.
Speaker 2 I think there's going to be a lot more to come and bring about to optimize. But as of right now,
Speaker 2 I'm a more
Speaker 2 not the early adapter for him. Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1 Yeah, I can totally understand that perspective, especially with it's just such a
Speaker 1 unknown territory, I guess, that that especially from like a being a coaching figure, it's it's difficult to take a space on that, I think, unless you've had like a lot of personal experience, maybe with enough
Speaker 2
right on. And I get it.
Hey, if you want to experiment, like I'm not judging you, you know, we take, I take all kinds of like crazy drugs, right? Like running training, all kinds of things, right?
Speaker 2 Well, who am I to say to not take this experimental drug? Um, I'm just putting out the warning of where these things were, I see them, and I'm not trying to end up being now.
Speaker 2 I have a 20-drug protocol that I do.
Speaker 2 I think if I can just like layer things in as I'm learning more about them, I will. But I would
Speaker 2 take some pause too because I think they could be get overhyped right now, is what I see, just like anything. Like, like peptides, man, like these came out back in 2015.
Speaker 2 I saw like all the Ipamborwellens and the Yojit secretagogues being the next amazing thing. And why?
Speaker 2 Because people have a discount code and people can make money money and they're super profitable. So the people that promote them, usually they're tied in with something.
Speaker 2 So just try to weigh out bias.
Speaker 1 Muslim just taking GH.
Speaker 2
Yeah. What do the big pros do? Run in some basic stuff.
That's not to dismiss, though, what these things could do. But what I would say, if you're going to try these things, start with one,
Speaker 2
the most efficacious, the one that has the most research. Start there.
And then, as you see the response or no response, make make the decision to keep it in or not. Layer in more or not from there.
Speaker 2 And I'll say my own health season, I just started retitruatide for something to trial. I'm not doing MOT C and Methylene Blue and all the other stacks for the same reason.
Speaker 2 Like I want one variable and understand how that works for me so I can
Speaker 2 have a proper assessment and then make a decision to keep doing it or adjust it or not do it.
Speaker 1 So, what's your experience been so far?
Speaker 2 Well, I'm only on day six.
Speaker 2 Okay, all right, okay.
Speaker 2 So, so far, so good.
Speaker 2
Gotcha. It could just like, I did see my, my fasting blood glucose did trend down a little bit.
It very well could just be a coincidence.
Speaker 2
So, I'll, uh, I had some initial labs I just got done last week. So, I'm like, all right, I have this baseline now.
I'll put this in and I'll try my fasting blood glucose. And we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 I'm really more interested in
Speaker 2 the decreasing accrual of visceral fat and what it might do around my lipid profile.
Speaker 2 My whole blood glucose aspect, it's really well managed.
Speaker 2 I've been running, can I use a GH?
Speaker 2 I don't have problems in the offseason and even with my food amount. But if I can see like improvement in health metrics, that's a great positive that I would love to have.
Speaker 2
And that like that one, like, yeah, it's not FDA proofed yet. It's going there.
It's like in phase three clinical trials. And it probably will be.
Speaker 2
It probably will be. And like there's plenty of data on it.
But I feel
Speaker 2 like
Speaker 2 it's a worthwhile one to trial.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree with you too.
Speaker 1 The benefits of cholesterol are like probably the most intriguing thing for me, especially if used during the offseason. What dose have you started off with?
Speaker 2 Doing 0.25 milligrams every other day.
Speaker 2 Just call it a milligram per week. I might
Speaker 2 I started with a little less frequent because i i didn't want to make sure like i had some like
Speaker 2 like big drop in my appetite right away um yeah
Speaker 1 likely i could do it twice a week and be fine so yeah twice a week would be fine too but i i agree that honestly i've i felt better doing it like um
Speaker 1 i felt better doing it every other day dosage too The only time I don't do it is if I have like a refeed that's planned that I know is probably going to happen at the end of the week.
Speaker 1 And then I want to take advantage of like making sure that my digestive system is flowing much more fluidly for the amount of food volume that I'm going to have on that day.
Speaker 1 Then obviously I'll probably front load it a little bit more or something, you know, and then just not inject anything afterwards. But
Speaker 1 it's the only time I've ever done that.
Speaker 1 Right now, I'm at two milligrams. I started off at probably half a milligram, but I had to titrate up over the course of multiple weeks.
Speaker 1 Since now I've been on prep for fuck, dude, God who knows, 18 plus six weeks. I'm going to be in prep for a total of like fucking 24 weeks or something.
Speaker 2 So,
Speaker 1 but that's where we're going to end. So, and then get to be off cycle for 12 weeks, enjoy that, maybe get a hair transplant and then eat some food and grow big, just like you
Speaker 2 without the hair.
Speaker 1 Actually, you kind of just brought up a personal question I want to ask myself, but what are your thoughts on
Speaker 1 the comment, Mastron builds less muscle than all the other compounds?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 Just a lot of people are trying to find like the research that's going to be present around that. It just really doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 And so absence of evidence doesn't mean there's absence of effect.
Speaker 2 I just haven't really tested these things. And why these drugs really came about was for other reasons, not to necessarily grow or retain muscle.
Speaker 2 But I would just challenge the thought of like, well, why would you even use it in a contest prep to begin with? And it's like, well, it just does does this thing for aesthetics and makes you hard.
Speaker 2 It's like, what does that mean? And so that's why I've always asked these questions around this. Like, why would I take a steroid that wouldn't aid in some degree of muscle retention?
Speaker 2 Like, that's how they function, like, but to retain nitrogen.
Speaker 2 And so it has to do that to some degree if we're using these in contest prep. But I just simply trialed it, right? I trialed it in an off-season and just have to use test and just Masteron.
Speaker 2 And I've tried other things of just using Test and Primo or different combinations. Right now, Mastron is kind of sketchy at the moment, right? Or instead of Primo Bullen, yeah.
Speaker 2 I'm using tests in Golden Own right now, and across all these trials, I've never seen a vast difference in one compound over another
Speaker 2 for like the amount of tissue that I've accrued across these offseasons.
Speaker 2 Now, I will say we've taught this a while in J3U by now, and I also have all of our J3U coaches that follow very similar teachings. And
Speaker 2 I want this to come across strange, but we have a lot of clients because we have now seven coaches.
Speaker 2 And so I have a big pool of data to look at, but it's undeniable at this point to me that it does build muscle. I think more of what the thing you need to look at is
Speaker 2 looking at the various compounds of what you're going to pair with testosterone.
Speaker 2 I don't care what you use, but I think your goal should be what compound just produces the most like benign side effects for you.
Speaker 2 If you can run, if it needs to be a higher amount of mastron to make up for if it is lack in muscle building versus premobolin, but you have way better lab work on test and mast,
Speaker 2 well, that's going to be a better choice for you. You can sustain that growth period for a longer period of time, or whatever it may be, if it's test and boldinone or mandalone.
Speaker 2 Um, but I feel like people, for some reason,
Speaker 2 have this emotional connection to the drugs they use.
Speaker 2
And they're simply tools. Like, I have no, I don't care if you use Mastron or not.
People are like, man, they're like, it's like I just said,
Speaker 2
vegans suck and carnivore diets better. Or like, I'm a Republican, you're a Democrat.
It's like, man, these are fighting words. Like, no, they're just, they're just tools, man.
Speaker 2 So, like, I don't care, don't use Mastron, but I've seen it work this numerous times in clients. And
Speaker 2 in the trench experience like outweighs anything.
Speaker 2 So the guys that promote like, hey, Mastron doesn't grow muscle, like you'd show me your clients because I have a fucking stack of them that I have grown with just Mastron.
Speaker 2
I even made a post on the J3U forum of like clients that we've only changed made were with Mastron. We mutate people, like put like 20 pounds of stage weight on guys over a year.
So
Speaker 2
do whatever you want. But I mean, if I would say be open and not dogmatic, rotate the drugs and see which one gets along best for you.
Just like we've had our discussion with worlds, right?
Speaker 2 And if you find one that, man, does what you need for muscle building and doesn't cause detriments to whatever it may be, your hair or your lipid profile or anxiety,
Speaker 2 that could be the one that you might get along with best.
Speaker 1 Got it.
Speaker 2 Got it.
Speaker 1
Yoseba, Ibara. Sorry, Yoseba.
I never know how to say your last name, man.
Speaker 1 He's an awesome fan of the pod who always has good questions. What is something you change about your bodybuilding journey?
Speaker 2 Well, I'll give you two things. I would have hired a coach right out the gate.
Speaker 2 My first like four years, I didn't have a coach. So that definitely slow tracked me.
Speaker 2
The other thing is that I would stop focusing so much earlier on on the outcome. I was obsessed with like winning and being the best.
I'm so glad you said that.
Speaker 2 And I would, man, wish I could have just enjoyed the moment and the moments on stage, the people that were there for me, and the outcomes will come. But I do that now, and it makes it a lot more fun.
Speaker 2 Let's go.
Speaker 1 Let's go. This has been something I've been trying to practice consistently ever since I even got my pro card because, bro, it took me so many shows to get my pro card.
Speaker 1 I was also going to, the first time, the first two times I went to nationals, it was also natural. Not saying that, oh, that's why I lost, you know, but I was getting 16 plus place.
Speaker 2
So it's pretty terrible. It's pretty cool.
It's pretty fit.
Speaker 2 Like, if you're able to, like, you know you know play the cards and as you need them right but obviously yeah like from those experiences you're like all right don't be outcome oriented because it just makes you depressed like fucking enjoy this process because it's fun it's fun it's fun man and the outcome once you're a pro you realize quickly like you're you're gonna lose at some point like you're not gonna win everything like so
Speaker 1 yeah it was cool too i i got some good advice from matt grego um last week when i was in florida he was saying honestly when you're a pro you just you got to keep getting your foot wet and you gotta got to keep getting out there.
Speaker 1 And it's gonna be, you're gonna lose shows, you know, there's gonna be a lot of shows that are not representative of your value and who you are and like, you know, your journey.
Speaker 1 It's just part of it, you know, so don't, don't focus so much on the outcome. It's what Derek Lunsford told me, too, because he was very
Speaker 1 bro was, dude, bro was being so supportive of my last show, man. And it was everything I needed too, because like I was like so hit hard by the outcome.
Speaker 1 I was like, damn, bro, I didn't even get called out in the top five. Like I was expecting or I was hoping for greater, of course.
Speaker 1 And he straight up comes to me and we've never talked before, and he's like, hey, bro, I just want to let you know.
Speaker 1 I don't normally tell people this, but I feel like you were actually very overlooked. And just don't, you know, don't take this to heart.
Speaker 1
You know, blah, blah, blah. You have a lot of potential.
Just keep going.
Speaker 1 And,
Speaker 1 you know,
Speaker 1 the results will come, right?
Speaker 2 Yeah, they will.
Speaker 1 Just enjoy the process.
Speaker 1 Villy Volotinen asks, why proviron at the end of contest prep? Can lowering SHBG help improve physique?
Speaker 2 Yeah, what I've seen,
Speaker 2 were you going to add something?
Speaker 1 No, no, no. Okay.
Speaker 2 All right.
Speaker 2 Yeah, at least what I've seen clients, and
Speaker 2 the idea for a couple of reasons for Provirone is raising up the androgen load to offset estrogen. That might give you a visual hardness.
Speaker 2 The other thing that some people use it for is like lowering SHBG, getting more free active hormone.
Speaker 2 But the problem is that you're already running so much androgen already that SHPG is usually pretty rock bottom, and you're already kind of have leveraged that too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 You can make a case that, hey, very low SHPG isn't necessarily a great thing, but also you just metabolize the drug a lot faster too.
Speaker 2 I think people
Speaker 2 look at SHPG wrong as well, like within antrogen usage, because if you're very insulin resistant, usually SHPG is low too.
Speaker 2 But I think that's not the case for us in a contest prep. But
Speaker 2 yeah, anyway, with plenty of androgens already present, you kind of already pulled that lever really hard for what you could get out of adding in provarone on top of it.
Speaker 2 Now, back to like our initial conversation.
Speaker 2 trial these things kind of one by one because you add this in. And if you notice some thing that brings like aesthetic value to your physique, hey, okay.
Speaker 2 But I would say, like, just have, try to have good rationale to the things that I use, understand how it works, and if it makes sense to add in.
Speaker 2 And I don't use it a lot because I rather add in an androgen that actually does something with like muscle retention and towards anabolism, which Proviron is basically pure DHT, which we know is not very active for muscle protein synthesis in skeletal muscle.
Speaker 2
So that's, I just don't, I'm not, I don't lean in favor of it, but I wouldn't write it off either. Okay, cool.
Awesome.
Speaker 1 I actually forgot to ask, but regarding estrogen, I wanted to ask,
Speaker 1 when you guys, you guys halved, you guys halved the amount of AIs and also the Novidex that Sean was taking. Did you guys end up raising that at any point right before show?
Speaker 2 No, because I was already so far into prep that I made that adjustment. And
Speaker 2
by the time that kind of would have played out, we were already kind of in a peak week. But we didn't need to do anything farther because he was already getting harder and the look was there.
So
Speaker 2 didn't need to like raise it up. I guess the other way to do it would be dropping test out, right?
Speaker 2
Earlier. But again, like we have the variables set really good.
And that's kind of what I like to do with guys on prep anyways.
Speaker 2
Like, we have testosterone figured out and the AI situation of what it needs to be. Then by the end of prep, we're not sorting out of like, oh, yeah, now we pull it to drop water.
Right.
Speaker 1 That's why I always find it interesting whenever I see coaches both raise the AIs and also drop tests like at the same time in peak week.
Speaker 2 I've been there.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I've been there where you're like,
Speaker 2 how does this make sense? Like
Speaker 2 there's no tests present that nothing else aromatizes. Why do we need more aromatase inhibitor? Those things where you ask and you ask how things work, you're like, yeah, I can't explain it.
Speaker 2 So that's like, maybe I won't do that. Right.
Speaker 1 Normally the answer is they say, like, just get you harder.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2
But how? Like, right. It just works.
Like, okay.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And so are the hot flashes I get in the middle of the night because I can't sleep because my estrogen is a zero.
Speaker 2 Yeah. So.
Speaker 2 Um.
Speaker 1
Oh, this is funny. Well, we'll skip this one.
Mo Brothers was just asking, in the light of the DHT shortage, how does EQ cycle sound to you?
Speaker 2 Well, sounds like what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 um
Speaker 1 all right okay um what
Speaker 2 that just so people know like boldenone is very potent for lowering estradiol like you will find that out with anyone that has not messed around with it much so the the signal kind of froze for a second you said it's potent with what lowering estradiol okay yeah yeah
Speaker 1 Ron Brazow asks, how do you know when it's time to start pushing higher PED dosages? Any key landmarks?
Speaker 2 I mean, I like to look at this like from a season-to-season perspective.
Speaker 2 So off your, you know, if you do have like stage photos, like how much stage weight did you put on and what did it look like in those areas?
Speaker 2 And then was that of what you ran for your cycle? Was that if you repeated that, that similar effect, would that be where you need to be at? And so if you're like, man, I got a ton out of that.
Speaker 2 It's like, well, you could probably do something really similar. if you want to make sure you, you know, are still progressing because every year it's not going to be the same, right?
Speaker 2 If you did the same cycle. And so I usually tell guys, hey, add 25%
Speaker 2 total milligram amount on top of what you previously did to probably see a pretty similar effect from the year before.
Speaker 2 There is going to be a point of diminishing returns. I should say
Speaker 2 the effects, the side negative effects are way out from the positives, right? I feel like a lot of us start falling into like a more ideal range of what to kind of work with.
Speaker 2 But a lot of the top pros, just look at what they did for when they built a lot of muscle and they were probably pushing it, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 2 that's usually how I'm assessing it is like what happened to last season. So I know like, hey, last season had like, you know, seven, eight pounds of stage weight that came on.
Speaker 2 I repeated something similar this season. I should get maybe a little less effect, but I don't need as much size add-on.
Speaker 2 So always assess what you previously did, how it worked, move forward from there if you should do more or not. Okay, cool, awesome.
Speaker 1 That was a very honest, honest answer.
Speaker 1 I guess this is kind of a, it might be a weird question, but do you ever find that like a longer health phase or like prolonging a health phase and implementing it, I don't know, say after a prep or something helps that response where maybe you don't need quite 25% increase or something like that?
Speaker 1 I'm just curious about this because I've spoken with Terrence Ruffin and then also Jordan Hutchinson and the Chris Tuttle on all of their blow-ups.
Speaker 1 And it just seems like, oh, you get the surgery, you get this gynosurgery, you get this fucking hair transplant, and you're just off training and off PEDs and everything for like fucking 12 weeks plus or something.
Speaker 1 And then these guys are blowing up when they're throwing all the stimulus back in.
Speaker 1 So,
Speaker 2 and I don't know.
Speaker 1 It just sounds... It sounds nice because I decided to experiment with a rebound this last year and I don't think it was as effective.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 Man, a lot of things can work well. It just, you have, it's so in of one person dependent of
Speaker 2 like in that situation, why did it work?
Speaker 2 Um, I think a lot of people do drift back a bit in longer phases, especially the farther away from like just their natural set point they are to where when they do bring back that gear, it is like a regaining of what was like a muscle memory thing.
Speaker 1 yeah.
Speaker 2 Yeah, and so it's like, man, a ton of progress happened. Like, yeah, it absolutely did, but you're you're coming back from a level that was below like where you were previously at.
Speaker 2 So it's like you kind of need to like weigh that out.
Speaker 2 I haven't really seen that there's a like a resetting to the same amount of gear load if we're talking about starting from a similar muscularity point or needing to push to that higher amount.
Speaker 2 Usually, it's still
Speaker 2
more is needed to get get beyond what you previously were at. Okay.
Okay. Cool.
Speaker 2 Now, now, with that being said, and another assessment thing to do is that a lot of these guys just become better bodybuilders.
Speaker 2 Like, man, a prep is awesome for someone to learn how to bodybuild. If you do that in the offseason now and you run the same gear, like, oh my gosh, you could do so much more out of it.
Speaker 2
And now it's like, my cycle worked even better. It's like, was that it? Or was you just like better at all the things that really matter to make you a good bodybuilder? Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 That's a good point.
Speaker 2 Okay. Cool.
Speaker 1
All right. I'm sorry, everybody.
I know you guys, dude, you had so many fucking questions. I feel like there was a question.
Speaker 2 I did this last time. I think we had to do like
Speaker 2 next time we do that. We do like, all right, guys, we'll do three questions first and we'll do the rest later.
Speaker 1 Dude, I just have so much I could talk to you about and it's just can't fit it in two hours, but I appreciate you for coming on and maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 1 If ever you,
Speaker 1 if you enjoy this at all and ever you feel the honor of coming back on, we we would love to have you back on.
Speaker 2 Man, I love doing podcasts and chatting. We can hit the questions another time, just so maybe when on the back end of offseason or whatever it may be, I'll come back on for sure.
Speaker 1
That'd be awesome, man. That'd be awesome.
All right, guys. You hear that? I'm going to save these questions.
I swear to God.
Speaker 1 All right.
Speaker 1 I asked everyone one last question at the end of every podcast. But if you're going to disappear tomorrow and you had one message you could send to the entire world today, what would the message be?
Speaker 2
Man, hold your loved ones tight. That would be it.
You know, don't worry about the small things and just go all in on those people that really care for you.
Speaker 1 Awesome. That's it.
Speaker 1 I'm with it. Is there anything else you'd like to promote? Talk about your channel, where we can find you, anything?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, I mean, first off, thanks for having me on again.
Like, I'm always humbled to be in a position I'm in to like share.
Speaker 2 my bodybuilding and just hopefully help improve the sport for the best and bring better physiques to stage.
Speaker 2 But if anyone wants to learn, reach out to me more.
Speaker 2
I am getting more active on YouTube, so I've been trying to crank that up. So John Jewett's my channel.
And then on Instagram at John Jewett3,
Speaker 2 we are pushing the coaching side of our business pretty hard. So I have some like excellent coaches as well and J3U coaching.
Speaker 2 Guys, we're just working with just competitors and high-level pros as well, all divisions.
Speaker 2 so we have j3 coaching then also j3 university and that's my bread and butter for education so i have like a level one course teaches the a to z to bodybuilds everything like we talked about tonight this how to get better at doing this and more efficient more not just giving you like cookie cutter here's the j3 approach but here's how i think about things so you can make decisions on your own
Speaker 2
And we have a female course that's killer and also just came out with an hourglass program. So I have an X-Frame program, as you figure, building X-Frame for guys.
I made one called Hourglass.
Speaker 2 So it's for bikini wellness. If you want glutes, legs,
Speaker 2 that's the program we just came out with. So
Speaker 2 that's all my stuff where you can find me.
Speaker 1
That's awesome, bro. Thank you.
Thank you. And I fucking send, I second that with his J3U courses highly, even though most of y'all probably already know about it.
Speaker 1 So thanks for coming on the pod again, brother.
Speaker 2 Yeah, man. Thanks.
Speaker 1
That was awesome. All right.
I'll talk to you soon, man.
Speaker 2
Yeah, man. Have a good night.
We'll talk to you later.
Speaker 1 You too, bro.