 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Hey, what were you just saying about your girl and the music you were starting to say that I interrupted you? What was the whole deal with that? My girl and the music? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we were listening to, no, we were listening to Rush this morning while we were working out. So I put Rush on. Tom Sawyer. Yeah. And she doesn't know who Rush is. Right. Yeah. So she's like, she's like, oh, shit. I like this. I'm like, oh, yeah. And she's like, what if I bought you tickets to watch Rush and then I ejaculated. Oh my God. I got so weird on that note. Let's talk about Bradley Martin. Yeah. So he kind of shattered my conception of him, what I thought of him. You know what I mean? Because I know him through his Instagram videos. You know, we squatting on the little hoverboard. Social media. Lifting. Always truthful. Chicks and all that stuff. And he's, he's a legit guy. He's been a trainer for a long time. I did not know this. He was an actual, like a real personal trainer for a long period of time, not just some guy who, you know, looks muscular. He's actually trained lots of people. And we walked into meet with Bradley and his two co-hosts of their podcast, Mason Cervantes and Brandon Gerdas in their gym. What's the name of the gym? Zoo culture? Yeah. The gym. It was a really cool gym. And one of the things, maybe you guys can back me up on this. You know, I've been in gyms for so long that I can feel. Yeah. The energy. Right away. The energy and the vibe. Yeah. Definitely positive vibe. Very positive. It's one of those gyms that you want to lift in. Yeah. Like if you're really serious about lifting. You want to lift and hang out. Yeah. And I think it's a reflection of the culture that, that he has built and that his team has built in that place. But this interview, it gets pretty deep. Like. All over the place. All over the place. We have a lot of fun conversation. He has some great stories. He throws in there. Great stories. We ask him some deep questions. It's emotional. You'll be surprised. Yeah. Bradley got emotional a couple of times in this. Talking about a few different things. And it was, it was long too. I think we recorded like a two hour, right? Yeah. And this will be like a two hour interview. I believe it's over two hours. Yeah. It was a great interview. You're going to be, you're going to hear sides of Bradley Martin and things he's going to talk about in this episode that he told us he's never talked about before. So buckle your seatbelts. Now, if you don't know who Bradley Martin is, you can find him on YouTube under his name Bradley B R A D L E Y Martin M A R T Y N. He's got 1.2 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. His podcast is culture cast, which he hosts with Mason and Brandon. You can find that on itunes and YouTube. His Instagram, he's got how many followers you have on Instagram 2.5 million. He gets fitness celebrities on Instagram, right? Absolutely. His Instagram page is Bradley underscore Martin. And his apparel line, which is relatively successful in the fitness space is, I can't read that there. It's BM fit gear. BM fit gear.com. So without any further ado, here is Adam Justin and myself talking to the podcast host of culture cast, which includes the famous insta famous Bradley Martin. How did you guys all meet each other? How's this work? Refer to episode one of our. You guys all know each other for a long time or what? Yeah, we deliver 10 years ago through college. Like Mason and I both worked at a supplement store. So that's how we met. And then Brad had actually noticed me from an online forum called T Nation that I used to post on. Oh, we know T Nation. Yeah. Yeah. Actually got good content. Yeah. I was a big, like I was on the use that better content. Yeah. I'll tell you what? It's one of the better. We tease them now. It's one of the better fitness, you know, content places because a lot of stuff out there is bullshit. Yeah. I was on that website from, I don't know, probably 2004 to 2008, like during that time period. And I was primarily on the steroid form and, you know, posting all the stuff. I was only like a 19 year old kid, but I came across on the internet as like I really knew what I was doing. And Brad was also a kid and he had, I guess read some of my stuff and he saw me in the gym. And so he approached me in the gym. That's kind of how the three of us got together. Recognizing? From the avatar photo. From these. From the avatar, right? Yeah. From the ears. Oh really? Because it was before social media. It was like the little profile avatar photo. Avatar. It was like a competition photo of his. And I was like, I noticed him from the back. I was like, from Italy. I was like, I know that guy from somewhere. I don't recognize those glutes. The back of his head. Yeah. Not even that. No, no, no, no. Don't say me that. His ears. His ears. Those shredded glutes. I was looking over at desk because I was like, I was a trainer at the time. So I was like looking out from a desk and I seen him. His ears. I was like, I know that guy. So I waited for him to come back in like the next evening. Because I was like, oh, there, because I said, you know this guy. And they're like, he's here every night. So he's like eight o'clock every night. So I was like, oh, okay. I'll find him next time. Bro, I didn't know you personal trained. How long did you personally train for? You've been in fitness for a while then. Yeah. Since that was like my first, I don't know. My first job was, uh, Quiznos. Yeah. I worked there for a week and it was like, and then they told me that I couldn't put enough food on my, you know, because you know, you, they give you a certain amount of food you can. For employees. Yeah. You're like a certain size sandwich. And I was like, I always wanted more. So I was like, fuck. I like, I can't, I remember thinking like, I'm working this hard. I got to clean all these dishes. I want a bigger sandwich. And the lady would get mad at me every single time. So I was like, you know what, fuck this job. I had it for a week. And prior to that, I was a lifeguard. How many big sandwiches did you make in that week? Oh, probably every single day. I mean, like, they're like, we're paying, we're paying this guy. Yeah. He's eating more sandwiches than his fucking salary. Definitely. So I worked there for a week. And then I worked as a lifeguard. And then I worked at, But you could swim. Yeah. I worked as a lifeguard. Yeah. Like a rock. No, I was, I was much skinnier than, um, not that I'm big now, but I'm skinny now. Anyways, that's a whole different topic. Um, so I is a thing. It's a thing. It's a real thing. So then I was a kids camp counselor at a private gym. And then I like shadowed under this like trainer when I was like 16 and then like turning 17. I shadowed under this trainer who like was a trainer at, uh, it's called prime time athletic club in, uh, Milbury, California. Okay. Private privately owned like up north. Up north. Oh, shit. I know you're from San Francisco. Oh, there you go. I'm from Pacifica. You guys know. I know. Yeah. Right down the, right down the coast. I went to school in, uh, in Reardon. So I went to all boys high school. So anyways, I worked at, um, that, that thing as a kids camp counselor and then like worked under this guy who was a trainer and learned a lot of stuff from him. And then as soon as I basically became 18, I was like a trainer ever since. Oh, no shit. So I was turning at 24 and then wait, I mean like 24 fitness. Yeah. Initially, you know, that's our, all of our background, right? We ran open clubs for them for years. Well, initially it was the one in Pacifica and then I transferred. So that was a new one. Bro, who did you work with? Give me the years. Who was there? Uh, Dan was the, Dan was the fitness man. He doesn't do it anymore. Dan Calhente. I don't think so. Filipino cat. No. Okay. No. He was an S. It was like Solomon. Okay. I worked there and then I ended up transferring. Well, I stopped working there for a while. I went up to, went up to Sac State. Um, stopped training for a little bit, went back down and then with like, I transferred from like that Pacifica to the 24 and lemon. And that's where I met him. That's the one in Fullerton. That was the one in Fullerton. And then I worked there for a while. I think like maybe a year and a half. There's a couple of years and then two years. I was in the Gold's gym and I helped open up the Gold's gym in Fullerton. Back when there's a presale, we used to train there. Yeah. And then did really well there and then became a, That was well, not to know, but that was the first time I started getting really pissed at gyms. Cause like we would, when we were at 24, our fitness, we actually dug stuff like out of their basement to get like the old barbells and metal plates and stuff to have like real shit to train with. Right. You get tired of the other stuff. And then when we saw that there was a Gold's gym opening because, um, yeah, we were like ecstatic. Gold's coming. And the Gold's that opened was one of the new like shit kind of corporate one. Oh yeah. Oh, we have a, you could look to steam room, but like our barbell sucks. Yeah. It was so bad. The worst plates, it was, but it, but it was a better gym. It was a better environment. 24 fitness. The lighting was better and that's always key. Um, it's essential. Debatable. And then, um, yeah. So I worked there. I worked there and I did so well there that, that, that they were like, uh, I wanted to be a group X instructor as well. So I did a boot camp with a bunch of like, uh, I guess mostly my clients are older women. Dude, do you remember the years that you were there? We got, we know the same people. We know we were in this for 10 plus years in the Bay Area. We ran all the biggest clubs like we had to have crossed paths for sure. Who was it? Who was the DM? Do you remember who was the DM those days? At the Gold's? No, no, no. 24 when you were 24 days in the Bay. Yeah. In the Bay. Oh, I don't, I wasn't there long enough. Okay. I was spent more time as a trainer, um, like Orange County in Orange County. Okay. And then at Gold, I spent a lot of, I think it was there for like three years. Yeah. Three years. Um, you guys didn't know anyone from Gold's. No, no. We know the, who owns the Gold down by us? Jerry. Yeah. The McCall group. No. So this is all, this is all like Andrew and Willie on the Gold's down here. But yeah, they, they, they let me become a group X instructor. And then I was like, wait a minute. I was like, yeah. Yeah. It's like a boot camp. So you keep going. And then I was like, wait a minute. And then I worked like three hours in the morning, three days a week or one day a week. So three hours each, basically three hours a week. And the boot camp was like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And it was in the morning. And I was like, wait a minute. I'm like, I'm like making quadruple the amount of money doing like it's significantly less hours. So then I was like, I just want to focus on this boot camp thing. Cause it's a group setting. It was like more fun. It was like higher energy. Sure. Um, and then the personal training side, if they were all like, they're all mad at me because they were like, no, you got to do more numbers, more numbers. And I just got burnt out with this whole like doing numbers. And I was like, and I'm not making any fucking money because they take everything from you. So I was like, I just want to do this on my own. And then that's what I started doing. I started like training like fancy people and shit. And then fast forward like Instagram came evolution of every trader. Right. We started off training normal people that would go to fancy people with a monocle. I mean, not that everyone's not fancy, but like I know exactly what you mean for celebrities. Sure. You charge more per hour or whatever. Now, is this the first gym you've ever like this? Is this the first gym you've ever owned? Yeah. What's it like? Because now you actually own a gym. Different being on this side. Yeah. Well, first I want to say it's the first gym we've ever owned. So yeah, obviously. So for everybody, it's the first gym you guys have owned. Yeah. Yeah. And because I don't want to say because truthfully without these guys officially because I mean, I've been in a lot of gyms in my life that I felt like I was like, like I own this mother fuck. I don't know all those people like how many drinks. What the fuck are these drinks disappearing so fast? So no, but I can't take. I can't say me because without them, I wouldn't be able to do it. Sure. For damn sure. But yeah, it's it's crazy, man. This whole like, I think the best part about it is it's more undeniable. Like the internet is so. I don't want to. I don't want to say East Coast where but Fugazi. I don't want to say East Coast. I'm not even East Coast. But it's so bullshit. Like he dropped that last week. It's not like it's amazing. And it's in its own right. But it's people just can just make shit up. Correct. And like there I dealt with this whole shit where like people talked all this shit about me. Bullshit lies now at this point. Everyone's kind of come back around and said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did that blah, blah, blah for them. And they did it for their own benefit for their own benefit of views and this and that. But then you have skewed opinions on who I am. People have never met me. People have never even talked to me, never shook my hand, never said anything to me, have an opinion on me. And if you're gonna be gonna be at these doors and then you're gonna, that's who I really am. And I mean, finding out that you were a trainer and that you guys have been in fitness as long as you have it gets totally different because there are a lot of celebrities on Instagram and Facebook fitness people who are just they're just ripped. They don't know shit about fitness. They never were there. Yeah, that's, I think that's 99% of this fucking industry. Most of it. Most of it. Most of it, which is why we got excited getting into it because it was like this music. Yeah, I found a clean house. It's even frustrating to you've had people that you looked up to at some point, and then you finally meet them and you're like, fuck they're an idiot too. That happens a lot. Ah, damn. That happens a lot. That happens a lot. How many times has that happened to you where you meet somebody and they're just totally different than what you expected? That happened to me one time and that's what kind of changed my perspective on how I wanted to be when I met people who, when people started to care about me, right? That's like, I never wanted to be that person and I feel bad to say it because this person passed away. Should I say it? Yeah, I don't feel bad about things. Okay, so you know Greg Plitt. Yep, yep. So he passed away, rest in peace. I have nothing, nothing bad to say, but there was a moment where like, I met him at a FedExpo and he was just a dick to me. And I remember I looked up, I was like looking up to like this moment and I met him and he was just an asshole to me and I was like, fuck, I never, if I ever become popular, because that was part of my goal. Like I wanted to affect people like that person had affected me. So then once I got there, I was like, I never wanted to make someone feel like, oh man, that guy's a dick. Because now like I spend time at these expos and like when you're like one of the guys and you guys all, you know, one of the popular guys and you guys all go to the backstage and people all complain about how many fucking hours they've been there and how many people want to take pictures. Like motherfucker, like. Those are the ones that made you. Like what the fuck are you complaining about? These people are making you who you are. And all these people, it's like, they pretend like this is like this holy like how they are and oh, I care about people and inspiring. And they're on the back scenes like I can't wait to fucking leave. All these people are so fucking annoying. Like it's a joke. It's a fucking joke to me. The shit genuinely is a joke. And it's like, you're popular on social media. You're popular because of these people. Dude, I remember this was like maybe eight years ago or maybe not quite eight. When did shreds first come on? Oh God. Yeah, we're gonna go there. Oh, are we really gonna go there? I mean, we don't want to be. Holy shit, I don't want to be weak. I forgot to say that one. Oh, I don't get to fight. Wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Use my discount code, brand-namegirdis10. If we're gonna do it, I got to show it. Listen now, listen, listen, listen. No, we racked on them early on. So before we even started, like the show, and we had already been talking to a brand-name called Pulse. Oh my God. I'm out, I'm out at Olympia. And this was before I got into competing. This is when I was thinking about getting competing. So I'm like, better check this scene out because at this point I'm not even into it. I'm just doing it for the platform. And so I go out to Olympia and I go out to see this and I fucking walk through the doors and there is a fucking 50-foot banner. What year is this? This is, it's gotta be like 11, 12, right? Yeah, at least five years. Probably 11. 12, 13. Yeah, what year was it? Whatever, it was the first year. Cause I mean, I'm up and up on that month, that far disconnected, I didn't see this coming. Like all of a sudden I walk in and this dude, this kid who I've never fucking met in my life before, he's got a 50-foot fucking banner of himself. Hold on to Raj, follow him. Yeah, and I see, I think, was it, was it Jay? I think Jay Cutler was there that day. And there's like nobody in line to talk to Jay Cutler and there's this line around the building to talk to this fucking kid. And I was so fascinated with that that moment. I've searched him up on Instagram, figure out who they all are and this is how I found Shreds. And I come back and I tell these guys, I've been listening to you guys, there's fucking dudes we've never even heard of and fitness, they're just like fucking killing it. They're taking over Olympia and I've never seen any of them in this circuit before. So it blew my fucking mind. That was the beginning of the end for me. Really? That was when I was like, this is lame now. Like I'm, I still competed for a few years afterwards but that was like when all that shit changed. Oh, you competed too. Yeah, I did bodybuilding for about 10 years and powerlifting for close up too. Put up a picture of Brandon. Yeah. I don't look like it at all now. This is gonna shock the shit out of you. Yeah, Brandon might have been the biggest guy in the room. This is gonna shock the shit out of you. No, but it just says a lot, it says a lot about social media. Right, where it's going right now. Like it changed this whole fucking industry. Yeah, the entire thing. It came to the point where like you can be, just because you got good abs or like, what are you, a pretty person or whatever, you can just make them some bullshit. Now all of a sudden you're expert on nutrition. Straight up bullshit. Straight up bullshit. That's 100% what motivated us with our show. We got on the phone and we started talking and we just went off and we're like, we need to do a show and we're let's be fearless and let's just talk about everybody. Oh, damn, dude. Oh, shit, bro, big boy. Oh, shit. That's in 2014. Yeah. They actually did a... Damn, you look good, dude. I did a couple of classic physique shows last year and then I just, after USA's, I just retired. You run all your stuff, your diet, your training, your programming. I've always done my own thing, but there are people that have helped. Like I became good friends with Stan McQuay since I moved out here. Oh, shit. He's kind of like a mentor of mine, so I always ran a lot of stuff. How far did you go? With bodybuilding, you know, I qualified for national shows a long time, but I never competed for bodybuilding because I never felt I was ready. Like I respected the game, so to speak. Like I didn't want to do USA's until I thought I could win or be competitive, right? That's so funny. I did this when I came, well, I was men's physique, so my shit didn't even look like that, right? So I was coming in, I remember telling me to get on stage. I'm like, bro, I'm not going to get on stage until I feel like I can compete with the fucking pros. Like until I feel like I'm even close to that, I don't want to fuck around. Well, so I would always take a lot of time off in between shows and always improved over time. I started as a teenager and then kind of, you know, sometimes I would take a year or two off in between shows, but always show up with improvements. And I mean, I guess my best accomplishment or my proudest moment was that picture that Kevin had up there was the 2014 Gold Coast local show here. It was my first overall, and so overall victory for bodybuilding. And two weeks prior to that, I did the LA Fit Expo Powerlifting Invitational. I did Deadlift only there and I pulled over 700 pounds. Oh, man. I could have brought those triceps up though. Oh, sorry, bro. Just in that fall, you know, just a little more triceps. But then I went on to win two other shows that year. I didn't win the overall, but I won my class, the heavy weights for the Frigno and the Excalibur, which are decent size shows. What year did you do Frigno? 2014. The initial. The first one. Bro, we were there at the same time. Really? I did Men's Physique the first year at Frigno. That was actually one of the way they expedited there and that show was one of the nicest shows that I'd been to. Yeah, I really liked this show. I mean, Chris Menace, the promoter is a friend of mine and he's a competitor himself in Hill. Like the muscle contest shows, you know, even though there are people there that I like, I don't really care for how to put them on. Notice the ears though. But you know. Oh, it's like a sharper. I never grew into those. I mean, they're sharper. It's like you're a hypertrophy going on there. He hears everything. It's amazing. You look like a Jack St. Pierre. That's what you look like. Oh, shit! Oh, let's go! Jack St. Pierre right there. We're going to have to change. Oh, wow. Right, right. Which by the way, can we talk about how bad ass that was due to watch that? I felt like an asshole because I better get some. No, no, hell no, hell no. I didn't know. This guy tried to get me too. Because someone goes, did you, some girl, a girl was like, did you watch the fights? And I was like, no. She was like, yeah, some old UFC fighter came back. I was like, what? And then I, and then I Googled it and I was like, oh, I missed this. Bro, that was the best card. That was the best card I've seen in years, dude. It was like, oh, that was amazing card. I mean, three championships got defeated. Yes. That's excellent. He would have another round though. He's not going any further than that. Like you could tell he was gas. Yeah, he's big. You can tell for him to fill out that frame. It's something different. So who, who irritates you guys the most now? So we already talked about shreds, but where do I, where do I start? Are they, are they though? Do you stay up on that? Brad is the most irritating to me. Are they, are they still dipping down? Do you know what's going on with them? It seems like they kind of know. They're gone now, I think. Cause I talked to one of the other guys the other day. I mean, he was like, yeah, I'm starting my own company. So like, and he's one of the main people. Oh really? Yeah. I just don't want to say his name because I don't want to. You don't want to railroad? No, I just don't, I just, you know. Yeah. There's just some things that just deserve to stay in the past. I've gotten to the point where I, so like to finish my brief story with that, like I, I finally did the USA's for classic physique, right? And it was, it let me down. And then every expo I went to, I was like, just, it's all social media stuff. Like everything changed from when I first got into it to where it is now. And I was like, I don't like this anymore. And then I got somewhere where like I hated everybody. It was like all these companies, all these social media dipshits had never did anything like I hate them all. And like peer hatred, which is not good. Cause I don't like to just have that, right? Right. And so I guess upon, I was like, you know what? That's just, that's the world we live in in any industry, especially one that grows and fitness has exploded because of social media. So like it, there's no point in like hating on what somebody else is doing or trying to look for like the people that are crooked anymore to the fit tease. Like we talked about in our, one of our episodes that instead it's better to just focus on like what you do and you stay in your own. So I'll tell you who's made out lead by example and do what you want to do and maybe, you know, and don't worry about all the other companies that are fucking well, I'll tell you who's made out like bandits is the supplement companies cause they're getting these guys to rep them and stuff and they're giving them nothing. Yeah. Oh my God. It's hilarious. Yeah. That's the hustle, that's the hustle. There's a lot of people. I mean, all that shreds did that model beautifully. I mean, that's what they did so well. Yeah, look at that beer. Did I hit that or what? I thought I hit that pretty well. Did you hit that shit all the way bro? The nose and everything. He was a fighter. What happened to your nose, bro? I think mine's been broken a few times. Oh, okay. No, I mean, just on that point of this whole supplement thing, like yeah, it's, it's, it's funny, man, but it's, it's like, what are you supposed to do? Even though you, I feel like there's a small percentage of people who know better, but there's such a large percent of people who are just like, they're just, cause fitness is still so new that they're just like, I'm willing to listen to anything. Right. And that cause, I mean, people still go, how do I lose fat? Like, you think, you think that it's like, oh, we understand it at by now, but like there's, I still get tons of DMs, tons of messages, Instagram, snap in everywhere. There's a lot of misinformation, a lot of counter information. I think part of the issue is that you have general, there's some general truths when it comes to like nutrition and training, but the individual variants are so fucking massive to where you can have one person who's like, I eat keto and it fucking works great for me. I feel amazing. You got some person over here that's like, I'm a vegan and I feel great eating vegan. And next thing you know, it's this debate. Yeah, you hear all, you know, like, what works for me in the right way is confused. Yeah, it's just this, the individual variants is so huge, the same thing with training. You see some people that respond so well. It's natural for us to, for people to want to, people want to get put themselves in a box, dude. Everybody wants it to identify with a tribe or a group. And so it feeds right into that. Shout out to the squad. Right. That's what it is though. People want to belong to a group. And then the real thing that I like talking to you, especially with guys like you, is that's a hard thing to navigate when you're trying to build a business, build an empire yourself. It's like, how do I do that at the same time, stay true to who I am and not become like somebody like a shreds type of model, you know? Fuck, right? It feels so bad. We just keep like, ah, well, don't feel bad. Fuck him. No, I don't feel bad. They did it to themselves. Yeah, right? They did it to themselves. They did it to themselves. They keep a learning experience. Yeah. So, yeah, fuck. Was your question, how to? Yeah, like, how do you, well, here's the thing, like, there's something to learn from these guys. You know, the information was shit, but. Can't deny they made millions of dollars. But they, well, besides, like, they got the word out. They're very, very good at doing that. So there's something to be said about that. But there's marketing, though. Right, like, learn that, right? Because then you've got these really brilliant people who are just, nobody can hear them because they suck at that side of it. You know what I've found, though, is that like a lot of times the people, the experts, so to speak, they're spending so much time being an expert or learning and stuff that they don't spend time on the marketing. And like, that's why there's even some supplement companies and a lot of even the people that probably should have the biggest platforms don't have a platform because, like, they're so busy just doing the thing. Like, they're so busy learning the science or reading and researching. So that was the motivation behind Mind Pump. So Mind Pump, what we found when we started like diving through everything was like, dude, all the smartest people that are writing all the great books that are actually doing all the research, nobody knows who the fuck they are. Because they don't, they don't give a shit about social media or Instagram or YouTube or any of these things. So they're over here in their corner or in their lab doing all the studies. Meanwhile, all these kids that nobody, you know, nobody knows who the fuck they are. They have no credentials whatsoever out here and they're fucking promoting all this bullshit. And so that was really the motivation was, okay, let's first establish ourselves as an authority. Once we create ourselves as an authority, now let's bring up these people who we think that, like, man, are putting out a good message or have good information. Hey, Kevin. Does that sound kind of familiar to the YouTube thing we did for a little bit? I had a brief YouTube thing that I had kind of started it on my bring back that was kind of the same concept. I wanted to do the same thing. Cause I got to the point where I was like, you know what? Maybe I can try and learn some of the social media stuff that I've learned, especially being good friends with Brad and then apply that in a way that I could then start to give a platform to people that like, you know. You just need a douchey friend like me. You know, he's not used to the internet. And that's why we got Adam, you know? And that's why I got this guy. That's what makes a great team though. That's what's probably special about all three because you guys are, you guys seem to be very different which is like the three of us. Even though we're all in health and fitness we have different backgrounds and that's what makes the team. Who's the weakest one? He's the weakest one. Strength, strength, weakness, strength. We get different lists, depends on the lift and if you're going to do pound for pound. He's the pound for pound guy. I can tell. I can tell. He's got the Wilkes. He's got the Wilkes. Anytime we try, anytime we get into PR it's like breaks the calculator. Oh, shit, can you weigh this much? Yeah, let's be honest, bro. So what's your head lift? All time, 600. Now it's probably in the low fives, low to mid fives. That's a curious about it. You're funny. I had this guy one time that was... He came, I don't even know why he was debating with me. I was like a target, right? And like at the time I was weighing closer to 250 and like I was pulling like, you know, I probably could have pulled mid sevens. Like pulled 745 in the gym. 722 is my best and I knew me. But then he was like, well, you know I weighed like 150 something and I could pull like, you know, 540 or whatever. So my Wilkes is better and like I'm officially stronger than you, this and that and I'm natural and you're not. And I was like, so what you're telling me is you're on steroids and you're bigger and stronger than me. And so I need to tell you this to feel better about myself. I was like, cause at the end of the day, say whatever you want, I don't care. Yeah, I'm on a bunch of gear. I'm a lot fucking bigger than you and I'm a lot stronger than you. So fuck off. It is what it is. You should have been like, yeah. Can you go move that fridge for me then? I can do that. So how are you guys liking the podcasting world now? I mean, you've dominated Instagram, you've dominated YouTube. Now you're making your way into podcasting. How are you guys liking it right now? I like to meet him. I mean, I have my answer ready. We need to be better at scheduling. Brad paid for everything in here. So I, you know, I look at him right. I was like, yeah, yeah. Cause we were like, this is going to be fun. And then Brad's like, fuck, how much did you spend on this shit? And I was like, yeah, I got a total of that up. Yeah, get back to you on that. Honestly, like just a podcasting in general, I enjoy it probably more than anything else that I've done because it's just more real, just more raw. There's less like, cause I don't get me wrong. Like that's how I got popular. It was like, I did the posage shit. Like I'd lifted girls, I jumped out of pools, I did all the crazy shit. But like, I've always noticed from conversation when people have come and talked to me is like, the real shit is what they cared about. The video is what I talked about, like life and death and it's motivation and like real, real stuff that affects your heart. So this format, I feel like aids that so much more, like if some, cause if someone's willing to listen for an hour, they're really trying to learn some shit. So I think in general, like the platform of a podcast is more effective and can be more effective. It's just like, maybe there might be less people to jump on it initially, but... It's way deeper. They're way more loyal. The people who, first off, business-wise podcast, they convert better than anything else on a number per number. Just because that people listen to you for an hour, you connect with them better. They get to know you a little more. It's way deeper. It may not be as wide, but it's a lot deeper. That's what I enjoy is the fact that like, you can connect with someone on a different level than just like, here's some crazy shit. This is how you do abs, do some shit, do some curls, get arms, whatever. And it's just kind of like, it's kind of like this because that's how everyone wants to, like Instagram, they want new shit now today next minute, next minute, they want it. Like that's the whole idea of like, most of the social media platforms now is like, as much, give it all like, get it good, get it good. And they just kind of keep going like this. And it's the constant, you need more, you need more. This is more like, it's almost like you write a short book or something. Right? Well, take a page at a Tim Ferriss. Yeah, because your social media is very entertaining. It's got that, you know, Instagram, Flare doing all that stuff. With the podcast, what are you trying to deliver? What is it that you want to show people? What am I trying to deliver? Yeah, what are you guys trying to show? So I would say it's along the same lines of like, I kind of why I started, I mean, for me, I know these guys have different perspectives on this. The reason why I do what I do is cause I want to help people and not a sense of just help people, like everyone says that shit, is because I've been in moments in my life where like, I felt like I needed help and I wanted help and I looked for help and it wasn't always helped. So it was kind of like, I grew up without a father. I had moments in my life where I felt very like, just alone in a sense. Or like, when I achieved things, there wasn't a, oh, good job. And that idea of like, I don't know, just in a sense of having hope that things can get better. And I don't know, being almost like a big brother to people. Brad divorced or passed away, what was, he took his life when I was six. So my mom had divorced when I was- How crazy is that, huh? That's crazy, yeah. So they divorced when I was five. And then a year later, he took his life when I was six, he hung himself. Yeah, so that's- My dad took his life at seven. Yeah, when I was seven. When you were seven, how'd he do it? Shot himself. Damn, yeah. So no, no nothing. Wow. So for me it's that, it's like growing up and I don't want to get emotional. That's right, real role with it. Yeah, it's always so difficult. It's definitely made you into the man that you are today for sure, you know? Everything from the empathy side that you have, not having that model. I didn't have the same thing. Yeah, what you'll find too, you really want to help people can, you know, letting people see who you really are is one of the most effective things you could do. We talk about this on the show and it's very difficult to do it when we talk about our motivations for exercise, which are based on insecurities. You know, I grew up very skinny so I wanted to be the bigger guy and I did things in my body that probably weren't the best. And I went through a divorce while we're recording our podcast, while Mind Pump is going on, I'm going through this whole thing. And those are the episodes that connect the most with our audience. It's also the most cathartic. You'll find that podcasting, at least for us, the most, it's probably the most therapeutic thing I've ever done in my entire life. Yeah, I would definitely say that's, I guess what I wanted to bring to it, not so much in therapy, but just giving people a source of entertainment and like, you know, cause I've had a bunch of different influences with podcasting and it's something, I mean, I don't know if you know of Kevin and Bean out here, they're just, you know, LA radio. And like, they've just always been something to me where I've like heard them and I heard Howard Stern growing up and I was just like, man, like these voices, these like, you know, they provide funny, they provide serious, they provide, you know, up to date entertainment, you know what I mean? Same thing with like Ralph Garmin and like Kevin Smith, you know, people like Brandon Schaub and, you know, Joe Rogan, you know, I just have such a different wide range of like, people I like to listen to at different times, just because I'm like, I'm feeling like this today, I need some comedy. So I'm gonna listen to- Bro, you're gonna fucking love Mind Pump, bro. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything we get compared to is everything you just got- Hard influence, for sure. For sure. Same people you mentioned, yeah. We've been coined as the Howard Stern of fitness. That's, we try and breathe this- I love that. Yeah, comedy approach, but then we also get fucking deep and talk, and we share our own insecurities. Like we came out early on, you have these bodybuilder looking dudes that are steroid out, and then all of a sudden, we start talking about feelings and emotion and like what drove us in the gym. Cause let's be real, like that's the kids that are getting into it right now, everybody who starts to work out, right? We start working out because of an insecurity, because something about it, something we don't like, I'm too small, I'm too fat, I'm too short, I'm not good lucky enough, someone's not giving me attention. Something drove all of us to walk in that fucking gym. And there's something, there's something to take from that, cause there's a lot of power in that that probably propelled all of us to where we're at now today. And there's something, and to me, I feel like when we get to the level, especially where you guys are at, where my and pup is at, that we kind of, we owe that to share with the other young, I wish there was something. Yeah, I want to say to your point exactly, is that so many people look at the end product, like who I am or what I've done, they're like, man, that's cool, I want to do that, I want to be popular, I want to do fitness. Like I get messages all the time, like how do I get my name out there and be popular? It's like, you guys need to figure out why the fuck you give a shit about this. Like that's exactly what you said, is that point of like, what pushed you in the gym, what made you want to be better? What made you want to be greater? It's like, it's something emotional, it's not just like, I want to lose weight, I want to get bigger arms, or I want to be like Bradley Martin. That's too vague, it's not close enough to someone's heart. Surface. And it's like, you got to think deeper. Like why do you give a fuck about what you're doing and not enough people do that? Just look at the end product, like I said, and they're like, I want that, how do I get that? I need big arms and I need this, but at some point it fades because there's no real passion behind it. The passion comes from that moment, like the thing that I went through that I was like, I want to change my life, I want to affect other people's life positively because I wanted that, right? So that it comes deep inside of me. So when I lift and when I do all these things that make me better or crazy or whatever, it's coming from there. Like when I go to deadlift the heavyweight, like I'm thinking about, that's why it matters to me. This is what it's for, I'm going to lift this weight. Not just like, I'm just going to lift this weight because it's going to make me cooler, popular. So it all started there. And then eventually I look back one day and it's like, oh, people give a shit about what I'm doing. It was never like, I just want to be popular. It was like, I'm going to do this. It was almost like accident, almost side effect of it. Absolutely. And so, and I think people forget to look at like, why are you doing what you do? Like you said, you asked me why are you doing this? What do you like about it, right? And no one, they just kind of like, they see shit and they're like, that's really cool, I want to do that. But like you said, is it maybe it's not for them? Cause they don't like, they, why? Like not enough people can answer why they do something. That's what really drives you is the why. And when you fall down, that's what picks you back up. And we realized just doing our show that when we're driven by business and all that stuff, we do okay. But when we go back to the purpose and the passion, that's when we succeed the most as a side effect. That's when shit really starts to take off. And it's because it's something bigger or we feel like it's something bigger than us. It's bigger than how much we're going to produce or how many downloads we have or whatever. It's literally because we want to, I'm talking to me when I was 13 years old. You know what I'm saying? We all went through these same struggles and that same path and we just want to make sure that people understand that, you know? And then there's other, you know, there's better ways to go about this. And so, you know, what can we do to kind of provide that in our years of experience training people one on one? You know, what does that look like? We want to be able to show people, look, you know, this is not popular right now, but this is going to benefit your body so much more. And you know, it's just tough cause you're going to fight through all this misinformation that's out there. And you know, it's one of those things. We're just super passionate about that. Well, Brad, I didn't get that. I've watched, I've watched you since you pretty much got going on Instagram. I've been following you for a long time. And I actually kind of feel like the direction you're going now with the podcast and even your message, the stuff that you share where you talk, talk on your Insta story and stuff like that. I feel like you're, even your tone is kind of changing a little bit. Is there, are you kind of directing go in a different direction now? Or do you feel like you're starting to get more in touch and share more of these types of things? I feel like you said, when you first started it was more like all the, look at this cool shit. You got the, you got the attention. And now I feel like you're kind of steering the ship in a little bit of a different direction. Do you feel that way? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you have to, I think things have to constantly change. You've got to constantly evolve. And I just, it's just kind of like what matters to me. Cause that's always what I've like driven off of is like what actually really matters to me. So it's always mattered to me. It just kind of became more like, I guess I got more like, fuck it. It was like, this is who I really am. I'm going to be more of this. I'm going to, I'm going to show more love. I'm going to give more, more, like give more, much more back as much as I can. I want to like, instead of trying to be like the crazy fucking, and cause that's who I am as well. And these guys know me for years. I've always been the loud guy, the crazy guy, the funny guy, the whatever, the annoying guy, whatever you want to call it. And most annoying. Definitely not funny. Oh, come on, bitch, you know how funny. Don't make, no lie, no lie. Was never like the strong guy. Those are the ones that hurt. He calls you not funny. Anyways. It's like we live, we're treating with him. Cause we were laughing at him in the gym. He was the funny guy. This is all bullshit. Oh my God. Now they think they have jokes all of a sudden. That's the funny thing. It's like, all of a sudden you got a hoax. What the fuck is this? You know what? You know what's cool about owning a gym like this and doing what you guys are doing. One thing that I miss, we talked about this because we don't have any desire to open a gym to make money. But one thing that we all talk about missing is having a gym like this around, it keeps your feet on the pulse of fitness. You're not separated from it. You know what I'm saying? You get to be out here and talk to the people and see them train and just keeps it real. Well, initially when I first thought about opening a gym I was like, the idea was like, I'm just going to open a place where I could film content. Yeah, that's what we are. So initially it was like, I just want to have this for myself so I could film content. Then it's like, well, we're making some really fucking cool minds. We'll have people come be a part of it. But the goal wasn't like, oh, we want to have a gazillion members and like all this shit. It was just more like have adult place that like I could film some crazy shit out and have fun and like have guests and like film videos and shit. What I love that you flipped on its head. Totally, totally different approach. We'll notice it right away. Like what you did that's really smart. And if it hasn't paid off already, it will continue. I foresee this being more of a trend. It's allowing people to have the cameras and do all that shit in here and video them. Because that's everyone's doing that now. I mean, that's how I built everything that I have. It'd be silly if I had a gym and I was like, don't film shit. Don't you think it's crazy that all these other gyms are that way? All the other gyms. I think it's crazy, but I get it because it's like, it's all liability shit. Because we started initially and obviously everyone's gonna steal this fucking idea. Shout out to all the dick writers who like to copy the name of my gym. They know exactly who they are. You have to piece of shit if you ever listen to this and you know it. Anyways, so you have a thing built off of like. You get someone bite the name, like purely the name, not Zoom. Pretty much. Really? Wow. Not pretty much. Wow. Pretty much, imagine this. The most popular word in fitness. There's a 200. Listen, listen. Imagine this. No, no, no, imagine this. What's the most popular word in fitness? What's the most popular word in fitness? Shredded? No, no, no. Fitness. Fitness. Okay, okay. And then they put a, what's unique about our gym? What do you think, what are you in the name? Not this part. The zoo. Oh, not that culture. Yeah. Yeah. They decided he was like, oh, yeah. And then it's funny because then like there's wood in the gym too. There's wood in the gym. No, not just. It's also funny because we had a conversation. Hold on, we had a fucking conversation. Eight months before we opened this motherfucking gym with the same motherfucker who then moved out of LA to go open a gym somewhere else. Oh, wow. We had a conversation before we opened this fucking gym. I said if he gets a bulldog, I'm probably gonna go beat him. He'll probably get a bulldog. I'll probably go beat him. I have two, but I think I had a first. And he's, oh, he's got a bulldog. Miners six and four, bro. We got a reclaim. Sorry, that got me back down. So what was the question again? What was the question again? Let's talk about people biting people's shit, bro. Oh my God, no, I can't, I can't. I don't want to get there. So we're talking about without rolling, I guess names that are here are these people that are, do you see this, does this happen to you a lot? I mean, you are very original at a lot of the things that you did for sure. This happened from the beginning, from the very beginning. The whole, I was the first person on Instagram to sell online coaching. Okay, so I'm gonna call you out on something right now. Go ahead. Okay, because you're the only person to block me. And the only reason why. Like years ago. Years ago. This kind of bullio. What is your thing? Bullio. Yes. Okay, I bet you I know why. Okay, so well, I figured it was probably dig right in my shit. No, no, no, no, definitely not. Okay, okay, go ahead. I miss originals. They come bro. So, but I figured because I was like, okay, maybe he at that time. He's had to be like five years. Yeah, it was. It was like five years ago. I had just found you. And what I was like, do this dude is you're built. Like we're, I'm six, three. I was 240 pounds, six, three. And I'm competing. And I see you jumping out of the pool. And that's how I came across your stuff. And I was following you and then I got blocked. I thought, well, maybe it was a mistake. And then I tried to add a bunch of times. What did you say anything to me? No, that's, and I'm not, dude, I'm not a troll. Not someone who does anything. That was what's so crazy was I was like, I wonder, but I thought, well, maybe, maybe cause he sees me in fitness and he sees that I'm a guy who's built like it. Were you online coaching? I did online coaching. So there was a time. Okay, let me, I want to explain this. What happened? And this was, this was the younger me. Explain yourself. This is the younger me. Explain yourself. I want to explain this. This is the younger me. You would come over here. You would thank me, bro. I was like, he's probably a nice guy. I don't give him a chance. I don't give him a chance. No, I love it. And this thing is, I never met you. You're awesome. It's fine. Like right now after, I already, I already love you. So listen up. There was a time when I first started this whole online coaching thing and people who were kind of close to me, like I just noticed like, I made like, I was the first person. I'm not saying people didn't train people online before. Before they called it like virtual coaching. People did it on websites and competition shit. So I coined this like online coaching and I had little, I was like one of the first people ever to make little Instagram school. This was before stress was before anything existed like marketing wise. I made Instagram squares like online coaching to giveaways to the very first giveaway with Instagram fitness, which later on shreds about the accounts piece of shit now. And to add to Brad's thing, back when Instagram first started, when the rest of us were just editing pictures and posting on Facebook or using it as like a filter thing, he was telling me then, he's like, dude, you got to start marketing stuff through your Instagram. And then he was already starting the coaching. He's like, he should start doing the coaching thing. Like your bodybuilder, like, he was, yeah. And I was like- Before anyone was on Instagram. Before Instagram was on, it was even on Android. I was still working on my space then. Everyone was on Facebook, filter stuff, putting it on Facebook, no one used Instagram. And I read about it, knew when it was going to be popular. I was like, this is going to be the fucking wave. This is going to change everything. So I, because I wanted to be on Twitter back in a day, I was like, how could I make a business on Twitter? Cause my old goal was like, I want to be able to sit at home and play video games and chill and make money at home. That was my goal. I want to play video games. I started out, it's fucking crazy, right? Which, anyways, it's yeah. That was a goal of mine for a while. So I started doing this and I was the first person to give away online coaching on Instagram Fitness. And then next thing you know, it was like everybody. Oh wow. Everybody was cop. I'm talking about like copying word for word, like avatar, like type of shit. Everyone would copy the way that I would post captions, like the lines that I would use, everything. And I was just like, I got to the point where I was like, I was seeing it and I was like, block, block, block. You were probably just one of them. And later on, I got two dickheads too. If they ever listen to this podcast, two dickheads. One knows exactly who he is cause he lived with me for a while. Another one, they used to work together. They came back later and they were doing the same shit and they told me like, yeah, we copied all your shit. Back in the day. So I was like, people confirming, constantly confirming. And it was just like, I was like, fuck it. I got mad. But see, I want to explain some to you guys. I was younger and I learned it like at some point. That's flattering now. And he's still immature as fuck. I'm still immature as fuck. But it just doesn't matter. Like I found myself trying to like combat these things and trying to like, but the thing is, if someone's, it was a good idea. And I can't be like, this is only mine. It doesn't work that way. And at the time I was just, I guess I was bummed out cause I felt like I was doing all this and I was thinking of all these creative things and everyone was just like, oh, that's a good idea. I'm gonna jack that. That's a good idea. I'll put my name on it. Oh, that's a good idea. And it's still fucking happening. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what was a, it's like a paradigm shattering moment for me was when I learned that when people start to copy some of the stuff I say and whatever, it actually makes, it increases the value of what I do because a lot of the people know that I was the first one. So I like it. I love it. The people that really care know you're the OG. And it actually, it'll actually make you. What's your Instagram? Sorry. Well, it's mine, but it used to be, we love to hate Adam. So back when I, when I followed you way back in, it was, we love to hate Adam. That's the only reason probably why. He's like, what's on this fucking hand? Yeah. I was like, I love hate this guy too. Yeah. I'm connected on, on your other two. I could put your original. Yo, that is funny. Look it. See? Straight. Slow pump. Straight. No, that's, he's unblocked right there. Can you unblock him on the show? All your other, I'm connected. I'm unblocking him. I'm unblocking him. I'm unblocking him. Okay, we're friends now. Yo, that's so funny. Why did I do that? You must, you must have had it. No. You did. I always swear to God. Do I strike you that guy? But what it does make sense is exactly what you're saying was you were probably going through something at a time. You probably came across my page. Maybe I had a post similar to something you did. And then you probably said, that it was one of your, one of your half nude photos on the screen. Which is funny though. Because now it's ironic is that I've met you. And before you even brought up any of that, I was already like, I like these guys. I always in my head like, I like these guys. And that's the thing about the internet is like, people just, it's so different when you meet someone in person. Right, right. 100%. 100%. Everybody's like changed our mind. We've met, we've met so many people that we thought like, oh, these people are going to be freaking awesome. We're going to love them. And then we meet them when we leave and we're like, Oh God, there's nothing there. That is a fucking moron. What the fuck was that? And we can't stand them. And then there's been people we meet where we're like, this guy's a douchebag. And we meet them. Or like, that dude is brilliant. Or that person has a lot more to offer than we thought. Yeah. Genuine. Well, this guy's going to be a douchebag. And then they're like, man, he's pretty cool. Well, I like it. I go through that on the daily. I wake up, I'm like, fuck. Knowing how your guys is background in fitness and, you know, walking into your gym, you can feel the energy in here. You know, being able to. Great music, by the way. Being able to be very open on a podcast and all that stuff. I mean, genuine, very, very genuine. That's awesome. And it's great that there's more people in fitness like that because there's too many of the other ones. You know what I'm saying? Too many of the garbage out there. Too much. I appreciate that, man. That's something that, like, it means a lot to me and also why I can understand how anybody would get frustrated when somebody, like, kind of copies your stuff because, you know, like Brad mentioned with the gym here, whenever I sat down with Brad and we were talking about, you know, the way we wanted to do this and we never brought up, like, OK, this is how we can make a lot of money. It was like, OK, well, let me look through, like, our bookkeeping, our numbers, and, like, how much we're going to invest. And, like, the benefits we're going to get out of this with, like, a place to film for content. And then, like, something that we're like, oh, you know, we can have people here. We need to make the culture, the environment, all this stuff. We were at the point where we were like, you know, let's just, let's figure out a way that we can at least just break even. Like, let's not lose money on this, but, like, we don't care to make money. And I think because of that, we, like, we never sacrificed anything that we wanted in a gym or in our gym. We never said, like, oh, well, you know, if we, if we do this, then we'll make more money, but it's going to require us acting like every other dickhead gym there is. Like, every other, oh, you got to sign this long contract because we want your money for a whole year. Oh, you want to cancel, you got to pay a fee, you know. There's really two models and fitness that can be successful. One is much more difficult to do than the other. So the two are one, you have a cheap ass membership fee, you got a lot of equipment and your goal is to sign people up in them for them not to use it anymore. That's, that's the planet fitness model. Everything 24 fitness model, right? The other model is to develop a culture within your, within your facility that makes people want to show up. There's the word. Now, everyone use the fucking word and everything. It's on my mind. I already saw it. I see a lot of it, but you're fucked. Shit actually everywhere already, but the difficult thing about that is that you make actual work and you know who did. I'll give you an example of someone or a company or business that did that very well. CrossFit, say what you will. Oh, for sure. CrossFit developed a culture and that was extremely successful and they're charging. I mean, the culture is top dollar, but yeah, I get it. Well, it's their culture, right? I have to say something about CrossFit in general. As much as I'm like, it's fucking whatever. They changed fitness absolutely because they made all these big gems be like, oh, we need a functional area. We need a fucking turf and they're, they're squatting, people are deadlifting. Nobody was doing that. Some 24s have a tire in their gym with a tire. Almost all of them are converting. Really? They made powerlifts. I was asking for that shit a long time ago. Nobody listened. It made real, I'm not saying CrossFit is not real shit, but they made all this other shit that was just like stone age, way more popular. I'll tell you guys what, because we come from a similar industry or similar side of fitness as you, right? When we first came out and we, one of our first episodes was why mine pump doesn't CrossFit. And we actually got contacted by their headquarters and went back and forth. We did a second episode talking shit, but now three years later, we've met with and talked with some of the leaders in CrossFit. CrossFit is evolving quite a bit. So you've got people like Kelly Starrett in there who's talking about mobility. We've talked to Rob Wolf and, you know, the barbell shrug guys and beyond the barbell, those guys and Jason Khalifa and these, these dudes and these people, these leaders are really starting to change all the kind of bad stuff that started on all the bad. It's still hella fucked up though. It is, but it's starting to, you're starting to see the cream is rising to the top, you know, with I would definitely say the people that started it are still, you know, pushing on evolving. Well, it's like anything else. And you got, and you know this, when you build something like, and it's when it's its infancy, it's when it's most like you and what you want. And when it gets fucking huge, then it's like, you can't help it. It gets so massive and people are so disconnected from the, the people who originated it. I don't think they plan for it to look like this. No, no. Yeah. I still like making fun of CrossFit because it's like something you could do. Yeah. Yeah. So hanging fruit. Yeah. At the same time though, like, I've seen some of the elite level CrossFitters that are stronger than a lot of power lifters and they could do things that like a lot of even elite athletes can't do. And so like, there's no need to hate on CrossFit and somebody will say like, well, what about all the injuries that the regular people get and stuff? And like, there's a bunch of people that are into power lifting that don't want to help the doing the hurt themselves all the time too. Right, all the time, just the gym in general. If you're, yeah. So I like, I joke around about CrossFit. I don't actually hate CrossFit, but it's- The biggest jab that I've always had and what I tell people is that the only problem is that it should just be called a sport. Yeah, that's right. If it's a sport, just like football, soccer, basketball, you can get in shape doing all those sports. It's probably not the best thing for you long-term to always be doing, but absolutely you can. And if you're passionate about it and you love doing it, who am I to say- So wait, what do they call it then? CrossFit sport. Well, they should call it a sport right now. Sport should be attached to the name. Yeah, because what you were having is you had CrossFit boxes and then they'd have, you know, soccer moms and, you know, weekend warriors going in there and they're doing, you know, Olympics- That's mostly what's in there. They're doing Olympic lifts to time and telling each the best way to get in shape. Finish-wise. Yeah, just gonna fuck that. I don't know about that. I don't even know if I've talked about it. I did it. I did it for a few months. Well, you mentioned that not today, but in another podcast. It makes sense because being that you're the- Mason was unhappy with the gender. He's like, hey, baby, right now, okay, well, still doing it. I wanted to see what it was like on the other side. Hi, my name is Mason. I used to be at CrossFit. Hey, but let's be real. They brought, I'll tell you what, before CrossFit started getting popular, when we were managing gyms back in, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s, there was like, you'd have a 30, 40,000-square-foot facility, you'd have one-squat rack, and nobody would fucking touch it. Oh, dust would be on it. All of a sudden, people are squatting and deadlifting, and you gotta give credit where credit's due. And there was no women. And women are with lifting weights, hard, and heavy. They got to CrossFit together. It's the only one they could see. Lulu and CrossFit change. CrossFit is cool. I like CrossFit. That's probably the biggest thing I would say for CrossFit is it's putting more barbells and more hands in the last 10 years probably than any other, any other niche sport. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I just brought light to, I would say barbell work in general. And what's cool about fitness is you can go in these different worlds and kind of dive in and talk to these people, and it's fucking fast. Like we interviewed people from the Kettlebell Sport. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Kettlebell Sport, Kettlebell Competition. I mean, very different. It's very underground right now. I mean, very, very tight-knit culture and community. And that's, I mean, they've done... Was it like search for this, RKS, RCS? There's different certifications. There's like the hard style. This is more endurance-based, so they do like long cycles for 10 minutes. Snatches like 10 minutes. It's fucking brutal. I mean, it's a brutal sport. It's really not interesting to watch, which is... It's tough. You know, it's a tough thing because it's like, you go as a spectator and it's like, okay, you know, for 10 minutes, you're just watching them do the same thing. But yeah, I mean, it's the community very much resembles what CrossFit was when it first started. So we paid attention to that right away. We're like, wow, these people are really tight together and they all support each other and they clap for each other when they're on all that shit. Unlike the fitness social media community. Right, which everybody hates each other. They're all like, oh, he's, fuck that guy. So much better than you. I gotta stand in front of him. I share this on the show and you probably remember this also being and competing. I'll never forget, like, so... I could beat a two, by the way. Oh, you did too. Yeah, I did Men's Physique shit. What? Yeah, way back in the day. No shit? Yeah, 2011. Brad started doing it like when it... You guys are so much the same guy. I think Craig could first sell all back in the fall. I think Brad did like the first show that was like the first men's stage show. So all those guys, right? That's you. Yeah, all those guys. Yeah. Dude, you can say whatever you want on Minecraft for sure. You can say whatever the fuck you want is there, man. One of those names. But what I thought was crazy. So, you know, I've trained thousands of people all my years of training and of course you deal with all these insecurities, body dysmorphia, food issues and poor relationship with exercise. I got to competing and I get backstage and I'm meeting all these guys and I'm like, and girls and I'm blown away by all the eating disorders, how many of them don't know what the fuck they're doing? They're just eating. And it's worse in the competitive world. So the people that are on the magazines, the people that are telling are the people that are most unhealthy with the most fucking issues, which that just blew my mind. Cause I was like, I already knew it was bad, but then I thought, okay, here I am. Especially when I was at the amateur level first and I was like, oh, well maybe that's because these are amateurs, maybe the pros. Like they know their shit. I came to the pro level and I'm like, fuck dude, the pros are just as stupid as these guys are. They laugh at you for eating salad. Oh, salad. Did you ever get to a point where, especially when you met the pros and didn't know what they're doing and you were like, holy shit, it's purely just a genetic response to drugs that got them here. And then you look at the sport as a whole and you're like, holy fuck, this is just a genetic response to drugs and it doesn't, nothing else really matters. It's like the nutrition, the work ethic, all that stuff. I'll take somebody with phenomenal genetics, pump a full of drugs and feed them pizza and they'll smash on people and still turn pro. Bro. It looks like, how does that make the average person feel? Let's talk about the cycles that people are running. Like so I'm in physique. So I'm in men's physique. So let me tell you about my steroid cycle through men's physique. So I'm already somebody who dabbled with this when I was in my early 20s. So my... How old are you now? So I'm 35. 36, Jesus. You're 36 today? Yeah, 36 today. Oh, happy birthday! Hey! Birthday podcast for some men. He needs to do shots. I think that's my cue then. Yes. Yes, bro. So I get in there at, I get in at, you know, I'm competing, it's when I'm 30 years old and amateur level. Now I fucked around with steroids when I was in my 20s. So I go get my, I go get tested. I'm like 200 something free tests. So I'm like flatlined. So I get on HRT and then I decide I'm gonna compete. And I'm like, okay, well I'm gonna compete. And by the way, I do not have like a bodybuilder's body type whatsoever. I should be fucking swimming in a pool. Skinny ass legs, little tiny waist. So I get in there and I go, okay, for sure I'm gonna have to probably bump my dose up. So at this time, I'm taking like 125 milligrams every two weeks. Like the normal dose. Just a replacement. Just a replacement. HRT. But now I'm gonna get into competing. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna ramp myself up to like 250, 300 milligrams per week. So I'm taking that. And I start blowing up and I'm eating more. I go do my first show. I take fourth, the first show. The second show, or the first show after I take fourth, this was great too. Cause I smoked everybody. They told me my conditioning was too, they were like, you're too ripped. You're too shredded. So I'm like, okay, come in softer. Like that's easy. So I came in the next show like seven pounds heavier. Then they tell me I'm too fucking big. Yeah, right. Hold on a sec. Now I just wanna say something about the competition industry. It's fucking bullshit. It is. Okay. It's subjective. Wait till I finish the story. Cause I actually, one of the owners who were being nameless on the show right now, I got a chance just like a month ago to sit and talk to him. And he told me a story of the story I'm telling you right now of what happened behind the scenes with all the judges. Okay. So my very first, my very first- I got stories like this too. Okay. So my very first show, I come out and it's not even close, bro. I waited to get on the amateur show until I was like, had a prophecy. All my peer buddies are all pros and they're like, bro, get on the stage, you're gonna win right away. So all everyone's like, this dude's gonna win first place right away. So I get, I get there. And for sure, I smoke everybody conditioning-wise, symmetry, and they don't even have me in the top five. I don't even make the top five call-ups. I'm standing over on the side looking at the top five. The two guys closest to me don't even have abs, no separate, and I'm like, I'm inside. I'm going to like, oh, this shit is corrupt. And everyone had told me, and I actually was on this mission to find out for myself. No coach, no team doing this all myself. I'm gonna find out for myself how political all this shit is. And so I get in there and I'm standing on stage, and I'm sure the people that my friends could see how fucking pissed I am. And I'm like, what the fuck? So I go, that was the morning, right? So that's prejudging. Night show comes around. All of a sudden I pop up in fourth place. Now I'm in fourth, and I'm getting ready to walk on stage and one of my buddies does all the, whatever, trafficking for everybody, right? To get on and off stage. And he's like, hey bro, you took fourth. I'm like, no, dude, I wasn't even on the top five. He's like, no, no, no, they bumped you up to fourth. And so I take fourth place. Long story short, I go on my career. I go pro this and that. Just a month ago, I'm talking to the head owner of the shows, of this show, right? And him and I are chopping up back and forth. He's like, man, I recognize you. I know you. I'm like, oh yeah, I have this podcast. I'm thinking maybe that's where he remembers me from or something. And he's like, no, no. And I tell him and he's like, oh, Adam Schaefer. Yeah, you won USA's. I'm like, yeah, yeah. He's like, I know who you are. I was like, yeah, he's a, oh, you're first. He's a man. Sandy loved you. This and that. And he starts name dropping all the people who didn't like me. And he goes, I'll never forget the first day you came on stage. You came on stage and right away, Sandy was talking about how much she loved you and so and so was super anti. Now, if you guys don't know how judging works for competing, there's a head judge. Head judge decides who the five that are coming out. And then the other judges all score them and decide it. So if the head judge doesn't put the top five in there, the other judge don't get a chance to score those top five in that category right there. So the head judge is that's who didn't like me. Doesn't even put me in the top five. And all the rest of them are all leaning over and they're talking to each other like, what the fuck, this guy's like way beyond anyone else. So he tells me that they afterwards, between the shows, they're all arguing. They're all sitting in the office and they're debating this. And they're like, you know, we need to stop this somewhere guys are too shredded. They're not, this is not, they're not supposed to look like this. And I'm going like, what the fuck? I'm like, I'm on 125 milligrams at testosterone right now. I bumped up to 250. I'm like, I'm not that crazy. I just came in condition for an amateur and then they end up on me. So that happened to me. I go to USA's, that's where I go pro. And when I get on the pro circuit, I'm waiting to meet these pro guys thinking that, okay, finally I'm gonna meet dudes that fucking know their shit. And it was just as bad. The two hours of cardio every day, running crazy cycles of Clint over a grandma testosterone a week. And I'm like, dude, we're men's physique. I gotta share one of these stories. I think mine's better than yours. This competition shit goes 2000. So I was the one of the first few competitors like in the men's physique thing. Like literally I did the first show in Southern California and I did the first USA's in USA. I already know where you're going with this. So person who won that year was fine. Okay. So the person who won that year in my class was Nick Gardner and he was a trainer at the gym at the 24 hour fitness that I worked at at the time. And long story short, my very first show, I got eighth. I just took off my shirt, ate pizza and got a tan. All right, terrible. Got eighth. I was like, oh, this is what you need to do. I remember he was eating a block of cheese. He's like, oh, Keto. Yeah, it was all stew. I didn't. Anyways. I don't think that's how it works. Yeah, definitely not how it works. So this is really good though. I think you're doing some row, bro. For sure. I learned a lot since then. Anyways, so I do my second show. I smoke them. I get to San Diego. I'm like, I win and I win overall. And then I'm like, oh, you're gonna do USA's next week or two weeks or something like that because it was two weeks before. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. So I go to do it. I get second place when they only gave out because every show after that, they gave out two pro cards. So that was the very first USA's they gave out one. And I got second place. And I'm like, people are booing, literally booing. And I'm up there like, what the fuck? And then for like three, four months on Facebook because that was still what was popular at the time, people were messaging me like, man, you got fuck. Like every message, man, you got fuck. And I was just like, man, I got fuck. Like, so you're right. Yo, so I wasn't popular. Okay. Later on, I started getting more popular on the internet because Instagram started popping. I was the first person with 10,000 followers. People started contacting me. This lady who's not gonna rename this because fuck them at this point. Venus, Venus something, she's from San Diego. She told me that all the reason why you didn't win is because she had a little physique. She was creating this little physique thing and Nick was one of her people. There's nothing wrong with Nick or any or whatever, right? He stopped competing after that. He just didn't even compete anymore. But she said, you didn't win cause like that was my guy to win, right? And you were in his class. Sorry. And then it came like, literally this serious, but joined my team and like, I got you, right? And I got kind of like, you know what, fuck this, right? So I think I did like one more show, Miami Nationals, but you don't win cause like you're on East Coast and if you're on East Coast, you got to basically suck East Coast judge Dick or some bullshit or like fancy pants them or spend more time on East Coast to do more shows and pay your dues and all this fucking bullshit that these people talk about, which is ridiculous. Cause it has nothing to do with dues. It has to do with money and has to do with business because when I started getting popular on the internet, that's when all these motherfuckers like, come do my show. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to try this shit. You'll win. You come do my show, you'll win. So I went, I did a show and you better believe before I walk out on that stage, the guy standing up here, the guy who owns the show, the guy who is the promoter, the show owner, the guy who's the head judge as well, who goes, you're going to win before I come. I look good. I'm not saying I look bad. There was guys who could have beat me. Like I look great. You can just, you can be like, oh yeah, those guys didn't show up in the top five, right? So again, I have pictures. I can show you this, but- Dude, did you tell it? Have you told this story before? Never told this story. Oh my God. So he told you won before even- Absolutely. I'm walking on stage. As I go to walk on stage, he's like, number one, he's in this little boo thing up here. Number one, number one, I'm like, oh yeah, fuck yeah. Number one, but anyway, when I did it, I was like, I did look good. And it's not that I didn't deserve it, but it was bullshit. So I experienced firsthand, no one gave a fuck about me, even though I look great and should have won. And everybody's opinion was like, man, you should have won. And then everyone started like, oh, that's the guy with the followers. Like, because if he says, you know, you do the show, then yeah, whole idea is like, it used to be magazines and magazine money and promotion money for magazines, right? Dropping bars out here. Anyways, so I used to be like, okay, who are, who's paying the most to this show? What sponsors are they? Who are their athletes? Yeah, make sure they win. Now it's like, oh, this motherfucker got a million followers on Instagram, 300,000, 400,000, like, shit, we should, they ask you now, how many fucking followers do you have on the fucking social media? They ask you now. Of course they do. That's bullshit. What the fuck does that mean? What? So listen, now it's just about numbers. Cause you got, I want to put this in perspective. It's like, if you have some do with a million followers saying, I won this show, and then it's like, more kids are gonna think, oh shit, Brad can beat, he won that show, I need to compete. That's how I can become popular, like Brad. So then you go, now all the fees are fucking, it started at like 50, now it's like 300 to just be a part of it, to do one show. And it's like 150, maybe 300 now a year to be a part of this organization, to do any shows. So you pay a yearly, and then you pay a showly, and then you pay like a photographer fee, you want your photos for that show, and then you pay like a fucking, different divisions, or different, it's fucking bullshit. So it's like, you paying to that shit, you're like, oh, I'm the guy, I win the show. Like they're only gonna reward people who have followers, so they further their business, because it's marketing, because it's a business, because it's a brand. And it is fucking crazy. It is beyond crazy and dirty. And you have so many people who fucking kill themselves. Oh man, I just, you know, they said, I gotta get my stage presence better. I said, I gotta work on my posing, so they're all like this with their fucking hands and shit. And it's fucking crazy to me, because they're lying to people, just so they get more money. It's period, just about money, you got people who are killing themselves, dieting, doing all the fucking drugs, doing all this shit, killing themselves. Creating metabolic damage, destroying themselves. Because they think, oh, they said, I gotta be a little bit harder, so like I'm gonna do a little bit more cardio, do some fasted cardio, and it's like, no motherfucker, they don't give a shit about you. That's their reason to tell you, hey fuck off, we got who we want. Sorry, good luck next time. Maybe if you get a million followers, then we'll fuck with you. Dude, I had no idea that you went through all that stuff. So that's, your story is literally like my story. I had time, so. Yo, you missed it. I just went off on the, I just went off. We all know Evo Jin, and we know that company. And so they like own Sacramento. So that's NorCal for me. So those are the shows, that's the circuit that I would go through. I wanna make one thing really clear, people hear this, that I'm not saying though, that there aren't competitors who don't deserve to win, that they don't look great, because I do believe a lot of them look great, but I just wanna, I want the general population to know that there's more, because I don't want people going into a show thinking, or like, I can get popular doing this, or like, this is what I need to do to be popular, because that popular guy does it like, I built my popularity when I stopped competing. Right? And then I focused on building my brand, or what made me me, like focusing on being Bradley Martin, quote unquote, whatever the fuck that means. I focused on that and was like, I'm not gonna try and make all these people happy, I'm gonna try and make myself happy. And I just wanna point that out, that I'm not saying that people who win don't deserve to win. No, there's exceptions to the rule. There's always exceptions to the rule. I'm just saying there's just like, the majority of it though. It needs to be said, it needs to be said, because a lot of kids enter into this world, already insecure, not feeling good about themselves, they get into this world, guys and girls damage their metabolisms, destroy their hormone levels, take all this crazy gear, thinking that they can continue to progress when in fact they probably don't have the genes or whatever. You got people filling them with bullshit, like you just need a stage presence, hardness, be drier, whatever it is. And it's really just so they could tell you whatever so you stop asking them questions. So they can give you something else to do to get you to come back to another show. Exactly. To the point where my very first show, my head was hanging low. I mean, everyone told me I should have won first place. I'll never forget I'm walking in the elevator, and my head's down, judge walks up behind me, he puts my hand, he goes, hey kid, you got a great physique. I said, oh yeah, judges didn't think so. He goes, don't listen to that, just come back again. And I'm like, what do you mean? Just come back in. He's like, no, they told me I was too conditioned. He's like, no, no, no, you have a prophesied, you look great kid, just come back. They just wanna see you more times. Yeah, it's like, so pay us some more money. Really? That's the thing is like, that's what gets me is like, I get it, it's a business and I can respect the business, but like when you're abusing, what the fuck, when you're abusing, when you're abusing like people's like, cause that's the thing, and like everyone knows this. The thing, everyone who competes, they like, they know, you've heard this, if you compete, pay your dues. Everyone knows this. And it's like, but no one, everyone's so afraid to talk about like, what's really going on? Cause they're like, they also don't want to offend the person who's going to judge them next time. And then they go compete, they're going to blackball you. Like they would never let me compete again after saying that. Oh, that guy's the devil. He knows the truth. And it's so, it's just like, fuck man, but you got these, that's the thing that gets me. You have people who like, oh, but like if I just do this and try a little bit harder, I could be good. I'm like, no, you don't get it. Like, it's not about that. Right. I bet you if you took time and got yourself popular on Instagram, you'd fucking win. Isn't that sad? That's exactly. So it's like, are you competing to be popular on Instagram or a physique show? That's why I was like, you know, if I ever compete again, it's going to be in powerlifting. It's going to be something that's like, something that's objective. You did it. Exactly. You either win or you don't. Yeah, you made a shot or you didn't. Not like subjective where today we like this and that judge likes this and the East Coast judge like that and the West Coast shows like this. And that's, that's what that whole industry is. Happy birthday. Sorry. I had to go off on it wrong. See, it's not like these guys went through. Happy birthday. Like seeing, you know, like competitors, like you go through over the years. I was always waiting for that. Like, oh, I want, I'm not going to step on stage. So I'm like, you know, and at the time I was still figuring out food and all that, you know, I was like, I'm not going to step on stage. So I like, I'm going to win a show. And just seeing it, what these guys went through and all that, that's, I mean, also kind of the start of raw powerlifting, seeing like stand efforting break records and this and that. That's what kind of started to get me into powerlifting more than anything. I was just seeing like, you know, people that I would like, these guys are showstoppers. These guys need to win shows. And it's like, oh, you know, so and so didn't like you because of this. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? Right. That's what started getting me more into like powerlifting and just like, and also he just signed me up and was like, do you guys think it's getting worse? Do you think it's getting worse before it's getting better right now? What's up? Do you guys think it's getting worse before it's getting better? Well, OK, I want to say something. So. My jacket. Brandon helped coach Breon, who's a friend of ours, who's not that like popping on the Internet. He's more popping now, but he just won the Mr. Physique Olympia. Classic, classic physique. Sorry. Classic. Oh, yeah, Brandon. Brandon Flex or whatever it is. No, no, no. Breon Ansley. Okay. So he just won and he's he's. So that gave me hope, honestly, because he wasn't that poppin and there was other guys up there who were more poppin like he's still popping. No, he's still got like at least 20, 40,000 minimum. He's got more. But there's people who are competing and one who have a hundred who have million. Oh yeah. I know you're right. Well, I think it's gotten so obvious that they're like, yeah, let's throw a 20,000 person in there. This guy is fucking undeniable. Yeah, yeah, no. And I think so, maybe you have to get that good. You have to be that undeniable that this guy is fucking amazing. Oh, wow. So I've known him before, before he really even started competing, he was always phenomenal. Why is he competing? That's classic? Yeah, classic. That's bodybuilder, man. Well, he was a pro bodybuilder before he did classic. Okay. So show me a different photo of him. We did a podcast with him. Go down more, a little more, a little more. It's just the one where he wins. Go down and go down. Who's his coach? Oh, you coach him. Yeah. No shit. So Brandon, just so you guys know, Brandon. Chris Cormier does a lot of stuff with this training and his posing. I do his nutrition and everything else. So Brandon is the guy who's always helped me with my diet and all that shit, too. So that's the guy. So I built my online coaching base because I wasn't even thinking to go in that space. What motivated me to go in that space was when I got into competing. I was like, oh, man, there's no good coaches. And some of the biggest named coaches that have huge teams are given the fucking worst shit out. I was like, oh, this is easy. This is easy pickings, dude. I'll teach a few people. I'll show some people come up on stage. It'll not only will they look great, but they'll actually feel OK during their fucking dieting process. They won't feel like a goddamn art. That's something we were going to get more back into. But we've been so busy with everything else we're doing with the gym that we've just kind of like, we put it to the side. No, I think it's... I don't, the few people that I do coach, I don't charge. Because I never wanted to do coaching as a profession myself. And it's allowed me to focus just purely on the coaching part of it. Because I don't have to worry about marketing myself. I don't have to worry about making money doing it. And so I don't want to advertise myself as a coach. I don't want people to hit me up because I tell almost everybody, no. I just helped a girl. I just did a bikini girl for free like that. And I'm like, don't tell anybody that I'm doing it. I don't need a bunch of DMs. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I have no desire to deal with fucking athletes. But there's a huge need for it, dude. You want to talk about business and also helping people. Because there's a huge need right now that some of the biggest fucking teams are led by a bunch of fucking douchebags giving really bad information. And it's so bad, they're fucking metabolisms up, dude. They're fucking metabolisms up and they're screwing these kids up. And so there's a lot of money be made and there's a lot of people to help at the same time. Well, I like to be a little bit more... I don't want to even call it old school, but I have a different approach in that whenever I'm coaching somebody like Breon, I've been working with them now for a few years. And the few other people that I coach, I try to be more of a mentor. Like, I want them to actually learn. I'm not just going to tell you what to eat or what to do or this or that. Like, I want you to understand it. I want you to be able to translate that onto others. And I tell people, I was like, you know, oh, we're going to get to finish this? All right, I should. You guys are on it. I smoked half of one of these before Thor Ragnarok and almost... Great movie! I was like, fuck. Great movie, dude. I still gotta go see that doctor. That's the one, yeah. So I was like, I was like, Yeah. I was like, I almost fucked that up. I'm trying to get back on the track. Is that I just tell everybody that I help. I'm like, look, just pay it forward. You know, whether you're coaching somebody you charge people for it, just make sure that you're giving them like the attention that they deserve, that they're paying for. And if you want to help somebody that you're not, you know, billing, you're not charging them for it, then like pay that forward and tell them to do the same. Because I still think that when it comes down to it, I mean, being a bodybuilding coach and getting into the science and stuff of this, the academics aren't necessarily studying bodybuilding. You know, we're taking studies done and like old diabetics and trying to translate that to bodybuilding. So we need to kind of stay together. And if we can do this pay it forward approach, then the whole industry gets smarter. Are they, are, are, is the way competitors are using gear, is that starting to progress and change? Cause for a while they've got real kamikaze with like the doses and all that stuff. Are our competitors now a little bit more finesse? And to be honest, I think that like since the internet age, since the forums started really kind of popping, people started being a little bit better with their health. Before like, stairs were talked about openly online. I feel like people were a little more like BroScience with it. And then the doses were a little bit more absurd. That said, I know people that are doing their first show or their second show on like the local level are taking more gear than some of the guys in the previous day. We just talked about that. We were just talking about that. You got a little bit of both. It really depends on the person. You know, it's funny, we just did an episode on this where I was speculating, cause we all, we're all familiar with insulin resistance, right? When you, you know, you eat too much, you know, too much sugar or your diet's really bad or whatever and you start to develop insulin resistance and eventually it turns into diabetes. The body very likely can develop resistance to pretty much anything it's exposed to too much, whether it's cortisol, which we see like an HPA axis dysfunction. But the other one is testosterone and think about this. How many people do you guys know or competitors, whatever, that take these high doses of gear, know never go off and just stop responding and end up having to take more and more and more gear. What's happening is their body is literally developing a resistance to testosterone, not unlike insulin resistance. And that's I think what you see a lot of with these guys that are just not going off this shit. Next thing you know, they're taking grams of, you know, testosterone and they're competing at the amateur. Oh, I coach so many, I coach so many amateur bodybuilders, women's bikini, men's physique. That came to me from some other coach and I, the very first thing they want to ask me is what, you know, what cycle do I take or this is what I'm taking, what else do I need to do? No, I'm good. And I'm like, well, let's actually take all that shit out, let's figure out how your body responds to food, good programming. And then from there, if you really, because I'm definitely not someone that tells someone, don't do this, don't do that. Like if you want to get your body, like to each their own, right? That's how I feel. But I at least let me educate you and help you do this the right way. Like just stacking on stack. I mean, guys and girls taking over a gram at the amateur level of men's physique. Like, what the fuck are you kidding me? I bumped up to 500 milligrams my second show because they told me I was too conditioned small that, okay, I'll get bigger, right? I'll come in that way. And they were like, oh my God, you're way too massive. You're like over 15, 20 pounds of show off of 500 milligrams. I had to back it off because I was like, Jesus, dude, I can't get any bigger because I'm going to go into the class. Yeah, I think when you hear about certain people are saying, oh, I can just take a little bit and get way bigger and this guy has to take more, whatever. A lot of it has to do with receptor density. Your ability just to respond to testosterone. And like I was saying earlier, I think a lot of people just taking so much all the time, they're developing a resistance to it. So all they're doing is they're increasing their side effects, you know, just getting one. That was a couple of points I want to make to what you guys were both saying, is that like the, you know, everybody has a different response to it. So some people on 500 milligrams can get Olympia level. Some people need 1500 milligrams to get the same type of response. But there's a correlation with the dosage to side effects that's kind of the standard for everybody. And you know, there's been jokes about like genetics. You know, we talked genetics, we could talk about muscle shape, like the natural aesthetic. But there's genetics for steroids too. Yeah, there's a genetic response to steroids, but there's also like maybe somebody's genetic strength is people that have the ability to abuse the shit out of the gear to get muscle growth without getting the crazy health side. Cause I know a few people that are like that, I don't want to put them on blast that they, I've seen them literally take like two grams of tests, 1500 milligrams of trend, like crazy absurd orals. And like literally abusing the shit out of steroids, do blood work and everything's fine. And you're like, No hair loss, no freaking. If I push anything over 300, I start getting all the side effects. Hair starts thinning, I get gynecomastia, all the side effects start happening as soon as everybody's like that. So you have these genetic freaks though, that can push these limits. That's what I'm saying is that when we talk about steroids and doses and people like, you know, the responsible thing to say is to start low because some people on low doses can get severe health problems and side effects from it. But at the same time, it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who they take these crazy doses because they only get the positive effects of it. It's a combination of things too. Cause it's not just the anabolic, it's the lifestyle, the diet, you know, the, you know, incredible amounts of protein, the, or for long, long periods of time. It's the other recreational drugs that, you know, tend to come along with, you know, the anabolic stuff. Do you guys follow Ben Pekolski at all? Yeah. He's a cool guy. He was supposed to come here and do a seminar in the new year. Oh, he's a fucking great guy. Yeah, great guy. So we were talking to him because what we're seeing, you've seen all these bodybuilders go over to the Middle East and all of a sudden they're just like, They do vitreate, bro. Bro, like doesn't even make sense, crazy. What are they doing? Are they on live? It's the chicken. It's the chicken. So he's been there, bro. So we got to talk, we got to talk about this. We asked him about it. Like this has been something that's been on my mind forever. I'm like, okay, there's, what are they on? Yeah, what are they on the next gear? What are they messing with to get these guys? But they have, they have this whole set up lifestyle for them. That's what it is. All it is, you live, breathe, eat, shit. That's all you do. All you do is you eat, you take your, you take your gear, you go to sleep, and that's it. And the recovery stuff. I mean, they're on the cutting edge of all this. It's just like, it's bodybuilder heaven. Which is so crazy because like, this is the best part about this podcast right now is that like, everyone on the internet goes like, it's anabolic chicken. It's a joke about some fancy drug. They have some new age shit. But it's what, what is it really that they're doing? That's the lifestyle, dude. The fucking lifestyle. Yeah, it's everything. The actual dedication, the hard work, the food, the sleep, everything. And they're forcing you to do it. Because you're saying yes to it. My favorite part that like, if we're looking for like the anecdotal proof of it all, you know, is that like, we're looking at- I thought it was just more trans. Everyone's just more trans. I'll tell you what Ben said. And we actually, I don't remember the bodybuilder's name, but it was the one who made the biggest change. Like he- Brandon Curry? Was it him? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he- It's before and after look. He literally told us, he's like, no, he's like, he's a perfect example. He's like, I've trained with him before. He's like, when he went over there, he trained on another level. He's never even seen before. And Ben prides himself as being like, one of those guys that like just at all the pros. Yeah, he trains everybody and stuff like that. So, and he's a very intelligent dude. He used to be here at Venice for a while before he moved, I think over to Florida. Yeah, you guys got to have him. You guys will love talking. He's very open about everything like that. And he's, where he's at in his life right now and what he's doing is pretty cool. It's very similar to kind of all of our journey where we're just trying to find that more of that balance, you know, and optimizing our lives. The same time too, being able to stay aesthetic and fit and like, how do we figure that out? And we talk about this on the show a lot that the ultimate goal I think for everybody really is, no matter what your goal is, is to get to a point where you're intuitive eating and you're intuitive training. To a point where you know- You know what your body needs to be where you need it to be and you learn to listen to it because our body is telling us signals every fucking day. It's the best coach you'll ever find. You just got to learn how to listen to it. I tell people that that I coach all the time. I was like, look, you need, you need if, because I've had people tell me like, look, man, I don't need to know a while. Just tell me how much to eat, tell me how it's to take. And I was like, no, it doesn't work that way because I didn't start making true progress with my physique until I could pay attention to what was happening to myself and then be smart enough with all the shit I read and people I listened to to be able to make decisions to change it and then look at myself and then, yeah, is this working, is that working? So the simple thing of just telling me what to do would be like, I can all, unless I'm with you 24 seven and even then I'm still not in your body. You're not connected to us. Yeah, like I won't know the best thing for you to do. Like I could bullshit you and tell you, well, you know, we're going to lower your calories and this and that. But the second you become intuitive and you're paying attention to yourself, if I could help teach somebody how to do that. Yeah. Then they'll figure the rest out. We wrote a guide for this. I think this is the most- So this is literally the last book that we just released was to helping people through that process. And I'll tell you right now, it's a fucking journey. It ain't like you get to like read the book and all of a sudden you know how to intuitive train. Like I'm still learning about my body fucking 17 years later of day in, day out, being in the gym and training. I want to say something about this is that this is hands down the most important thing in like fitness and I think in life. I mean, it's a general, it's not a general. It's about fitness what we're talking about but it's a very life related to everything idea. It's just like over time you have to figure out what works for you, what doesn't. Business, what's working for you, what's not. What do you have to change? What do you need it? It's like, but people, they always want this like, oh, just like you said, just tell me what to do. Feed me this thing. Let me eat it and it's gonna work for me. Or like, and I say eat it, I mean like, the prescription. Sure. The reality is like your body, you guys listening is 100% different. Like everyone responds different to everything. It does. And it take it another step. It's not just about figuring out works for your body because there is no formula. It's figuring out really the next step is figuring out how to listen to your body because the human organism is constantly changing. So what may work for my body today, which may be a low carbohydrate, higher protein. Dude, in seven years we're a completely different body. Five years later, all of a sudden I'm eating these foods and I'm like, fuck, my body's not responding anymore. Why isn't it changing? What's going on? It makes me so happy to know that there are other people in the world that are preaching this. Brother, this is what took my, we have never marketed or advertised this fucking podcast. Never. No. 100% organic, nobody had any fame, no one was continuing. But this message is the right message and it needs to be heard. And there's not enough people giving it. Well, this is the truth though. That's why. This is the truth. But you know what? There's not a lot of money in the truth. And it's not sexy. Yeah, and it's not sexy. It's not a waste trimmer. It takes a long time. It's gonna take a long time. You're probably gonna fail a bunch of times. That's exactly it. You're gonna have to track a little bit. You're gonna have to learn, you have to pay attention. That's exactly what I'm saying. It's the same thing that you apply to business to anything else in life. It's like you have to deal with it. You have to be willing to go through it to get to wherever you wanna go. Like you're gonna make mistakes. Everyone is gonna make your own personal unique mistakes. It's like you have to keep going though. And that's the biggest thing. So to your point then is obviously listening to your body. So go real, I want you to say this then cause I think we'll probably just use this podcast. Just keep, no, no, no, just keep rolling. Yeah, I want you to just, at least both of you, all three of you, say what you think is the best way for someone so they're listening, they can get some knowledge right now. How can they start to listen to their body then? To like to understand that shit. Cause it's easy to say it. So what is like three things that they can be like, yo. So I'll explain a few things. First and foremost, there's, in anything you learn, there's four stages of learning. And this, trust me, this all connects. The first stage is unconscious and competence. So this is the stage a lot of people are, most of the average people in the world are. They don't know that they don't know. Oh, with nutrition, they just don't know that they don't know. It's almost like if I ask you about quantum physics or whatever and that's not, you don't know what you don't know because you know nothing. Completely. The next stage is conscious and competence. That's the stage people move in when they finally sit down and say, okay, I want to lose weight. I want to get more fit. They start learning things. They go, oh shit, proteins. Bro-signs. This is the bro-signs stage. Yeah. I know how many calories in each, okay? Fuck yeah. The third stage is conscious competence. This is where I have to sit here and figure out what I'm gonna eat, what I'm gonna do. I have to pay attention to everything that I'm doing, which is a great place to be, but it's a place that a lot of people get stuck in. Or never make it to, because there's work there. There's work to be done there. You're gonna have to probably weigh and measure your food a little bit. You're gonna have to probably start to understand what a protein, a carb, a little bit. That's the step right there, to where the people that are passionate and the people that are trying to go extra, that's where they get separated. Because passion will get you to that point. Right, that's where you get to a point where it gets harder in your life. That's where you get IIFOAM. That's where you get, I count my macros every day. That's where you get, because I'm consciously competent. The next stage, this is where you want to get to, this is the zone, is unconscious competence. It's like breathing, it's like walking. I know what I need to eat right now. I know what my body needs. I know what my workout should be like. I know what my intensity is. I'm not driven by hate for my body. I'm not driven by an insecurity. I'm not, when I go to the gym today, I hate the way it looks. That requires a ton of checking in though. Like as you're going through the process, why you're going through, you have to check back in with yourself. Like why did I just fucking do that? Or why did that bother me? So there's a few things that I give people. There's a few exercises that I give. Before you go there, I just want to say something, because like what you said right now, getting up to this point is, I have 100% degree of thing. I think it's fucking awesome. You have a message and even on the podcast, you can put it out like that. Because whenever I quit after my last show last July, I told myself, you know, it's time for a different chapter of my life and I'm going to move on, right? I told myself then that a lot of these things that I was doing that would have been like work, like bodybuilding work, how I eat, stuff like that, that I was like, well, I'm just, I'm only going to eat if I'm hungry and I'm going to eat what I want. If we go to a restaurant, I'm not going to build my meal anymore. I'm going to just order what's on the menu, what sounds good. And it took me probably a good six months to break all those habits that created all that. Absolutely. Because I would go and I'd start ordering something like healthy or something that I felt like, oh, well, I've had quite a few calories today, so maybe I should order something like that. It's because you had conditioned yourself to not listen to your body. And this is actually where everybody, most people are, look, I'll tell you what. If I tell people, the average person, list 10 breakfast foods, they're going to list what? 10 eggs, milk, bacon, 10 dinner foods, 10 lunch foods. Who the fuck, breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Who made that shit up? That's all bullshit. There is no breakfast, lunch, and dinner food. It's a whole nother constant. And that's me not, that's me, that's one stage. How about this? 650 episodes for the eggs and bacon. 650 episodes. How about this for that? That's why everyone goes, how come you guys can't run a company because there's so much to be fucking said about this? How about this? How about most people, most people in Western developed societies have never felt what true hunger is. This is a fact. Most people have not gone more than two days without food. Most people haven't gone more than one day without food. This is one of the reasons why fasting is such an effective tool for people. Forget about the health benefits and if you lose weight, forget all about that stuff. It is an effective tool for a lot of people to learn what hunger really is. Especially dudes like us who are always focused on trying to build all kinds of muscle restrictions. We never feel hunger. We eat eight times a day. How many guys have smashed a fucking burger just to get to that extra 50 or 100 grams of protein because you're under and you're afraid a pound of muscle is gonna fall off you overnight. The body doesn't metabolize muscle that way. It's the last place. It's expensive tissue. Don't even want to go there. It's crazy cause like most of my career, I guess you'd say is I've always done intermittent fasting without even trying. Like I don't eat that much. People probably be like, man, you eat seven. Like I went, just last night, I went to this like this medical place to get some shit checked out. And the guy goes, he goes, oh man, you must eat a ton of food. You must eat a ton of food all the time. Like cause like I had to take my shirt off. They put all these like probes and shit on me. And then he's like asking me like everybody and that's the normal response from everybody. Which is like, you must eat all this shit. Like if I've never, I've never eaten, unless I forced myself and back in the day I used to not be able to even eat food. And they would joke about and take pictures of like my uneaten meals and all this shit. I just never had a real big appetite. Right. So those are, these are just examples of how we have been conditioned to not, when we're kids, finish your plate, you know, finish all the food, you know, force feeding. So we just don't know how to listen to these signals. So one of the first things you can do to get yourself there is start tracking. You need to start tracking just so you can become conscious of what's going on. Pay attention to becoming aware around your meals. And what I mean by that is no distractions. Sit down, eat your food. Don't drink water while you eat your food because when you drink water, you don't need to chew as much. Be present. Put the food away so you gotta chew the fuck out of it and you gotta taste it, swallow it, take notes. And this sounds like a pain in the ass. It's just one of the steps. Right. How you feel afterwards. Right. How you feel, you know, before all that stuff. And what people start to find when they start to do this is they start to make connections to certain things. So I'll give you an example. I have an online client who, you know, she tells me all for the last four years, I feel bloated around 10 p.m. I can't figure out or 10 a.m. I can't figure out what's going on. I just get this blow. And so I'm looking at our food and I'm already thinking it's probably the bagel you have in the morning. So I ask her, I say, well, what about your breakfast? You have a bagel? I'm like, no, I've been eating that for years. Like that's definitely not it. I've been having that for 10 years. Oh shit. That's not what's causing it. I said, that's not a problem. Cause it's not my job to make that connection for her. It's her job, right? So I'm having her keep track and have her keep track. And over time, she starts to say, you know what? I'm noticing that it's literally an hour after I eat my bagel, I wonder if it's the bagel. Now here's the cool thing about it. She's made that connection. She keeps eating the bagel. Why? Because people are connected to their food. Like you tell someone to take something out of their diet. Bagels are really good. I love bagels, I just want to make that one. But she started connecting bloat, with uncomfortable feeling with the bagel. And what do you think starts to happen? She stopped craving that bagel. She doesn't want to eat anymore. Not because she doesn't, she thinks she can't, but because she's connecting it to- So you're going at this as some like, like some conscious, like- Yeah. But this is- You gotta understand what he's saying. I always had to stop him on the show when we go this point. It takes a long time. To me, I don't even like us talking to the, like we're talking black belt shit, bro. You're talking about like, we're still working on that shit right now. You know what I'm saying? Like that's- We're all still working on it. Yeah, we're all still working on that shit. But there's steps to this shit. This is not breakthrough. The food industry's been doing this for decades. For decades, the food industry has been doing this to you. When you go to the movie, actually I'm gonna ask you this, where do you crave popcorn the most at the movies? Why? Because I've already made that connection for you. The food industry's been doing this for decades. You can do this to yourself. So that same client that I had, that same female client, she's also tracking and I'm telling her she should probably try eating more vegetables. Hates vegetables. She starts eating more. She starts to notice, I feel good when I eat vegetables. And then she wants to eat the vegetables. Next thing you know, she starts to crave those vegetables. So that's just an example. Tracking, paying attention to your food, playing with your macros. She's a cautious effort of what you're doing. And then over time, as you start to implement what I call intuitive days where now I want you to go on these days, and I want you to eat whatever you feel and at first it looks like a cheat day because people are like, oh, I'm not tracking anything, whatever. But slowly over time, it turns into I'm eating the right things. But here's the other kick. I think there's bigger levels that you can hit, that you can address first before you even get there. I think people like when they, when they, what was I just gonna tell you? There's had a stoner moment right there. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay, it's okay. It's stoner moment. We got you, bro. I know what you're like popcorn pizza. Yeah, it's perfect. Oh man, I'm hungry. I know, you guys, it's a cheat day. Oh shit. But here's the, here's the. No, no, no, I know where I was going. So it's what people, what's tough. You just had to interrupt me again. Yeah, yeah. It's the, don't do that. Don't say something. Don't say something. Don't say something. The, what they can do first is first actually I would, I would teach if the, I got a younger generation that's listening to us right now is to back off the crazy beast mode training all the time. Cause to me, I think there's, your body's sending you signals to. That's not listening to your body. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can't, you don't even have an opportunity to listen to or pay attention to what your food is trying to respond to your body because your body and your CNS is so fried from seven days a week, no days off, beast mode all the time that you're missing signals from that also. Oh, it's just so funny. Cause like everybody's had that moment where they have like diarrhea or something or your stomach hurts. And they're like, there's no connection there to what you ate or when I was a kid, I wanted to put on muscle and I bought heavy weight gainer 900. Do you guys remember that? No. How old were you? I'm 38. Okay. I bought heavy weight gainer. I'm 28. So I'm pretty sure that was just like gym chalk with some flavor. So I would buy, and bro, I would get diarrhea every fucking time. Yeah. But I take it. Cause I'm like, this is gonna make me big. Diarrhea makes you lose weight. So obviously I get no pain, no gain. So, but what I was going to say is when you start to listen to your body, it's not that you're going to eat the perfect things all the time or do the right things. It's the right things for whatever you need. And what I mean by that is we're hanging around, right? We're making connections, all buddies hanging out. This may be a good time to have a glass of wine, have a burger because we're, what's feeding us isn't necessarily the, the food to our physical body, but maybe we're feeding friendship, connection. Maybe we're feeding creativity. Maybe I'm going to smoke a joint. Might not be the best thing for my body, but maybe that's going to help me with my creativity. So as you're starting to listen to these signals, you do get to a point where things become more intuitive. Now, can you be a bodybuilder? Totally listen to your body? Of course not, because it's extreme. However, when you know your body, you know how to manipulate these things and then you can really maximize your performance. Now, if you want to be extreme, you can be extreme, but also understand your body and be the best. This is how I, okay. So you guys wrote a book on this. Yeah, the intuitive nutrition guy. I'm going to get your book. All right. It's just a guy. I got you half off. Use my coupon card. Use my coupon card. We'll send you guys access to everything. So you guys can dig through all the shit in your DM. No problem. But you know, this is the process. And because you guys- I always got to stop one though, because sometimes when we get this deep- It's a process, man. It gets woo-woo for a lot of people, because it's like most people are nowhere in fucking close to that. They're still doing so many things. So that's why I asked the question earlier. What like first thing is like, where do you start? Start by, you have to track at one point. Start with track. At least become aware of what, and then I'm a big, and I know there's this huge debate about wearables and shit, right? Like how accurate that doesn't fucking matter. What they're great about is they give you great feedback on your movement because the average person has no fucking clue of their patterns. And I'll tell you right now, I don't know how many times every time I put the damn thing on, I get surprised that, oh, shit. I thought I was moving a lot more than I was. And most people are making the worst decisions on the days they most certainly shouldn't do it. And the days that they probably could have enjoyed that glass of wine or done some things they could have just shifted that around their lives. You're talking about just activity. Right, just understanding that. Like track that stuff and pay attention to it. I want to make it a point too to say that like, cause there's some people that are probably listening going like, oh, well, I don't care what like beginners should do, right? Is it tracking data is not something just for beginners. Every time I would hit like a plateau or I'd fail and I'd start to lose my shit. Cause I'm like, why the fuck can I get past this? Super important. The first thing I do is go back and just start recording every possible thing. So you can see what's going on. Exactly, yeah. Cause you get to the point where you're like, you're making progress, you get lazy, you don't track everything. But it made it fucking so easy now. I mean, you don't even finish typing the food to populate these apps now. Back when I was trying. We used to write like this all long, looking up a book. I preferred the notepad. Like that worked for me. I mean, I did, I did. Well, that's cause you love this shit. Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? You love the process. However you're going to track whether it's an app or whether it's going to literally hand, like whatever works for you, however you want to track tracking data is important. And you know, when, and with training, you know, it's funny, I did a post the other day that got a lot of controversy. I titled it cardio sucks for fat loss. And of course, everybody got pissed off, but it's the same thing with, with training, like pay attention to the signals that you're sending your body. And the reason why I wrote that, that, that topic was cardio burns calories, but it also sends the signal for your body to become efficient. Clickbait, bro. Have some good clickbait. And it worked, but it's, but it's true. What's signal? I have nothing wrong with it. Yeah, but what signal are you sending your body when you're doing a lot of cardio? Become efficient with calories, AKA slow down your metabolism. And then look, you've been in gyms a long, you know, a long time. What's a cardio bunny look like? Does he come in to do an hour, two hour cardio? Same shit every day and it never changed. They're flabby, skinny fat, right? They've taught their body to become very efficient with calories because, and again, with training, people are not paying attention to the signals that they're sending the body. They just think hard work equals results. It doesn't. The right work equals results. And it's about that's the signal that you send your body. This is more about being woke than it is about like bodybuilding. Fuck yeah. Come on, bro. So we were put. So that woke. Welcome to the podcast. Our first program that we wrote. It swallows old school. Our first program that we wrote was Maps and a Balkan. It was one that Sal created before we all got together. And it's our foundational program. And really the magic behind it, besides the trigger sessions, which we'll get to that in a second, it's just full body workouts for the average gym goer. Because we figured 90% of the people that are coming in here aren't like us. You know, we're the 1%, right? And everybody else, we're on, we're off. We're on, we're off. Teaching them even the right movements that they should be focusing on when they're just getting started. I mean, that was why the program took off so well. It's basically just a full body routine. I wanna make a point real quick to cause all the normal, normal people, right? I, you know, we're not on and off. Like I've been on and off lately. Like I've been this like, I haven't been myself. So I just wanna say that like, if you're one of those people, it's okay. It's okay. Just get back on it. Because I just wanna make that point. Cause when you said it, it sounded just a little like. So let's touch on that for a second. Let's touch that for a second because this is something that I think is important because I think that I don't think you're on or you're off. I think that it's okay for you to feed other parts of your life. It's not always about the way you look. Guys, that's not on and off. So you may be off on your fitness right now, bro. What do you want? You might be working the podcast right now and that might be taking you to a whole new part of your life that's actually more important. You may be growing differently. Yes. You know what I mean? And this is the first time in my life that I've ever really started to experience that. Like this, the growing pain of like the gym. What the fuck? Like I've been missing. And it's like a double-edged sword for me because like it has helped me do other things. But at the same time, I noticed that like the gym has always been the thing that was like kept me kind of like focus center. It kept me like, you know, release energy that may be excess or anger or whatever. And so I noticed that moving forward though as I start to accomplish other things that I have, I seem to have like my old like I would get, I used to get more anxiety before I really, really gotten to training. So now it's like, now it's like, like it comes back almost. Like the anxiety comes back because I'm not as consistent with the training. It could be part of it. It could be looking at a lot of different things. The body constantly changes. Gut health is a big one when it comes to that. That's a massive one. I mean, we've had the opportunity to talk with some of the most brilliant doctors and scientists in this field. And if you look right now, we all know about the obesity epidemic, the health epidemic. There's also what they're calling a mental health epidemic that's going on right now. Anxiety, by the way, has become now the number one most diagnosed ailment that people are having. And its growth has been exponential. Right alongside the obesity epidemic because they're closely connected, but it's not the obesity. There's other stuff that's going on. Autoimmune diseases are on the rise. Like crazy. I mean, when I was a kid, I don't know any kids with peanut allergies or any other kind of food allergy. Now in my kid's school, there's entire classrooms that are allergen free. I mean, it's incredible. Something else is going on. A lot of these doctors and scientists that we're talking to are saying it has to do with the breakdown of the gut that has to do with what's called hyperpermeability of the gut to cause, to allow, because your gut really is, it's a tube running from your mouth to your ass. That's not inside your body. It's a tube that goes through. So whatever goes in there is not in your body until it gets absorbed. And when you break down that wall, which is happening with everything from some of the glyphosates that are found on GMO type foods. So glyphosates are herbicides. Artificial sweeteners can do this with the gut microbiome. It's funny when you bring up like, herbicides, pesticides and the stuff like that that are on food. When you look at what they're designed to do to some of the bugs, some of them are literally to make them like their guts explode. Yeah. Exactly. And I wonder why it might be affected. Why are people having a similar response? So what happens is your gut lining starts to break down. Now the food that you've always eaten goes through when it's not supposed to. Your body recognizes it as a foreign invader develops antibodies to it. All of a sudden you got food intolerances. All of a sudden, fuck, I used to eat bread all the time and I can eat bread no more. Or I used to have milk all the time. I can't have milk no more. Eggs fucked me up now. And some of the other side effects include things like depression, anxiety, which are the first and most common symptoms of some of that breakdown. So one of the best ways to heal some of that is to start to heal your gut. And I can send you guys some people that we work with. Dr. Ruscio is an expert by the way. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis back in like 2009, 2010. It's something that I had to battle. And I've learned how your assholes still connected to the rest of your body. And if you don't take care of it, like it's the rest of yourself is gonna suffer. I mean, I noticed that here's something like any methylated or highly estrogenic steroid triggered a colitis flare for me. And I think it's due to estrogen clearance through the gut as well as increased estrogen from those drugs. For some reason, the increased estrogen in the gut triggers like a flare in some way. And so I don't wanna get too deep onto that science of it. Cause I'm not an expert. I just was nerd reading it. Whoa. We're back. We're back. And... Crazy. You know, so I do a core like hormones. Hormones are gonna affect your gut health. Like they still connect. They absolutely do. But it's also... Weird as fuck. We're gonna show like, what the fuck is going on? So the bodybuilding lifestyle is actually terrible for gut health. For a few different reasons. One is, one of the things that were taught as bodybuilders is to consume a lot of food, especially post-workout. And especially the harder the workout is. Well, one of the things that a very intense exercise does is it ramps up inflammation and it wraps up inflammation in the gut. This is why if you push yourself really, really hard, you wanna throw up, right? But then we force feed ourselves afterwards. Bad combination. Also the consumption of supplements is the highest among people who wanna build muscle. Supplements contain large amounts of artificial sweeteners and other things that just over time destroy the microbiome. So you combine those two things. It's just overly processed. Frequently eating. Frequent feedings, inflammatory. This is why fasting seems to heal the gut because it gives it a break but you're constantly feeding it. So you combine all these things you do over the course of five, 10, 15 years. And I'll tell you what, you cannot find me one person who has not been lifting or bodybuilding for over 15 years that doesn't have gut problems. Almost every single one of us, something wrong. Unless they're actively doing stuff about it. So when you talk to people like Dr. McCollin and stuff, these guys believe that the next big where we're gonna hear is protein. And he actually said to us on the show he believes that protein can be as or more dangerous. Then excess carbohydrate. They're finding the way that it signals cancer cells to grow and that it's pro-aging. But one of the remedies to that, and this is good, we're talking about this because we have a lot of private guys who lift and wanna build, right? One of the remedies to that is to occasionally go low protein. Occasionally throw in a low protein day. Now the flip side of that is you'll probably end up building more muscle. Because some studies are showing now that by doing that, you increase protein sensitivity. Just like anything else, the body can become desensitized and stops responding. So you go like, you have like a vegan day every once in a while. Then when you go back to your high protein. This is why CrossFit was so amazing. It's like you just do a bunch of random shit. The next day you do a bunch of this. That's so confusing. What am I doing? Have you ever noticed when you- Sorry, that was great. Such an open, that was perfect. Have you ever noticed that when you look into, you know, nutrition and like what's good or bad for you whenever like you're on that level. Sorry. What's- I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Oh man. Is that you find out that you're like, food is bad for you. Like calories is bad for you. Like everything is causing wear and tear as some degree. And so I think like what Jacqueline just said a long time ago is like eat fewer calories and he was kind of, he didn't call it intermittent fasting but he was on a fasting thing. And he was, he didn't even have that much science to back his opinions. But he felt like the bigger you were and the more food you consumed, the faster you would die. The faster you would age. This is true for, you know, carbohydrates and proteins in particular, they do cause this kind of aging effect. The human body evolved with periods of fasting. For most of human civilization or, you know, on earth, we, food was scarce. So the human body actually thrives with periods of no food. Now this is not ideal necessarily for muscle building or whatever. It is ideal for longevity. However, if you're smart and you wanna build lots of muscle and you know how to inject it into your routine, like the occasional fast, by the way, you know when fasting is amazing? When you're bulking, no shit. Like you're bulking, eating a shit ton of calories, throwing a day where you have like one meal or no meal. I tell you, I've literally done this my entire life. Unconsciously, I used to do it on purpose to my competitors just to teach them some shit and fuck with them like, yes, you can fast. Yes, we're gonna be there. With a trip, right? My whole career I've done this just cause that's how my, my fucking. And it worked. I mean shit. I used to, yeah. I mean, it's not that obvious, Brad. I mean, what's not obvious? Cause he's like, did it work? And you're like, fuck yeah, dude. Whoa, no, I mean where I'm at. I'm a brick shit, I'm a brick shit, I'm a brick shit. Shoot the fuck out. Do I have to pose down right now? No, but it's like, I mean, I'm just based on everything, right? Like the people would say, like I said earlier, people think automatically you must eat a thousand meals, you eat all this food and I never have. I've never been that way. So that's, I'm not saying like, fucking amazing, but like, people look at me and they fucking, they're like, it's fucking video. This guy's doing this. Shit that they want to do. I'll tell you what, man, if you optimize. I was fucking with you by the way. Yeah. I didn't want to hit a nerve. If you optimize the human body, it can do some pretty fucking amazing things. Once you learn how to optimize it, and then you can push it in different directions and you're not fighting it. Cause if you're fighting the human body and you're constantly, you know, people think like, I have to force muscle to grow. I have to force. You ain't forcing shit. Your body wants to, it's adapting. If you are fighting your body at some point you're gonna lose. Just gonna push back. You will never win long-term. I would definitely say, yeah, within this last, getting ready for this last meet, I probably ate the least and, you know, trained. I mean, part of it was my coach, you know, picking things like RPE and stuff like that, you know, picking a scale of what I'm ready for that day based off of like how I feel, you know what I mean? But I made some of the best progress, recovered the best and ate the best. And it was literally like, you know, just like, oh, if I feel like eating this this morning, I'm gonna eat this. I would have it, you know, things that I knew I was gonna digest. Things like, like for me, I digest beef pretty easy. I grew up in a Mexican house, we'll eat like, you know, hooves and stuff like that. You know, manoodle, you know, manoodle and stuff like that. There's hooves in there, you know what I mean? Just like, I mean, I can digest certain things I think easier than like certain people, but you know, it's like I eat beef, you know, I eat like a bagel and a protein shake for breakfast or eggs if I felt like it. But just, it was three big meals. And then randomly, you know, I always wake up randomly in the middle of the night like four or five in the morning. And then I was like, I'll have like some Greek yogurt. I'll run to the fridge, be like one or two things and then go back to bed. And I would go right back to bed, you know what I mean? And I had an awesome meat and recovered well and, you know, but I wasn't before it was like, oh, I gotta eat this many times a day and da-da-da-da and you know, to the gills of protein and everything. Well, you gotta think to yourself this, is who, there's obviously there's a message that's out there that's the bro science or the common knowledge that you need to shit ton of protein and you need to eat a lot of meals all the every day. Who benefits from that message? Yeah, the companies. Of course, because the only way to hit those numbers and eat eight meals a day and eat two or three. You gotta have a shake and two bars. Dude, what is it always eating? Yeah, what's the name, Dr. and Tiger. It's like panic. You know, promoting two grams, three grams of protein per pound of body weight. That's a young, that means a 130 pound female eating 260 grams of protein a day. You're not gonna shit. No. The best of them people are like, I haven't eaten in like two hours. I'm getting smaller. Like, what? That's so common, man. I had a bunch of interesting stuff happen when I had to deal with the clitus and bodybuilding. Like I say it's the best and worst thing that happened to me, because worse than that, it did severely limit a lot of stuff I could do. It took away a lot of tools, right? In order to get more jacked. And I think you would shit blood, right? Well, yeah, that's because of that. That's like the truth. That's never healthy. So like, I had to focus on healing myself and trying to fix and live with the clitus that I had to completely look at. I had to be more intuitive with my nutrition. I want to... And I learned so much more about bodybuilding trying to fix that. I want to know how you dealt with the change of your physique like that. That had to take some serious mental self-awareness. You know, it didn't bother me that bad for two reasons. One, I was shitting blood and feeling like shit. So I kind of... I was like, I don't give a fuck how I look. I just don't want to shit blood anymore. It was that bad for you that you're not even thinking about your body image at all. You're just... Yeah, I was just like, I don't wanna... No, man, when your body's speaking to you, if you ignore it long enough, it'll start yelling at you. It'll start screaming at you. Well, so... And then the second reason was that I... I have a weird relationship, I guess, with that. Like, you know, I was a skinny guy, but I never wanted to get jacked because I felt like I wanted to show everybody that. I like, I got... I started training because being just an angry teenager, parents, divorce, whatever. And so like I was connected to the emotional aspect there. But after that, when I got into bodybuilding, like when I started training, using weights for more than just sport, right? It was a science experiment and like a work ethic thing. I was infatuated with steroids and nutrition and supplements. And I was... I wanted to try things and experiment them and look at what happened. So I never really even wanted to show off anything, like to regular society. I only wanted to talk to other like bodybuilding nerds and like, you know, talk to them about the physique. So it wasn't that big of a deal. When I got even smaller now, like I don't care. Like it never, I guess I never related that to... Could you find anyone to talk to? I'm really curious. There's not a lot. There's not a lot of bodybuilding nerds. No, there's not a lot out there. I mean, I found a couple here. These were guys that were like that, you know, that... One of the worst things that happens to people in fitness is that they identify so strongly with their body that any change that happens to it is devastating. They live by it and it becomes this obsession, you know. And at the end of the day, you all get old. You know what I mean? We're going to get old anyway. Like, don't identify. You are not your body. You know what people say, I'm fat. You know, you're not fat. Your body has fat on it, but you are not fat. You're the whatever's inside that body. And so once you learn that, it becomes a lot easier to train and eat, ride and whatever. It's not this crazy obsession, not this crazy like, you know, taking over my life or I have to feel... I have to do it. Otherwise I don't feel good about myself or whatever. And then you do it because you love it. It's totally different experience, completely different. Cause I was there too, man, with my training as a young kid. Also I was kind of happy that I had the cladus happen because I don't think I was ever that in tune with myself until I was forced to. Like I would, I would log my calories, log, you know, my food and stuff, but I never went to the next level until that happened because I had to use things like fasting. I was even using exogenous growth hormone to try and heal the ulcers that I had while going through fast while learning about not only probiotics in general, but every single strain of probiotics and what it does and what we think it can do. Different herbal anti-inflammatory supplements, different food pairings to help the food digest better and get to a point where I'm like, okay, well, I don't think I could blast food like I used to. So I need to make sure that I can digest and absorb every single nutrient, every single calorie and like perfect that. So like if I can't eat 5,000 calories a day, I can only eat 3,000 because of my gut. I need to make that 3,000 go to work, right? And then when I would be healthy and I had battled, you know, I'd have flares come and strip 20 or 30 pounds of muscle off me. I'd have to fight for it back up. That when I was 100% healthy, like the year 2014, when I won those shows, I was healthy almost the whole year and I used all those tools, as well as- The irony is it made you a better bodybuilder. It did, exactly, yeah. So it's like the best and worst and it happened to me that I- That's well, at the end of the day, when you encounter challenges in life and you know, you had yours and Brad, you were talking about yours and when you encounter challenges and I just, I went through a divorce, I was married 15 years, very difficult time, you know, having to, you know, split custody with the kids and all that stuff. At the end of the day, you have to remind yourself that growth only happens from being uncomfortable. It never happens when you're in a comfortable space, there's no reason for you to change and grow. It only happens when you're met with extreme challenge and if you look back at those challenging moments as hard as they are to look at, you can also think of how much you changed and grew from those moments and how they made you who you are today and if you keep that growth mentality about you, you'll always, you're always gonna grow and succeed. I agree and I had a conversation the other day with a friend of mine who she had experienced loss and I was talking to her about like my loss and her initial thing was like, if I could basically change everything, like if I could be in a place where that thing was, right, where that person was like a magic experience loss and you're like, if I can go where they are and not be here, I would be here, right? And I heard that, I was like, man, it's sad because I remember moments in my life when I used to not necessarily think like that but be like with my father, for example, very, very like this whole why, why? And feeling like just everything was shit, nothing felt good, it was like, I was constantly focused on like the negative part of something, like the uncomfortableness and then like flash forward, like it became a driving force for me and then flash forward like now, so I'd say 18, it became a very strong driving force for me. I was like, okay, let me use this to better my life and then now 10 more years, 28, I see it as being like, it's what fills me up is like the fact that I dealt with something, the trying time, the challenge, I got through it and it's what's made me who I am to people ever, because most people, I would say if they've gotten like, if they like my stuff beyond the, I guess I wanna say like most people who have bought into my brand are the people who are, maybe not because, oh, he did really cool shit but because like I affected them somehow with like an Instagram video that was about life, right? So meaning I got full circle from like this moment and I was trying to, I was trying to explain to her that like from the shitty trying time, the challenge, I got to this moment where okay, for a long time, I would say eight years, I didn't know what I was, it was just shitty. Life almost like felt like it started after that and then for a long time it became like a movement, thing that's something that pushed me forward and now it's like, oh shit, that's the thing that's fulfilling me and it was because of that challenge, because of that thing that I went through or got through. So I was trying to explain to her that was like, it's always hard in the beginning to figure out like, why you have to deal with it and so just not to get super, super deep because I always tend to do that to get back to the idea of like fitness is like exactly what we're all kind of saying. I wanna ask you something on that topic, where you're at. I wanna ask you personally, like where are you having the most personal growth in your own life? Now? Right now, yeah, like at this current moment, like in your life, what are you working through? What are the challenges? Where are you growing? I'm trying to figure out how to be, how to just do more normal, normal shit. What do you mean by that? Like, I get so caught up and I've been so caught up for the years in this whole like Instagram and creating content and like doing this stuff. And yeah, it just, it got to a point, like I wanna say a few months ago, probably about, actually it was in January. It was in January when everyone on the internet decided that they wanted to try and talk shit about me and make up lies, okay? And I got to a point where I was like, why the fuck am I doing this? I know what my heart feels and I know how much good I want for people, fuck. Shit, help me out, fuck, Brian. I remember during this time because I would tell him, you know, during January and stuff, I would see like these things and then I would watch his following or whatever come down, you know? And then I would, but I would just reach out and it'd be like, you're good. Like this is, there's nothing like, we know, the people know, you know, that are close to you and that's really all that matters, you know what I mean? And, you know, and he was like, no, you know, it'll be, it'll be like, I'm sick of, you know. Do you ever think what a monster you've kind of created for yourself? It's like, you've built this, you've built this beautiful thing. It just got me like, man, like, I really felt like I only had good intentions and I got, and people were just like, fuck you on some shit that wasn't true. And I had to deal with that. And so that started me on this path, this past year of like, man, like, I've always known why I'm doing this, but like, let me, let me look at this even further. And what really matters, that's why you mentioned like, it's my starting to change what I'm doing because I'm just like, fuck it. Because like, I realized, starting the podcast is perfect for that. You can't make everybody happy. And I, for a long time in my life, that's what I tried to do. So in my family situation, like, my mom, we had step family, we had, and I noticed her relationship with them when she's great now, but when they were younger, it was very like, a negative thing. It was like a negative thing. Like, you're this kid, you're like this. And I was always the kid of like, yo, you gotta like, those kids are gonna hate you when they grow up because you're mean to them. And I was like a fucking six, seven, eight year old kid saying this shit to my mom, right? And then like, I've always had moments of like, man, just be right. So going full, like full, I don't know how to like, full circle to be like, everyone's saying that I was wrong, but knowing like, knowing what it was, it's, and you couldn't tell people, you couldn't show people, it didn't matter. Cause it was just like, on the internet, it's gotta be true. I got very just like, fuck this, but it got me in a moment where I was like, what really matters now then, right? And what really matters like, for me to do what I want to do. And I just realized like, I have to, and I think everyone has to do a better job of this, is like, instead of like looking out and like, trying to like, I don't know, I was trying to make everything right for everyone. And I realized like, I couldn't, if I'm not right, I can't make things right for people. So I got very like, demotivated internally, so that it was like, externally, I wasn't able to be the person that everyone felt like I was. And I was just like, fuck, like, people would tell me that. They'd be like, eh, you know, you're not yourself. You're like, I got more negative for this or that. And that's not who I am. Cause I was going through it. But like, now I'm starting to realize like, fuck it. Like, you can't make everybody happy. You can't please everybody. You can't get everyone on your same page. But you can do like, what makes you happy? And if people can get along and be long and come along for that ride and want to, then let them. And I used to try and like, like I said, I'd want to make everybody like me. But I realized it's not possible, like just in life. No, it's, and that's what true integrity is. That's what real integrity is. Real integrity is, I'm just gonna be me. And that's it. And if you like me great, if you don't, then that's okay too. You have that, you have that choice. I mean, when we first started the show, we had this nerve wracking. I remember getting our first haters who would say things about us. And at first it hurts because you know what, you know what your intentions are. You know what you're trying to do. And you want to tell these people, like what the fuck's wrong with you, man? I'm just trying to help. I'm just trying to do what's right. But then you start to think to yourself, like, does it matter? Like, I'm just gonna be, I'm gonna be who I am. Because when I got popular, I didn't care about anything else, but just being who I am. You know what I'm saying? Like, because it was a whole, there's a whole popular, this whole transition of like, no one knew who the fuck I was. And I was just doing shit that I loved. Shit that made me happy, being who I was. And then all of a sudden people were like, that guy's cool in this internet thing. And like, yeah, you could post these pictures. You know people are gonna think it's cool and you're doing it. But like, it was just, that's who I was. And then eventually it was like, man, that guy's popular now. But that guy's famous or whatever they say on social media, like social media, Instagram famous. It's famous, yeah. And it's like, and I look back when I started it, it wasn't like, it wasn't like, I wasn't trying to make people happy. I was just trying to be like, I'm doing the shit that I have always done and I think it's cool. Like, even how we got into all this gym stuff in general. And then it like, you get to this point where like, you find yourself, you see a comment, you're like, fuck, why is it like, what? You know, I just got to a point where I'm like, fuck, man. I gotta get back to where I was when I started. When you become a real ninja in this, right? And I talked about this on the show on teaching people how to become like more self-aware is when shit, when I have, those are triggers, right? We just had, we just got done interviewing Lewis House. Lewis House just dropped a book called, The Masks of Masculinity. Fucking definitely read that just from the topic we're talking about right now. But why was I going in that direction? I wanted to share with him the... Haters, I don't know. No, no, no, no, with the wearing the mask and like being able to see that when you have these moments. Yeah, when you have these moments that, where you feel like anger or hurt or pissed off. And in South Sharon, when I remember it happened to me when we were first starting, the real ninja part is being able to stop right there and fuck the other person is, why do I allow that to make me feel a certain way? It's driven from an insecurity always. Always. If you can dig unpack it enough and figure it out, it's always rooted somewhere. And you become invincible. But it's crazy because I started out not like that. That developed because of the whole... You probably started to identify with it, right? Yeah. So then if anyone tried to like take it down, it was like, whoa, what the fuck? Yeah, it was because... To the point where you... It blocks people, you don't even fuck people. No, no, no, no, that was way before. That was way before. That was when I was just like, fuck this asshole's trying to dig right in. That was before any of this shit. That was like, it wasn't there. And then, so it's like, it's just interesting because then I look back, I'm like, well, the person I was that got me there to that point was the person who was like, fuck it, I'm just gonna be me. Right. So he talks about that. When you're mask, it's so hard and why it's a mask is because most of us that wear this, we had a lot of success or else we wouldn't be wearing it. It was what drove us. Like my insecurity to be a bigger guy is part of what made me successful. What took me to all the way to the level to the professional level of competing is cause that was already an easy hot button for me. Fuck, I've been competing against myself my whole life. I don't want to be the skinny guy. I never, you know, I didn't go on a cut till I was 30 years old. My whole life I've been on the bulk. My whole life I've been- And from a bulk. Right, I was always wanting to be bigger. And I didn't literally mean I was always bulking but I was always wanting to grow. There's never once did I say, I'm gonna intentionally go on a diet for six weeks. I spent my whole like first 30 years like that, man. It's fucking crazy. Yeah, and so the problem is when you start to identify and that's one of the issues with even social media. As you grow your business through social media, you're not that either. Just like I said, don't identify with your body. You identify with your social media, then you become vulnerable and there's gonna be people to come after you, especially if you're big. You know, you are at the top, you're gonna be the target, right? You're gonna be the guy because you're the guy with the most followers. People are gonna come after you. Well, it's gonna hurt when you identify with that with who you are on that social media. Reality, that's not you. This is you, right? This person we're talking about right now as I meet you. But the thing is though, a lot of who I was on the internet, who I am on the internet is a part of me though. A part of you, but it's not everything. No, they don't know you is my point. Like who do they, they don't know you. They know your posts or whatever. And again, you're the top guy. You're not anybody to, I'm sure if they met you and they knew you, they probably wouldn't say those types of things. So that's really the point and especially when you grow up business on social media, I'll tell you what, man, it could be a motherfucker. It could be very, very difficult for people. But at the end of it, you also have a platform where you can show your message. You gotta ask yourself this too. You gotta ask yourself this and I'm sure you already have, is maybe these challenges you're going through are kind of like school because now you have a platform where you could talk to others. And that's what I was saying about the whole losing my father thing and me talking to that girl about wanting to be in that place instead of this was like, but that's why I'm here today. So at this point in my life, I'm saying, so there must be something that I'm learning is supposed to be learning from those dates back in January until now that's going to make me better in the future. Well, I'll tell you what, man, if that didn't happen, you wouldn't start a podcast and you wouldn't have met us. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all good. Dude, we actually have to fucking wrap up because we have to be somewhere. We gotta do this again, dude. Yeah, it was fun. You guys are awesome. And I unblocked you now. I love it. I didn't know. You guys had to come up and visit. That was the mission. We got a whole media facility. We could do a whole bunch of video, a whole bunch of shows. We're here to Saturday. We're up, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 minutes from here. Maybe we'll come back over here and get a workout. Yeah, I had a lot of fun, like, seriously. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks for inviting us down. It was, it was like, it was hard. Scheduling it was kind of fucked up, but I'm glad we sorted it out. Appreciate it. Appreciate it, man. I'm glad you guys had us here. Thank you. You guys are awesome. Yeah, well done, guys. Good time. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maths anabolic, maths performance, and maths aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.