 It's own, it's own, it's own like dump, keep going. Tell them, tell them commercial machine. How about this, tell them this, you know what? You know what we did? 30 days of free coaching. From Mind Pump. 30 days. We've had so many people sign up for it. It's awesome. It's over, you guys know, do you guys understand that it's over 90 hours worth of fucking content that was put into this. For free. Yeah, for free. All you gotta do is go to mind and hook you up. You will not find anybody giving away that much free content and information. It took over 90 hours just to build out the content for each one of the topics that gets delivered to you every single day. If you go to mindpumpmedia.com, log in, you'll sign up, you'll get an email every single day, coached Mind Pump Media. If you wanna pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Wait a second. Wait a second. The air is different. Wait a second. There's a mosquito in here. Wait, wait. No, there's two and bit my ass. And one's fucking the other one. What does it sound like when mosquitoes fuck? I don't know. Yeah, I was waiting for you to do it. I think that's what it sounds like. In reality, when a mosquito bites you, isn't it? Kind of fucking you a little bit. It is. It puts it in. It's injecting in you. It puts it in. I don't wanna think about that. Doesn't a mosquito gets to do that? It leaves you with herpes. Isn't a mosquito just like a bee? It does that one time that it's done, right? Or does it get... What? No, that's its food. You know, a bee stings you, it's done. Yeah, a bee stings you, he's fucking... That's done, bro. There's a difference between... So a bee does it for self-defense. A mosquito eats that way, it sucks your blood out. So why would it... Sucks your blood out and it dies? That's it, dude. That's a horrible evolutionary process. God made a mosquito, he's like, I'll say the fruit flyer. And it's only a bee though, right? Because does a wasp... Does a wasp in a bumblebee die after they sting you? No. They don't, right? That's why I fucking hate wasps. Wasps will fuck you up. Right, they'll sting you, come back, sting you, go get a friend, then have your friends sting you. Have you ever seen videos of... Gang bang of wasps? Have you? I've never seen that. But have you ever seen a video of how bees fight wasps? Did you guys know they're mortal enemies? Yeah. Did you know that, Adam? I love... And I'm on Team B all day. Oh yeah. Fuck wasps. So they hate each other, right? They're like rival gangs and when a wasp... Because what the wasp will do is they'll go in and they'll kill the bees and take their honey. Yeah, they are nature's assholes. So what they'll do is if a wasp shows up, the bees know he can't... If he leaves, they're fucked because he's gonna tell everybody. So what they do is they go on the wasp and they pile on top of them and create this massive pile of bees and they move so rapidly that they actually overheat the wasp and kill it like that. That's gangster. It is. And meanwhile, the wasp is just killing bees but they sacrifice themselves. They sacrifice themselves for the queen. That's it. They produce. They make honey, dude. What the fuck does a wasp do? I don't know what they do. It just irritates everybody. Just piss people off. Yeah, it doesn't do shit. I've been stung so many times. By a wasp? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, yellow jackets and wasps. I've never been stuck by wasps. Well, you know why? Because you're a country boy. You grew up in that island. You know what I'm saying like that? And I've messed with them too. So it's not all like one-sided. Right? I fucking blew up, you know, some of them with, you know, firecrackers and gasoline and, you know. What do you deserve it? I like those things. I've, we used to have a scorpion problem and where I grew up and... Rock me like a hurricane. Here I am. Sorry. Awesome. That sounds like a scorpion problem. Yeah. Is rock me like a hurricane? That's not scorpion. That's scorpions. Is it? Come on, come on, come on. That was a good one. That was a good reference. Good job there. Good job, buddy. I get one every once in a while. So you had a scorpion problem that you're... Yeah, I know. I remember, got on there, forget my dad telling me the first time he got one. He got it, it was in, it got embedded in his towel that was hanging up in the... And he got done showering and a scorpion was just chilling on his chest right afterwards. You hear my dad scream like a girl for a second. Dad, what's going on in there? And there's a scorpion right on his chest. I climbed into bed and laid on one in bed. Did it sting you? Yeah, it stings. But it's like a bee sting. It's about the same thing. I thought they killed you. Little pinch your arms. No, there's, well, there's poisonous ones. This one wasn't poisonous. No, these are, I don't, I think that's only... They're pretty creepy. That's in like other countries, not here. God, scorpions are like spiders, except they're... Maybe actually in Texas. I think Texas is fine. No, you know what, Arizona, they have the ones that are like... Yeah, when you go at night, they glow if you shine like lights on them. They're transparent. I think they live in those palm trees. I love when we talk about stuff we don't know very much about. So they just fall on your head. You know what, motherfucker? So you know what's funny? The fact that I said about bees fighting wasps, I think it's true. I'm pretty sure it is. You said it confidently. I'm pretty sure it's true. I believed it. I could be completely wrong. You know, the beauty about this show now, the size it is now, it never fails. Somebody will correct us. Somebody will... I think it's pretty... They'll be fascinated that we're right in the way that we delivered it. You know what I mean? That was pretty accurate, but I said like I didn't know what you were talking about. Nice delivery sal, absolutely wrong, actually. Correct, absolutely wrong. So anyway, listen, you're about to hear us talk to Aria Safai. Great guy. He's a lifetime natural IFBB pro-physique competitor on the Olympia stage. He competes at a very high level. Adam, how rare is it for someone to compete at that high of a level to be natural, by the way? To be completely honest, up until him, I didn't believe that anybody was. It's that... And on the Olympia stage, I know there's about three other guys that claim it. I know two of the three for sure are not. And then most of them just avoid talking about it or like semi-deny it. Bottom line is it's a majority of everybody that competes at that level is, especially if they're... If you made it to IFBB and you're all natural, you're the fucking Ilnana. I believe that Aria was what men's physique was created originally for his... He's got that class. He's got the look that they're looking for. Well, and I believe that the purpose was because, you know, they were smart, right? IFBB, MPC was smart. They saw the direction of where bodybuilding was getting so out of control that people went, that's just not realistic for me. And nor do most people want to look at it. Now, that's not to say some people don't. And I'm not knocking anybody that does because, fuck yeah, if it's your goals, go after, get it, man, be a monster. But most people could not relate to that and most people were like, I don't have the time to get that big. So when men's physique came around, I think the idea of men's physique was, hey, we want to see what the elite guys look like if you were natural and you actually died and trained your ass off, but you still had a life, you know what I'm saying? But it progressed very quickly. It did. And these guys are looking real huge and muscular. But, you know, Aria's got this real... Cause you're the one that showed me him on Instagram first time. And he's got a very aesthetic, symmetrical physique. He comes in crazy condition when he competes. And we talked to him about all this stuff. We talked to him about nutrition. We talked to him about exercise. He's actually modified his training pretty significantly since listening to Mind Pump. He's actually a Mind Pump fan. And he's noticed some changes in his body and his strength as he's prepping for a competition coming up, which is I believe in Culver City. Is that where he'll be competing? So without any further ado, here we are talking to Aria Safai. Oh, by the way, you can find him on Instagram at aria underscore IFBBPRO. I want to get back to Aria talking about, you know, your experience competing and stuff. When did you first, like, get the bug that this was men's physique? I want to get into this. Like, when did that start for you? Yeah, man. Well, for me, it was funny because my brother, which I didn't mention as early, he's also an IFBBPRO. Oh, sure. I didn't know that. I think we're the only two brothers in men's physique, at least. Oh, wow. That's cool. So he did it. And to be honest, man, when I was in my 20s, I always had a good physique, but I lived in, like, Hermosa Beach and I had my time having fun, wasn't really too dialed on the diet stuff, drinking alcohol here and there. And one day I was like, you know what, dude, I'm going to fucking, I'm going to do a show one day and see what happens. So one day I just snapped and I was like six and a half weeks from this one show and I didn't even know anything about it. Tell me where this is at in, like, the era of men's physique. Is this, like, right when it first started, like, Steve Cook's charting and all those guys? It was a little bit after that, 2013. Okay. I think things kind of started picking up in 2012. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And really, even 2013 was early. Oh, for sure. So I was like, it, to me, I was like, you know, I'm going to turn 30 and my goal was to create the best body I've ever had when I'm 30, kind of take away the 30 out of 30. Like, if I can look good at that age, then, you know, I'm doing well. It doesn't make 30 sound so bad. So that was kind of what I was going to do. And I was like, you know, let me just do a show. I was like six and a half weeks, never knew nothing about a show, no coach or nothing. I just knew what I knew. And I ended up dieting down and I saw myself get leaner than I've ever got in my life. I was like, shit. So I did the first show. It was MPC. Didn't even know what that meant. I was like, all right, it's the closest one in my house. My brother did it. It was just, let's do it. And I ended up getting first. Oh, wow. First show. I was like, shit, first show. This is kind of cool. I like this, you know. So then I ended up going against Jeremy for the, Bidina for the overall. But oh, wow. And I didn't know shit, man. I remember the guy that told me to my back pose. He said literally, like just, he was like a bodybuilder, old bodybuilder. At the day of the show, he's like, don't pose at all. Just literally staying there and like almost slouch. And I was like, are you sure? I want to open my wings a little bit. He's like, don't do anything at all. They're going to knock you down. I was like, all right. So I just did that, but it was good enough to win my class, but not take the overall. But either way, Jeremy looks six. I'm not saying I would have, but I look at my posing of that video now. I'm like, God, what the hell is I doing? My very first show I fucked up and actually retracted and squeezed. And everybody went, oh, you heard, you heard like everybody was there supporting me. And you're like, oh. There were so much weirder back then about it. You know, it's like, you can get away with much. Now you see a lot more going on. And it's okay. But back then it was more basic, hand in the waist and that's pretty much it. So yeah, I got first there and I was like, dude, I got the bug. I want to get the overall sword. So two months later, I did another show and I ended up taking first and the overall. And so I was like, hey, this is so far so good. And then a week later was the USA's for the championship. I do, again, I knew nothing about this. I'm super novice, don't know anything. And- Which at that level, people that don't know this, that's like the fucking, the main event. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't get bigger than that as far as like, you know, notoriety going through the USA's for sure. Yeah, and I didn't even realize that. And the ladies interviewing me, she's like, dude, this is the prestigious LA championships. You just won the overall, you got first in your last show, you're going to do the next, like the USA championship next week, like people that get first here, they tend to go and come pro. And I was like, I don't even know. Maybe, you know, maybe I will. She's like, come on, what are you talking about? Maybe, you got to do it. I was like, yeah. And I was being interviewed, but I remember I was considering going, but I would have to call it sick in my work. I was a manager of a bank at the time. I was like, oh, just in case you're listening, I'm not going to say it. That's the little that I was thinking about. And then I ended up doing a fuck, you know, a fuck that I'm calling out sick, dude. Called out sick, went to Vegas, got dead center, got first place again. Wow. Three shows, three months. I was a pro. I was like, wow. That has to be one of the fastest ever. It was up there from what I heard. But, you know, I really didn't get a post on my Instagram. I was like talking about that. I was like, you know, I've been training since I was 15. I've been doing this in my whole life. So I stepped on stage and I got pro card in three months, but those, those are shit little work going on behind that, you know. In high school, I, you know, started lifting weights hardcore when I was like 15, but I was doing push-ups and sit-ups since I was a kid. My dad had, my dad had 14 kids. He had all of us like soldiers. Wait, how many? 14. What? Yeah. So you have 13 siblings? Yeah. Where are you? I'm the youngest son. There's nine girls, five boys. I mean, he had four different women, you know. He's a Middle Eastern guy. So, you know, they do their thing. I'm a little bit more, you know, Americanized, but you know, when I was growing up, I was like, I don't know, a bunch of fucking kids. I guess this is life. I don't know, you know. So, but we were all like, it was like a clan. I mean, so we'd have to run six days a week, straight the fuck up, like everything. He has a, you know, equipment in his garage. I was doing push-ups, pull-ups. I remember one time I was like six or seven. We'd run at least like four miles to four to six miles every day. And it was like 12 in the morning, two in the morning. We didn't go running that day because he had to go do something, but he told us, make sure you run. We didn't run for whatever reason I remember, but I remember he got home around one and two in the morning. I had to wake up to go to second grade. And like at seven a.m. to wake up to go to school, found out we didn't run and woke us all up. He's like, go fucking run, you know. So four in the morning, I remember going to the high school, I had to go run fucking four miles, but dude, I was digging it. I was a kid, I love this shit. I was like, fuck it, let's do it, you know. So how to go run 16 laps from the track, come home, go to sleep, wake up, go to school, you know. Now did that, now it obviously affected you positively. Did it affect any of your siblings negatively? Or is everybody like you? Not, I mean a lot. My whole family, like if you look, we're all pretty in good shape. We love fitness is our life. One of my brothers kind of hated it for a bit, but he's now in the best shape of his life. Everybody's, you know, an athlete for the most part, especially my mom. My mom and my dad had five kids and those are the ones that all live in LA. We take it very serious. My brother's almost a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. He changed with Anderson Silva at his facility there. My sister, she does Jiu-Jitsu, she's super into fitness. I mean, my whole family is pretty much all about fitness. And it just makes it easy. It's just what we do. So when I got into like high school, as I was saying, I started benching. I just took off, man. I mean, I was 120 pounds benching 135 at the beginning of sophomore year. And by the time I was done with sophomore year, I was benching 235 at the end of junior year. I was benching 285 at the end of senior year. I wrestled at 140 and I benched 340 at high school. 17 years old. So I was just like, everyone since then, oh, you're not steroids, man. There's no way. I was like, dude, this is just what I've been doing forever. And just, you know, so I started getting into, you know, that forever. So once I started competing, it just really, it just kind of took off for me. And that's kind of where I landed. And then I always had these shoulder-paved lingering in me. So that kind of pushed me back a little bit. But so far, I can't complain, man, if competing is a lot. Well, here's something that's crazy is, and part of why we were really excited to have you out here. Because, you know, I'm a men's physique pro also, but I'm not natural. And you've been on the Olympia stage, and I know most of. So probably about 75% of the guys that have been on that stage. And half of those guys, I know, like, really well. So I'm, and I could tell you that 95, maybe 98% of those guys, none of them are natural, even the ones that claim they are. You're one of the few that are actually natural and have made it that far. That's a huge fucking accomplishment. I mean, how was that? How did you? Well, why? Why would you decide? Yeah, exactly. Like, how did you not? Like, for me, it wasn't even like, for me, I knew that I'm going to be competing against all these guys at this level that are going to be taking testosterone. I'm going to take testosterone. I already do not have the genetics to be in this goddamn sport. I don't belong. I belong in a pool swimming somewhere. I know you look great, by the way. I saw your pictures. But thank you. Well, I, you know, well, yeah, that was, you know, testosterone enhanced too. So I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I don't have my natural body type is this tall, lanky, basketball player, swimmer. That's what I do well at that. But I also wanted to prove that you could shape and build the body to, you know, hang with even at the elite athletes out there in men's physique, like I did. Sure, sure. But for you to do it and do it completely natural is unreal. What, what motivated you to do that? Well, I mean, I've always kind of been against it, not morally, man. I'm not going to sit here in an angel and haven't done, you know, certain share drugs here in my past. It's just, when I was younger, like I was mentioning in high school, everybody thought I was on steel. I mean, everybody. So I just kind of, I feel like this is just me thinking, I feel like I developed more like, like, nah, fuck that dude, I'm not. And I started almost getting a hate towards it, not towards people that do it or. Well, you don't want to prove them right. It was just like, yeah, it's like, dude, I fucking, I don't do that straight up. I never did. And then you get so used to getting frustrated and combating it against these people that are kind of just ignorant because they didn't put any of the work in that you've done. And those are the guys that would be the ones to say it. You know what I mean? A lot of them. So I feel like. Which is the irony, right? It's rarely the guys that take the stairs to give a shit, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. It's the kids that want to believe that you can't do that. Yeah, you can't. You can't. There's no way because they, because I've been doing this for two years and I don't look nothing like two. Two, come on. You can't fucking do that, right? So I think that's what started it. And then I just started doing really well, really quickly, right? I mean, not a lot of people, like you mentioned, just, you know, the three shows and three months they turned pro. So I said, dude, I'm doing fine without it. And then I figured, you know what? I may never be the best in the world at this sport, meaning be the Mr. Olympia champ. But at the same time, if I can kind of have my own little angle and be natural and do as well as I can and kind of give hope to a lot of those guys, because I get messages every day from people like, man, you inspire me, you make me feel like this, you make me feel like that. So it feels good to do that. And honestly, I wouldn't even know the first place to start. And after listening to some of the stuff you guys say, I know people can easily screw this body up. I'm like, dude, I don't even want to take the chance of that. You know, like, I don't want to... Now, what do you think, though, about those, okay, so, you know, the top five guys, and here you are, and I know you're getting ready to get after a show and hopefully qualify for Olympia, then get on there again. In your head, do you feel like when you look at the top five, that you even have the possibility of cracking that top five, knowing the look that the judges are kind of going for on that stage? What's your thoughts on that? I feel like my symmetry and my condition is for sure spot on. Absolutely. I don't think I have... The weakness that I have is really just the fullness in the size. I mean, my back development's there. Every single piece is there. If you break it down piece by piece, I just need to get a little bigger. But it's like, you know, let's say I do start taking something and I still don't become top five or win. And then it's like, God, what the fuck is all that for? You know, I feel like almost like, you know what, just keep riding your wave, keep doing you, keep kind of just paving them, you know, paving that you're on and go that route. But I mean... Well, the other thing to consider too is, is your goal just to win an Olympia or is your goal to build a business around this? Because if it's to build a business, it can be very marketable to always be natural. It's the reason why you're on the show right now. We didn't invite anybody else in the Olympia down here. I mean, we've had Johnny, who's a good buddy of ours and stuff like that because we actually worked together and our friends. But I mean, you're it because we were looking for somebody like that that has honestly stayed with it like that. And I really believe that when men's physique first started, that your body type, your exact look where you're at is what they intended it to be like. Yeah. It's just evolved and got out of control, just like bodybuilding has. Yeah, yeah. It's like, don't you feel like it's following the exact same? Well, it's pretty wild because they have classic physique. And a lot of the guys that are in men's physique don't fit the weight class for a classic physique. Isn't that ironic? It's pretty wild. They think I did make an adjustment and I think they upped the classic physique weight to kind of help make it a little make more sense. But it is what it is, man. And I still feel like I got hope. I mean, for me, I had a couple of rough seasons. I had a shoulder injuries. I think this season is going to be the best package I've ever brought because it was the first time I was able to have a small off season, just a few months, but healthy. Every time I've ever took a break is because of an injury. I lost muscle and then I just started dieting and competing back into it. And I was able to win two shows as a pro and qualify to two time Olympia. This time I feel like I'm going to do better. And I've made waves and people respect me for what I'm doing. So right now I'm happy, man. And there is some business aspects that I'm actually really pursuing. I've been working on something for a couple of years that it's going to be launching fairly soon, actually. And I know just kind of building a base and putting myself out there, marketing myself the way I am. I think it's going to only help that. Now, are you sponsored by any supplement companies or anything like that? I'm not. I'm not. Oh, I love that you said that. We don't even need to go any further. Well, no. On that, I do want you to shed some light because it's something that I talk about. It's been a while since I've talked about this on the show. Is the misconception out there of once you become a pro and once you get on that money comes in and you've now made it or you will, it'll be that easy. You'll just get that big or you'll be that awesome of a zeke and then you'll easily be able to build this business around it. Could you shed a little bit of light on our listeners what that process was like for you? Yeah, it's definitely not like, hell, you're a pro and now you're going to get money. That's for sure. You've got to have so many more elements to yourself than just getting that pro card in order to really be able to make a business out of it. A, you either got to be a top, top guy, but B, you've got to have a good message too. Certain followers, they read what you put. They know who you are. I mean, it depends what kind of business you want to look in. Do you want to be a successful online trainer? You better have good content. You can't just be a guy that looks good and placed well because there's a lot of guys that look good and placed well, but they don't really put it out to the online trainer or nothing like that. So there's that aspect. But to really make a business out of this, man, I mean, you have to have a lot of brains, really. Yeah, what has it taught you? What have you learned about yourself going through this process? For me, it's just really about kind of building a brand with a direction that you feel that you can offer your own niche market. You know what I'm saying? You have to be able to separate yourself. I mean, maybe back in the day when bodybuilding was... I mean, it's a lot harder to get a bodybuilding pro card, right? And if you win a bodybuilding show, it's probably easier to get endorsements that are going to be more financial prosperous for yourself. But I think now the men's physique's there. I mean, they're handing them out a lot easier than they did bodybuilding pro cards. And it's going to be more than just a pro card that's going to help you do that. You have to have a niche market. You have to have a solid business plan. You have to have direction. You have to make sure everything you do with your posts, with your... You know, every aspect of what you're doing has to be going in that direction. You can't just think you're a pro and do a couple of shows and expect money. It just will not happen. And social media has changed a lot of that. Like there's fitness professionals who make a shit ton more money because they have a lot of followers on social media but they don't ever really place very well or maybe they even stop competing altogether. True, 100%. I mean, it's really changed the market quite a bit. Whereas before you had to have your supplement sponsors and that was pretty much it. Yeah, supplement sponsors are cool, but... Yeah, why don't you... No, they're not. Fucking fine. Don't be fucking lying. I know you know. I know you fucking know. I mean, they're cool because like... He wants them to be nice because he wants to make sure of some of us. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, he's like, I don't want to make the same mistake at him to talk shit about all of this. You're going to offer me a lot of money in the future. You're cool. No, no, but it's just, I don't know, man. To be honest, dude, I've kind of had entertainment with that route somewhat. And I just fucking hate the idea of posting a picture with me holding a bottle and some hand in my hand upheld. And oh, I take this at night because it's like, oh, fuck. I just, you know, I've tried it before. Fuck that. I don't want to do that shit. Just not me. And I don't even believe in 9 out of 10 of supplements, man. Straight up. I was on a live Instagram video yesterday going through the supplements that I have. I was like, dude, like supplements are not the answer. Like straight up, it's not the answer. Like you guys said, more than anything, it's the programming, obviously the diet and the programming. And people have it asked backwards. It's like, all the questions you get that I get about supplements, I'm dude, it's like, you go to the store, right? And you want to build a nice cake, okay? You got to get all the ingredients from the store. And you know, you're going to need flour, you're going to need eggs, you're going to need chocolate, whatever you're going to do. And it's almost like people go into the store and say, hey, where's the cherries? Because they want to put a fucking cherry on top. It's like, dude, fucking focus on what the cake is. And the cherry comes at the end. If you have all the cake ingredients down in the oven and they'll come out just right, then we can maybe go get you a cherry and place on top of it. And that's the sum of it. And complete you in some sprinkles. You have a job aside from this? I do. I work with my buddy. It's kind of hard time because right now, I'm doing a lot of online training. It's really been working out for me. Oh, cool. That's really what I've been doing a lot of. And the software that I'm developing, I've been doing for two years, is going to be all based around online training. But I'm not going to go too deep into it now, but it's not based for myself. It's for trainers to have all the tools they need to create and connect with their clients. Excellent. So I'm not going to be selling to clients to be trained. If you're a trainer, how do you do your business? If it's online with emails, it's like, yeah, that's difficult. I'm going to have a whole platform tools to everything else. So that's where my bread and butter is. And I'm building towards that for two years. I've built so much stuff and spreadsheets and all this stuff to give to my coder. And he's been working on it relentlessly. So the entrepreneur route? That's the route I want to go because, I mean, most people that are good trainers, you sell here a good trainer, okay, now put it in an email format and make it to the point where the customer across the world can understand it, follow it and get results. And it's going to be not too good. A lot of trainers are not going to do that. So I want to basically to create a bridge to that gap to make it so damn easy. You can click from your phone, create diets, create programs, create schedules, edit them. When they do live workouts, you can see where they're at, see where they miss and analysis things. So when you do your updates, all that stuff is going to be all dialed in. I'm about a month or two of blanching it too, so it should be pretty cool. Excellent. And that's kind of where my heart is right now. Now, are you've been around the circuit longer than I have and around more guys than I have? Are there certain dudes that you've connected with on the pro circuit that you really like or have hit it off or anybody that's rubbed you the wrong way during your whole process? Rubbed the wrong way, not really, man. I kind of get along with everybody. I've been there since the earlier times. You know, the second of the, I was at the second Olympia. There's only 14 guys there. I had a pretty cool comeback story after my surgeries and I think that gained a lot of respect from people. There's a lot of people that don't think I'm natural, but there's a lot of people that do. And then when they saw my whole story, because I put it out there, man, when I don't look the best, I like to show people so they can see my progress, see what it takes. I try to be descriptive in my comments, my captions so they can read what I'm going through. I give a lot of free advice and so far I've rubbed elbows nobody the wrong way, man. I like and respect everybody. That's the one thing about competing, which you would know is you get a lot of good culture. Yeah, right away, man, because I may not know you and you may not know me, but... I know what you went through. We know what we went through. For that, we got an immediate bond right there, you know? Let's talk about your injuries, because it was hard for you. I mean, we talked about for about five minutes before we got on air here and you talked a little bit about what happened with that. Let's go into that. So you had shoulder surgeries. What was wrong with your shoulders? What was like afterwards and the whole thing? Well, they started actually right after when I was getting my pro card. I remember working out backstage, even for the LA Championships before that and I was doing these pump up things and I was doing my shoulders hurting. It's hurting bad. This is in 2013. And it was just flaring up all the time and then I was like, all right, well, I need a break, but USA is next week. So I'll do it again. I was pumping up backstage that whole week. I had to go light and it was hurting. So after I got my pro card, I had to take an immediate three, four months off went to the doctor. He said, you're a crazy bursitis. You know, you have bone spurs that are just digging into your bursa, which is a little sack that kind of helps almost cushion your rotator cuffs. And you need to take some time off, ice it. So I took a three, four months off, lost then your muscle is not loyal. You turn around for a second. This shit just goes away, dude. Especially when you're natural. It's a great way. Yeah, right? It's a great way to say that. Yeah, dude, you fucking, you turn your back on your muscle and you turn back around and it's, what the fuck would you go, dude? It's gone. I'm like, fuck. You get all self-conscious, you know. Still had an overall good body compared to regular people, but you wouldn't catch me with my shirt off or I didn't take it off anywhere, you know. So that was the first problem, but I didn't get surgery. But I used that post, you know, injury body to try to make a run for the 2014 Olympia. And I had a pretty hell of a transformation. Did the best I could. I had limited. I couldn't do any shoulder presses, incline her. I couldn't go heavy. I was extremely limited, but I was able to pull it off and make it to the Olympia. And I was, you know, super happy with that. Wow. So after that, I was like, dude, there's no fucking way I can keep doing this. Went to the doctor again. And I said, you know, where am I headed? He's like, look, you don't necessarily need it, but you're pretty much headed toward the bones purge you have in both your shoulders are going to eventually tell you rotator cuff. So you can either wait or take it easy. And I was like, dude, you know us, we're not going to take it easy. I was like, you know what, fuck it, let's do it. Let's get the surgery. So I scheduled it for after my show. So the last like three, four months of prepping training, I was in the gym, knowing I'm getting surgery. And you know, you have these bones purge or just digging into your rotator cuff and you have pain. It's like training is the hardest thing to do. I'm all under a bench. I'm like, you know, 275 or whatever I'm doing. I'm like, fuck, is it going to break now? It's going to snap now. I never knew it was really mentally challenging. Major mind fuck. Major mind. You can't go your hardest because you're scared just because something's going to happen. So one week after my second show in Sacramento, I ended up going on the surgery bed. And I remember I woke up and I was driving home. I videoed it. I even posted a video a long time ago just talking about the surgery starts, healing starts today. I was like, hopefully, you know, at the end of this day, at the end of this, I'll have a good story and we'll see. And then I started taking pictures almost every single day, watched my body dwindle with the therapy took about eight months off. And again, I was drinking, binging. I mean, I could, I was telling you earlier, but I could not believe the eating disorder because getting to the Olympia was about a year of prepping. After that, I was doing all these shows and then I did two shows after the Olympia. So almost died in for a year. After that, I had to basically go straight to surgery and I had no shows, no dieting, no shit. I didn't have to go to work. All my responsibility was gone. All I had to do was rest and I could eat whatever I want. So for the first few days, I was excited. I was like, yeah, hell yeah, eat this, eat that. You know, binge watching Game of Thrones, catching up on all those things and all these breaking bad. I was watching, yeah. I was watching everything, man. So, and just eating. And then like months would go by and I couldn't, I was so surprised on how the eating disorder, I want to call it, just wasn't going away. So you were aware of it as it was going on. You're like, what the fuck? I can't stop it. It was like fucking six months later. And I was telling you, I would go to bed at night, literally like planning the next morning. I'm going to wake up and get donuts. I'm going to go to season six of this show and I'm going to come back and I'll push pause and go Mexican food. I mean, it was weird. This was the night before in bed, literally thinking about that. And I was like, dude, something's fucking wrong. This has been too long. Like the cravings should be gone after a week or two. Like, all right, I had my fun. Let me go back to some health. It was, I realized then and there, like, dude, you better get a grip on this shit. Otherwise, like this is a life problem. Now, how was your emotional state during this period of time? What was the shit, man? I mean, I've been a shit my whole life. And I started getting like, tits were starting to sag. I was like, oh my God, like, what? This is not me. You know, body was going to shit. I was drinking alcohol too. I mean, not like, you know, an alcoholic, but more than I should have been. And it was just like, man, because the pain was just lingering. It took, it was supposed to heal quick. The right one healed quick. The second one, it took like seven, eight months. I didn't work out for eight months, eight and drink like shit. My muscle was gone, dude. So the shoulder injury just killed me. And then I remember thinking, all right, you know, I finally was starting to heal. And I started taking pictures. And the idea of taking pictures is like, one day I'm going to show every week of my progress. And I'm going to fucking make it back to that stage. I just was so goddamn driven, you know. If I was ever going to be tempted to take some shit, it was around me, because I looked like crap and I had a huge goal. I'm like, I just picture myself staring at the bottom of Mount Everest. Like, dude, do you know what it's going to take to get up there? Like, this is fucking, this whole year is going to just be crazy. Social life out the window. All my friends out the window. Fights with my girlfriend even, not because she was an amazing, my girlfriend is like, you know, she's definitely been the hugest supporter. She changed her life with me, never complained about things, but it's a boring life. I feel bad for her. We can't go out to eat. We can't do shit. Hey, what are you going to do? It's like, dude, you know what I'm doing next Thursday at 12. My life is so goddamn dialed right now. There is no, like, we can't do anything, you know? So I just worked my ass off every day, every day. And first show I came back, I got fourth place and I wasn't ready condition-wise. I was good enough to get fourth place. And right after I had like one day of binging, I started dieting for the next show three weeks later and my condition just hit a new level I never been. And the second show I ended up getting first place in qualifying for the Olympia. So for me, man, I was like, yeah, it was emotional as hell, dude. Of course. What did that do for you as a trainer now, like with your clients going through that process? I've shared a little bit about when I fell out of shape and then went through it. What was that like for you as far as that, making you a trainer? And now what did you notice? I noticed a lot, man. Obviously it's the basic stuff, the consistency, the dedication that all needs to be there. But there were so many phases where I was like, man, I'm in pretty good shape right now. And the main thing that can connect with people, and I shared a post with this, was I took a picture when I was like seven weeks away, but I looked amazing already in my eyes and in most people's eyes. But a lot of people get to that point and then they kind of feel like this is where it ends. But you got to just keep digging. Like what's the answer? The answer? Yeah, there can be some manipulation, some refeed, certain things you do to kind of keep your metabolism ramped up. But the true answer is you got to just keep fucking digging. It will come. You'll get to the level you're looking for, but you cannot stop. You cannot stop, man. A lot of people get stuck at plateaus and they just throw the towel. And I had a few plateaus during that process. I mean, I had to come from a long way. And if when you keep digging, it's going to happen. And that's one message that I drive home to a lot of people because it's huge. Now go into that process and being aware of how extreme or at least the effects of the extreme lifestyle of competing, right? Like being so regimented with your diet, knowing exactly how many grams of proteins, carbohydrates and fats you're eating and when you're eating and the kinds of foods you're eating and then shoulder surgery. Now, I don't have to train for anything. And I can't work out and you go way off the deep end. You go crazy. Like you said, with the binging and you start to identify how both ends of the spectrum are or did you identify that both sides are eating disorders? One side is a disorder. The other side's the opposite end of that. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing too. 100% to answer your question directly. 100%. And that's another thing that I also implement with my coaching style. And you guys said it the best. It's a simple phrase, but creating a healthy relationship with food. Like I've been using that. I kind of stole some of your guys' stuff. That is huge, man. I'm going to help you diet for your show or just to get in shape. But most importantly, you need to create a healthy relationship with food. You cannot just go strict, strict, strict, strict, strict because guess what's going to happen when this goal of yours is over? You're going to turn to shit and you may even get worse than ever. And you may even never bounce back. There may be a certain part of your brain and as I've looked into it, there's some studies that there's a certain part of that certain eating disorders can become permanent to a certain degree. So it's scary, man. You don't want to just completely deprive yourself all the way through to make a certain goal. Not be mindful while you're doing it about what you're doing and how strict you're being and the ultimately poor relationship you have with food. Even though you're eating healthy, you're looking great. You may be developing the worst habits and a bad relationship with food because once that drive has gone and the goal is away, you could be screwed, man. So you really need to implement that style of education and create that, help them create a relationship with food as you're coaching them to really be a successful coach and not just get results, but leave them in a better place to where they can actually move on and maintain a healthy relationship and stay in shape. Yeah, the big difference between the two is the motivation behind it. If people who tend to be successful long, long term, they found ways to enjoy the process. People who are very successful but in the short term, they have an external motivation. So it's either a contest. We see, look, I see this with clients. Forget physique and bodybuilding and bikini and all that. I had clients that would sign up for half marathon after half marathon after event, after event because if they didn't have those events, they just couldn't be motivated to work out or I'd get clients who were ex-athletes. I was a collegiate level soccer player or whatever and now they're super obese because their relationship with food and exercise was to win this particular sport and competition. Well, what happens when that's gone? You lose it. You lose it and then you don't have that intrinsic internal gauge, that motivation, that enjoying the process that's going on that keeps things going long-term and what you went through might have been a blessing because at some point you're going to stop competing. It just taught me and I was scared. I was scared going into a couple of them like, fuck man, I know when this is over. Like I really got a little bit freaked out after I kind of went through a crazy cut and then I went on a mini off season. I know I'm about to do a show again. I was a little bit worried. I was like, dude, how are you going to be able to go to like and one thing for me, as shady as it may sound, I like the way I look, man. I like to and I'm okay with admitting, look, just if you want to make sure you just always look good, this has to be a part of it. So I want to make sure I look good at all times. I don't have to be like competition ready, but I want to be in shape. That's what I've been my whole life. So, you know, I have to be very mindful of that. I have to be very, very mindful about what I'm putting in my body and you got to find everyone's difference. So you got to find your own reasons that are realistic that you can implement in your daily lifestyle and why you feel like this is worth it to keep going and avoid that meal and skip this one and whatever it may be. Because if you don't have that reason, not like a goal for a show or something, but just a daily reason on why you have to have self-discipline while you got to get up and do the work or maybe avoid those cheat meals. If you don't create that reason that you can implement into your daily lifestyle, you will never be able to make a healthy physique because it's going to be very difficult for a lot of people. I mean, I'm not going to say never, but it's going to be very difficult to really maintain a certain level of body fat. I mean, I really, I was telling you guys earlier, I got spreadsheets for all my calories and stuff and like, man, the calorie budget, if everyone knew the actual calorie budget that they were allowed to have before they get into the place where they're adding fat to their body and then you add that with learning what calories are when you eat them. Most people know what the hell they're eating. You tell them, you know, how much is a slice of pizza and they'll say like a couple hundred calories when it can be 500 calories, who knows. It's like, it's so goddamn easy to go over your budget and get fat. It's just, and people don't realize that. So to be very consciously aware, so you can just kind of like you guys always say, just intuitively eat, but also keep it in the right place, that is huge. And you need to get to that level in order to maintain a good physique, whether you have some health show or some goal ahead of you. And that seems like the only way you can have longevity with it. Now, let's talk training for a second. You've obviously been working out for a very, very long time, but then you had shoulder issues. Likely the result of the years of training or maybe the abuse on your body, right? Totally. You seem to be very motivated by how much you could lift, how strong you are, how you looked. Has your training changed at all now? Are you focused more on things like mobility and range of motion to avoid future issues or are you going back to? No, 100%. I gotta be honest, I could be better at it, but I do have a rehab sports medicine therapist that I go to, and I pay him for it. It's worth it. I encourage all my clients to stretching mobility exercises. I mean, nothing, especially listening to you guys, I'm like, fuck, I gotta do more of this. We all feel like our life is so busy and you spend a couple hours in the gym or an hour and a half and you want to leave. I say, do you gotta stay there and do the proper cool down stuff? And yeah, that's huge. I've definitely altered certain things. I always think about my own risk and reward. What is this extra workout gonna do or this type of workout gonna do that's gonna benefit you versus the risks you're taking, things like that? I don't go as heavy as I used to. I used to bench four plates. I was 168 pounds. Damn. And that was my passion growing up. I was like, I wanna bench four plates. My brother did four plates and he was always... My brother has the high school he benched at 335 and I wanted to beat the record. I ended up benching 340. So we were right there. And if his record was 345, I probably would have tried to get that. So we were always into that. That's what started me off. Just had a weird passion for benching. But now it's not like that. Now it's more like what's gonna keep me healthy and the mobility aspect of it is huge and all my clients and friends will make, dude, if you don't stretch, if you don't do, even priming yourself, like you guys mentioned before your workouts, it's gonna just affect your entire workout all together. It's gonna eventually take you out of the game and you're not gonna be able to do this. So the approach I have now is definitely shifted towards making sure that longevity. Well, I would love the compound lifts and back loaded squats and dead lifts as well and your routine. I do. I do. Generally the way I do mine is the first workout of every muscle group I do. I kind of have a weird split. Man, it took a long time for me to get away from seven day a week split because it feels so comfortable, right? Monday's chest, Tuesday's this, it's easy. So now I do actually mine in nine days. It takes nine days for me to go around my entire split. So it's always different. But out of those nine days, I'm doing chest, for example, chest and shoulders are areas I would want to bring up. I do it three times within nine days. So every 72 hours I'm hitting that. One of those days will be focused on the heaviest one of all. And then, for example, the first chest day, I go the heaviest there and I'll do some low reps under bench press. The second one, I do shoulders first. I'll do heavier on the military press. And then my secondary is chest that day. So I'll do a little bit lighter weight on the chest workout. And then on the third day, I go back to chest because again, that's muscle, men's physique. They really want you to bring that out. But again, that's a nine day across nine days. And then I focus on like, you know, chest again on the decline. I do flat bench on the second one, incline bench on the third chest day, decline bench to hit all three. I like to start all my work with the compounds and then I move forward to different things. Everything starts with the compound. You'll notice this with guys who've been lifting naturally for a long time, is they understand the programming on a much deeper level. More connected to that process. You just don't get away with this much. Yeah, trying to get a very smart strategy. And it's, it would, we'll have to, when you leave here, we'll have to shoot black over for you. So you have it because it's... Maps aesthetic. Yeah, maps aesthetic was inspired by how I get ready for a show. And it's the way you're overloading the body is similar and it's actually built in for you to have... The way I did it was I was like, okay, like every time I would go to a show, I would get feedback, right? From judges or my peers, I'd be like, hey, you know, Adam, you could bring your chest up a little bit. Upper chest, fuller. Yeah, right, they would give me my... So then when I go back to my programming, I would actually program the weak body parts into my system. And so we actually, Maps Black actually teaches people how to do that. So like, if you have lagging body parts, it teaches you how to, you either pick one or two. So we allow you to pick one or two at a time to really focus on develop and then you can build on top of that later on. But it teaches people how to program. Yeah, I want to pick more of you guys's brain with that because just listening to you guys and the programming is so huge. And I feel like everyone has that so wrong. And your guys's approach on focusing on programming and proper programming is like, probably one of the biggest missed opportunity areas that I think most people are not taking advantage of today. And the fact that you guys are going after that, I mean, that's when I was really getting hooked on you guys. And I even altered it a little bit. I was doing a little bit less frequency across the board of all my workouts until I started listening to you guys. And that kind of manipulated a lot of what I'm doing based upon literally listening to you guys. And I've been doing this for a long time. I thought that was a difference already just by taking a little bit of that. 100%. 100%. And I have a few buddies that I've, like, hey, these are kind of like more workout partners. Everybody's noticing gains difference. Yup. Everybody. Makes a huge difference. Huge. It's huge. No, it makes a massive, I can't, so here's what I want to see. I have been waiting for an opportunity and I cannot wait to see someone like yourself with your kind of genetics who competes at your level, who's in tune with his body, how much better they can look and move by implementing proper priming and mobility. Because those are two areas that people completely dismiss and they think, and when they think in terms of mobility, think in terms of injury prevention. But there's so much more to that. Yeah, you do definitely prevent injury, but that's the least it does. Like, if you prime and utilize mobility properly, what you'll notice is better aesthetics. Your body will develop differently and better. Posture will look different. You'll move differently. Your lifts will feel different. You'll get more out of your compound lifts. So, you know, while you're benching and deadlifting and squatting and overhead pressing, all of a sudden you feel connected differently. Like, it makes a difference on the aesthetic tip as well. So I can't wait to see. Even you guys mentioned doing some, like, if you're going to do bench and you want to get them retracted, to go do some rows first. Yes, very basic. To do some rubber band just to get your kind of central nervous system going, right? I've implemented that stuff. And right away, man, I feel right away. I mean, you can just get into that position in the bench press after you've done a few rows, just on the cable row, whatever it may be, just to kind of get your back kind of keeping you in that perfect posture. So right when you go to the bench, I mean, right away, I was able to notice that you know, I just go straight into my lifts with so much more structure and power. And it definitely, I can see the connection of how it's going to lead to a better lift, which is also going to lead to a better workout, which will also lead to better aesthetics. And that's just one small piece that I'm taking. I mean, yeah, man, so that's why right away, I mean, when I listened to you guys, I was like, dude, these guys are the real deal. And that's why I want to reach out to you. I was like, man, I got to tell you, I've been working out for a long ass time. And at my level, not to be like always my level, I'm not trying to be whatever way. Yeah, but you are, you are. You guys at your level don't get to see big differences in our work. Exactly. We've put, we've already manipulated so much that, you know, it's rare that you're going to meet someone, someone to say, hey, bro, go try this exercise. And then you come back next week and you're like, holy shit, my chest is got, you know, it doesn't happen. No, it doesn't happen anymore. And I feel like I'm reaching my damn ceiling naturally. So I'm like, man, I'm implementing this stuff for just, you know, a few weeks. And I'm totally noticing a difference. I love my workouts better. I'm not leaving sore shit every time. And my buddies, I don't want to go off the other top of my buddies are like, we should do a little bit more. Say, bro, look, these guys came in the morning and I'm going to go with it. The fucking hardest thing to do. And I want to do a little bit more. Of course, of course. I want to do a little more. I want to do another set, another workout. I get it. I don't feel the craziest burn right now. So I do just fucking, you got to learn to walk away from that. You don't have to kill yourself every fucking time. The signal has been sent. Maturity. The signal has been sent. The one liners. The signal has been sent. And that's good enough. You're going to be back here doing it again shortly because we upped our frequency. Don't worry about killing yourself every time because it's going to take away from the next one anyways. Let's talk about that though, because this is why, you know, when I get on here, I speak so passionately. It's not because I'm pointing fingers at people. It's because I fucking know how hard it was for me. Dude, we all were like that. All of us are stuck in that boat. When you could, and I bull, and this is where I blame the industry. This is where I blame the fucking industry. I know I pick on them all the time, but it's like we this beast mode and everything that was taught to us. I remember being a trainer for so many years, you know, so intensity driven. And when I would look at somebody, even as a trainer, and think why this guy and this guy couldn't quite get as far as this guy, it was because he didn't, they didn't want it enough. They didn't work hard enough. They didn't put enough discipline, enough hard work in. And that was always my mentality. But you equated intensity to hard work. Yes, it was always that or even discipline. It all mattered that, right? Everything was connected to intensity and that feeling because it just made sense to me. Because in my head, it was always about this breaking down process of muscle. Like we break down, and if I could break down more, that means I could potentially build more muscle. And so that's the way we think and to get out of that, even when you start to know better. It's so hard to get out, right? It's so fucking hard to get out. And I've been having to tell one of my friends, Alex, I know he's going to be listening. He keeps wanting to do more. I'm like, dude, you don't need to do more, bro. Like we've done enough. I mean, and I already do a lot, to be honest with you, man. I mean, I was doing like, when I was getting up to my bench as high as it was, I literally benching for like, I mean, there's a lot of rest, but like over an hour, just benching. And I would do like over 10 sets, 15 cents a bench, and then I'd go do my chest workout. I don't do that anymore because I'm not trying to do what I was. But the amount of sets and volume that you need to do per week, like you guys said, just dividing it and having more frequency. I mean, it just makes more sense. And what I actually like more about it is because I was doing a little bit more strength lifting on my short little off season that should try to develop strength. And I actually feel like there's a much better place, even for when you start going on a calorie deficit and dieting, I feel like that's when it really can help because the key, right? As you guys mentioned all the time, it says try and keep your body in an anabolic state as much as possible, right? It's very important to make sure you're always anabolic at a high level as much as possible. So yeah, you get the power lifting done out of the way if you're in an off season, a lot of people do that and I got some strength back. But now that I'm about to drop to a calorie deficit and I know I'm gonna be in a, my body's gonna probably be in protein synthesis a little bit less because it shuts down quicker when you're not even giving the food it needs, things like that, I feel like the frequency change during prep more so even is even more important because now that you're making it more difficult by being in a calorie deficit by default, it's gonna be much more difficult to have an anabolic state body. There's other things that you need to do in order to continuously send signals to be in an anabolic state. And I think frequency is probably one of the major manipulators you can do. Oh my God, it's one of the key ones. I mean, look, I'll tell you something. I learned this as a trainer. When I train so many people, right? And I get anybody, deconditioned, someone deconditioned will come and see me, totally out of shape. If I train them really hard in one hour, I could really fuck them up. I could really hurt somebody. But I can have them do a little bit of something today and I could do that every day with them, even if they're super deconditioned and they will get stronger and more fit. And so I realized that even like, hmm, here's some deconditioned individuals that respond very quickly to small bouts of frequency and I could easily kill them with one session. I wonder if this, and of course, you could scale it to more advanced lifters. I wonder if this principle applies. And if you look at all the systems of adaptation, they all work this way. You want to get a tan. You do better if you get a little bit of sun every day versus just getting fried one day. If you want to learn a subject, you're better reading some of it every single day versus just hammering it one day. You want to learn a new language. You immerse yourself in it so you're exposed to it frequently. The body works this way. It's just the way it adapts. Here's what's going to happen and here's what I'm excited for for you. Because talking to you, you're obviously an intelligent guy. You're a smart guy. You seem to be pretty self-aware and you're able to be objective. You've already displayed that when you talked about when you had your shoulder surgery and how you identified like, this is a food addiction and now I'm bingey and I can't control it. And most people don't even make that connection. They just think, oh, I'm off season and now I'm on season. So you've already understood that. What is crazy is how insidious some of these dogmas of fitness are in our mind so insidious that even if you're self-aware, you don't realize how brainwashed you are about them until you finally break free from a few of them. So for example, right now you're noticing that, hold on a second. If I don't hammer myself and I train a little more frequently, my body's going to respond more. You're going to start questioning more shit now. Watch what happens with your, you're going to start learning. You're really going to, oh, it becomes even more and more intuitive with your training to where you start to identify these things and you start to break all the rules where you start to look at things and say, wait a minute, eating seven times a day, if I just eat four, I seem to feel better or if I don't go to failure, I do better. Now my protein intake before was two grams per pound. Now I'm at one and I'm feeling better and I seem to be building more muscle. My digestion is better. You'll start to throw so many of the other things out and really figure out what works well for your body because you realized that there was a dogma there. And that happened to all of us. It took me years, dude. I know, man. It took me the longest time. I feel bad. Like you guys said, I feel bad because I've given some advice that it wasn't bad advice, especially compared to some of the clients I was dealing with, but it wasn't the same advice I've given today and I was just, you know, as you grow, you realize, ooh, I'm telling that guy to kind of do the wrong shit. We all did though. I mean, I think that's... You guys may even feel more comfortable admitting that. Yeah. Well, to me, I think that to me, that's the most important part and that's the part that also frustrates me. It's okay. I'm not here trying to say that I know way more than this guy or I'm smarter than all these people. No. What I'm saying is I've learned a lot, man. I learned a lot. I made a lot of mistakes. I sent probably a lot of people in the right direction. I probably sent a lot of people in the wrong direction. And what I do know is that, you know, I'm better today than I was yesterday and I'm going to continue to grow and learn and I'm going to continue to share the information that I have and I'm going to continue to present it as best I can. And I think we just... I think being honest like that and sharing that with people, I think that's the best we can do, right? Because... 100%. You know, there's a good chance in a year from now more science can evolve that proves what we're saying today is wrong. Yeah. I mean, we just... I mean, before you got here, we were discussing, you know, Aldela. Aldela came in here and what we know about fascia now in comparison to what we knew about it 10 years ago. Even two years ago. Yeah. As far as like, for example, as trainers, like we've told so many people to foam roll over years and what it was doing and actually our terminology and what we talked about formally is completely wrong. It's not breaking up these adhesions and you're like... Helping to get mild fashion releases. Yeah. So what we know... What we're learning about this and it's... So I think the point of me saying that is that, you know, that's going to happen. And when it does, you know, that, hey, I share it and I, you know, I didn't say this was the end all be all. This is the information that was presented to us at the time and this is how we are using it. Now we know better. We know more information about it. So yeah, I think that's cool that you're somebody... There's not a lot of guys that are like that. Yeah. I mean, it's like that 100%. I mean, like you said before, I mean, there's a lot of things that we're advising today and it sounds solid, but who knows? In one year, you may say, hey, that was actually incorrect. So... But yeah, I mean, just... I wanted to finish going back to what I was seeing with you guys earlier just because it really gives a credit to you guys and I just meant to find somebody that could really give you guys... Give me any kind of advice that is going to allow me to notice pretty good level, a pretty good level of gains at this stage of my fitness. You know, I've been training for 20 years. It's so hard to find something that's going to be like, man, now I notice a huge difference. But just listening to you guys implementing with a frequency alone, a lot of the mobility, a lot of the priming of the... Just a few of the things I put together, it's like, wow, man, this is like the kind of shit that you can expect to get a jump in your results when you are early on in your training. You don't find that kind of stuff when you're 15, 10, 15, 20 years deep into training. But the message that you guys are delivering, and I've only seen certain things in your math, but I've done a lot of looks online just to your guys' message overall, I feel like the people that really follow your guys' program are just skipping so many years of steps and going straight to some pretty solid shit. That's why we have fanatics. I got to give you guys props on that. That's why we have fanatics. It's hard to find. I mean, I've been in 20 years. You don't find something that's going to be like, oh, this is the new thing that's going to give me a huge result. This is. Have you messed around with trigger sessions yet? Not as much as I'd like to. I wanted to pick your guys' brains on that. Not as much as I'd like to. You know what? He knew I fucking failed miserably with your compass. I was at my house. We designed that to happen. Doing shit. And I was like, I can't keep the broomstick from falling. And I'm doing this. I'm like, god damn it, man. I brought it to my therapist. I'm like, hey, dude, you need to help me with some of this shit. Because he's like, he's been working me for all my shoulder surgeries, everything. He's not like a chiropractor that just cracks and racks you. He does a lot of good stuff on my dude. I need to focus on this way more. But yeah, you guys are inspiring me to do that more because I know I'm missing that compartment a little bit. Yeah, trigger sessions. I'd love to see how your body responds with just utilizing a little bit because you're obviously already training quite a bit. You're doing more. And he's also programming pretty damn solid, too. Yeah, your programming sounds pretty good. Just from what he's saying right now, I can hear. So I would throw it in here and there just to mess with it a little bit, just to see how your body responds. I 100%. My goal was at the end, I want to talk more about trigger sessions with these guys and get a little more feedback because I'm going to take that to the lab, the gym, right afterwards. Perfect. Yeah, man. You guys have some solid information, dude. I was a fan of your guys' stuff immediately just because, like I said, I've been in this industry for a long time, not just the competing, but just fitness myself. And it's really hard to come across some genuine people that really know what they're talking about that are just non-biased, just put out what works. And I think you guys are killing it in that department. Now, when you look at bodybuilding and competing and your whole experience with it, what are your favorite things about it and what are your least favorite things that you've had to deal with the whole process? Favorite things, man. I just love the idea that you can always improve, man. I started off and I look at pictures when I thought it looked amazing back then, but the discipline level, the motivation level, the things that you acquire when you're competing really teach you a lot about yourself. Last year, I got to the Olympia, I was in the fourth call-out group which puts me at like top 20 in the world for it. Being all natural, that's huge, but now I've got a goal. I want to get top 15, top 10. And just the passion, the motivation that you acquire from competing, I love that, I love it. The downside is, you know, I mean, this lifestyle change is pretty brutal, man. It ain't for everybody. You can't, I mean, I can't go out with my friends the same way I used to, especially because, you know, they want to go drink or do this or I'm going to go somewhere six, seven hours. I'm not going to bring my food and pull it out. So you got to kind of put that at bay. So there's a lot of things that you really got to just sacrifice in your lifestyle. And that's not the funnest part, but at the same time, the good side of that is when you do get the victory or even you just look at your best, you always feel good about it. But it's just not easy, dude. This stuff is, I remember, I always go through almost, not really, but a couple of days of like depression almost, a couple of days before I start prep, because I'm like, fuck, my life's about to change, dude. My life is about to change. Like, you know, I can't do anything anymore. Such a selfish sport, right? The war I feel bad for my girlfriend, man. She's so supportive, awesome. I love her in every way. So I know she's been listening to this, too. So I gotta say that now. I'm going to shout out for her and give her, because here's the deal. Shout out to Patricia. She's the best, man. Before Katrina and I were together, I did it a girl who competed and I had, at this time, I had never competed in my life. And she went all the way to USA's. She stopped after that. So she never went pro, but she was getting into it. She had a great physique. And I remember being with her for those two years and, man, for a guy who was a trainer and into fitness, I couldn't believe what an asshole I was to her, you know, because I, because what it was doing to the relationship, because I was so annoyed that everywhere we went, you know, it was like, you know, I had to call the waiter over and make sure this. And like, I mean, literally, sending food back all the time would be embarrassing. Like, oh, friends want to go out to do something. And it's like, I can't because my girl, this fucking can't eat that. And I remember telling her that, you know, I want to know like how much of these shows you really want to do because this ain't me. I don't want to do this. And this was before I ever competed. Wow. So I remember what it did to our relationship and how, you know, irritable I was, not even being the one competing, just dealing with the one who was competing on the relationship. And I think the most she ever did was three shows in one year. And I've actually done, I think four in one year was the most I did. And I remember like, that was really important that I went through that because I know what I put Katrina through. And I realized like, what a rock solid girl she was to hang with me because it is, it's unbelievably selfish. The worst. And you do, you really deprive your partner of a normal life, especially if you're at the level you're at. Like when you're trying, like to just do a show and say, prove to yourself, can I do a show? Like, okay, then we're not talking about that. We're talking about someone who has made this. Like you got a spreadsheet. Yeah. You know, your ounces of water, you know. How many grams of, you know, chicken? I'll show you guys before I leave. Like I put a spreadsheet of like my am, my weight in the morning, my weight at night. This is my posting carbs, fat, cardio. I mean, I just dialed every little thing. I'm huge on spreadsheets, man. I just, I just, I love data. Even my, I track my weight every day. And I'm tracking it. Okay. When I was this much weight, my waist was this much. My arms are still this many inches. And I did a body fat test. Two of them I'm doing another one Tuesday in a water dunk. I know nothing's super accurate, but it is what it is. You can see the trends at least. Yeah. I started off at 12% at the beginning of my prep, which I think is a good place to be, to top out at. I didn't want to be heavier than 12%. I lost to 8% body fat. I think it was in like six weeks or so. Five, six weeks and eight and a half. It was nine pounds total, but eight and a half pounds of the nine came directly from fat. That's not bad at all, man. The lady was like, Bro, you, that is dialed in. That's the lady. That's the lady. That is dialed in. You were fucking dialed. That's dialed in. You were losing everything from fat. But I was hoping it was, I was supposed to go yesterday but I rescheduled it. Do that natural. That's just, can we pause for a second? I'm a tracker. Let me tell you, I'm all into that. And I am spreadsheet guy, watch everything the same way. And I was using test, Ostrone and stuff. So to be able to do that naturally and hang on to that muscle, give or take, who cares? I lost a half a pound, but I was happy with that. Yeah, that's A half pound out of almost 10. That's within the margin of error. It could have been no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You lost no muscle. Exactly, right? I mean, that, I mean, pat yourself on the back on that one because that's fucking, that's no joke right there to do that all naturally. And I feel like part of it, I swear it was this fucking frequency shit, man, because I feel like I, like you said, even though you're, you're not going to be as in an anabolic state consistently when you're in a deficit versus a surplus. Sure. Bottom line, right? But when you start going to deficit and it's a lot harder to kind of maintain an anabolic state, there's other things that you can do to kind of cater towards that. And I, for a fact, feel like the frequency of my training, somewhat of trigger sessions, not the same way you guys do, but there's certain things that do in between as well. I just know for a fact, they just kept, kept sending signals like, hey, we need this, keep, keep growing, keep growing, keep growing. That makes with obviously the proper diet, the certain type of cardio that I'm doing. I'm not doing too much crazy cardio. It's all combined, but I know that has parts to do with. Now, have you lost a lot of strength in this period or have you kept more of it than normal? Well, I was doing, I never got too, too, too heavy this time around. I was, I got up to benching three plates four times at like 160, 160. I was almost 170 at that point, so 170. And then two 75, about 10 times right now. I am, I like eight or nine times of two 75. That's my marker. I'm using two 75 as my marker, like keep this thing at eight as you get down and you're good. So right now, I'm probably, you know, six, seven pounds away from my stage weight and I'm still able to do it. Probably on a good day I can get 10 to eight to 10 times. What a really good smart strategy to kind of give yourself one metric to give you. The compound. Yeah, it's the compound. No, it's a great, that's a great strategy. People should take something from that, that, you know, the, to pick something like that as a marker. Because I mean, you and I both know that a big mistake you see a lot of these competitors make is one extreme to the next, right there. They're in bulk season, eat everything, train hella heavy and hard. Then they go to cut two hours of cardio every day, you know, super setting everything and then they drop. Yeah. And then you have to know that they're losing a ton of muscle mass in time and over training way more than they need to. So using something like that as a marker to give your, give yourself feedback on, oh, I'm probably cutting a little too hard or I'm not cutting it. Cutting too much cardio, you know, whatever it may be. So there's the squats, there's the military press for shoulders. I do the straight barbell for biceps, skull crushers for triceps and obviously bench press for my chest. Those are all the main upper body and lower muscle groups. Those are the markers that I track and I tracked them during the off season. They got high and I said, dude, keep these fucking numbers just on the first workout. After that, you know, don't go lightweight, high rep, have fun, but just you don't have to be so tracking on everything. But the first compound major workout that you feel you get the best strength and size results from get those things as high as you can. And once you start cutting, track the shit out of that and make sure you try your best to keep the way at those ranges. And that's why sometimes when I'll implement refeed days, if I'm finding myself a little bit of flat and I want to make sure tomorrow's chest day and I want to get a good chest day because I need the intensity to kind of keep myself entertaining those high levels of strength on at least the main compound of the chest workout, the bench workout. Then I may do a refeed day for it if I feel like I need it and my condition can afford it. So those are the kind of things that I do just to make sure that I'm keeping because if I can get down, you know, below 5% body fat and keep close to my off season strengths, which is obviously going to be a little less, but as close as possible, you know, you're doing your shit right. You know, you're not just dropping weight because you're doing low weight, high reps, the worst thing anyone can do in the world when they're trying to cut. But everybody does. Everybody does. And I tell people, I'm like, dude, look, your body's trying to adapt, right? You're now giving it less calories than it wants. So all it's wants to do is find ways to burn shit off to be more efficient. Muscle is in a hell of an expensive tissue to maintain. So now you're going to just lighten the load. So what's the first thing your muscle is going to think? Well, fuck, we don't need that anymore. Let's get rid of it. Excellent points. Yeah, very, I mean, and just changing the adaptations, right? Just changing the way you train consistently so your body continues to adapt. But, you know, people forget that strength is such a good measure of, you know, how effective your workout is going, especially when it's all about how you look. We forget about, you know, strength. 100%. But that's one of the factors. You know, then you have mobility, you have connectivity, you have range of motion. Just like now you've discovered frequency and you've seen that this is like tool that you can manipulate and play with. 100%. You start looking at all these other things and you realize that how exercise programming can be so dialed in and make such a big difference. It's everything, man. It becomes everything. I mean, diet is obviously complicated for the fat loss aspect. Do you get help with that? But that's kind of like everyone knows that. But the programming is probably one of the biggest area of opportunities that I feel that most people are just completely missing the boat on. I just saw a meme today on the way here. And it's like, oh, your legs are so sore from doing leg days and it's been so sore for six days and then you realize it's time to do legs again. I was like, why do you gotta wait six days before you do legs again, man? And why are you sore for a week? And why are you sore for a week, dude? Like, is it your first day back after a year? It's the culture, man. I wish that was so common. That's the culture. Yeah, it's just a total wrong message to a lot of people. But you know, I guess that's what makes you guys have such a valuable podcast, right? Excellent, man. We appreciate it. So thanks for coming, brother. Yeah, man. It's been a lot of fun. It was a pleasure. I think what we'll do after we'll turn these off, we'll go over some of those. You had some questions on trigger sessions and stuff. Yeah, hell yeah. I did totally. Very cool. It's a pleasure to be here, guys. I'm going to keep listening and yeah, keep doing what you do, man. Thank you. Hey, listen, thanks for listening to Mind Pump. If you like our show, leave us a five-star rating review on iTunes. If we like your review and we pick it, you'll get a free Mind Pump t-shirt. Also, go to YouTube, Mind Pump TV. We post a new video every single day. You can also find us on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam, and Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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