 Hey what's up good morning guys last week I posted on my Instagram a picture of me in downtown when we were out filming asking you guys to post any questions that you've got about fitness nutrition training health supplementation or anything that you want to know about me you guys have been posting a ton of questions so today I'm gonna walk around here Venice in Southern California and pick out some of the best questions and try and give you an insight and a good answer as to what you are so it's fine out what you guys have been asking alright first question here this is by ccvdm he asks hey Rob I got a question what do you think about stretching is it best to do before the work out during or after myself prefering stretching during the work out and was wondering about your thoughts on the subject great question because I bought this up last week during a little sports massage and I asked this exact question and the answer was a little bit of light stretching after a sort of a cardio warm-up so three four five minutes on the cardio machine some light stretching of that muscle group that you're gonna be training nothing too intense just holding it for about 15 20 seconds and then warming it up through an actual circuit of the exercises that you're typically gonna be doing for that work out and then again at the end so to summarize no real deep intense stretching just a light stretch before and after and also if I throw in I'll often do more of a stretch after some of the cardio so not necessarily all the time that I'm weight training there will be some separate times that I'm stretching but yeah little cardio warm-up a light stretch before that training session warm up the muscles through a circuit and then again just at the end with little cooldown hopefully that answers your question next question this is by raccoon how did you first start out your fitness journey and what was the reason behind it okay real simply I was 14 I was beginning to mountain biking had a little injury on my shoulder needed to lift weights to kind of build up my strength and I was very fortunate that at the time our family window cleaner was a world powerlifting champion so just by chance I went down to the gym with him I was interested in sort of the cover models on the men's health magazines and very early on he showed me the sort of the main principles behind weight training that would allow me to build up strength behind my shoulder a lot of presses and flies and you know it just kind of took off from there I really got into the weight training I love the the concept of being able to grow and develop my body and then from there learned about nutrition got into competing and the rest they say is history so it's it's funny that it started from an injury I think most people kind of get into weight training from that and for me from a young age it just kind of took off with the ability to transform myself through learning and applying my own knowledge so yeah that's kind of my story behind my fitness journey okay here's a good one from Big Sammy 610 asks is fasted cardio more beneficial than traditional cardio people have different opinions on this my experiences I've always found that doing cardio fasted meaning without food and typically first thing in the morning I find that it my body then uses fat as its preferred source of fuel providing it's not too long so typically for me it'll be 45 minutes up to 60 minutes with apps following early on in the morning so from 7 a.m. in the morning then I get my meal there have been times where I eat and then do cardio but I just feel that that works best for me later on in the day so you know it everyone's slightly different with their metabolism but just from a scientific standpoint fat is the preferred source of fuel for sustained cardio so unless you're doing more intense hit training then you might want to have some food because it's a mixture of muscle glycogen and body fat but just typical sort of fat loss cardio if you can get it done at first thing in the morning whether you take a thermogenic or have a coffee that can just help increase your metabolism but yeah I prefer it fasted get some app training in without any food in the gut then eat get on with the day and move on with your weight training later on in the day here's one from Pavel Anthony he asks is keeping consistent or short breaks between sets critical is it better to start after 90 seconds knowing that you may not be fully recovered or wait 30 seconds more and give it your all you got so this is all about recovery time rest time after your working sets my thought on this is simple if you feel recovered enough to go back and you feel that you can commit yourself the same level or more so to that set then give yourself enough time this often applies if you're doing the heavier compound set so early on in my workout chest for example with the heavier bench presses and dumbbell flies maybe I'll allow more than 30 45 seconds maybe a minute minute and a half if I'm lifting heavy I've depleted my muscle glycogen stores and I feel like I need a little bit more time to recover so if weight is the main goal allow yourself enough time to recover to go back and hit that harder however there are times certainly more within my workout when intensity is my focus so it's not about how much weight I can lift to recover it's about keeping that intensity pushed up in which case once I've done my set I rest 20 30 seconds just to get my breathing back down and then I'll go back and hit it again so with weight being the target allow enough time for recovery that could be 90 seconds or more if it's intensity especially with circuits or drop sets recover enough 30 40 seconds then then go back in and I hit it so hopefully that gives you an insight into how I set up my training structure I Here's an interesting question from Pumper Zoo they get these names wrong well but someone who has done a show I know exactly why I'm not interested in doing another show at least for the foreseeable future my question is as someone who is clearly in great shape why did you choose to stop competing I'm just interested to see if your thoughts are the same as mine okay so here's the truth behind why I'm not competing anymore competing for me was always a personal goal is a sense of achievement and I felt I've done that also with all of these sort of the bigger organizations I just feel the the mark for what they're looking for is is forever changing people are getting bigger heavier it's just it's really it comes down to it's the goal of what that physique should be is not where I'm looking at my physique to be at I don't want to get that big I don't want to hold that much muscle and you know I I enjoy training for me it's a personal thing I don't want to have a judge or you know organization tell me how I should look and that's really why I'm not competing anymore I've achieved what I wanted to do so now fitness for me is just pure passion I get to enjoy training eating out it's a balanced lifestyle no longer do I have to put myself into such a disciplinary training routine of diet and cardio purely for the sake of hoping I might place well at a show so that's for me my goal why I'm not competing both through the organizations of sort of pushing their requirements further and further but also I'm happier this way I'm able to maintain a really good level of conditioning of physique pretty much a year-round and still find that balance of having fun eating out having a drink every now and again and hence why I'm not doing any more shows interesting question here from Tata Malarad can I eat breakfast only as one meal a day why would you want just one meal a day okay here's my thoughts on this the main thing here is protein turnover making sure our body has enough basically amino acids that we need to get externally from our diet or from supplementation every three four hours minimum this is where body builders typically will only eat every three hours because they need to get that protein in the reason for that is if you don't consume enough nutrition on a regular basis your body is going to start to turn to itself to get the essential amino acids which is where muscle breakdown starts to occur so I know some people like to eat one big meal a day but they still have nutrition every three or four hours either through a smaller meal a snack or a protein shake breakfast breakfast is very important but then you've still got the entire rest of the day where you're active especially if you're weight training where you still need nutrition so whilst breakfast is a critical meal I think you need to get nutrition in first thing in the morning if that is going to be your only solid meal at least have some form of nutrition early afternoon and towards evening and if that's just a protein shake then so be it but in terms of intermittent fasting I've always had small regular consistent meals spread out throughout the day that's how I've done it since day one it's how I've done it through competition it's how I do it now it allows my body to absorb the right amount of nutrition and small enough meals that I can maintain a lean physique so one meal a day I prefer to spread that out and have small consistent meals every four hours or so typically 400 calories and get a good balance of protein some starches complex carbohydrates and healthy fats that's work to me it's what I recommend to anyone else who asks question here from Freddy911 hey Rob can you tell us your pre-workout and after workout meal how much do you need to eat in the morning before your workout and how much after your workout besides protein shake obviously thanks great question carbohydrates for me are really the main time I'll eat them is before and after this is where my body needs them the most for energy and recovery so pre-workout will typically be something like brown or even white rice with perhaps some steak and some simple fats avocado walnuts and fiber as well with that I get a good mixture of complex carbohydrates that's going to help sustain my energy for two three hours and some protein and some healthy fats that will be about an hour and 90 minutes before so I want my body to be able to digest and absorb you don't want to eat and then go straight to the workout 30 minutes because you're not going to get the benefit from that food so that's my first meal immediately following the workout yeah there'll be a protein shake often with some simple sugars with that some maldextrose just to give my body that immediate hit of nutrition it can start with the recovery phase about 30 40 minutes later I'll eat another smaller meal and this also tends to be more of a moderate source carbohydrates such as yam potatoes with a highly absorbable protein source egg whites or even a white fish not so much fat but also some fiber as well which will help slow the digestion and release of those carbohydrates for the next hour or two hours so it's all about immediate energy before the workout and then some quick energy to get into my body after followed by a sustained release and all of this happens within like I said 90 minutes before my workout and then immediately after and about an hour after that so hopefully that answers your question without shooting some more content and some Q&A's and then we're about to head down to a gold shim and choose some more workout features so stay tuned for more next question from Usman to Aziz says what keeps you hungry even after you've achieved your great goals and how can you adapt your training after achieving the target body weight okay so look my motivation now is just to be able to sustain everything I've got going on my my training my nutrition my balance when I first got into it the competitions was my focus and that that was a very disciplined committed part of my life I felt like I put everything aside purely just to focus on that goal of competing obviously once that goal had been achieved there was kind of nothing I felt to continue to work in towards so my body would change because my my commitment to my cardio my training my diet wasn't the same so now that I'm no longer competing I feel like I can maintain that balance I find happiness in being able to eat a little bit more the foods that I want while still maintaining a solid diet training without the focus of what I have to be ready for competition on this day I'm just training purely because I enjoy that feeling of weight training as far as my routine that doesn't really change my training routine my approach to training has always been the same hit the weights with enough resistance enough variety enough angles and so my body isn't really continuing to change but I'm maintaining the the balance the conditioning the structure I do feel like I'm getting a little bit more thicker muscle mass and that's probably because I'm not so focused on cardio and restrict in my diet so for motivation it's just to to maintain that balance that I was seeking for when I was doing the competitions but without the deadline and the looming presence of a competition so it's much more of that equilibrium and I'm much more happier doing it is a question that caught my eye from a livy privet says can we live with that carbs like bread or wheat and pasta and have one meal only per day so the question of carbohydrates look our body doesn't need them they're not essential we can function just fine on proteins fats those are essential to our health our body needs them from our diet and obviously a fiber vegetation but wheat carbohydrates I've gone without them for a length of time little bit harder to kind of find the right foods and diet but it's definitely maintainable certainly if you're getting enough protein that your body can convert into glycogen the muscle energy and this question again for one meal per day I've already answered that so I'm gonna change this around to basically emitting carbohydrates but allowing them maybe once a week this is kind of like an extended version of carbs I can where you go with lower or minimal carbohydrates allows your body to start to convert excess proteins almost going to a state of ketosis and then when you do add some carbohydrates in think of it as a kind of thrown a spanner into the works it disrupts the metabolism which can be good because then it creates an influx the body has to adjust to that again and doesn't become too used to a certain nutritional state so look a little bit of variety is always good I found that balances the right kind of key for me I have some carbohydrates but like I mentioned only around workout times so if you want to go without carbohydrates a make sure you getting enough protein in enough overall calories secondly include some healthy fats and fiber and if you do want to have a kind of a carbohydrate cheat day don't go crazy on it lower your fats if you're gonna have carbohydrates are trying to stay away from fats at the same time so protein and carbohydrates and then when you're not having carbohydrates bump up the the fats and the fiber from fresh vegetables greens lots of leafy green dark vegetables and salads let's have a look question number 10 here we go this is from rake shahs and he asks what is the best type of food to eat to gain muscle mass quickly right then so I wouldn't say that there's one particular type of food it's not a case of eat this food it's more about the the amount of food not say look clean calories are always going to be better than eating bad food just for sake of calories when you're trying to gain weight you're trying to gain lean muscle mass that doesn't mean eating as many calories as you can from burgers pizzas ice cream just to get the calories in because the types of calories and how the body uses them is still important so if you can eat clean you know the basic rice potatoes maybe some pasta enough chicken poultry fish same type of food that you might look out when you're dieting but just more of that therefore your body can start to create a surplus of calories and it has enough necessary fuel to be able to repair and support the the training so what type of food still keep it clean just more of and if you struggle to perhaps eat enough food look at it in the form of shakes peanut butter oats liquid egg whites that you get in a carton all of these can help put five six hundred calories into a shake you have two of those a day and three or four sort of main solid meals it's not hard to reach four thousand calories a day and beyond that you don't really need to be eating upwards of five six thousand calories a day that body can then still deem that as too many calories and potentially store as fat so to put on weight it's not just about eating calories overall it's about being smart with your calories and I would break your meal times down to every two and a half three hours and try and get some good clean nutrition in and then of course the weight training we're here outside the world famous gold shim the weight training the type of training in the recovery is really going to be key to your muscle mass gain so nutrition is one part of the puzzle training rest and recovery is the other part put them together give it time and four or five six weeks you should be able to start to see a gain and an increase in your overall body weight and your strength there we have it guys ten questions answered hopefully I've answered many of the questions that you might have had on your mind and gave you an insight into at least my methodology and understanding for nutrition training just general health I'm here outside a gold shim this is the most famous gym in the world I'm gonna head in start a little show to work out so I'll catch up with you guys later and as always you can stay up to date with myself at Robert's fitness and also more of what we're doing behind the scenes at supplements world.com I'll see you guys later take care