Bodybuilding as a Response to Trauma

experience like i i've always said that if you're gonna if you're going to coach bodybuilding i don't think it's you have to get on stage but you have to get stage ready because you have absolutely no idea the difference between fat loss and getting to like a normal or or even we'll say above average like below 15 above average level of body fat and once you get a single digit body fat it is a whole completely different fucking ball game and it's the worst when i see people that have never been there but they're like trying to understand what's going on with their client when they're five six percent body fat it's the fucking worst yeah it's true i never want to be there again no no i've i've never been single digit closest i've been is 12 that's it you know and i want to do it this year around just because it's my own as a better coach to go there to understand it from the point of empathy and when i do take people there i can understand how to relate to these things not from a point of view that i want to see how amazing i look it's just that as well it will give you a amazing amount of empathy because you have been there you know my joints hurt all the time sitting in a chair my tailbone hurts and there's nothing i can do about I had no energy getting off the couch to go take a poop, and the bathroom's three meters away, and you'd just rather just hold it in until the turtle head's coming out. Well, the worst one is the lack of fat pads in the feet. Oh, yeah. You know, when I was super lean, it's just that. And you don't realize how much they matter, like being able to walk comfortably without pain in your feet. I did a cadaver course with Thomas Myers where we went. I think it was Boulder, Colorado, and we had untreated bodies, and no formaldehyde, eight of them. You just basically take your body out of a freezer and you and like four or five other people just start cutting them up. And I wanted to look at like the ankle and the foot. And so I'm at the foot and it was amazing to me when you pull everything, you pull the skin out and you cut through everything. How much fat is actually on the bottom of your foot? It blew my mind. I never thought about it. You know, again, it's just another, it's a fat pad. It protects you, it helps you be walking, but you don't realize these things until it's gone. Yeah. you know which and let's lead into that now about the bodybuilding you know we've talked a bit about men but how does that transfer to bodybuilding like so much trouble for this yeah but this but we look at bodybuilding now why did people bodybuilding back in the days you know it was yeah there's obviously some whether it's like never getting daddy's approval or whatever it may be but there was a love for the sport now when i look at it now it's a love for instagram and social media. It's an ego thing. Or this pro card that's going to suddenly go in their bio and make them a better coach. Yeah, and we know that's not the case. We know that's not the case. You know, it's just an ego thing. It's not instant gratification, but it's a gratification thing. I'm just convinced. And look, before anybody throws me some shade, I was a competitive physique athlete. I never did bodybuilding because I actually told one of my friends, I'm like, I don't want to. I don't want to, he goes, why don't you bodybuild? You'd be suited for bodybuilding. I'm like, bro, my dick's too small to get in a banana hammock up there. And it was a black dude, so, you know, he probably had a mendingo penis. And he goes, listen, brother, ain't nobody got a big dick, one or three percent body fat. And I went, you got a fucking point there. You got a point. But, you know, I did men's physique when it first came out. And something I noticed about myself and also about all the other competitors, everybody had a mommy or daddy issue. All of us. like maybe we didn't get told I love you enough maybe we didn't get enough hugs but every fucking person I've ever met except for like a very small outlier who just loved the fuck out of bodybuilding most of them had some type of issue like early childhood trauma that they were using bodybuilding to self-medicate most of the girls that I've met in the WBFF and IPB they come from anorexic bulimic eating disorder background or I've even met people with binge eating disorders you know and they go, okay, I'm going to take this negative thing that I can't, that's allowing me to have some type of feeling of control over myself. And I'm going to turn that into a positive thing to go into bodybuilding. I'm like, that's not really a positive replacement for this because you traded one disorder for another And I not to say that bodybuilding in and of itself is a disorder thing but a lot of them use it as self addiction and then that becomes their whole identity So then when they can't bodybuild anymore, they're a bit fucked because that issue is still there and they haven't done anything about it. They just have to try to find something to replace it with, and there's nothing that's going to replace transforming your body and the psychological and mental fortitude you have to do to get on stage. And, well, anybody can get on stage. There's no prerequisite. You just pay your entry fee. But to be able to get on stage in an attempt to win, like, you get lost. Like, you get lost.