LUKE LEAMAN IS BACK!

# LUKE LEAMAN IS BACK!

**Channel:** Strength Culture
**Published:** unknown
**Source:** https://youtube.com/watch?v=X-bIWycIeUg

Welcome back to Strength Cultures Podcast, number one in the hearts, number one in the charts. We are back with Luke Lehman from Muscle Nerds. Personally, my favorite episode that we've had so far. And back by popular demand because how could we not go back into the trend talk realm? After that thing went viral, there was response comments, there was all sorts of shit. So I wanted to come in and get Luke back on and dive a bit deeper in some of those topics, but also explain just how well-versed Luke is on a whole range of topics when it comes to health and fitness and training and actually get some good valuable information as well, not just Harry Potter fucking Tremble Door trend jokes or whatever. Tremble Door. But what was your take on all of that, man? That went fucking hot. Yeah, man. I don't know. I saw that and was like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, it was pretty eye-opening, especially some of the comments. The comments were like, what the fuck is wrong with these people? now I know why I'm not on TikTok. They really wanted the doses. They did. They were cracking it at Jamie by telling him to listen to the podcast. They were calling me trash. They were like, no one's going to listen to your trash podcast or whatever. It's like, this is not your way to listen to the podcast. Like, dude, I don't think we just want to advertise gear dosages on TikTok. Well, the thing is, it's free advice and you can just go to the podcast and it's not bleeped out there. Yeah. Or no, some people explicitly said they would not be doing that because we bleeped it out. Yeah. So silly. Their loss. I actually had a guy, he texted me last week and he goes, hey man, I've been on trend and I'm getting all these sides. What do I take for the sides? I go, well, why don't you just take less trend? How about that? Or just maybe no trend. Step back. Step back. There was, what was his name? Daddy. D-Trend. D-Trend. D-Trend or something. Yeah, D-Trend had a response video. Apparently he's the emperor of trend talk. So I'm going to, So there was a period where like, you know, with veganism, people had like vegan in their like Instagram handle. Like it became a part of their identity. Has that become what Tren is like? Tren has become part of, they're putting it like. Man, this guy 100%. This guy is. This guy is like Tren embodied apparently. His name is like D-Tren 00 something. 600 or 800. Call himself Daddy Tren. Daddy Tren. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spokesperson for Tren. Well, it's funny because they hear that small snippet and then he did this whole, and I watched it. I was like, I guess he tagged you guys in it or something. Yeah, somehow on TikTok, you can like respond to the video with another video. And it sort of like puts them together. Yeah, so I'm listening to him talk and he's making some wild assumptions about what we were doing back then. It's like, you got a five second clip of something. You have no fucking idea. And everything he said that they were doing this and they were probably doing this. He was completely fucking wrong. Yeah. I mean, we really didn't know what we were doing. We can only make assumptions because Trenacetate coming out of cattle pellets was kind of a new thing to fill a gap on not being able to get Parabolin anymore. But what we were doing is we said, well, what's the dosage for Parabolin? It makes sense to do that. Me going to eight, can I say the milligrams? This is the podcast. We might tape it out again. Me jumping over 800 milligrams per week of Tren was just like, I wonder what will happen. I did it. That was really fucking stupid. Won't do that again. Yeah. So that's why I'm adamant too, that a lot of guys are doing trend these days and they don't have any business doing it. Like guys are jumping into taking massive cycles. Even the young guys, I know guys that are in their late teens, early twenties. It's like you just started lifting six months ago and you just jumped on the trend train. You haven't done anything as well as you train and see what you're capable of naturally first. Once you pick that out and you know how to train, you have good training literacy, you have good nutritional literacy, lifestyle literacy. You've got all these things done you can go really far that way then put the gas in when you're starting it's starting to not not happen anymore but people they don't want to wait anymore yeah they do two years of natty gains or whatever yeah if that if that but i know a lot of coaches who just automatically put people on shit you go to a guy and you're like hey i want to do bodybuilding he goes okay cool here's your list yeah it's like uh what should i do for training well first let's talk about drugs yeah cool i don't know how to bench press or squat we'll just do drugs that'll fix everything it's a funny thing that mike is retell even talking about just bodybuilding he wrote it's like everyone writing about like my metabolism is on fire it's like it's a furnace right now it's like bro all the fucking diuretics and the rest just eat less it's like just eat less like what are you doing like you see some people like yeah i'm eating 4 000 calories like eight weeks out shredded it's like man what are you doing to yourself yeah you're taking dmp Yeah, that's what they're taking. That's nuts. There's stories. DMP was a fun one. Isn't the diuretic the dangerous one? That's the one that sort of... Well, it depends on what diuretic. So things like Lasix, that's the one, that's the big one. Yeah. Right? Because it's... Where people literally die Yeah Like acutely die Like an acute response is Yeah Yeah Because you got to be really careful especially going into a bodybuilding show If you taking something that harsh you really have to know what you doing because you can take the wrong thing and it can fuck you up give you a heart attack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's a whole nother world. And then it was just amazing how aggressive that kind, but you were just saying that we're even ripping into your bloody tattoos. Yeah. My tattoo is like, you should be ashamed about the tattoo. You shouldn't be embarrassed about Harry Potter. You should be embarrassed about that fucking tattoo. Yeah. Fuck you. I don't give a fuck what she's saying. All these keyboard warriors, they wouldn't say shit if we were in the room together. They'd be like, I love your tattoos. That's great. Cool mashup. Yeah, no, it was amazing. One thing I did want to discuss a little bit, so you alluded to it there, but even just from your own experience and going through that, obviously you've been through it yourself and we can only speak from our own experience of observing people make these, call them errors or mistakes in their journeys. but going back to those times, would you do it again? Would you do it differently? Like what would you... Yeah, I think so. Like advice for those people who are a couple years in because we know it is and it seems to be a growing trend. Yeah, I mean it's always been there but I think now people talk about it more and there's more exposure because of social media and people are more comfortable saying, I'm on this, I'm on this, I'm on this. I've always been transparent with everybody. When I do education, I tell them all the stuff I've done. If I was on something now, I'd tell anybody, but you can obviously tell them not on anything. I can't get anything here, and it's illegal. I still want to get my citizenship, so I'd just be small, with no libido or weak hard-ons. I'm trying to find a doctor. If you're a doctor listening to this and you want to help me out, I'm hypogonadal. Please give me some testosterone. but you know that that's hard too i went to a doctor a few weeks ago because i had a this lingering sore throat and uh i showed up i've never been to this guy before and he opens the door and he's like uh he looks like like he's from nairobi or something i'm like oh this guy would give me whatever the fuck i want no problem this is one of those tiny clinics you walk in he's like what do you want so we talk and he's he's writing out my prescriptions for antibiotics and all this shit and uh he goes i want you to get some blood work when's the last time you got blood work i went well last september and he goes okay i want you to get blood work i said don't worry about that i'll order my own labs because i'm going to order a lot more than you're going to put on there and he goes well what would you put on there i said well i probably put on testosterone i should do y'all blah blah blah he goes do you have low testosterone well on my last on my last one i had low free and i had low total testosterone so i'd like to talk to you about possibly getting on some trt and he looks me up and down and he goes i don't think you need it I'm like, fuck, man. Because the doctors here, they just think it's about your muscles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm 44 years of age. I'm hypogonadal. It's like, it's not about that. It's about the antidepressant qualities. It's about the lack of sleep qualities, the stress. It's about a lot more than just that. So even going through that with the doctor, they still would be pretty hesitant to prescribe it. Yeah, it's still that. Now, you go down the Gold Coast, you're cool. You go down the Gold Coast, they'll write you anything you want. You walk in, there's a bunch of other meatheads in there. everybody's ignoring each other or either they're eyeballing each other he's got the biggest biceps you go in they go alright cool I'll write you anything you want to test, anivortran also here's a voucher for a free neck tattoo at my tattoo clinic that's the Gold Coast thing right but yeah I'll tell you from a viewpoint of what I tell people because obviously when people come to coach if they're competing you're going to have that conversation I never bring it up like i never i don't actually train very many people that are on gear uh and that's always a personal choice for them but it's my job to tell them how to do it so they don't fuck themselves up yeah for sure because the last thing i want is somebody to take a bunch of shit end up in the hospital and then everybody knows i'm coaching them i'm like hold up i didn't tell them to do that so i'll always advise what to do um but what i always tell people is take take the smallest amount possible and see what that does and if if you get to the point where that's not doing it anymore you can always add a little bit more add a different compound but if you go full bore it's hard to pull back on it so like my my thing for most guys is just take trt dose and see what that does because for a lot of guys if you just take a trt dose that'll put three or four kilos on you in a month and then you can add a little bit more if that's not enough but guys don't want to do that they want to jump into two grams yeah just jump straight in this is where your boy day trend disagrees with you. We were on his TikTok just before having a look at him and he's like, so, listen here, guys. He's like, if I get a lot of people ask me, I recommend don't do it, but if you're going to do it, you've got to jump on 500 of test day. Not 400, not 600, not 300. It's got to be 500. So, that it Your boy disagrees with you man That it That so silly Why is 500 the magic number I was going to say who do we listen to here Do we listen to the guy with the sound logical advice or do we listen to the guy who has the number And the name. And the name. The name's the big one. Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago, I was in the Netherlands teaching, and one of the guys in class wanted to train with us. And we said, that's cool. And he goes, I've known him for a long time as well. He's older. He's got kids. He's stressed out. He doesn't sleep. He's got a business. so he's going to have low testosterone most likely. And I said, well, let's start out with like 160 milligrams of Tren, or not Tren, test, not Tren. Let's start out with like 160, just standard TRT dose, and just see what that does. The guy put on like six kilos in a month. And then he goes, what else do we need? I go, wait, do you need any? Do you need any? Why? Like you put on six kilos. Why don't we ride with that for a while, and then maybe we'll go up to like 250, 300 and see what that does. So he calls me and he goes, listen, my friend's a biochemist. He says, this is not enough. I need so much more than this. You just put on six fucking kilos of fat-free mass in a month. Like, how is that not working for you? So then he decided he wanted to take a bunch more, and I went, that's fine, I'll just fire you. I'm done. I just stopped training. Yeah, 100%. It's just like body dysmorphia. Whatever they get, it's just never enough. Right. And do you reckon that's an issue that needs to be addressed more so than just jumping on more gear? 100%. Yeah. It's crazy. It's actually crazy. I think part of it, too, is it's something I teach, something I taught over the weekend. When we talk about hypertrophy and men, men usually go into bodybuilding for one of two reasons reasons to get pussy or they've been bullied. Like that's usually it. And, you know, they call it putting on your gorilla suit. So a lot of the guys that want to get really big, they were had sand kicked in their face for a long time. And they said, well, the bigger I get, people won't fuck with me, which is not true. The bigger you get, the more small guys, especially drunk guys, want to fuck with you. but I think it's just a lot of it goes with the psychology. Like they didn't get enough hugs or they didn't get enough affirmations when they were growing up. Some trauma, childhood trauma. Yeah. So it's, it's the same thing, you know, with women who want to, want to look better, you know, they, they do a bunch of stuff, get their lips done, get boobs, get their butts done or whatever. It's all a, it's all a lack of self-confidence issue, trying to make yourself feel better. And then it's, it's never enough. Yeah. Have you done bodybuilding? I've done, I did men's bikini, men's bikini what's that yeah is that one of the uh board shorts yeah the board shorts one yeah so um when i physique physique yeah so so the first time i got on stage this was right before men's physique became a thing and do you remember the supplement company bsn yeah yeah yeah so this is going way back and they had the uh europa ifbb europa so it was one of the biggest bodybuilding shows after the arnold's so you'd have like 400 competitors there they had crossfit games there grappling it's like a full-blown full-blown thing right and uh they did not it was either bodybuilding or nothing for guys so then bsn said we're going to do this kind of model search thing yeah and i didn't know what they wanted so i called the promoter i go what are you looking for because i don't want to do this i don't want to suffer for months and then get on stage for the wrong thing for the wrong thing he's like oh it's whatever we don't really know just show up i showed up i was like the fucking incredible hulk in front everybody else on stage were like abercrombie models they were all like 60 kilos and i'm up there like 100 105 like raw and needless to say i did not do well in that but then the year after that or two years after that they started doing men's physique and i did a few shows for that and then what years were they bored what year was this that would have been early 2000s, maybe 20, 2004. Yeah, early. Yeah. But then I got bored because of my ADD. I got bored with it. I was like, eh, I'm not built for this. I don't want to do this. And I didn't want to do bodybuilding. My friend goes, do bodybuilding. You're built for bodybuilding. I go, no, man, I don't have a dick big enough to get in that banana hammock. And he looks at me and he goes, bro, nobody's got a big dick at 3%. Yeah, yeah, true. More Trent. So I got back into powerlifting after that for a few years. And then I got bored of that because everybody was all the fucking supportive gear. Yeah. And that's what you were speaking of. Yeah. With the first episode we did. Because the bodybuilding, I know you've... Why have you decided that it was never going to be... Initially, it was like... We spoke about this last week. We've got a couple of reasons. So when we first started Strength Culture 2016, I really wanted to do men's physique for some reason. I still think I was very much down that body build. I used to like the physical thing, like looking, but the longer I went on and I started training pure strength training, competing in powerlifting, I just, and then I started to actually come to terms with what bodybuilding was and what it would require of me I just was like not for me I like food too much That one reason I like powerlifting That another reason And I just yeah the longer that my life gone on I'm like, you know, I'll enjoy having a few beers on the weekend or cheese and wine. Yeah. The girlfriend, cheese and wine. We like our cheese. Just like things like that. I just, it's not a sacrifice that I'm willing to make. Whereas, you're, you, you want to. Are you going to do it? Yeah. October next year. 18 months. Oh, nice. The road's mapped out. Crazy. I was about to pull out. Like a year out. 18 months out. I was 18 months out. Well, no, not even pull out. No, so my coach pushed me to do it. Wait, you said yesterday you were doing it. Listen. I'm getting there. Pull out. I'm getting there. So I've been watching a whole bunch of 3DMJ content, like Alberto Nunez and his like... He's a weapon. It's like, keep massing. And I'm like, oh, maybe I need another year of massing before I do it. And it's like, to me, it's not about winning. I know that it's not a... It's the process. It's the process of doing it It's just like a The delayed gratification One, two, three years of a process to It dies It's not even the day It's not the day to me It's like It's like what that process could potentially teach me That's the way I like to think of it now Like I had boxing and Muay Thai and that And that was like my reason then And this to me seems like something I want to do I don't know if it's a long term forever thing I just want to do a show You know what I mean? Just to see what that 18 months, October. October. I messaged the guys, ICN, sussed them out. So yeah, I can go. It's not a qualifier. You don't have to qualify for it. It's not like championships. Holy, there you go. That's it. What advice have you got? Stay tuned for my full day of eating. I mean, I've got the opposite reason why I want bodybuilding more, because I have to win. To me, it's never about the process. To me, it's about domination and winning. So great goals, but they're wrong. Yeah, they're wrong. Look, man, the whole journey will teach you a lot about yourself. a lot because it's just a it's a journey of suffering I mean you're not going to do well if you're not willing to suffer and that's why so few people can do it because you're going to be suffering for I don't want to oh it's going to be a while it's going to suck it's going to be a while it's going to suck like shit it's just going to fall apart like your body yeah yeah your mental state will fall apart your psychological state you start getting the suicide the sidles suicidal genocidal homicidal trifecta I'm kidding it's not actually that's the stack you're looking for it's actually not that bad it's not that bad if you take your time I think a lot of people try to rush the process and they don't give themselves enough time because they don't realise how much fat they have to lose they're like oh I just need to lose like 10 kilos bro you're going to have to lose like 22 you're going to have to lose a lot more I've heard this before people think they've got like 7 or 8 kilos left and it's like Now you've got 15, 16. Especially nowadays because when I was competing back then, you didn't have to be as shredded as you do now. It's conditioning. If you don't have a walnut ass, you're not going to do well. So you do have to dig a lot deeper. You have to be willing to lose a little lean body mass, especially for naturals. But I would tell you the slower you take it, the better. And a lot of people will go, well, I'll do the old 12, 16-week shred and then get on stage. and you probably want to do at least 24 weeks. Yeah, well, my first cut is starting in October. Yeah. So the first and it'll go. Oh, your first phase. First phase and then it'll be just to hold for a few months and then I'm sure the real dig deep will happen. Turn the gas up again. Turn the gas up. That's it, yeah. What's nice is you get to a point where you're hungry at first and then your body just assumes that you're not going to find any food. So you go through this period of irritation but you're not that hungry anymore. you're just tired all the time. You're just fucking tired. Everything's a fucking mission. You'd be sitting on your couch like, man, I really got to take a shit. And you're like, God damn, the bathroom's so far away. I'll just wait. I'll wait until the turtle head's sticking out and then hopefully I'll make it. That was, Dean McKillop told us a story like that years ago when we had him on our old podcast and he literally was walking and he's like, all I could, I just had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. He was deep in the prep and he's just like, He told his girlfriend or fiance, don't talk to me. Don't talk to me. I just need to put one foot in front of the other. That's all I can focus on right now. He's a fucking weapon, man. I love it. He's a cool guy. He looks so good. When he was, he looks fantastic. He's got a crazy body. One of the shows he was doing, when he decided to get back into it, he was like, we met up and we were hanging out and I'm sitting there eating like a fucking chili cheese dog in front of him. And he's just sitting there. I'm like, does this not bother you? He goes, nah, fuck man. I'd be losing my shit. Yeah. Crow said that. He's like a robot as well. Yeah. And I think this is the, like the conversations that I've been having with my coach and even watching like Alberto Nunez stuff, it's like, like think less, like set up your life to think less

because the thought takes away from everything else. Like you want to be a better partner, that neuroticism around food and when to eat and do this and whatever else, like, yeah, right, you may get lean, but you're probably going to be a piece of shit everywhere else. Yeah, fuck everything else. You know what I mean? It's like this guy is like, it's his choice to diet. Like I would say it seems like Dean, like I don't know him personally, but he's got everything in check, everything. Yeah, absolutely. And that's to the point where it's like, hey, whatever the fuck you want, man, I know I'm sweet. Yeah, he is. He's like that. He's like that. he's just when he sets his mind on something it's non-negotiable he just does it and i can't do that anymore i used to do that i'm too old now i remember because i had a conversation with him he a couple years ago but you were saying like oh the suffering and all that he was he was like uh it's not that bad he was just of the mindset like it's it's really not that hard he was like i just kept going into it and i just finished and i was like oh that's it yeah i think you just have to get you have to get it in your head to have a big enough extrinsic motivator yeah and then really like the why start with why look in and draw that into some type of hard intrinsic motivator that allows you to stay on track exactly what uh so i was gonna say i sometimes feel like that when people complain and i i personally think powerlifting peaks like i don't think they're that that tough at all but people will like literally complain about them like they're the worst thing ever and i don't know yeah i just i don't feel like they're that tough like you just lift and wait first thing it's your choice well that's i i always double down on that it's my choice i'm Lifting weights. So you're saying they say the powerlifting is down. Yeah, I don't know. Some people think the powerlifting. Oh, my central nervous system. They're like, oh, the peaking's too hard. I don't want to compete because the peak's too hard. And I'm like, it's not that hard. It's nice. You're doing less training. You're doing less training. We're doing some singles and shit. That's it. Out of every sport I've ever done, powerlifting was the easiest. Yeah. That's what I think. I can still eat ding-dongs and ho-hos and corn dogs. When I finish a deadlift session, I go and get a pizza. It's like, man. you know what I'm talking about a lot of people say it I think it like you talk about the biopsychosocial model but I think there's just like this cultural this cultural sort of expectation that training gets harder in powerlifting which it definitely does like as you get stronger and you can tolerate more volume and you require more volume for stimulus and all that sort of stuff but I think somehow that's latched on to a peak and then everyone thinks that because we're getting closer and closer it should be getting harder but in reality it's really not you're doing less training I think there's an element of it too that I've noticed the culture in power is that they actually a lot of people take the piss like when they're three or four blocks out from comp they take the piss a lot they don't fucking train hard they skip and we spoke about this with John Trains like people just doing their accessories like whatever like curls and just yeah done and then they actually get to a peaking block and they go I've got to put some work in and try and train hard because I want to get the numbers I want and they realise what hard training actually should feel like and there's a bit more fatigue build up and all that. So I reckon there's an element of that too. And as well, it's probably all of it. Psychological. It's a cultural thing too. But yeah, deadlifts and then pizza. It's mad. But I'm a piece of shit when I cut, is what I wanted to say. We did an eight-week cut. And the last two weeks, from week six to eight, all I could talk about was food. I was in there training two hours and just all I could talk about was food. How much weight did you lose? I got lean. Oh, not lean. I got lean for me. Six kilos? Yeah. You walk into the bathroom He's got a recipe book He's like Cake yeah Yeah that's literally What I was like Steak I honestly think Next time for you If we go longer than Four weeks Like if it's six week plus We'll diet break Every four weeks No I reckon that's The strategy Four weeks Diet break Four weeks diet break Like especially If you're going to do An extended one Like fill out 110 So we're going to Diet break like fucking Because if I have to hear You talk about food Fucking four weeks Well mate I was just going to Say this earlier He's just bought Obviously Texan What was the Tejas No what was the Town call again Mejia Mejia Mejia He just bought a smoker No I didn't buy a smoker I bought a Weber kettle It's a Jamba kettle But it's a kettle Kettle barbecue But he's full blown Smoking meat I'm going to buy a smoker Yeah It's a good hobby Next time we're in Melbourne He'll cook you up one Man Fucking ace We'll do it It's something about I think it's also the Greek roots We like charcoal It's definitely You know what I mean Yeah It's a very Greek thing It is. Light up charcoals. But you've got to set it up in the front yard. Yeah. You can't be out in the back. We do it in the driveway. It's got to be in the front yard. You've got to have tracks planned. They've got to see. They've got to see us. In the driveway. Yeah. I think I'm going to pick up smoking. Like cigarettes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, there's a few things that popped into my head then. That'll come in handy when you're dieting. Yeah, 100%. Cigarette. Cigarette. Smoking. Oh, really? Nicotine. I mean, I guess. Nicotine. I guess. Yeah. Oh, because it just replaces the- I don't smoke. Yeah, it just replaces the... I do nicotine, but I don't smoke. Yeah, yeah. How do you consume your nicotine? Vape? No. No What Do I look like the kind of motherfucker that vapes Not really There so many vapers Two things that are all the rage these days with the young'uns on TikTok, it's vaping and trend. Next to the trend will go in the vaping. No, I do that. Got little chews. Little chews? Little minis. This might sound, because I know that there's a cognitive... Is it focus? Is that what it is? Yeah, it's focus. yeah yeah yeah how does that how how does that even work well for me for me because of my add um i can only get a certain amount of my medication in here in australia they won't give me more you actually need more so that's why i abuse stimulants because it calms me down yeah oh really yeah the nicotine calls me down everything that is a massive stimulant to other people actually it calms me down it doesn't hype me up it's crazy yeah yeah so caffeine how does caffeine affect you? caffeine just focus and calms me down yeah so I mean we'll go way back when in my fun days like you go out and you do a little little white rhino and everybody else is everybody else is like woohoo I'm like cool it's like I took a fucking Valium I've heard this before people that take Ritalin for like partying and stuff yeah but there's one kid that it does nothing for it actually does the opposite it's like that's me you're the one that needs it that's the one that actually needs it yeah yeah Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of cognitive things that can go with nicotine, but part of it's... No comment. Self-diagnosed? I guess so. One time I took Ritalin and fucking... I was like, this shit is going to be for me. Ritalin's shit, though, man. Ritalin's shit. I started on that when I was a kid, and all it did was make me a fucking zombie. It calmed me down too much. Too much. Because it's too fast. Adderall, never liked that. But the Vyvanse is good because it's time-released, so I can take one in the morning and I'm pretty steady all day. And then when it wears off at night is when I become a maniac. And my wife is like, dude, just go play video games or something. Just get the fuck out of here. What happens to you at night? I get super manic. Oh, really? Just erratic and do these tasks into that task. Erratic, doing really weird things. Really weird. What's the weirdest thing you've done? I mean, I can't tell you. I don't know. I'll tell you one weird thing I did. Something weird. I can remember being in London and we're staying at a friend's house and I started getting kind of a manic episode I was walking around, didn't have a shirt on, I was eating banana and I don't know why I just started rubbing the banana all over my chest in front of my wife and my friend and they're like what are you doing I'm like I'm eating a banana I'm like what the fuck yeah so I got back on my meds crazy you just get weird thoughts and shit it's silly it's silly stuff yeah so it's like it's probably how people sometimes behave on other substances yeah and they get a bit stupid and do dumb shit yeah because the ADD thing is some people think it's like a not that it's a superpower there's a funny very funny episode of Flagrant Tupac do you know who Andrew Schultz is? yeah I fucking love him yeah and they're talking about like ADD and I think autism and then Asperger's and they were just talking about like the Some people can like, they say it's a superpower. I don't know if you'd call it a superpower. But has ADD helped you in certain areas in able to focus on things you enjoy and all of those sort of things? Yeah, so it can cripple you too though because it can affect a lot of other things in your life where I'm massively disorganized, very forgetful. With people who, and there's a lot of different forms of ADD. There's like six or seven different types depending on what symptoms you get. But for my type, it's like I drop balls all the time. That's why when people ask me about shit, I'm like, just talk to Zoe because she's the organized one. The good thing is you can get hyper-focused. If you find something like what I do is my passion, so it's easy for me to sit down for 12 hours, just knock it out. But if I get a phone call, I'm fucked. I'm fucked for like two hours trying to get back on track. So you're easily distractible, hyper-focused, easy to be distracted. but then the rest of your life is just a fucking mess. Like, oh, I haven't paid bills in six months. Oh, I just totally forgot. Because when you have ADD, if it's out of sight, out of mind, so it can have a really negative impact on relationships you have with people because you just forget you have parents that you probably need to talk to or you have, like, friends you need to talk to. It can be socially awkward from that connection type issue. Yeah, but it has been helpful for me because it can have really nice effects on your memory. Like I can recall stuff. I can learn something one time and own it. I don't have to struggle to learn things. And the medication helps a lot. Yeah Yeah And when you saying like the hyper would obviously having a passion for like health and fitness and all of that sort of stuff do you think that has in any way impacted how well you've been able to create what you have with Muscle Nerds and then all the things that happened prior to that as well? Yeah, 100%. And it allows you to come up with ideas that other people might not think about because you're constantly obsessing about this stuff. So you're constantly thinking about it and then you're constantly trying to make abstract things out of some of the information you're getting. Yeah. That's interesting because I think a lot of those, like the stigma around a lot of those sort of like cognitive or mental sort of struggles or battles or, would you call them a disorder? Is that what it is? Yeah, I'd probably call it a disorder, yeah. It's in the name. It is in the name, yeah, but all the other ones as well. Like I think the stigma around all those things are starting to change now. Understanding of them are starting to improve. The only problem is now everybody thinks they have ADD. Yeah. And I can tell you, as somebody who's had it since they were a kid, it's not something you necessarily want. And it's sometimes offensive to us when they're like, yeah, I think I've got ADD. I'm like, no, you're just lazy. That's me. Because whenever I say I'm like, no, you're just a lazy procrastinator. But I definitely think that today, I don't know, this is my assumption, that it's made us, for me, I have found like social media, We've got so much shit at our disposal. It has probably made my attention worse with a lot of other kids as well, like YouTube, podcasts, social media, Instagram. Everything's there and we're always chopping and changing our focus. So even when I sit down, I play a bit of guitar and try to learn. I do 10 minutes and then I'm doing something else. And I'm like, I can't fucking focus for 30 minutes. I'm trying to learn this little bit of music or whatever. You're right, man. You're right. It's the way that everyone's being conditioned to have no attention span. Yeah. Yeah. And that's been my life the whole time. Like you start projects you never finish. And, you know, I bought a guitar. I'm going to learn how that lasted a week. And then I gave up on that. I was like, well, what's the next cool thing? So you're always chasing shiny nickels. Yeah. And you can't help it. And you're not trying to do that. And you're not trying to disappoint people in certain areas. It's just part of your mental state. How you think. Can't really change it. What, let's go all the way back then, back to the start of like your journey in health and fitness then. For it to become a passion, who was some of like your initial, like what got you into it when you first started? Like how'd you, how'd you find it? How'd you? Yeah. So, I mean, I got into lifting for Texas football. Yeah. Because when you're, when you're a kid in Texas, when you're a guy, you're expected to play football. Like it is non-negotiable. So I went, fuck, you know, I started at seven or eight years old. I started lifting weights. Most of it was because I saw. A 7 or 8? Yeah. Wow. But I got into that aspect because I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. I went, I want to look like that. And then I looked at my dad, who was 5'7", little Austrian Jewish guy, and I was like, oh, fuck. But then my parents' side, or my mom's side, is all German, so they're all tall. I'm the smallest guy on my mom's side, the biggest side on my dad's side. So I went, okay, maybe this will kind of balance itself out. I'll get my mom's height and my dad's height. And I did. But I started getting into it because I wanted to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Classic entry, everyone. Everyone, right? And then it kind of moved into getting ready for American football, and I had a lot of really good coaches, which is not normal in high school for us to have good coaches, but I had really good coaches who were ex-powerlifters. I started the powerlifting team at my high school, and we did that. And then I went to college and started doing, got more in the bodybuilding type stuff there and then back in the powerlifting. So back and forth through a bunch of different strength sports. But I guess my career career started in 1992 when you had muscle media and like TMAG came out and you get exposed to Charles Poliquin, who became my main mentor for strength and conditioning. So him and Paul Cech and all these guys. So Charles started doing certifications and I couldn't really afford to do one. So I just saved up. And in 2007, I flew to Chicago and met Charles, and then I was hooked because the culture he had at Polycon Strength Institute at the time was amazing. You didn't find that anywhere else. And so I started doing everything I could with him. And then eventually I got asked to come on and do assistant teaching. Presenting and all that sort of stuff. And you can learn more about that in the first episode. So you said Paul Cech because I know we've consumed a little bit of Paul Cech. Is one of his philosophies like this pillar thing? Yeah, the totem pole. The totem pole. Yeah. And then what was some of the other so like you said, 2007, that was probably like the forum days and and all of that sort of stuff. Like, how did you come across Poliquin? I came through Muscle Media. Muscle Media. And then what's that like a magazine or something? Yeah they online now So it was you remember EAS the supplement company No So creatine Yeah Everybody knows Charlie knows creatine Creatine yeah So Bill Phillips, he created EAS and brought creatine to the market and a bunch of other supplements and kind of the first proper meal replacement powders that actually tasted good and protein powders that tasted good. So he created a magazine called Muscle Media and it was like super hardcore. They were talking about drugs and they were talking about all sorts of shit. then he sold out sort of going mainstream but in the early days you had uh paul check was in the magazines you had uh charles staley was in the magazines paula quinn yeah all those guys so then then when they sold out they started an online thing called testosterone.net and that's what t-mag is now i think it's called t-mag now or t-nation t-nation yeah so they were super hardcore and then they had some of the best uh strength and conditioning guys nutrition guys steroid guys on it and then now they kind of petered out now they're not really that big of a thing yeah so t-nation was huge now yeah it's there that was the that was one of the big rocks of like our development we chatted about this last week in like our initial uh people that influenced us and how we got to where we're at now but um t-nation was a fucking massive rock that was where we found majority of the people that yeah it was and it was cool back then because they it wasn't like now where they just throw up random articles they always threw up articles on friday so you'd sit your computer and you just keep hitting enter keep hitting enter keep hitting enter and then we figured out how to get the the articles before they were out because we figured out how they were doing the source code yeah yeah so then we could get it on like a tuesday or wednesday yeah we consumed all that she took all their supplements the spray on t19 and all the other stuff well that's it i was i was joking off here but i think they sort of lost their way when they realized you can make a ton of sales online and it just sort of turned into this like every article there There were some articles that were fantastic and then they're like, the piece that puts this all together is this thing. Like it was just this specific supplement, something mag or mag tan or some shit like that. Yeah, yeah. That was definitely my transition was finding bodybuilding.com. My old man bought me old muscular development magazines. That and muscle and fitness because he was like this 80s bodybuilder or whatever the fuck else. Choco. He was a trend boy, wasn't he? no that's 250 was his deal his deal I still I rip him one I use that to piss mum off I go to mum I'm like hey mum I'm getting on it next week just fucking no you're not and I'm like you can't talk shit I'm like old man was on it and then he's like oh yeah I'm like but just know that I'm stronger and bigger than you natural fucking dog but I'll always use that I'll always use that to piss mum off for the rest of my life I forgot where I was at with that but muscle and fitness Muscle and fitness. Yeah, so it was that and then bodybuilding.com and then into T Nation. And it was like, it was such a good resource. It was. Such a good resource. But something I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned like Charles Staley and I think of like the escalating density training and methods and you've just done this talk over the weekend on bodybuilding methods and it's almost like historical methods that I think that make training fun. You know what I mean? Like you can stick to a 3x8 to 10 forever really and probably make gains, you know what I mean? What I wanted to ask you is how much of looking into history of physical culture and training like that, how much of that informs your program design process now and what do you think it's done for you in your development from a programming standpoint? Well, if you look at where most people get their information nowadays, it's from the evidence-based crowd. And, you know, you can read tons of literature and they'll say, well, this method doesn't work, this method does work. a lot of the a lot of the research is a bit shit it's low subject pools a lot of times they don't do the protocols the way they were written they don't they don't control for nutrition there's a lot of stuff that they don't look at and so everybody's everybody's basing their methods on only what's literature based it's not really evidence-based because evidence-based is both application empirical observation and also using the rest of the scientific method and trying to falsify things or trying to test things and a lot of the younger coaches have no idea about the golden area bodybuilders who the researchers are testing their protocols and those things have worked for 50 60 70 years but now because some dweeb in a science coat says it doesn't work now everybody says well german volume training doesn't work but they never go and look at the research and see if they actually did 10 set method exactly what it was they don't yeah and they don't look at the limitations, the limitations are all talked about in those papers. You know, 12 subjects in one paper, 13 subjects in the other. They didn't do the protocols the way they were originally designed. They didn't control for nutrition. The people had one year of training experience. Those are advanced protocols. And I think that a lot of the younger guys, they need to look back at some of the old school bodybuilding stuff because that's, those are the shoulders that we're

on. And those guys figured out how this stuff worked just through trial and error and putting themselves through it. Even when you look at nutritional science as well, the amount of protein that they're suggesting keeps raising as they're figuring out how to measure these things better. So they get off of negative positive nitrogen balance and now looking at specific amino acid uptake. The ranges that they suggest have started at 1.2 grams per kilogram, and they're now at 1.8 and i read a paper two years ago three years ago where the guy said you might as well just take 2.2 grams per kilogram because that's the direction that the protein amount is going yeah and he says bodybuilders have known this since like the 50s and uh there's been research showing that 3.3 to 4.4 there's no negative effects only positive effects so you might as well just say fuck it and just eat 2.2 and just not have a shadow of a doubt right um but with a lot of the old school stuff these kids they don't know they don't know who vince drone is like this class i had i'm like do you guys know who vince drone is they have no idea frank zane no idea franco colombo arnold schwarzenegger everybody knows who that is but they don't know anyone else i said something about doing uh scott curls and somebody goes what's a scott curl i'm like sorry i'm let me translate it's a preacher curl but the original name for that was the scott curl named after larry scott when he was training on that bench at at Vince Drones' gym and had the biggest arms in all of bodybuilding. But I'm massive into people understanding physical culture and where this stuff came from, and we don't want to lose that because there's a lot of great protocols and great exercises that people could be doing that they're not doing because they just aren't being taught that. It's being washed away. Yeah, like Zane Curls. I love Zane Curls. Most younger coaches have no idea what that is. There's a ton of different things we could be doing. I know who Frank Zane is. I don't know Zane Curl. What is Zane Curl? So grab a couple of dumbbells, and you're holding them this the whole time. You're holding them with flexion, and you go down and up, stop, down and up. Oh, yes, I have done them. We used to do them. So you did them, but you didn't know what they were called, right? But I think it's disingenuous that we're losing, that we're not paying homage to these guys, and what's old is new again. So people are renaming exercises that already have fucking names on them. Like we've already, we don't need to name this after you when we've been doing this for 30, 40, 50 years. I saw somebody post a new, a new dumbbell row that they invented and they were going to name it after themselves. And I'm like, hold on a second. So I go to my bookshelf and I pull out Bill Pearl's Keys to the Inner Universe, which was written in 1978. And it's got every fucking old school bodybuilding exercise you could ever want to do. I go to the bicep section. there's a picture of them doing it as early as 1978. But now these people think it's new, so they're going to name it after themselves. Here's the new, the Lehman Row. We've got names for this shit. Do you reckon there's anything that hasn't been named? Do you reckon there's anything out there? Probably not. If you're coming up with an exercise now that hasn't been named, there's probably a good reason why no one does it. Tell that to Kasim. We've had this discussion as well, because we were joking about coming up with an exercise that we're going to name after ourselves, but there's nothing. There's nothing. It's all been done. I'll play devil's advocate. I'm good friends with Kasim, and we don't agree on a lot of things. We take some polar views. He hates us. Well, he's blocked us. He's blocked all of us on Instagram. See, that's one of the things I don't agree with him with. If you want to come up with stuff, then be willing to debate it and argue your point, But I did get a bit irritated when they started the Kaz hip thrust. And I was like, fuck, man. It's just a quarter rep hip thrust at the top. But then I thought, you know what? Fuck it. So I call it the Kaz hip thrust. And the reason is I'd rather do that than say I need you to do a hip thrust on bench, but only the quarter rep at the top. It's just easier to say do a Kaz thrust because everybody knows what that is now. It's definitely – yeah, he's made an impact. He has. Yeah. No, he has. I like his shit. Why the fuck did you block me, bro? I didn't say anything to you. I didn't say anything either. Yeah, he blocked all of us. He blocked the whole gym. He blocked all four of the coaches. Yeah, I don't know. He's off us. I like his shit. Yeah, I don't know. He's got some great stuff. You know, just like with everybody, I've got some good stuff and I've got some stuff that people think is just shit. And same thing with Kaz and everybody else. The more stuff you put out there, the more stuff people are going to find that they like this stuff but they don't like this stuff. you know I agree with a lot of his stuff I disagree with a lot of his stuff as well like I don't feel like we need to get so fucking pedantic about hitting six soccer mirrors in your lower lat you know so I think if you just if you just focus on pulling the muscle finding exercise that work really well for you and just keep keep working getting stronger and bigger everything going to yeah well this is a it actually a really good discussion that is on it this like optimal verse just like getting the work done sort of discussion point it sounds like you you very similar to us where it like just do the things you enjoy yeah train hard make sure the principles are in play and you're probably going to be fine like but i think there is a i think there is a need for you know more targeted intent training like that as well um i use it a lot for like rehab stuff or if i've got beginners teaching them how to control things and how it's supposed to feel but the way i look at it is some of that stuff where you're being really really myopic about how you pull something and train that's really good for beginners and then when you get in the middle of your journey you just need to fucking smash weights and get big and do things that especially when you get older do things that don't fucking hurt and find exercises that do feel good but then i also see a need to put that stuff back in at the very end when you need to do that detail work you know because they're just getting just smashing foundational movements isn't always going to build a symmetric complete physique sometimes you need to now dial in some of those really you know look at the the angle of the pull and the line of the pull and really dig into a certain aspect of a muscle but i don't feel like people need to be doing that for a whole fucking workout and taking 20 minutes to set up each exercise. Yeah. I think it just gets back to the same point we had, which don't get caught in the weeds. Most people, it's just not going to matter. No, because some of those movements feel fantastic. They feel fantastic. But overthinking your training to that point, especially for some of the early intermediates, it's like, dude, effort's probably the factor for you. Everything that I'm seeing from you right now is actually amazing form-wise. You look great. Just fucking eat and train hard, man, at that point. it's a funny one it's a funny one but it's something that I'm like you don't have to hate someone fucking for having a different point you can like a lot of different coaches and whatever else it's like you can disagree you know what I mean I like who is it Mike Boyle is like be the best thief you can be sort of thing man just bid from this guy bid from that guy that's what's going to create you and obviously you're going to have your biases and I think that's why clients come to you because of your biases it's a shared bias they come to you for whatever else but just just deal just deal from a little bit obviously give credit always give credit always give credit always give credit always give credit but it's like that's what's going to create you you're not just fucking fuck this guy because he disagrees with this one minor point that guy's probably got a hundred good points for the one that you disagree with everyone probably agrees on 99.9% anyway like it's it's always these little fringe I think part of the problem is none of context when people and that's the problem with social media you're watching a one minute clip and you're not getting the whole story so you know if we're going to use specialized techniques like that we need to figure out when it is and isn't appropriate most of the guys teaching that stuff that um uh who was that that came up with stuff that they're um i can't remember the name of the guy that ben pokulski and and they all learned from but um like the functional it was more like the functional range stuff or whatever but uh none of them built their physiques like that they all built their physiques the way we all did get in the trenches and get really fucking strong really good at foundational movements but but that's not sexy it doesn't sell well that's what i was going to say is that they're also trying to sell products and so they've got to kind of reinvent the wheel you have to be very if you're going to niche down yeah sometimes you have to niche down to some of the silliest shit yeah it's like what we were talking about with the the tiktok thing if we did something educational no one would watch it but you put fucking trend and i read it or uh you get a picture a video of me doing a pull-up and dragging my dick across my wife's face and that fucking goes gangbuster but if i give you some actual usable information no one gives a shit which is exactly what happened last week when we put that put that pull-up video on it's crazy oh really did you see that no i don't think i saw that one did it go crazy again yeah i think we'll just start rolling from here that's crazy the trend one but oh the trend one was that was ridiculous i was really surprised about that So how not the spot to pull up? That one went. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's fucking pretty funny, bro. Did you see? That's pretty funny. Full dick in the face. No, it was full cock. Did you see the cock movement? By the way, does it close up with that? That's actually pretty funny. That went viral. I like how you got the hangover cunt in the face, guys. In the face. That's too good. Just for transparency's sake, that was a stunt cock that wasn't actually my dick. I was about to say, good job, man. I wish. I wish. Look, man, big hands, big feet, big ass, and then I was like, what the fuck happened? Stunt cock. God damn you. Going... Wait we on Yeah we I cut I cut that I cut I work that out so that it works out well The camera unfortunately just overheated I reckon there was some machine I reckon just cut away to It's just this big cock. Fuck! No, there was... No context. So, we were just talking about, like, early influences and somehow we got into, like, this optimal thing. But I want to go back to the early influences. Some of the original programs you ran, where were you... Were they... You just got them from books or were they, like... Where were your initial actual programs from? Man, back then, when I first started, we didn't have the internet. Yeah, that's what I mean. You go to the local library and just get a book, and that's it. And then my first weight set, I remember seven or eight, and I begged my parents for a barbell set for Christmas. So Santa brought me a barbell set. So it was like this weeder. It was a hollow bar, and it had concrete plates that were encased in plastic. And it came with a poster. So I just put the poster up and I just did that. And then, you know, there were guys in my very small town. There were dudes there that would smash weights and they were really fairly decent at it for country boys. And so, you know, we learned stuff from them. They're like, oh, this is cute. Little eight year old wants to lift weights. Cool. So that getting in the getting in the high school, starting powerlifting, really, really learning how to be strong. And we come from a place where it's all cornbread country boys. Everybody's strong. everybody because you're out working cattle and you're throwing hay and that's you're digging uh trenches and building farm farm strong what is it farm strong farm boy strong yeah your farm strength right so you go into power lifting if you if you want to make yourself feel bad go look at how strong texas high school powerlifters are and most people who think they're strong would be like just any american the american kids are fucked at the moment yeah and they're only going they're only getting stronger like it's actually absurd how strong the american kids are yeah it's It's just part of their culture It's just like Embed into the culture Of just like Weight training And the bench press And fucking It's crazy I went and Hired a coach A new coach Because I was with Bryce For four and a half years But I went through Joey Flex And I went on And I saw his coaches And I picked the youngest guy He's 22 years old And he totals 860 Yeah At 22 years old And I'm like He's going to be A fucking monster I jumped on his Instagram He's like Just squatting 300 Pulling 320 Like it's nothing Like RPE 6-7 shit Yeah And he's 22. Like our high school, we basically first place at every single meet we went to. And almost everybody went to state. Everybody was strong. But we had nothing to do in our hometown. It was like either fight, fuck, or power lift, or all the above. So there's literally nothing to do in our hometown. Smoking? Smoking meat. I was like, weed? Meth. Smoking barbecue. Barbecue. It's big in Texas. Yeah, American barbecue. Yeah, it is. Is there a fair bit of that going on? Tons. Most of the top ten barbecue places in all of America are in Texas. And they're all isolated around Austin, San Antonio area. Have you touched any barbecue in Australia that's come even remotely close to Texas quality? Yeah. I haven't had much here because I just make my own. Because I've got a Traeger and I'll just do that. And I'll cheat. I'll do sous vide. I'll sous vide. First get for like 36 hours And then I'll smoke it for three It's fucking Probably my favourite way Of doing it Second night Six hours Second night Charles You just put it in a Hot water It's like 60 degrees Or whatever So you don't have to do anything 36 hours Yeah That's Fuck Yeah Start prepping Saturday lunch Tuesday It's happening Actually one of the best I've had Is here in Melbourne Blue Bonnet Blue Bonnet was really good And then they moved to a new place And it's shit Oh You had us I was going to say Let's go I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny blue bonnet story. So Jordan shallow and Ben Pekulski, they came in to do some things before COVID and they were like, Hey, do you want to come? We're going to have a similar, you want to come hang out? And I'm like, yeah, cool. So I came down here and they did the seminar and we all hung out. That was where I met you in the chicken nuggets. Oh yeah. The first day. So I said, Hey guys, let's go have some barbecue. I've got this great place. Right. So we go and it's me and Jordan and Ben and his wife and his kids. And we get there and Ben's like talking to the waitress. He goes, so do you guys have anything? You get gluten free? They're like, no. Do you have a kid's menu? No. And like everything he wanted, they didn't have. And he had looked at him. I've never seen him get irritated. And I, he got, had a look on his face. Like he was going to start murdering people. And I'm like, fuck, I've never seen Ben look like that. He's such a Zen bloke as well. He's super Zen, but he was getting super aggro. And I'm like, dude, we can go somewhere else. He goes, no, it's okay. I'm like, okay. All right, cool. At least don't walk out. Blue bonnet. Blue bonnet? I've never even heard of it no good don't go there where should we go then if we want to get a fucking crazy obviously Charlie come back to Queensland next time bomb beach next time It getting good man Australians are actually getting really good at the smoking Yeah It's just over the last few years, it's really accelerated here. It's gotten really impressive. Used to, I wouldn't touch it. Now it's getting better. You guys just got to get better at fucking Mexican food and Tex-Mex. You guys are still shit at that. Really? You like, you gringo fight everything. It's like, you know, you want a nice, you just have nice taco man. You just have nice seasoned meat. you just need onion maybe some cilantro and then it's really simple and you guys are like fuck it let's put sauces on everything and then you start adding a bunch of shit you don't need so it's like Australian Mexican food and it's a really weird thing Ozmex Ozmex Oz Tex-Mex it's so weird to me yeah we've been watching videos I had a whole bunch of people around to my house two Fridays ago I think you and I were the only people that were really into what was on the TV I think me and you need to have an aisle of that just us two We were watching. It was like, fuck everyone else. We were watching some guys in Mississippi grill chicken thighs. And everyone's like, what the? It was competition thighs. That's it. Competition chicken thighs. And we were like, in this. And everyone's like, is this what we're watching? Like, yes. This is what we're watching. It was his recipe on how he does it for competition. They inject it. They inject the chicken thigh with some other. Tran. Oh, man. It's Mississippi. It's Mississippi. They're injecting it with racism. Come here, boy. Make me some chicken thigh. I've seen them inject stuff, though, before. They're like... Yeah, it's like a broth or something. Yeah, yeah. And it keeps it juicy. Because he wanted the judge. He goes, I want the judge to take the bite. He goes, they're going to bite from here first, so they get that explosion of flavour. I was like, crazy. It's a science, man. It's a real science. The physics of barbecues. Oh, bro. And we watched some other guy like charcoal barbecue for like 10 minutes. Yeah. It was like a live... It was unbelievable. What's your optimal temperature for smoking brisket? Smoking brisket? Celsius. Oh, God. Now I've got to do the converter. No, do Fahrenheit. We'll get it down. Can Charlie hire you as a brisket coach? I wish you hadn't asked me that because it's all written down in notes at my house. I don't actually have a brisket. That's what we need, bro. I've gotten lazy now because I've got the Traeger. What's a Traeger? Traeger's a pellet smoker. So it's all automatic. Oh, really? Yeah. So you extract the trend. And it's not a great smoker, but it does the trick, and you don't have to be there. You can just turn it on. I can control it from my phone. I can turn it on, go to the movies. Whoa. So it's not arm-wrestling. Put your USB sticks fucking to bed, mate. So how does the heat control? Because it's obviously not charcoal. So they've got on the side, they've got the pellet box, and then it slowly puts the pellets in, and there's a small fire unit in the bottom. so then the pellets go in there and it controls it and everything's controlled through the electronics so you don't actually have to do anything. So it's good. I mean, it's cheating. It's cheating, yeah. But it comes out perfect every fucking time. I think that's something that I've got to master the art form first before I can go to that. You don't go entry level into that. No, because you never develop the skill. No, I want to learn the skill. That's not the modern thing, though. You know, guys get in the bodybuilding, they immediately get on the gear. You should just immediately get into electronic smoking and say fuck. I just recently started getting into it. It's changed my eating at home because I'm actually getting excited. I'm not really bored with food. I felt like I was just cooking the same. I just felt like I was cooking the same shit every time. It was boring. Now it's like fucking. Your power left thing is to eat whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Let's get juicy. The one thing I was going to ask before we wrap it up is you said Australians do Mexican food shit. what is what cuisine do we do well in Australia that you wouldn't typically get in America I was actually thinking about that well it's you get anything in America but do you get anything but is it good yeah well you gotta keep in mind America's so much different than Australia because if you go you go to Brisbane you go to Sydney you go to Melbourne it's everybody's pretty much the same just with some tweaks like a little more hipsters here and you know a little bit more rednecks in Queensland a little bit more pretentious $30,000 millionaires in Sydney. But everything's very homogenous here. Yeah, for sure. In America, you go to a different state and it's completely different. It's like a new country. It's like Europe of North America. It's crazy. Yeah. It's actually cool. But Texas is a good place for pretty much anything because it's such a diverse amount of people. But here, oddly enough, you guys probably disagree with me, but i think you guys mostly australians do greek food really well but there's a lot of greeks here so melbourne as well yeah the thing is you guys don't have any mexicans here so there's nobody to teach you that's what i was gonna say he's like especially in texas you got the borders right there so you've obviously got a lot of influence from them directly whereas yeah here a lot of italians greeks especially melbourne um asian like so you got the people bringing it from the yeah from the

The land. Yeah, 100%. The motherland. The wrecked. Yeah, that's right. We'll get on the Mexican. Prove on the Mexican. We'll find a... We'll do some research. We'll find a killer barbecue fucking place in Melbourne. And next time you're down, you can run a seminar here. And then we'll get barbecue. We'll get barbecue. And then the next day we'll do barbecue at mine. Fuck yeah. You can be the judge. All right. The special thighs. Competition thighs. I'll make some cattle pellets while you cook up the cattle. We're good. We're done. we're all finished then all done how did your hypertension course go? did it launch? yep launched? Jason and Marcus did it Jason and Marcus did it we had a few guys jump in I realise that most coaches don't give a fuck about their clients health we thought it would be so much better than it is and we did it's been good but it's nothing we thought it was going to do so much better oh really? yeah but then we just figured out man we just need to put out courses on steroids and fucking advanced training protocols that no one can use with their clients. I feel like a lot of... We'll just keep this going a little bit longer. I feel like a lot of education for coaches is more for an internal quest for knowledge rather than a utility to actually use it You want to learn systems you want to learn protocols or whatever this advanced stuff not to use it on anyone but to just better understand it for yourself i feel like that's a lot of what education is i think from my point of view of being in the education side for a long time a lot of coaches take courses for themselves yeah but in like guys you're you're trying to run a business you should probably take courses to help people so you make more money. And then that's cool. You want to go to advanced triple drop sets for fucking hypertrophy. Great. What's your demographic? If you're dealing with stressed out CEOs and single dads, single moms, and like busy people, you're not going to use that shit on people. Like take the courses that are going to allow you to make more money. And if you're going to go do that stuff, do it for yourself. But they never do. So you have to do crazy ass seminars. that method seminar I did over the weekend, super highly popular. We sold those out massively. But we're trying to mix in, like here is advanced protocol, here's a not advanced protocol, here's how you scale the advanced protocol so that everybody can do it because there's a lot, like 6-12-25, Charles Pollock's thing. That a very advanced protocol And I see coaches put people on that their first fucking session Now it can be scaled but you have to understand how exercise selection and the order of exercise is how all that plays into it and how to periodize that in but no one no one knows that german volume training is really advanced and everybody does it under slams that i've definitely slammed it i met yeah people with six months into gym doing jvt yeah and the thing is like that can be a good strategy if you know what you're looking for. So you have to look at, okay, what is the specific thing I'm trying to do in this program? I've got to take somebody from A to Z. So what do I need to do? How do I fill those blanks in? I'll put it like this. You want to build a big deadlift. Okay. So you already know where you're going to end. Like, what are you going to do in the last phase? You're going to do a lot of deadlifting. Like you have to, cause you've got to build a skill. And then when you go to the start, you have to look at where the client is. They have structural balance issues, poor health metrics of the injuries niggles what do we need to do to get them roadworthy to not get to that to get there and then we have to fill that in with uh i i still love dr fred hatfield you can't fire a cannon from a canoe and when i look at that the cannon is the nervous system and the canoe is the physical structure so if you want to put a bigger cannon on there you have to address the fact that if your boat is leaky you got to get the boat not leaky so it seaworthy and then the more the larger cannon you put on there the boat has to support that so you have to use hypertrophy functional hypertrophy those types of things to build this the soft tissues and the structure to support that so when you looking at the methods all that stuff can be manipulated or adaptations other than what it was originally built for so i would use in beginners gvt as a skill-based phase you know if you if you have a shitty squat what's the best way to get a good squat heaps of squatting lots of squatting so if i'm doing 10 by 10 a back squat twice a week with submaximal weight that's a really good way to teach them the skill of squatting really fast it's probably not going to be the best for hypertrophy in a beginner it would still will but it'll be better for an advanced person for hypertrophy yeah so you're learning to match it with the right yeah context and yeah it's it's a fascinating thing because we're going to start getting back into i think some seminars and stuff but trying to plan out how we're going to attack it and all of that sort of stuff because we could do some highly biomechanical stuff. But yeah, so it's interesting to see your experience because you've obviously been doing it for so long but also back into it after COVID. So it's cool. But we look forward to seeing more stuff from you. Thank you very much for popping in. Thanks, guys. Thank you. And we'll smoke a brisket soon, Charles. Yeah, yeah. Fucking nice. Done. Ciao. We'll do it. Ciao.