what does it mean to live life to the fullest train to your potential and perform at your best, leave nothing on the table. That's a non negotiable is that I strive to be better every day because if I'm not on top of my game, how is anybody else gonna follow me down the road? Keep demanding more of yourself to live up to that potential and to stay hungry is progress? When I look at the word training, I think of steps, baby steps to get somewhere that you want to be and that is basically your life journey. It's a mindset in itself, man, it's like, it's not just about I know that for you, a lot of that's about the physical, but we're constantly in training, whether it's growing our skill sets, whether it's growing up physical bodies, whether it's growing our relationships whatever and all of that is a training ground and that kind of goes back to the mindset that we just talked about. You underestimate yourself and you don't even start, but then once you start, you often surpass what you thought you could do perform at your best mate. That's that's sort of what life is all about. You know, one of the knowledge and have the fitness, the healthy ambition and drive that no matter what comes along when the next phone call comes, I can just say yes, I don't have to worry, just go and do it.

Hey guys, welcome to this episode of the live transform podcast, I'm your host, Sean Coba and joining me today is my man nick Edgerton make hit us with your hit us with your words were going to say thank you for having me on, I appreciate it. I know we're gonna get into some good topics today, so I'm pretty excited for that mate. I was waiting for your catchphrase, oh yeah, catchphrase. People want to hear it, the people want to hear you guys Nicky, I hope you get your well, just a quick one for today. Love it, love it. Alright guys, so I've known Nick for probably what, 689 months, something like that, almost probably coming up to a year. Um Nic is a leading physique coach, uh he has been a physique athlete um as well, he's coached over 100 top three placings in season 2019, 20. I'm excited to have a chat to him about his journey and leading up to where he is right now, based out of Phuket Thailand and uh basically going into a number of different topics.

But one of the things that I'm excited to talk to you about and I want to dive into is the topic of steroids. I've had a lot of people talk to me about steroids being a coach here in Thailand obviously it's quite easy to get here over the counter in some pharmacies and to be honest, like I don't know enough about it to be able to push people in the right direction, give them the information to allow them to make an informed decision. So that's something that will kind of round out the conversation with. But prior to that, let's go through your journeyman spot in there. Before we go ahead. I've got to say this disclaimer, I'm not adult, I'm not a scientist, I work from experience and study, so I want to make that very, very clear. Any advice that's given today on the topic that sean just said, don't take that at face value, I mean, I'll just give you the best advice I possibly can, but again, I'm not a doctor or a scientist. Yeah, absolutely. Alright, sweet mate. Um talk to me about your journey becoming first of all a physique athlete and then uh progressing through the ranks and ending up where you are now being a physique coach based in Phuket Thailand.

So, initially for me, I mean I loved bodybuilding growing up, like I had all the pictures of the body builders on the, on the wall, all things like that, um genetically I could never be like that, I could never be huge and big like that, but I love the training, I love the dieting, I love learning about the supplements and everything behind it. Um and then the men's physique division came out and when that came out, what year was it? 2000 and 12, I believe it first came out and I first competed in 2013. So when that came out, I thought, hey, I could actually do this because something that I'm obsessed about when it comes to my training is aesthetics, aesthetics and quality. Um and body building this modern day bodybuilding doesn't really go with aesthetics and quality, it's all about mass and freakiness, which is cool, but I could never be like that based on my genetics, as hard as I could possibly push it. So when men crazy came out, I was like, wow, like I've got an opportunity here to actually kind of be a bodybuilder and I say there's a difference between bodybuilding and physique athletes.

So, you know, I've always trained, I've always done that and I entered my first show 2013 and I had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea about posing, I had no idea about anything, but I researched as much as I could and came up with the best as I possibly could on the day. Um Out of about 30 athletes, I came pretty much dead last, absolutely dead last, but I loved it and I enjoyed, and I thought, wow, what an experience, I'd love to do that again, but this time I'd love to win a show and I sort of saw the standard what it was about and things like that, I fell in love with it, I was still training people outside of that. Um and then, you know, from there, I sort of progress that took two years away and thought I'm gonna do this properly. I'm gonna hire some really, really good mentors, the best mentors I can find um I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna win this show, I'm gonna win the show that I came dead last night, that was like my vision, my goal and so I did that, I went away, I trained and trained and trained and people saw me progressing in my physique and then slowly but surely I still had a job on the outside, I was a construction manager and slowly on the outside people were coming to me asking me for advice because growing up I was always the diet guy in my friendship group, what should I do with this network, I was like the guy to go to and like I never charged money back then or anything like that, but more and more people would sort of asking me what should I do here, what should you hear?

How you can even use advice I'd love to work with, you can consult all this sort of stuff because I was already in the industry, has been working as a coach for a while, but it just started getting busier and busier as I started getting into the competing side of things. Anyway, fast forward finishing in that show, dead last. I then came back three years later and I won that show and that was to me was like, I can actually do this, but you know, that was three years of like living under a brick, like living within walls like vigilant with cardio, sleep training, nutrition like everything in like a bubble, everything was done. I didn't drink, I didn't go out, I didn't party, I didn't do anything. All I did was work and just focus on my physique and that was literally it and that's what I did. I live like a month. So that was three years from coming last two have been winning that same competition. So leading into that first competition, how was the preparation for that first competition? Into the next three years? So then winning that competition? Like was there a stark contrast there? Yeah, I mean the first competition, I was just, I was winging it basically had no idea what I was doing.

Whereas the second one, I hired the best mentor, I could have had a lot of money for it and we dialed it in like that and I learned a lot from that, as you know, when you hire mentors, you sort of learn a lot from them, but then you take it what works for you and what you know, and you tweak things and adapt things to make it, you know better in your sort of away and then that sort of makes it your own. Um so that was like the difference between the two was having a mentor, I can definitely say that because they can basically, they fucking learned all the lessons man, they can help you, you know, not shortcut the process, but they're giving you, you know, the tools to be able to implement along the way, that's going to push you in the right direction rather than just go and try and shoot and shoot at the wall and some more funding sticks man. Well, I mean someone I listened to said it best. It's like You can hire a mentor and get done in two months what you do on your own in 20 years and that that's proof in the pudding is like so many people they don't want to invest, they don't want to spend the money, they just want to do it on their own. They could fast track five years of headaches in five months.

So I think if you start looking at things more of an investment, not an expense like that, you'll be miles ahead of everyone else because I don't think many people think like that. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so, um, let's talk about transitioning from being a an athlete into becoming a coach. Like, what did that transition process look like? Are you still competing now? I'd like to again, I haven't competed in two years, but I still feel like I've got another run in me. Yeah, I assume you've been quite busy with coaching because it's hard man, like being an athlete and being a coach, like it requires two completely different mentalities, right? And if you're investing all of your time, energy and effort into your athletes, then something has to take a hit, and that's going to come from, that's going to come from your own personal experience, for sure. I feel like it can be done though, you feel like um I'm in a position where with some knowledge and expertise and, you know, the sucking runs on the board, you really walk a path, so, you know, where, you know, you can really dial things in, you know, you know, the things that you can sacrifice, you know, things that you can't compromise on, know exactly, but it's like, you know, when I go to compete again, I'd hopefully it's next year, definitely not this year, I got far too much on, but, you know, and with my athletes, I live vicariously through them, through their, perhaps I'm living that with them, you know, I'm very, very hands on with the guys I work with and yeah, so going back transitioning from athlete to coach, um it sort of came naturally, it's sort of, I feel like there's a lot of points in your life where something is giving you a message from the outside world and you've got to dial in on it, you know, it got for me to a stage where I was competing and I was doing well, but I had too many clients approaching me wanting to work with me, but I always had it in my mind that I wasn't gonna take on everyone and anyone, because I see a lot of coaches come in and it's a big hype train.

It's like, oh, he's the latest and greatest flavor of the month, all this sort of thing, let's jump on board and I've had that And I probably only take on 50% of the people that apply with me and that's, you know, not due to, you know, I could be a hell of a lot richer right now. I'm gonna be wrong. I could take on everyone and anyone, but that won't last. It doesn't last because people will come in right there, not that serious. I take their money, they don't get the results, They hurt my reputation. Exactly. Whereas if I speak to people first on the phone and it's like, I learned about them, I learned about what they've done. Are they serious? Are they willing to give it their all? Because if they're not willing to give me 100% I'm not willing to give them 100%. So there's wasting both of our times, as you said, it's an investment investment from them. If they invest in you, then you're going to invest in them and I know they're serious as well because I'm not cheap, you know? And so for me that's what it is, but they're so transition from athlete to coach, you know, like I said, there was like messages from me saying like it's time, you know, I quit my full time job in 2018, um actually got sacked, but it was like, that's sort of where it was heading and I was going there and um that was one of the messages, that was one of the messages, definitely, it was like, okay, it's time, you know, that was one of the messages that said to me, it's time to really put efforts into this coaching and funnily enough when I was sacked or left or whatever it was, you know, my coaching really blew up, people were coming out of everywhere in anyway because I always brought really good conditioning to the stage, people knew I always never had the biggest amount of muscle, but I always brought crazy conditioning and up on stage, the game is an illusion, not the biggest guy wins, you might see the guy backstage and is double your size, but if he's not conditioned and ripped and in shape, you look bigger than him on the stage because it's that illusion of, of the, you know, the body, let's talk about that for a moment because I know, you know, the majority of people that listen to the podcast and you know, there's not many bodybuilders, um or I say bodybuilders, but you know, I use that as a generic, all encompassing term, um but you spoke about it earlier about bodybuilding and physique, what's the difference between those two short, I mean physique, your main things have to be aesthetics, quality conditioning, abs and fullness.

Okay, so I can run through them. So aesthetics is your symmetry, your body, you've got to make sure you've got a nice big shoulders, big upper chest, full top shelf, nice and wide, nice and dense and a tiny waist in bodybuilding, it's not that important, it's about putting on mass and if you're going to get to a massive bodybuilder level, your waist is gonna thicken, especially, you know, the amount of food and drugs and things you have to put in your body to make that happen. Um So that's the aesthetics. I mean, conditioning conditioning can be different with physique and bodybuilding when it comes to bodybuilding, real conditioning gets your glutes and hamstrings, super ret, when people get their glutes and hamstrings super ripped, they can lose fullness in their upper body, which makes them go flat in men's physique obviously are short covering your legs. I'm not saying you don't need to train legs, you do, because if you don't train legs, your upper body doesn't develop as well, but you don't need to get so ripped that you're, I mean you do need to be phenomenal condition, but your glutes don't need to be in and I see guys sacrificing the look of their upper body to get their glutes in when the glutes are gonna show?

Um so that's sort of the difference in conditioning there, I think our training is super, super important for physique because that's such a focal point and it's again, it's something that people do last as a back burner and sometimes like, I can't be bothered, you know, I mean, whereas arms are so sore, abs are so crucial for physique and then bodybuilding, they don't really hit him as much or as hard or they do them very, very weighted and heavy, which then thickens the illusion of the way the boxes them out. Exactly. Um and then the fullness is similar to the conditioning, you don't want to sacrifice fullness in the upper body to get your legs nice and shredded and quality, quality of the muscle is so important in bodybuilding, it's like being a freaky mass monster, you come on looking like a freaky mass monster in board shorts, it's not gonna work, you know, it's more, the physique is more of like that Beachbody look, I mean, that was the initial, that's how it initially came and that's because like, if you look at the development exactly, because if you look at the development of bodybuilding man, you know, they had these like, you know, really aesthetic physiques, they weren't supermassive foods and then over the, you know, eighties, nineties two thousands, like in the last decade, it's just fucking like just mass monsters, like get as huge as you possibly can and then obviously, you know, that turns into its own, you know, it turns into its own beast man and then people like, hey, we need to get back to more of the physique stuff because exactly, that's gonna be a lot more accessible for people, right?

It is, I mean, it is, people say, you know, it's more achievable, is it? I don't know, like it's, it's its own thing in a way, you've got to be really smart and dialed in with your measures, It's not just about eat all the food and bench presses have music and you've got to be a bit smarter and tweak things and hit things that sort of, others won't, you know, and be a bit smart about details because it's all about quality, quality, quality, quality and a beautiful physique is what you're trying to build. I see a lot of guys, men's physique guys, I'd blow up time, let's get massive and they get massive and strong and ret to dial down and realize that their physique has actually become quite ugly and then they start, they start not doing as well as what they should. So there's a few differences between physique and bodybuilding. Um, you know, I could go on about that for ages, but I mean in like in short and straight to the point, I'd say that's the, that's the real difference between the two, yep, yep, um, something I want to bring up there is, you know, when I said it's more accessible, yeah, you're probably going to have most ordinary men, Yeah.

That want to challenge themselves, compete in competition is probably going to compete in physique right? Initially, yes, initially, yeah, I mean if they're like me and they're not someone that can physically get massive, then yeah, you say that, but look at this look like a tank, but like I said, like I said, I'm when I, when I compete, I'm definitely under muscled, Right two guys that and I beat guys that are way bigger than me because I look bigger than them on stage because of the illusion of being leaner and more hard and that's and that's what it is on stage, right? You're literally presenting yourself in the best light possible and you can use angles, you can use lighting, you can use your posing mostly conditioning and getting that right and a lot of people don't, so if you can get that right, it can make you look a hell of a lot bigger. Yeah, yeah, man. Um, so a few things to unpack there. One, like I've obviously seen your, your instagram and you know, when you say you're invested in your athletes, man, like your fucking social media is all about your athletes, you know, which is awesome, I love that show and you know, that speaks volumes about you as a coach as well to, you know, be able to draw in the right people, they're gonna be looking for a good coach and you're gonna be able to draw in the right, he's going to be a right fit.

It's gonna be a right fit for both of us. So I'm not interested. You don't care about your money. Yeah, 100%. Let's talk about that. Um you know, what are some of the traits that you look for in people that are reaching out to you that want to join you on in the process through that coaching journey? Sure. Well, first of all, you know, I ask everyone to schedule a call and there's a few prompts that they need to follow so they need to schedule the call and feeling a little questionnaire, if they can't do that to filter right there. It's almost a filter. Yeah. If they can't do that properly. And what I asked for that, then we may not be a fit. I'll still get on the call with them because they'll schedule it even if they miss the questionnaire because I still want to speak to him. And then I can tell. And I just say, look, man, I need your full commitment for the time of working together, I need you to do everything. I say I'll explain the why With the what? No problem. But if you if you're not fully committed to this, then we're probably not a fit to work together. So there's other coaches that will happily take your money and send you a plan and you'll probably follow at 50% and probably cookie cutter as well. Yeah, I'm not interested, you know, I'm not interested, I'm here to work with athletes to get their best potential and that sort of what I do with that.

So I mean it's it's and then I want to hear him on the phone like I don't care if you're genetically gifted, I don't care if you want 100 shows, I don't care if you're a pro athlete, I couldn't give a shit, I want you to work like you're the underdog, I want you to work like everyone is better than you. I don't care if you're mr Olympia or you're a first timer but you've got to have I get a lot of you'd be surprised. I got a lot of messages from like pro athletes, you know, Hundred,000 followers bro, will you coach me for free and I'll shut you out. I'm just like no, yeah there are other coaches that will do that. I don't have a fuck what you've done. I want your work right? If you've got a good work right, I'll work with you and that is simple and that's that's pretty much the most thing. But I also want to get along with them when I speak to on the phone like I'm pretty easy going to get along with quite a few people, I don't want to make sure I get along with my athletes. So along the way, we've got a good sense of communication with each other because you got to build that report, man, 100% you've got to have that trust right? Like because, you know, some of these guys, they have compared in a number of shows already, and like if you're telling them, you know, something that may be against one of the, one of their previous coaches said, then, you know, if they don't follow the plan and the plan doesn't work right for me as well.

It's like I always ask athletes like, what's worked for you in the past and what hasn't, and I'll make a list of that, I've got lists and pretty much everyone in my athletes and things that hasn't worked and things that have, we put more into the things that have sort of push away the things that haven't because everyone is different and I gotta work, you gotta work with athletes, you can, you know that yourself, you can't just have this same procedure for every athlete, you got to work with them and over time you'll eventually know what's working and what's not. So yeah, that's the thing, man, like as coaches, we are looking at principles right? And the methods that we use with each athlete or each client is going to be completely different. As long as we're kind of sticking within these parameters, you know, the routes that we take might be a little bit different, you know, the protocols we use might be slightly different for each person, but you know, it's principles based coaching. Um that brings me to my next point. Like you spoke about everything, like being dialed in and everything, you know, being on point, how much science do you apply to your athletes when it comes to tracking?

When you talked about weighing measurements and things like that? Like how much science you apply to? Not much, not much, I'm not I'm not a pro science. Yeah, yeah, but dude, like this is this is the thing man, like people, people rubbish bro science, but fun dude, body builders have been like their own guinea pigs for like almost 100 years, you know, like this. So whilst there might not be some scientific evidence for something's that bodybuilders say like they've been fucking doing this stuff for so long, man, and that information has been passed down from generation to generation. And you know, here's the thing, like a lot of the stuff fucking works maybe how they're explaining how it works. It's not correct, that's right. But man, like, you can't fucking you can't deny that this information has been passed on from generation to generation to generation and for the most part it gets results for sure. I mean look, I've been doing this 78 years, it's been my obsession for 78 years, it's just it's natural to me to try and continue to develop and all that sort of stuff in the area that I'm trying to get to.

I've never done. Science never looked into it. I can't listen to people talk about science because every time I've got into that sort of cycle, every scientific theory gets proven wrong by another scientific theory and I end up literally what science is. Yeah, and I keep stretching my head and then I'm just like, why don't I just go off what I see is working and I'll just continue to go with that. So I try and stay away from the science. You know, we've got this meme going around, you know, the Kermit the frog with, that's none of my business. It's like um applying studies and science to your competition prep, but you're always in the last call out, it's none of my business, you know what I mean? Look, I'm not here to trash it. People have their own methods, but for me experience trumps science and that's sort of the way I go about it. I mean, look, I'll always listen to people and their opinions, but the end of the day, we're still going to do things, the physique academy ways. Mhm. Yeah, I'm assuming there's going to be times where, you know, you are doing something and then there's gonna be science that kind of backs that up and supports it or might be like a slight different variation of it.

Like maybe I'll tweak what I'm doing here to match this science and you know, it's not like you're on this end of the spectrum, like I don't follow any science, you know, it's kind of an amalgamation of the scientific evidence, anecdotal evidence, right? I mean, I've had a lot of guys like, because some people love the science thing, I've had a lot of guys that come and work with me and then they've been like, oh, what you've applied here was very scientific, you know, because I've done my research on that. So I'm like, they're kind of interlinked, even though I haven't specifically gone, I learned that from science. You took that from there, It was based on my own experience and, and they worked together. So yeah, that's a great point man. Um you know, I didn't go to university to become like an exercise scientists or um physiologists or anything like that. Like I didn't even finish grade 10, didn't finish high school, you know, and just, yeah, I went to, went to the military, spent six years ago, got out, did my pt course and then strengthen conditioning nutrition, blah blah blah blah. And that journey has been, you know, through courses, podcasts, books and application, working with myself, working with my friends, working with soldiers, working with rugby teams, working with athletes, working with general population clients, exactly man, what you're learning now.

You didn't learn on your nutrition course, You learned that from experience. Yeah, exactly. These courses that I've done, I've learned nothing like next to nothing from them? But I've learned everything from my self study from mentors. That's that's what I found man. Because one of my friends went to university is just starting in the fitness industry, went to university four years, exercise scientists, right? Like, and you know, you learn the theory at school, but you don't learn any practical application, whereas I've gone the other way where I, you know, do a course and then I go and apply that for the next six months to a year and go, alright, this work, this didn't work. I'm gonna tweak and refine this, put my own spin on it. All right, cool. And like all of my systems have been built out from again, many other people from other mentors, horses that I've done, you know, people that I've looked at in the industry that I want to learn from, that I consider as mentors and I take bits and pieces from each of them, put them all together, put my own spin on it man. And you know, I'm doing my anatomy and physiology diploma right now, I learned enough through my PT course to be able to, you know, start training people.

Um, but you know, I want to understand that on a deeper level now. It's funny man because I've been posting on my instagram stories, like my, my results and it's like 96% 98% 100% 100% 100%. And people like, are you cheating on my fuckingo man? I'm like, why would I cheat? Like, maybe when I was younger when I first did my pt course, it's all about all right, I want to take the box man box. Whereas now I'm like, I actually want to understand it right? Like, I I understand how to train people and I understand how to get results. But now, as you said, like, I've got that anecdotal evidence that I've been doing it for nine years now, but now I'm like, learning why it works and having an understanding of that so that I can, you know, once I understand that on a deeper level, then maybe I can tweak and refine my protocol is a little bit more Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's just got to keep development will forever be developing. Yeah, I mean, no matter how far you get, everyone just keeps developing and keeps improving. So the more experience you have in the field, I think the better. Like, I was like, I went the opposite way of going to studying route and I did it all on experience, you know, hell I might have spend 15 years being broke.

But I learned a hell of a lot through 15 years being broke and now I'm 17, 18 years in and now I'm way further ahead than the guys that were going back and doing the opposite to what I was doing. And again, it's it's everyone's it's anyone's journey, you know, you do it the way you want to do it, but that's the way I see fit and that's the way I see forward. Yeah, I think that's a great point man. Um I get a lot of messages from people asking what's the best courses that I can do for this, what's the best um path that I need to take to become a coach, become a strength conditioning coach, to become a bodybuilder, become an M. M. A. Athlete or whatever man like, yeah, what's your advice to people like that, invest in mentorship all day, find the best mentors the best. I I paid a mentor, I think 5000 Aussie when I had zero money in the bank account. Um I took out a credit card loan and everyone around me at the time at the time, my partner or family, you haven't got the money, don't do it. But I knew by doing this mentor ship course that I would learn a hell of a lot and I knew it was the right one for me and I didn't listen to them.

So I went out on my own. I took out a credit card, $5,000 paid $5,000 right then and there, I didn't pay it off for two years, I couldn't afford to, but after those two years, everything I put together from that course exploded, everything made sense. So it was one of the best, you know, times that I did that and I'm not saying people should do that, people put themselves in debt, that was just me. I knew it would work so much. I knew it was the thing I needed to get ahead. So I did it even when I had no money because I knew that was what I wanted to do and it was my vision to make that happen. So so that was quite high on your priority list. You knew that that was the direction that you want, you're going and you just you invested in that knowing that you know you're going to take a hit in the short term but it was gonna work out in the long term and because it was high on your priority list, it was high on your values. You know you committed to it and you went all right, I've got to make this work now. It was like it was like all my eggs in one basket, there's there's no going back to the boats bro. I actually like I like things where once you go down the rabbit hole you can't come out of. I like that. I don't like to sit in between if I see like something and I want it, I will go for it and I will close the door behind me because once you go sometimes there's no coming back.

Yeah I personally like that stuff because that's what moves you forward, That's what pushes you forward. And that's a scary place to be. But you know, I actually really like doing that sort of 100% man. There's no growth in the comfort zone, right at all man. You've got to get out of comfort zone and start walking that path. And, you know, my advice lines up with that as well is figure out the direction you wanna be moving and then just put one ft in front of the other. Right? And this is what I did with my coaching journey. It's like, I'm going to follow this for a little bit and I did my pt course and started working with people and then, you know, I would get people come in and I would be it was all about the training program nutrition plan. And then my shoulders saw my stress levels are high this and that and I'm like, all right. Like, yeah, like why are, you know, 80 90% of my client's not getting fucking results. All right. And then I went down the neuro linguistic programming is like, how people talk about themselves and, You know, talk to themselves and, you know, the stories they told themselves, created, you know, different emotions, actions behaviors that uh so then I did that. And then all right, now, you know?

Yeah, now 60% of my clients aren't getting results. 40%. Alright, cool. Let's dive into nutrition a little bit more detail this dive into like You know, behavioral therapy and stuff like that. And then all right, now, 60% of my clients are getting results and you know, and it's just well put. Yeah, exactly. It's just like following the bouncing ball, man. I'm gonna apply this knowledge to my clients. I'm going to figure out what works. Alright. I'm going to constantly review see where I'm at Z how well my protocols are working and then All right. What? I'm missing a piece of the puzzle right now, what's going to be the piece of the puzzle? That's going to help me solve this and get more people achieving their results and then do the next course, do the next course. But you have to apply men. Absolutely. You can do all the courses in the world, but with that application you'll end up nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. I always say like, knowledge is not power. Knowledge is not power If you don't apply it. Yeah. Knowledge is power. If you apply it exactly that which becomes wisdom there. Well, yeah. And that's That's that That's that that's that bridge between the scientific evidence and anecdotal evidence, right? It's like, hey, I'm going to do this.

Well, these protocols didn't exactly work for this person. How can I tweak and refine them to get this person moving in the right direction. All right, now they move in the right direction. So there's scientific evidence, protocols Don't quite 100% work as written for me this person. All right. That means maybe it's not going to work with that person. May need to adjust it a little bit for sure. For sure over time. And the more you do it's the science and the art of coaching as well. Exactly. And the more you do it, the more experience you get with it, the better you become at it. You know, the quicker you can sort of pick things up and see things like, you know, someone's behavior like All right, I know why they're doing that because I did this before 100 times. You know, whereas if it's the first time it's like, oh, I'm gonna figure it out. But now you're like, yeah, I know why. And as soon as you say it to them, they're just like, yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's like it's all the Exactly, the longer, the longer you do it, the more you, you know, you push at it, the more you learn about it, the quicker you'll become at it. Yeah. Yeah, awesome man. Now let's talk about uh period ization of training, nutrition recovery athletes for physique athletes.

Um you know, there's a big, there's fads, there's fans all the time and so were training at the moment. It's very like in the physical, get strong at all costs. Get strong. Beat the numbers in your log book, that's the only way forward rara and I did that for a while and what I found was okay, things on like squats and deads and things like that. Yes, okay, your basic compounds strength strength strength all day long because you're going to contract with the muscles regardless. But when it comes to building a physique and doing movements like a dumbbell rows or lat pull downs or a dumbbell chest press, you know, contraction beats any of the strength side of things because what we're trying to do is we just talked about that for a little bit more detail just for the audience. Sure. So like I'm talking about intra muscular contraction, intra muscular contractions. It doesn't necessarily align with strength. So the day that you can sort of figure that out and I'll give you an example.

One of my tire guys, boom, right here is one of the biggest widest densest backs on the circuit, like by far around the world, almost like if you look at his back, it's ridiculous. And I've trained his backpack with him a few times and he is so weak, like not weak, but the weights that he lifts are so light. You think, oh my God, he must be lifting like five flights aside on everything. He's not, he's just contracting with the muscles so hard to force that growth and adaptation. So when it comes to paralyzing training, I like to go strength hypertrophy endurance, you've got to cover all those bases if you just go strength strength, strength, strength strength get blocky, yep. Let's let's pause there and talk about that as well. So just for the audience, I'll talk about period ization in terms of um strength and conditioning with athletes by the athletic development. So, you know, gone through stability, mobility, strength, speed, power, endurance, and the system conditioning, etcetera, etcetera. But for specific to bodybuilding, let's talk about, do you use like sets reps, yep?

Absolutely rest periods because the point that I'm making is again for the audience that have been listening for a long time. But I'll touch on it for for people that haven't maybe listen to the podcast before. Is your intent for the training session is going to determine your exercise selection. You exercise order your sets, your reps, your rest period, your intensities, your time under tension, your tempo, range of movement, etcetera, etcetera, angle line of pool. Exactly, exactly. So um what do you mean? What's the so do you use specific um like sets reps? Yes, so yeah, I'll use sets and reps Absolutely for for strength obviously like it's pretty basic people know like strength would be a lower rep range, like a purchase. He would be a medium range and endurance would be a higher rep range. So the insurance could be like super sets, drop sets, giant sets, Kwan sets, all that sort of stuff. You know, you're hypertrophy is more like contract the muscle don't obviously go for just purely strength, keep tension on the muscle time and attention range of movement and then the strength is like, okay, this is where you can get strong too.

So I cover all bases of that, that's why I find the best quality muscle is built is focusing on all of those three aspects. So when, like I said, the fad that's going around at the moment is get strong, get strong, get strong, your body will actually fizzle away and you'll become square, you'll become blocky and that takes away from a physique athletes. Look, how would you structure? It would depend on the athlete every year. So I probably got because sometimes maybe maybe you'd start on endurance with one person. Yeah, and then changed to a three week cycle. Okay, so you do like one week of strength, one week of middle range and then one week of endurance range. But then I've also got a one week plan that's just covers all three. So again, it depends on the individual I think, and especially with exercise selection, you said before, you've got to use exercises that contract with you. The best, I'm a terrible bench presser. My, my structure in the way I'm built is I'm so shoulder dominant that it takes away from flat bench press. I'm awful. I've had strength coaches put the pads on me and adjust me and try and put me in place and all this ship and they're just like, you shouldn't bench press bench presses ship and then you go and do a fun, but I gotta fly, we'll go to a dumbbell press and the contractions through the roof.

So you've got to find exercise selection that contracts with your muscle the best. It's not just about, okay, bench press, bench press is cool, but if it's, if you feel as though it's not really putting a lot of, you know, tension on the chest, then switch it up for the same movement pattern of a different exercise. For example, flat machine place dumbbell press things like that instead of a barbell, if that makes sense. Yeah, you're exercise selection super important that um, exercise orders another thing that, you know, I develop over time. So in short, you probably want to put like your heavy compounds at first to really sort of get the most out of them and then it's about the details after that. So then it's more about like the flies and the cables and things, but always try and start sort of barbell dumbbell, you know, to start with obviously warm up and all that sort of stuff. But then it's like barbell dumbbells, you know, really max out them. And then we'll go to like the detail side of things of like cables and angles and things like that.

Yeah, cool. Um, I like to use like bodybuilding style that like intra muscular contraction right? As like rehab activation work for athletes, right? So I think, you know, if I've, if I've been an athlete who I get them to do some balance based work, some stability. Like some hip airplanes, one of my favorite exercise to develop the stabilizers of the hips, right? Because the joint needs to be stable with all of the muscles surrounding the joint firing. So then you can get the most out of the prime movers when you want to target them. Right? So, you know, I'll go through if I can see that someone is a little bit wobbly there a little bit unbalanced. Alright, what muscle is likely week there? There's not firing. How can I target that? How can I isolate that movement. Then I'm going to take some bodybuilding stole exercises or some isolation based work and really think about creating that mind muscle connection, get that muscle fired up, then go and integrate that into more of a compound basic movement. Exactly. So for example, you know, if someone can't get there their packs firing.

For example, maybe I'm going to choose to an isolation exercise first, then go into every bar, weight bench, press, always isolation first to get things firing. And then that's compounds. Yeah, but you can also do that the other way with like a post fatigue. Yeah, you could Yeah, exactly. But I just feel like, yeah, like for example sometimes depends what the intent is, right. Sometimes I'll put on a back day, I'll put dead lifts last. Yeah, so that's like mental, that's like I'm just mad at myself now I'm going to do five sets of dead lifts. That's like this is where this comes in, you know? So sometimes I'll do things like that as well. Let's talk about those different phases because it's important to have those different phases in regards to training, right, specific adaptation to imposed demands is what we say, the said principal in strength conditioning. Like your body's going to adapt to whatever you throw at it. Right? That's a great thing. But it's also going to get to a point of diminishing returns and once you get to that point of diminishing returns, it's time to move to the next phase. Now each one of those phases has a specific adaptation that we're training for. The strength phase is what we're training in the strength phase.

It's like heavy compounds, mostly heavy compounds and there's a little bit of detail work like isolations to get the muscles firing but it's mostly heavy compounds and what that's going to do is create into muscular connection. So yes, we want to be targeting, we're doing bench press. Yes, I want to be targeting my chest for example but my shoulders need to be firing. My triceps need to be firing. I also need, you know, the musculature of my upper back firing as well. So I've got a stable platform to be able to press against. Right? So that's more of a neuro muscular adaptation, right? Which builds stronger muscle fibers gets a stronger contraction. Right? Then when we go into the hypertrophy phase, what's the what's the adaptation we're looking for? They're Sure I mean look, we'd probably use similar movements and a similar set up but it's more just about a little bit more time under tension. So perhaps on the negative portion of the rep, you're really trying to emphasis that 23 seconds on the way down. Because I think a lot of people forget that there's two parts to every movement is 100% east centric in the concentric and you've got to end isometric and isometric.

Yes, as it holds as well. But people forget that people forget those parts. So it's like that's where we're really trying to get the negative part of the rep and the positive part of the wreck to really fire. So it's not necessarily about the weight, but you've got to feel that muscle almost like fuck's screaming man. So that's something that a lot of people do forget about man, like when we're going through the e centric phase of the lift, right? The lowering of the lift where, you know the muscles lengthening? That's where the muscles actually tearing down the very man. Exactly, that's what I get that. People forget that. So people can take from this, let's focus on, you know, the the eccentric part of the movement. Like that's going to be a big game changer in their training and it will help their training improved a hell of a lot. We'll come back to this in a moment, tried all then. But that's more about the maya fibula hypertrophy, right? So we're building those, those muscle fibers bigger, stronger. Yeah. Right. And then we go into our endurance phase which is going to be more cytoplasmic hypertrophy.

And that's I think that's the hardest one. That's that's basically the pump for people that are literally it's muscular endurance. And I think that's another forgotten art when it comes to training because it's all strength and hypertrophy. But without the endurance, like, it's harder to get those extra reps on the strength because you need that insurance to get through that. So, I think insurance is a massive part of it which people often forget about. All right, Cool man. Um And I think it's important to hit all of those aspects, right? Because the first one, the strength phase, it's going to be um like a neurological adaptation. You're sending a strong signal, right? It's like your brain is the amplifier and your muscles are the speakers. So the stronger you can get that signal from the amplifier to the speakers, like the better you're gonna be able to contract those muscles. And then the second phase hypertrophy. Or my my fibula hypertrophy. It's about building those speakers out, right? Um And then we're moving and that's a structural adaptation, right? We're focusing more on the actual structure of the muscle and the muscle fibers.

And then the cytoplasmic hypertrophy is more of like let's fucking push a heap of fluid into the area, let's get jacked up. Um It's it's like Arnold says in pumping iron. It's like, I'm coming. Yeah, literally, it's that feeling I'm coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, cool man. Now I want to circle back to um exercise selection, exercise, order to tie into everything that we've just spoken about because again, this is something that people don't really understand. Like, yes, you can here's the thing I can do, let's take a bench press because it's simple, it's easy. Okay, I can do a bench press for strength. I can do a bench press for my fibula hypertrophy is I can do a bench press for cytoplasmic hypertrophy, right? But how I do that, the time under tension sets the reps the rest period, the intensity range of movement angles, et cetera. That's going to determine the adaptation that I'm going to get from it, right? Yeah. All right, cool. I just thought that was important to note for people, man, because you know, if I'm here's the thing, like, I'm probably not going to be doing um high rep fucking dead lifts.

I mean, I get people to do it. You get people to do it and it's like, it's more of a mental thing. Yeah. And especially it's gonna be super light if you don't high reps, you are focusing on that psychopathic, you're looking for the palm, I get people to do sometimes 20 reps on a dead lift, you know? And even at the end of back sessions and especially guys that are trying to cut white because that's like, you know, it's really yeah, I know we're not can't wait because yeah, I'm pretty savage. Uh especially people who are trying to sort of um like trim down, it would cut weight probably not the best term, but people know what I mean by that um you know losing fat and then it's like it's a mental game and it's really contracting the shoot out of the muscle and you know, it's pushing that fat burning processes into play as well, so that's a lot of time when I do things like that. Yes, we um there's something I want to dive into a little bit more detail as well that again I think is often missed. Um and you've kind of touched on already with people with the fad these days of strength, strength, strength, strength lift, more lift, more lift more when I was in the army, man, you know, this was fun, 2007-2012, 2012, I'll be at the gym training after a full workday man.

And I've got like 10 kg barbell bicep curls bro, super slow man, create that mind muscle connection and there's a dude next to me, 40 kg, swinging it up man. And like he's looking at me going for arms like I was I was tanked then man, dude's arms are massive and this motherfucker's just like using momentum, right? And I think that's I think that's a big takeaway for the listeners. Is that again, comes down to that intent. What's my intent? I'm trying to target this muscle, I'm going to try and remove any momentum from that movement. People create momentum because they're weak in that position, right? So they're fucking ego lifting man and they're missing out on like you know, potentially three quarters half of the range of movement and it could be working those muscle fibers through one thing I do say though in contra toot and contrary what we're saying, young guys, newbie lifters, I tell them to get fucking strong and I tell them to you know, sometimes go out of the parameters of form and all that sort of stuff because when you're young your body just a dance man and try and get as strong as possible and then from there you'll find that once you sort of max out like your strength and things aren't firing as well and after a few years of doing that then it's like you've got to be a bit smarter about using it but I say when guys are new and young to the game like they can just lift, lift lift, don't be too scared to go outside of form, I mean don't be stupid, don't injure yourself, things like that but I've seen tremendous growth from very very young people like 18 to 21 that is sort of just getting into it by just strength.

Yeah then you've got to adapt and be smarter with it as you get older and that's what I found as well so 100% agree with you man, like I've been lifting for 20 years now and my, it was funny like I went into the gym at Tiger probably like a year ago or something um like the upstairs Jim air conditioned gym with all the machines and ship and like some of the other coaches like what are you doing in here? Like you know I'm out doing my like heavy lifts and sprints and jumps and throws and things like that. I'm like fucking did bodybuilding style training for like 10 years of my life right? And I agree with what you said man because I did that bodybuilding style training is all like isolation, you know do a compound movement then follow that up with you know isolation movements for the same muscle groups, Blah Blah Blah. And you know it wasn't until I actually started working with a good strength and conditioning coach Who was just like get fucking strong, get funding powerful, do these compound movements, use your isolation movements to you know, assist yeah exactly you know and as accessories rather than the main focus.

And dude, like my physique fucking changed dramatically. Yeah, I was like 25, years old and that's the thing like when you're doing these big compound movements man, like, you know, you're producing massive amounts of testosterone, you know, growth hormone, insulin, get everything else stronger as well, especially when you're young, I think then when you've got like, you know, good 567 years experience, you're going to be a bit smarter with it. That's when it's like, okay, things aren't working as well as what they used to now. I've got to be smart with it and that will enhance your growth even further. Yeah, for sure man. Alright, cool. Let's talk about what's the impact that performance enhancing drugs can have on someone's physique. Now I wanna discuss how much of an impact that genetics have on someone's ability to build the physique that they want because I'm sure you've had this before. I've literally had people come to me and like show me a photo, you know, back in the day, it's from a magazine, but now it's from sucking instagram, hey, I want to look like this person, like, well your structure is nothing like that.

It's like it's near impossible. I can't get you to look like that. Like your, your body structure is completely different, you know? So let's talk about, first of all genetics and how that impacts your um potential to build a great physique, but then also how performance enhancing drugs can either aid that or supplement that. Sure, so, so the first part is genetic genetic, So Ronnie Coleman won his FB professional card. Natural, okay, he is one of the most genetically gifted people of all time. He is a part of the 0.01% of the population. And I hear this all the time, it's like, well Ronnie Coleman did this, Ronnie Coleman did this, it's like next to no one is like Ronnie Coleman, next to no one is like these top guys, like they can do that. Some people can look at a dumbbell and grow a bicep, But 99.9% of us cannot do that. And so being like, I want to look like this guy in the magazine, but your genetics aren't great, it's gonna be very difficult.

I don't think genetics are an excuse to hold you back. I know I said earlier, I'm not the most genetically blessed guy, but I feel like I've maxed out a lot of my physique. Um even with poor genetics about doing things a little bit smarter genetic guys will always get ahead. However, I found that guys with a lot of potential in their genetics can sometimes be a bit complacent and they think their genetics will only take him so far because they want a few shows even though they were eating matters and all that sort of stuff, you know, they want a few small shows, but then when they jump in the big show with the guys that are serious, they get their arses handed to them and then they're like, oh shit, I need to actually do the well to this. Yeah, it's not just my genetics. So I've seen that happen quite a bit and people get a bit humbled by it, so genetics will only take you so far. You've got to be a bit smarter with it, tying that in with performance enhancing drugs. Everyone takes up takes that differently. So I've seen guys skinny as hell When I was a kid like me Jump on a cycle and put on like 40 lb of muscle, like I am not joking.

And how does that just ultra? Probably like a year or something like that, but they're just ultra responders to it. Some people don't respond to hell of a lot to them and everyone sort of different based on that, based on their muscle receptors and how well it up takes with them. Um So not everyone gets the same benefit from performance enhancing drugs. What I say is you should not be using performance enhancing drugs until you've got everything else in order until you know how to train properly and I'm not talking about, I've been training for three months now, I'm going to get on this huge cycle and get massive. I'm talking about training for like a good 678 years and like really learning how to train, learning about food, learning about what food works for you, learning about how it ties in with the training and how to work it around training, you've got to know these things and you've got to be doing them for years and years and years because when I was younger, when I first started training, me and my friends were like, we trained for a year or should be adding some protein powder all.

No, I'm not ready for that, I'm not ready for that. It was like a year and let's get on some protein powder. Should be having some creating or no, that's that's a bit hard, that's a bit hard, like I'm not gonna do that. And so it was very progressive, me that was opposite to me, I was just like, give me everything man, I was taking all the supplements under the sun rose, I was like, I was very progressive with that's that's that's good to know man, and that's I think that's very important for the audience as well. And the reason I wanted to ask about this is you know, going right back to one of the first things I said about like asking about stories, I get people, you know, being the head coach at Tiger man, like people come over and they're wanting to change their life right there, they're trying to come over here to get in shape, they're here for three months. I want to get the best results possible. And one of the first questions I've had so many people ask, I'm not gonna drop any names, but hey, where can I get stewards from? What's the best blah, blah blah? And I'm like, look, you know, here's the thing, let's talk about your lifestyle first. You know, how much stress you under, what's your diet look like, what your training history, what your injury history, blah blah blah stuff. Let's get that stuff dialed in first, because this is this is where I'm like, you know what, let's try and progress as much as we can by focusing on the big things that you can continue doing back home because you're in a new environment here, you don't have your normal stresses from your home environment, okay?

It's fucking easy to set up your training schedule here because you're not working, it's easy to train up your nutrition, it's easy to line up your recovery, etcetera. You know, if you're adding steroids on top of that and you get these amazing results up to three months, we can't pinpoint what the funding, you know, the biggest contributors have been to that success, you know, and you know, maybe maybe you have not dolled in your training, nutrition, recovery, stress management, sleep hormones, et cetera and you just take anabolic and then you get these good results and then you go home, you haven't learned anything. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can understand people coming here three months and thinking I'm going to do everything and anything. But what tends to happen is those people that decide to use performance enhancing drugs, they stop with everything else. They stop training as hard. They stop paradise in their training. They stopped eating as hard as I think I'm taking steroids. I don't need to. But then they get to the end of it and thank God I didn't get the best results. You know, the amazing thing to me is I know I could possibly say this, I'm probably gonna get slaughtered for it.

But 75% of people that go to gym are using some sort of performance enhancing drug. And I know that firsthand that everyone lies about it, no one will tell you the truth about it. And you see guys that are taking it but look like they don't mm and it's like something's not adding up here. Something's not right now are steroids. The only way forward to get the results. No, I've had natural guys when untested shows. Very very high end untested shows because they are vigilant with everything else. So steroids are like so your body is like a cake with icing steroids are the sprinkles that go on top of that cake. So without getting you're not just gonna eat sprinkles. I and no one would sit there and just eat sprinkles. You need to you bake the cake. You put the icing on and then you put the sprinkles on then you eat it. You know what I mean? So there are very very small part they do what the main focus of performance enhancing drugs is is to enhance recovery. It enhances recovery between sets, it enhances recovery during the night enhances.

So you feel a lot less sort of sore, you'd be able to push longer and stronger and you get you get stronger quicker over time and that's essentially what they do but without everything else aiding it like the nutrition, the health supplements, the recovery of the training. They're a waste of time. Don't bother because you're going to get shipped results and you're not going to be happy with the results you get and they're not going to last. Um If people are looking at taking him like I said we've already discussed getting everything in order first but Take a very very small amount Bob at the gym who's been doing it for 60 years and I take 10 mil of this and 10 million but stacking everything Yeah I mean it's going to get you nowhere. Try and get the most of the minimum and I'm not just saying that to be like a responsible person but I know people that are taking very small amounts and I know people are taking very very large amounts and the people taking small amounts are getting way better results than the guys taking a large because your body can only uptake so much, especially as a beginner with it and the more you advance, yes, the more you can end up taking, as long as you're sort of monitoring your health.

But if you just start very small you'd be amazed at how much your body would progress. I think that's a very good message for people like yeah, I'm trying to be responsible in a way, but I'm also trying to give people advice on what I've experienced in what I've seen um you're fucked without your health like yeah, some people listen to that thing, I don't give a ship, I'm just gonna jab this and get massive look wicked and all this sort of stuff, but without your health that's not gonna happen and it's not gonna last. And I've seen people you know, really destroy themselves from it. You know, the dick doesn't work anymore because I feel like that's very rare and very extreme. But these people have abused it for too long and bad things happen, you know, so you've got to be very, very smart about it and don't just do it because bob at the gym said to go and speak with someone who perhaps knows what they're talking about. Perhaps you've seen the results, you've spoken to their clients or even through a sports medicine clinic or something like that because you don't want to suck yourself up because without your health, your body will look ship, you'll feel ship, you'll perform ship, your body will look ship for it can say ship, ship ship ship ship, that's that's where you're gonna end up and it's a cycle, it's like I tell people to get their blood work and a lot of the time in bodybuilding people, like, I don't want to see my blood work.

I'm too nervous about it. I've been taking this, this, this and this. That's exactly why I should be fucking looking at exactly why you should be. But people sometimes want to put their head in the sand. Now, I say, obviously health is important. Everyone knows health is important, right? But what if I said to these people, I said, well, if your health isn't right, and your health markers are out, your gains will be a lot slower. And then it's like, oh, maybe I should because you'll get more gains. Because the healthier you are, the better your body responds, the better you feel, the better you recover, the better you train, the better you sleep. Yeah. So don't bury your head in the sand when it comes to health. Because that is the number one thing to it. I always say, a man on this podcast, like, people are being listening for a while, Probably sick of hearing me here. It's like a healthy organism is an adaptable organism. Yeah. If your body is healthy, then you provide the stimulus. Yes. Right then your body goes, hey, I'm in a good place, I can adapt to this in a positive manner. How can I deal with this situation better next time then it takes those nutrients it takes maybe the performance enhancing drugs, whatever you're putting into your body to then be able to adapt in a positive manner.

Yeah, exactly. It's for me, it's the biggest thing I say to people is get your health right, because you'll create more gains. I know you can sit there and say get your health right because you want to be healthy, that's pretty generic and people or whatever. Heard 100 times you say, well your gains are going to slow down. If you're not healthy, then that puts a bit more into perspective for him. So I think that's a strong message. Yeah, absolutely. Um I did have something on the tip of my tongue then, but I lost it. Um let's talk about how you tie in nutrition with the training um and the recovery stuff as well and how you might use performance enhancing drugs to uh to tie in with that and aid that process. Okay, so look, when it comes to setting up nutrition, um I think macro nutrient timing is a nutrient partitioning is very important and I think that's very overlooked. I feel, look if you're a bit of a lifestyle guy, a bit overweight and you want to lose a bit of weight.

Look, this is not the audience I'm talking to right now. I'm talking to guys that want to take a physique to the next level. Um you've got to get your nutrients because you hear you hear calories in calories out this and that. Shut up, all right, you want to go ahead, shut up with that. Your macronutrients are so important. You need to obviously be having a high protein diet, You know, for guys sort of my size, you want to be going anywhere from 250, even up to 400 g of protein depending how much your body needs and how hard you're training, I believe, the harder your training, the more protein you need in your diet and you need to be able to digest it. But that's that's another level of getting your gut health right and things like that. I'm very carbohydrate based when it comes to um my style of nutrition. Uh when I have people die it down, I probably pinch fats first before I pinch carbohydrates. Now I know on a sort of brain function, performance and mental clarity. Things good fats are great for that.

But they are the nutrient that I pull first because in my game glycogen creates hardness in the muscle, it creates fullness and hardness in the muscle fat soften a person, you know, when you're very, very lean, I use fats to create a bit of fullness and to soften people if they need and to slow down the absorption of carbohydrates. So I'm very very car based. However I'll definitely put your most important times of the day to carb is I'd say meal one. You know whether you've done fast and cardio, cardio past that. I'd say that's a super super important meal to have a heavy glycogen meal, pre workout glycogen but also a little bit of healthy fats to slow down the insulin spike. Because that's like I said fats will slow down the absorption of carbs and then post workout is another heavy carb meal but we want to be going for something like a a sugary based fast like high gi yeah high gi straight to the muscle. Like a serial low fats. Um So this is this because we've just depleted of glycogen stores to replenish them.

You want to replenish your glycogen stores and that will speed up recovery. So and obviously we want a fast digesting protein which is why protein shakes are fantastic Post workout. Um Because what it does is it switches on something called M. Two or M tor is the switch that creates muscle protein synthesis. I know if this can be a bit like what the fund is he talking about? But it's like a switch that you flick when you've hit that protein you've hit those amino acids and it speeds up your recovery. Um I'd like to talk basic so people understand that people like so um that's kind of an insight about how I sort of schedule dieting, I like to have proteins and fats pretty bed. I find that carbohydrates pre bed can disrupt sleep sometimes. Um So I sort of go with the protein fats meal because fats can sort of make you sort of mellow, they can help your brain function, your clarity and you put your head down and you sort of have a better night's sleep for it. So there's a few like things about getting your physique to the next level is like your macro nutrient timing and sort of structuring it like, that will be the best way going for and that's going to be dependent upon what phase they're in, whether in strength phase or not notable now.

What about like different um duration out from competing for example. Yes. So yeah, that's metabolism dependent. I mean, like, I have some people dial into shows on 500 g of carbs a day. Have some people dial into shows on 100. I never have anyone go zero carb. I've never ever ever had anyone go zero carb, even though that's like, oh yeah, you got to go zero carbs because carbs are bad. Right? Well, no, you take out carbs, your metabolism stops working, which means your fat burning process slows down. So Again, that's sort of metabolism dependent, you know, on the individual. So depending how well they can uptake. So if I was to put someone with a fast metabolism, 100 g of carbs a day, they wouldn't burn fat, you know? But if they've got a super fast metabolism are having on 400 cars a day, they'll burn way more fat. So it's all about finding where that person's metabolism is at and trying to steal macronutrients here and there without destructing appetite. And this, we're having that report with them, talking to them about communication, what they've done in the past, what's worked for them, Hey, when you're leading into it, how do you feel on this many carbohydrates and blah, blah, blah.

I mean, sometimes when you sort of get to about four weeks out, your feelings don't mean ship. Yeah, of course. And and it sort of happened, It's not healthy, man. No, it's not, you know, everyone, you know, you sort of know that it's like, you know, people when you sort of get to lowest sort of things, it's like, oh, you know, I got prep brain, I'm like, yeah, you do like, you're just gonna have to hang in there a bit, man, and it's just one of those things, it's like, it's not the worst thing in life. That's what you signed up, like, Yeah, well, this is what you signed up for, but people like, oh, it's the hardest thing I've ever done, it's like, well, man, your life is going to be fucking ship, because, like, there's gonna be way harder times, someone's going to die in your family, that's going to be way harder than dieting hard for four weeks, you're feeling like listen that's exactly if you gotta put things to deal with this man, deal with this adversity and growing through it, like that's going to set you up to be able to deal with the times and everyone's, everyone's been through shit right? And so dieting is not as hard as what the ship some people have to go through, you know? So I mean that's got the perspective that you have to think of it, it's not like the end of the world, the hardest thing and just hang in there, push through it because once you've done it once it gets easier the next time you know those feelings, you know how to feel dieting is so easy for me because I've done it like 10 or 12 times like diet down to those extreme levels and the first time I did it, I was like, wow, I can't sleep, my brain is going crazy, I'm telling people to suck off and all this sort of stuff but now that I've done it over and over and over, I know those feelings, I'm a week out and I'm still smiling and I've still got energy and I'm like because I know how it feels, so I know how to overcome those feelings, your first prep will always be the hardest because it's like you don't know how to feel what is going on.

I've got cement block stuck to my feet, all this sort of stuff. But as you do it more and more and more, you know those feelings and it becomes so much new there. Huh? Mm hmm. Um let's tie in uh, steroid use shop to that process. Yeah. So depending on the phase of the person and where they're trying to get to, so if they're in a progression season or off season where they're trying to grow muscle, you know, we're not going to be using things like short esters or fat burners or anything like that. We're going to be using longer esters because longer the audience and for myself. What does, what does that mean? Sure. So a testosterone city in eight is a long acting ester that will stay in for a bit. One shot will stay in your system for about three or four weeks. A testosterone properly and it will be in your system for about 48-72 hours. Testosterone suspension, which is, I know there's a lot of fighters like to use but I don't get into that last in your system for six hours. So that's how they beat drug tests. So when we're trying to sort of grow tissue, we're going to go for the longer esters because they last in your system longer.

They create a lot more fullness in the muscle and over time they're better for recovery. The shorter as and they can also make you hold a bit of water. So we'd use them to try and grow as well. It's basically keeping that anabolic signal higher for longer periods for longer periods of time. We're just going to aid the recovery, which is going to share the ability to push a little bit harder for sure. Then what we do is we move to the shorter esters like the proper unit as we get closer to competition because they're going to be in and out your system quicker. So you're almost beating that water retention that you'd be holding from the longer distance, which takes away that sort of puffiness and stuff like that when people get these chubby faces and all that sort of stuff. So the shorter rest is is what we use back into the show. And Then we'd obviously add in some fat burners, like some clenbuterol. Clenbuterol is actually not a steroid. It's a steroid like substance. Um but it's not known as a steroid because it burns fat very, very well, but it also helps you has anabolic properties that helps you hold on to muscle when you're burning fat.

Unlike things like cider mill, which is T. three. I don't have a lot of guys that use T. three on my team because a lot of physique guys are fast metabolism guys? What T3 dozens of thyroid hormone and that speeds up your metabolism. So why would I try and speed up a guy's metabolism that has a fast metabolism in turns that will then chew into their muscle because there's no anabolic properties to a thyroid one at burning hormone. So I think that's a big thing for physique guys is it's like, oh, you've got to take 23 like, well, not a lot of my guys take 23 and they look way better than the guys that are using it because the guys that use it tend to come in very string G whereas physique is like a fullness game, you gotta have so much fullness to you. Um So yeah, in short, longer acting esters for an off season or a start of a contest for a shorter acting esters to sort of beat that water attention coming close to the show and having some fat burners in. Um I won't go into like, what exact steroids people take a look.

The minimum amount you use, the better you'll be, the better you feel, the better you perform, the more shit you put in your body, the shitty, you're gonna feel the worst you perform. And I know we said that before, but that's a that's a really strong message. Just get get the least out of the most, but get everything right first, before you do it and I promise you results would be 10 times better than what Bob at the gym is telling you to put in your body. Yeah, that was a big point that I wanted to touch on as well and ask you about is, you know, back in the day again, talking about, you know, before the mass monster era, bodybuilders would be, you know, taking one substance, they were, they were taking, stacking everything. Yeah, because that's all they have, they back in the day, like, I know a lot of old school bodybuilders from the seventies and eighties and I know a lot of them, you know, they grew up with Dorian Yates, that all this sort of stuff and they were taking probably 2 to 3 substances max going into shows and, and they would cycle through it. Yeah, they period off and off, they'd come on and off and on and off and all the time and there's so much quality in their physiques because their main focus was training and um, yeah, they were using like testosterone and deca, which is what people would use in like an off season now to grow.

No one would dial in on a testosterone and deca, like that's, it's pretty impressive what they could do with like sort of watery based, longer acting esters, but it goes to show how vigilant they were with everything else. Um what was the next part of that we were saying, uh I was just talking about like the transition from, you know, that era where they were just taking 11 sub one or two substances at the time to now, just like, you know, fucking bob's like, yeah, take this and stuck it with this with this and stuck it with this and, and uh yes, so they were taking a hell of a lot less. I also think that the gear back then was a lot more potent than it is now because we have a lot of now, it's all underground labs and I think that these underground labs are a lot more watered down than what as in like a week opponents diluted diluted. Yeah. Then what they were back in the day and I'll give you an example, I know that some guys, so bodybuilders would usually cycle things like a novel, which is an oral steroid.

Um they stayed used like five mg a day and these are huge guys, you know, whereas now people would sort of start in about 50 mg a day and cycle up to 100 there's also advise you on what you're taking, that used to take five mg back in the day and all that sort of stuff. But so I think that the potency of the performance enhancing drugs now is not compared to what it was back then, I think it was a lot stronger. Um but something I want to touch on there as well is I think this is, this is an important topic is stress levels, you know, think about the stress levels from back there, like you're sucking grandparents are like, man, you guys have it so much harder now cause you stress, you've got so much fun to deal with everywhere, you know? Like hormones are like our testosterone estrogen made from cholesterol, right? And so is cortisol. So if your stress levels are high and that cortisol, sorry, Yeah cortisol is taking away from the available cholesterol, then that's going to limit your ability to produce testosterone and estrogen, Right?

So do you think there's something to do that's got something to do with the amount of, you know, I know what you're saying and the answer would be, I don't know, I really don't know um something I drill into my guys that I work with his mindset a lot of stress. What is stress? Nothing, It's not really how many times you sort of thought to yourself, well I'm so stressed, but I know you're saying cortisol stress, there's a real like, when it comes to stress there's perceived threats and real threats. We live in this fucking world where people live in perceived threat all the time. Yes, that's the point that I'm making is like, if you don't manage your mind, yes, then your cortisol levels gonna be high, but it won't change, and that's something I have to drill into my guys, you got to think, how many times have you been, like, oh my God, I'm so stressed, oh my God, but then later on in that day you look back and you're like, what was stressing about? So once you sort of live in that sort of mindset, you can deal with stressful situations a little bit better, think that everyone gets stressful situations, but you've kind of got to condition your mind to try and be a bit more.

Will I be stressing about this in two weeks time? We'll be stressing about this in eight hours time. The answer is nine times out of 10. It's no, don't make a right now. So I think a lot of people stressed about things more and more and more that just aren't that important. Um and yes, when you get stressed, your quarters on site and it's amazing because when you're very, very lean and you get like a stressful situation, like your body just goes like watery and you're just like what happened to my abs, you know? So I have to try to train my guys, just be like a monk, just be whatever happens, just roll with the punches because bodybuilding shows are so unorganized, like the most unorganized events in the world. Like you would not like I've been seeing guys on stage eight hours late and they've got no food with them, it's just standard, they should be ready for anything and just roll with the punches man, someone's throwing a punch, you just take it, go again, ride the wave, like whatever is, you just gotta sort of smile and just be as as cool as possible because the more you're up and about going like this, the more your body is like not developing the way you want it to and you're going to be holding water fat, all that sort of stuff.

So I think a lot of stress management comes down to mindset and becoming stronger at it and thinking to yourself, why was I even stressing about that and stop wasting your energy on things that aren't important and outside of your control, outside of your control to like I say that every day it's like you've got a bank balance of energy points and how are you going to spend those and you've got to spend every day, how are you going to spend them every day? You're gonna spend them wasting time on people that are talking bad about you behind your back or are you going to spend that time trying to build something to get even further ahead? You know? So it's there's mindset things, I think mindset is the biggest thing with stress, but it's something you've got to get better at over time I think do you agree with that or is it Yeah man it's a, you need to condition yourself to be able to adopt the right mindset for any situation right? And that takes time. And is that something that you do with your coaching. Yes, for sure.

I mean I do a mindset video every week and there's certain things that I'll ask him um each week that I've sort of developed and I thought that could really do well with my athletes, you know, and one of them will be like, I did one the other day, it was like, what's winning to you? I want you to think about what's winning to you. Give me one word about what's winning to you. And I all came back with some amazing words like it's hard, it's progression, it's everything, you know? And so that sort of makes them think about things in a little bit of perspective because then they're focused on, okay, what do I need to do to win? Not what well, who's this decade talking ship behind my back. So they're focused on something else while someone else is focused on them. So I try and sort of get my athletes on things that are important that are going to get them ahead. Put the blinkers on, man, Yeah, this is what's important, what's, especially competition because you're really going to extreme levels man. And it's crazy because when you get lena and you're in the gym, so many people are in your Yeah man, like, oh no, before weeks out, you should be getting on stage tomorrow or, and then they'll be like, hey, coach bob at the gym said I'm ready should I?

It's like, don't listen to anyone if you're working with someone, just listen to one voice and I'll tell you the truth man, I tell you, Yeah, I know, I know what you mean. That's a, that's a Big thing. There's like 10 coaches and it's like coach is telling me to do this, should I do this? Should I do this? Just just do it right and assess it afterwards. Don't go in the motion because you'll end up nowhere. Yeah, that's a great point for the audience. If you're working with the fucking coach, listen to what their coach has to say, follow the program or the program doesn't work, trust in their process, invest in that process and then review it after. I mean that's why do charge big money. You find it, if it's not working then, you know, maybe have a conversation with the coach or change coaches, but I've had so many people go, hey hey man, come tiger. Hey man, I'm training with this person. My coach told me this, well, fucking listen to what they say. Nothing I say is like, you shouldn't be listened to? You know, for sure. I get I get a lot of messages from guys that hey bro, my coach is telling me to do this.

What do you think? What are your thoughts? And I say, hey bro, it's none of my business, do what coach says, you can assess it after 100% and that's what I say, but then there's a lot of coaches that are like, oh no, he's a decayed don't work with him. He's a decade, he's a decade, you get all that all the time. So it's like, but I still have an accent by the way. I stick to my guns and stick to my guns. And I know, like I said, we've both been doing it for a long time, so I don't need to delve into games where people are like, oh, he's telling me to do this is telling me to do that. I'm like, okay, whatever do that. I don't really care. But if you're not comfortable leave or if, you know, I'm not having a conversation, I'm not gonna step on another coaches toes, I'm never gonna bad mouth another coach, I could smash the ship out of so many coaches because I know some of the ship that they're up to and it's not nice, but I'm not your, that's not your personal, I'm not gonna go to that level. Yeah, we stay in our own land and we do things our way. And I've drilled that into the athletes that I work with. This is the way we do things all right, We're not gonna go and my athletes know if they're in the gym and they're looking good and someone's going, I should do this and that.

They just say, yeah, cool. And then they go back to what they're doing you have conditioned them to do, especially guys that work for a long time. These are the sort of things that we really, really push towards, It's like you've just got to focus on one thing and stop listening to so many outside voices because you listen to these voices, you get nowhere you put the blinkers on and you go straight there, you'll be amazed at how far you can go. Yeah, that's awesome man. Um just to start wrapping up the episode, the name of the podcast is live train perform which stands for live life to the fullest, trained to your potential perform at your best. What does that mean to you? That's like your question that you ask everyone, Yes, what's the first bit? Live life to the fullest? Live life to the fullest, I think that stop taking on board ship, that doesn't matter that's outside of your control, do things the way listen to people, but then do what you were gonna do anyway and I'm I can be quite stubborn with that, like I have people that will tell me oh you should be doing this, you should be doing that and I'm like okay cool, but then I'll go and do my thing anyway, you know, I'm not gonna go oh no I shouldn't, I don't even bother, I don't waste energy because then you get pulled in multiple directions.

So living life to the fullest is chasing your vision I would say and turn the blink, you know focus on exactly what you're trying to achieve, what's the next one trying to, your potential trade, potential train your ourself man work, like how Arnold said it best work like how when you think you're working hard enough you're not okay, you'll continue to get better so just work like how that would be for me, that would be the one and then what's the other one perform at your best, perform at your best? I got this one, it's uh party like a rock star, look like a movie star train, like an all star struck like upon love that awesome conversation maybe um if people want to find you, they want to work with you, where can they find you? Like instagram, nick dream team Edgy, that's nick, good to see, I'll have it in the show funny, don't ask, I know, I take a piece out of it all the time and I think it's funny so um yeah, just look at that, pretty much contact me there or there's all my links on there too as well as Physical Academy, the physique Academy on facebook, but like I said all my links on my I G so that's pretty straightforward but yeah, I'm sure awesome anyway, I'll have all that in the show notes but thank you very much for the conversation.

Yeah, it's been awesome man, I've learned a lot and I really enjoyed the conversation, thank you brother, thank you, cheers and there we have it. Ladies and gents, great conversation with Nick Edgerton who is leading physique coach and also has had skin in the game as an athlete himself. If you want to get in contact with Nick, follow the links in the show notes. This episode was brought to you by be spunky, which is a male hormone optimization supplement that I've been taking for about a year and a half. It's TJ listed nutraceutical, meaning that it's made from organic product that's found in nature and all of the claims that Beast Monkey has made have been vetted and verified. This episode was also brought to you by Swiss eight, which is a proactive mental health program designed by veterans for the wider community to be able to schedule in and structure their eight pillars of health and wellness, including sleep, nutrition, time management, discipline, fitness, personal growth, mindfulness and minimalism. You can download that app and have access to that information straight from your phone. I also have a training program under the Swiss side up in the fitness component, All of the links that I mentioned will be in the show notes, any five star ratings and reviews are much appreciated, much love Guys Peace