#989 - Dorian Yates

[0] Push the sucker right up close.

[1] Three, two, one.

[2] And we're live.

[3] What's happening, man?

[4] How are you?

[5] I'm cool, man. Up here in L .A. It's nice to meet you in person.

[6] I've seen you in magazines.

[7] I've seen you since, man, like, when did you first burst onto the bodybuilding scene?

[8] What year was that?

[9] I was reminiscent today.

[10] First time I came out here was 1992 to Goals Gym.

[11] So I came from UK to do my first.

[12] professional bodybuilding contest was called Night of Champions in New York.

[13] And I got second place there and made a real big impact.

[14] And the WADA company that used to be based out here with a flex magazine and muscle and fitness.

[15] They're right down the street.

[16] They used to be.

[17] I don't think they are anymore.

[18] No, it's all closed down.

[19] There's a fence around it and everything.

[20] But that's less than a mile away from here.

[21] Yeah, the Wider offices are out there.

[22] And, you know, Wida was a big name in bodybuilding, the magazines and everything.

[23] So they flew me out here, did my first photo shoot at Goals Gym.

[24] 1990 so yeah 27 years ago man I remember watching you in those magazines you were the first guy well you know what were the first guy but you were one of the first guys that I ever saw in a magazine that I was like gee how the fuck is that a person you were so big man Jesus Christ you were big that's funny because I look back at some of pictures now of me and I say what the fuck you know well you're going for it's extreme it's and I came into the sport and I came into the And I wanted to see what I could do.

[25] I wanted to, like, take it as far as I could take it, you know?

[26] Well, you represented to me as an outsider looking in this insane determination.

[27] You know, like I felt like all the best guys, whether it was Arnold or you or Lee Haney, all the top guys, they always represented not just like the biggest and the most profoundly ridiculously muscular bodybuilders, but also this extreme dedication that was required to reach that level.

[28] Well, you know, you've been around, man, you're with martial arts and everything.

[29] Any kind of sport is the same thing.

[30] What separates the guy that's first from second, from third, or whatever?

[31] You know, you all got certain physical characteristics that help you in your sport and so on.

[32] So you're all gifted up there.

[33] So what can separate the guy from first and second and third?

[34] It's all up there.

[35] That's the key.

[36] How did you develop your mindset?

[37] Was that something that you always had, or was it something that you developed as you were training?

[38] I think it's something I already had, and I kind of left home when I was 16, so I was out on my own, on the street, and, you know, you're either going to get smart and, you know, look after yourself or you're going to fall down.

[39] There's nobody there to catch me, so that was there from an early age, I think, and I was just very determined to do this thing that I felt I could be good at in order to change my life and change, you know, the projection of my life, the people around me. I always grew up on a housing estate in the UK I had no education I was in a jail when I was 18 So I had all that The people around me I was like I didn't want part of that future I wanted to do something else And I got this thing that I was good at So I'm gonna take it and run with it You know It's crazy how many people have similar stories like that Where they were in just a terrible environment And they realized that they had to toughen up They had to smarten up And they had to get out of there And if not for those terrible situations Who knows if they would have ever reach the levels of greatness that they did i can tell you from my point of view i don't think i would have done because i would be too comfortable if you're comfortable you're not going to put yourself through that extreme kind of pressure and pain and uh you know i wanted to improve my life changed my life and uh through the sport here i am sitting talking to you on this show people are listening to me i've been all around the world um thanks to my sport so it's been great for me you know when you meet current bodybuilders are they like hey man what the fuck Or could be not a gigantic, huge Mr. Hulk anymore.

[40] You're a regular -sized athletic -looking dude.

[41] Yeah.

[42] Not really.

[43] Maybe some of the younger guys that are coming into this now.

[44] But, you know, people know me. I was a professional bodyholder.

[45] That's what I did.

[46] And I was the best at doing that.

[47] But that kind of training and that kind of physique is not going to serve me now.

[48] So I do training to be more functional.

[49] My goals are more health -related now.

[50] Whereas before, I was a young guy, and I wanted to be the best.

[51] best at this thing i was doing i put everything into that um but you know that kind of physique's not practical for everyday usage you know i can hardly tie my shoelaces when it was 300 pounds oh i'm sure man and how tall are you like 510 511 so like when you were that big you were just a ball of muscle just a mass yeah and 300 pounds i was 300 310 in the off season jesus christ competing 265 but i mean 265 lean as fuck dehydrated you know shredded so yeah that's that's all I did that was all I did I trained I eat I sleep I studied that's just all my mental focus was like lasered on that thing that was doing nothing else I wouldn't go to the movies I wouldn't go to dinner if I got home after 11 because I got to be in a bed at 11 that was you know that was the regime that I lived for for many years and that's why I was able to beat Other people that maybe could be argued they were more gifted than me, but they weren't willing to do that.

[52] So that's what it's all about.

[53] Yeah, that's what I had always read about you.

[54] And that's what I said, that was like the impression that I always got.

[55] Like what you represented is the pinnacle of extreme dedication.

[56] Yeah.

[57] And study, you know, we had no internet then.

[58] Everybody's got coaches now and nutritionists.

[59] The thing that appealed to me is this was an individual thing.

[60] I had to learn about training, how to learn about.

[61] the nutrition.

[62] I had to learn all this stuff myself.

[63] And that was, apart from the training, that was part of it as well.

[64] You know, the learning part of it I enjoyed.

[65] Was it hard to get good information?

[66] Because I'm sure there's a bunch of like gym experts.

[67] There's always these bro science guys that are hanging around giving you shitty advice.

[68] Like how hard was it to get the proper information when it came to training?

[69] I kind of sifted through it and was very influenced by a guy called Arthur Jones.

[70] I don't know if you've heard of him, but Arthur Jones, he invented the Nautilus machines.

[71] And this guy was like a billionaire, self -mailed billionaire.

[72] He just was fascinated with the bodybuilding, but he had no business interest in it.

[73] So he just wanted to, you know, he studied it and it was like, what is it that causes muscle growth?

[74] What is it?

[75] And he found it was the intensity of exercise.

[76] And then there was another bodybuilder, Mike Mensu, went to compete in the Mr. Olympia, won the Mr. Universe.

[77] He took those principles and he used them.

[78] So I read all this stuff and it was very logical.

[79] You know, it made sense.

[80] and then I tried out in the gym and it worked in the gym and if I trained more often or if I did more in the gym my progress would slow down or it would stop as soon as I cut back and I made the workout shorter and more intense my progress went so for me it was pretty early on I learned how to train properly and that's why I was competing I competed in a world championship after 18 months training which is pretty much unheard of that is pretty much unheard of now when you say shorter more intense workouts How did you regulate that?

[81] Like, that's a huge issue with martial artists, is overtraining.

[82] They want to do more work than everybody else.

[83] They want to work harder than everybody else.

[84] And they wind up breaking their body down and showing up for the fight exhausted.

[85] Overtraining is a big thing, yeah.

[86] And if you see, the process for muscle growth is you go in the gym and you put stress on the muscle.

[87] If you put stress that is not used to, then it's going to react.

[88] You're going to get growth.

[89] But you need to recover from that first.

[90] You don't go to the gym and grow and then recover later.

[91] that's not the way it works you go if you've you know you give some your body some stress it's not used to you'll get a reaction but before you get the reaction you have to recover so if you're not allowing enough time to recover you just i use this analogy at seminars i do it's very simplistic but it gets a point across if you get a bit of sandpaper and you rub it across the palm of your hand and it's kind of bloody if you leave it and let it heal up what's going to happen the skin's going to develop back a little bit stronger a little bit thicker than before because he wants to protect against that stress.

[92] So that's the process.

[93] But if you go and you make your hand bloody, and before it's healed up again, you go and rub it again, what's happening?

[94] You're not really getting any way.

[95] You're just going to have a bloody hand, you know?

[96] You think you're being tough, but you're actually just being silly.

[97] Yeah, and it's why are you going to the gym?

[98] Right.

[99] I'm going to the gym to get results, so I'm going to do whatever it takes to get results.

[100] And if it means training 30 minutes once a week or it means training 10 hours a day, every day, whatever it takes, I was willing to do it, and I would have done it.

[101] but training 10 hours a day is not going to build your muscle.

[102] It's just going to burn out.

[103] So I was doing average 45, 50 minute workouts probably four times a week.

[104] Really?

[105] That's it.

[106] Wow.

[107] That was it.

[108] And everybody says, oh, that's it.

[109] I write on a piece of paper.

[110] What the fuck is that?

[111] That's nothing, man. I'm like, okay, but come and do it.

[112] Come and do it and tell me if you want to do more when we're finished.

[113] Nobody has ever said, oh, please come me do some more.

[114] They're like, no, that's it.

[115] That's enough.

[116] because every set, by the warm -up sets, you've got to warm -up to be safe and everything.

[117] But the set, the real sets, I call them, we're going to go to absolute failure and even beyond with force reps, with assistance reps, maybe extra negative reps, which is something that most people neglect when they lift weights.

[118] They think, you know, I've lifted it, all right, boom, let it go down, I've lifted it.

[119] But they're neglecting the lowering part of the weight, the negative.

[120] So I get people to really slow that down, so you're taxing that part.

[121] well and even at the end of the sit on some exercises with machines where it's practical so you know you can't curl anymore physically on the positive on the contraction but your strength on the lowering is greater so if you did curls and you failed I could lift the weight to the top for you and you could lower it down for probably another three reps so if you're just gone to failure here you wouldn't have exhausted the negative part of the rep so my thing is exhaust everything it's totally fucked you can't lift you can't lower it you can't lift it's total failure if you do that one on an exercise, then time to move on, doing another exercise.

[122] How did you develop your protocol, just trial and error?

[123] Trial and error, and, you know, I didn't invent this system of training.

[124] As I said, people there before me, Arthur Jones, Mike Mentzer.

[125] I just took what they did and refined it a little bit more for a competitive bodybuilder because Arthur Jones wasn't a competitive bodybuilder.

[126] People who trained weren't, so his routines were even briefer than mine.

[127] But for a bodybuilding, you know, you've got to work the side, Dell, you've got to work different aspects.

[128] So I probably did a little bit more than they did.

[129] So I adapted it to myself and my needs.

[130] Now, when you were at your height and when you're 265 pounds shredded and then 310 pounds in the offseason, you must be used to looking at yourself like that.

[131] Like, was it hard to adapt to being?

[132] I mean, you're still obviously a very fit guy, but you're a normal side.

[133] Like, if I saw you, I'd be like, there's a normal fit guy.

[134] Yeah.

[135] That's what I want to be now.

[136] I'm not training for bodybuilding because it's not what I want to do now.

[137] Plus, I got a lot of injuries from all those super heavy weights I did.

[138] I got a torn rotor cough, which is not, I've had a couple of surgeries on there.

[139] It doesn't repair.

[140] So, you know, I was trying to, you know, lift weights and continue to doing what I do because that's what I'm used to doing, right?

[141] Right.

[142] And when you're familiar with doing something, you're reluctant to change something else.

[143] But I noticed, you know, over the, my shoulder's getting a bit worse.

[144] My hips were getting, you know, I'm like, hold on.

[145] Is this serving me now?

[146] Why am I doing this?

[147] Am I doing this just to try and maintain something for other people, what they think I should look like?

[148] Right.

[149] And I kind of came to the conclusion, yeah, you are.

[150] Because you're not a bodybuilder anymore.

[151] You're not competing.

[152] Right.

[153] So if doing this kind of training is not really benefit in you and it's maybe making your injuries worse, you know, when you're 60 or something, you're not going to be able to, like, lift your arms up or something like that.

[154] So I'm thinking more practically, and I started doing yoga.

[155] And I, you know, really fell in love with that.

[156] It's amazing, isn't it?

[157] Yeah, it's amazing.

[158] Physically, it's amazing.

[159] I got much more range of motion, mobility.

[160] And then you got the spiritual aspect of as well.

[161] So, actually, I was inspired to do yoga from a DMT trip.

[162] I did a DMT trip, and I came back, and I was like, my body's all fucked up.

[163] This ain't right.

[164] Like, I got to fix some stuff here.

[165] Really?

[166] What shall I do?

[167] And I didn't even, I vaguely knew.

[168] what yoga was, but I don't really know what it was, and I got to do something, got to do yoga or Tai Chi.

[169] I don't know what it is, but I started looking into it and then found a yoga teacher, and I'll do that a couple times a week.

[170] I found it's great.

[171] Every time I do it, I just think I should do more.

[172] I did it yesterday.

[173] I did it this morning, and I got it this morning, did the yoga class at 8 o 'clock, goals gym, and, you know, on an empty stomach, just had some water and some tea, and I fucking feel amazing, all done from that.

[174] Well, it just, to me it feels like it connects everything.

[175] It connects all the tissue from the back to the legs.

[176] to the arms, it's like the neck and the core.

[177] It strengthens all the connecting stuff.

[178] Yeah, and you get your energy flow is going around.

[179] And there's the thing with bodybuilding.

[180] Because bodybuilding, you're isolating the muscles, right?

[181] So you're isolating the bicep, you're isolating the tricyter, isolating the deltoids, and putting stress on those muscles to maximize the muscle size of those individual muscles, which is great for bodybuilding.

[182] But your body doesn't function like that, you know?

[183] right if you throw something or you throw a punch or you know you don't use one muscle you use a you know it's chain effects the whole body works together and the bodybuilding you don't really do that you don't learn to do that so that's what i've had to relearn you know so when you exercise today like what kind of stuff do you do besides yoga i do some cycling i live in spain we've got some good hills there so i do because i like to push man i can't push the weights anymore i can't get in that zone you know because of my injuries so I got to do something else.

[184] Yoga is a challenge, you know, and it can continue to be, like, if I do that until I'm dropped down dead, 80 years old, there's always more that it can do.

[185] You know, you can always do a bit more range or a bit more difficult pose.

[186] So there's no, there's no ceiling there, you know.

[187] With the bodybuilding, I already been on the ceiling.

[188] Yeah.

[189] You know, I do cycling a couple of times a week, up and down the hills, so that's like, you know, it's almost like intervals because you do a hill, it's intense, and then you go flat, and it's a bit easier.

[190] So I enjoy doing that.

[191] What made you move to Spain?

[192] Well, I lived in UK, and I started visiting Spain because it's in Marlbaer in Spain, the south coast of Spain.

[193] It's got a very big British community there.

[194] And the weather is amazing.

[195] It's like L .A. Marlbaer is like, for me, it reminds me a lot of L .A., but a mini L .A., without all the bullshit and the traffic and the crime and all that kind of stuff, you know?

[196] Right, okay.

[197] So that's why I moved there.

[198] Oh, that's nice.

[199] Now, have you ever looked in anything for your shoulder, like Stems?

[200] cells or things like those lines?

[201] No, I had, um, there's a new surgery now because what happened I tore my supersmenatus a couple of times and because the end was badly afraid there to chop off the end.

[202] So now it doesn't really bridge the gap to the humorous.

[203] So it needs a bridge and apparently there's a new surgery that they can make a bridge now.

[204] But I went to see a surgeon and he's like, okay, what's three issues here?

[205] Pain.

[206] Do you have pain?

[207] I'm like, no. Not really.

[208] Have range of motion.

[209] Actually, I got more range.

[210] range than the other shoulder.

[211] It's a bit loose.

[212] So the only issue with mine is strength and stability.

[213] And he wasn't able to give me 100 % on whether the surgery would do that for me. And I've had about six surgeries.

[214] I had a tendon reattachment here, about three on the shoulder, had some on the hips.

[215] And I'm like, you know what?

[216] Unless you're going to tell me 100 % that going through the inconvenience and pain of a surgery is going to give me what I need, then I'm not going to do it.

[217] I'm just going to cope with this.

[218] I can't bench press, but so what?

[219] Like, you know, it doesn't really matter that much to me. Can you do push -ups or just anything?

[220] I can do some push -ups, but probably like 10, where before I'd do like 100 or something.

[221] So it's very weak and unstable.

[222] So, yeah, sure, if I had a surgeon, it says to me, listen, man, we're going to do this, and I guarantee your shoulder's going to be stronger and more stable after it.

[223] Because, you know, you've got to sit with you in a sling for like six to eight weeks.

[224] You can't shower properly.

[225] You can't dress and pain and all this stuff.

[226] So for me to go through that again, I would have to have like, yeah, this is definitely going to help.

[227] Then I would consider it.

[228] Until then, I live with it, you know?

[229] They're doing some pretty amazing stuff now with stem cells.

[230] Yeah, they could maybe grow some tendon tissue.

[231] Yeah, they can do a lot of soft tissue regeneration.

[232] They're also doing it now.

[233] The most recent things, they're combining stem cells with platelet -rich plasma.

[234] They're doing it together, and they found that by doing the stem cells and the PRP together, it helps generate new tissue growth better.

[235] Yeah, I know my wife, she had a knee surgery, and she had the patient.

[236] PRP and the recovery was real quick so yeah it's nice it should meniscus is that what it was yeah yeah so yeah if there's any surgeons out there that how to repair repair dorian's shortened supersinators let me know now is your situation the very similar to what a lot of bodybuilders face after they retire they just they're so much stress and strain on the joints and the back and yeah well um ronie colman who is uh mr olympia after me and uh he's that a serious He did a lot of really heavy squatting with also when he was getting ready for a bodybuilding competition and basically doing powerlifting which probably not a good idea.

[237] So Ronnie has a lot of problems with his discs in his back and, you know, I'm not sure of all the details, but I know he's had a lot of fusions, so his mobility and so on is going to be very limited.

[238] A lot more than one fusion?

[239] Yeah, several, so he can't really turn his neck and his back too good.

[240] And he's had both of his hips replaced.

[241] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[242] He's a young guy, too.

[243] How old is Ronnie?

[244] He's like 36?

[245] No, no, Ronnie's like almost my age.

[246] He's probably early 50s.

[247] Is he?

[248] Yeah.

[249] Why don't I think he's younger than that?

[250] Well, he's retired.

[251] Maybe I'm thinking, I should have said 46 instead of 36.

[252] But, you know, he did, we both were known to be very strong.

[253] Ronnie even more so than myself because he did powerlifting before.

[254] So we moved some heavy weights.

[255] And, you know, any sport, man, is that you're going to have some consequences.

[256] Yeah, no doubt.

[257] If you run, if you fight and play football, whatever.

[258] And everything has its, you know, it's downside.

[259] but all things considering I think I'm doing pretty good I'm healthy and you know I got a dicky shoulder so big deal it's okay yeah I'm telling you man I just hang in there they're on the way to figuring something out for that yeah that's that's almost what I'm thinking I'm thinking like don't do anything now because in a few years time there'll be something that can really do the job so yeah I'll wait until then yeah the last thing you want to do is get something like I always tell that to my friends that are thinking about getting discs fused I'm like you know They're so close.

[260] They're now shooting stem cells into the discs directly and regenerating disc tissue, the same way they've been regenerating meniscus tissue and tendon tissue and things along those lines.

[261] I met a guy that trained out here many years ago in L .A., and he told me they were, and I've seen before and after x -rays of joints that are, the joints destroyed.

[262] You've got no cartilage, so you're not looking at a replacement, and these guys have actually regenerated the tissue back.

[263] But it's quite a lengthy process of traction, like hanging upside down, hours of ultrasound, just to push a ton of blood into the area, blood supply, and then you can heal it up.

[264] You can actually regrow cartilage tissue, but it's not on the protocol of the medical association.

[265] So they basically push these guys out of business with lawsuits.

[266] Well, you know, there's a doctor that we've talked about on the podcast before that recommends hanging from bars for your shoulders.

[267] It's one of the best things ever to alleviate pain and also to increase range of motion and reduce impingements.

[268] Well, I have to get in touch with this guy.

[269] Yeah, well, there's a bunch of videos.

[270] I hang from my feet from my back.

[271] I got the inversion table and I do that a couple of times a week just to, you know, keep the mobility there.

[272] I know one of my discs, L5 is a little bit worn.

[273] But I don't do squats or heavy overhead stuff, so I think it's going to be okay.

[274] But yeah, still, you know, it's all about prevention.

[275] Have you heard of the reverse hyper machine?

[276] Have you seen that thing?

[277] We have one in the back, I'll show it to you, but it's a creation of Westside Barbell.

[278] You know, Louis Simmons, that crazy bastard?

[279] Louis Simmons created this machine that when you lift your legs up, it strengthens the back, and on the down, when it swings down, it's active decompression.

[280] Okay, yeah.

[281] It's phenomenal for disc issues.

[282] It's like active decompression plus strengthening together.

[283] I have one back here.

[284] I love it so much.

[285] Yeah, there it is like this.

[286] You can see it up here.

[287] We've talked about this so many times.

[288] people would think this guy's like hired me to endorse his product but it's an amazing product.

[289] I see how that is.

[290] Yeah, it's a reverse of the hyper extension almost.

[291] Play it so he can explain it, James.

[292] He can hear it.

[293] There's the range of motion at the top.

[294] Squeeze the glutes, good.

[295] Squeeze, control, release.

[296] Squeeze control, release.

[297] She drops her head, raise her the head on the way up, drops on the way down.

[298] Full flexion and extension is fine.

[299] This will absolutely help cure a bosing disc.

[300] This is traction.

[301] It's motion traction.

[302] It's motion traction.

[303] I need to get one of those with my wife.

[304] She's, she got a disc, bulging discs.

[305] Well, your wife looks very fit, so I'm sure she does a lot of lifting as well.

[306] Absolutely, yeah.

[307] She was a world champion as well in her field, you know.

[308] It's so common.

[309] For anybody that puts any strain in their body, it pops out.

[310] And usually the L5, L4 area on the bottom of the spine.

[311] Yeah.

[312] One of the things about bodybuilding is that in isolation, when you're constantly isolating these things, do you, does that run the risk of, like, weakening certain areas?

[313] Like, you have to be, I would imagine, very cognizant about balancing everything out.

[314] I think, like with bodybuilders, the shoulder injury is the most common because you've got the rotor cuff, which is small muscles and tendons, which gives you the mobility.

[315] That's why you can move it around rather than being a hinge.

[316] So what happens is, you know, your pecs are getting stronger, your doubts, your lats.

[317] All these external muscles are getting bigger and stronger, but these guys inside are not.

[318] So eventually they get overloaded and you get some kind of issue there, some kind of tear.

[319] Yeah.

[320] So when I'm training people now, I give them rotation exercises to strengthen those areas so they can avoid that.

[321] But hey, man, I started training the haters.

[322] Like, we didn't know anything.

[323] And when I got an injury, and I live in in England as well, there's no sports medicine doctors dealing with, you know, strength athletes or so on.

[324] So I just go to your doctor and he's like, how do you do that?

[325] Lifting weights?

[326] Stop doing that shit.

[327] Why are you lifting weights?

[328] Take these pills.

[329] And, you know, that's it.

[330] you know so so now we have much more information much more you know uh sports therapists and so on so there's a lot more things available now and a lot more knowledge and information that we didn't really have back then yeah that's that's the main thing you you neglect some of the smaller supporting muscles i think when you're doing major bodybuilding exercises do guys now um address that do they do like a lot of rotation exercises a lot of rotator cuff stuff than like you know If you did that back in the 80s, people like, what the fuck you're doing there with that little weight, you know?

[331] Waste of time.

[332] You know, lift some weight.

[333] But I see people doing it now and with the bands and everything.

[334] So, yeah, people are doing more preventative stuff.

[335] It's fascinating because there was guys like Arnold who were like kind of the original pioneers and then guys like you who came after him.

[336] But you were still, again, pre -internet, figuring things out on your own, learning from the guys that came before you, but taking it to another level.

[337] That was the beauty of it for me. You know, I never really like team sports because I just feel like this asshole's letting me down here, you know.

[338] And I felt like that through my life as well.

[339] I felt like my parents didn't really, you know, like everyone's fucking letting me down.

[340] Fuck this.

[341] I'll do this myself.

[342] And so I got to learn about the nutrition and I'll learn about the training.

[343] I've got to do it.

[344] I've got to pull it all into action.

[345] And of course I had people like supporting me. But when I got on that stage, it was win or lose.

[346] I'm taking full responsibility for this.

[347] And we don't really have that now.

[348] And the guys don't learn anything because they've got coaches.

[349] So what shall I do, boss?

[350] Do this, do that, and eat this and eat that.

[351] Okay.

[352] And, you know, the beauty of it's gone, you're not learning anything anymore.

[353] And what if you fall out with a coach?

[354] Like, what are you going to do next contest, you know?

[355] So is that, like, a big thing now?

[356] Like, there's like a series of coaches?

[357] Is it like MMA camps?

[358] It's a huge thing.

[359] And it's like, I don't know.

[360] I think the guys are suckers because who's making the money here?

[361] the coaches the coaches are making the money not the not the competitors the coaches are smart and I look at the coaches and I say who the fuck are you and what have you done you know which contest have you actually won and the most of them I haven't done anything it's just all theory so um so what are the exercise physiologists like no no they're just guys from the industry that you know they've trained a few people and they got a few results and it's more about the, for me, it's all more about the insecurity of the guys competing.

[362] Like, why don't you learn yourself and listen to your body?

[363] And I used to make notes, you know, every week I'd write down my diet.

[364] I'd write down every single workout that I ever did from 1984 to 1997 I have in a training log.

[365] You should tell that.

[366] I, print it.

[367] Maybe, yeah.

[368] Print it.

[369] It's in all these little exercise books, you know, and like, you can see the first one when I'm like 21 years old is a bit childish with the comments on but it's like you know i felt shit today this was a shitty workout never fucking let this happen again you know all this stuff i'm talking to myself so i got all this and it's to go back and look at it sometimes and it's weird because i can go back to 1998 and i can look in my book and i look at that workout and i was like i was in this gym and i was training with this guy and i can even remember like what i was wearing and i can go back in time and remember that workout just from those notes yeah Like every workout, as soon as I got home and I finished, I was like, hey, bench press, I did this.

[370] And every month, I would make notes and I'd say, okay, this is what I'm doing now.

[371] These are my goals for the next four weeks.

[372] You know, whatever, like little goals.

[373] Like, I'm going to put five pounds on my bench press.

[374] But if you do that every month, then at the end of the month, you get, you're in the year.

[375] You got 60 pounds, right?

[376] So I did all these things like, you know, mental rehearsal, visualization, all this stuff.

[377] I did it.

[378] I just, I kind of learned it.

[379] Nobody taught me. So that was one of the things, goal setting.

[380] And writing it down on a piece of paper, just, and you can do this with anything.

[381] Your business, whatever, you're writing it down on a piece of paper.

[382] You make a commitment.

[383] It's fucking there on a piece of paper.

[384] Every day you can look at that.

[385] And that just gives you a stronger mental vision.

[386] And instead of saying, right, I'm going to win this contest in 18 months time, yeah, that's cool.

[387] You're going to win that contest.

[388] But how are you going to get there?

[389] It's like saying, I'm going to sail to Australia.

[390] Yeah, it's a good idea.

[391] That's cool.

[392] But how are you going to get there?

[393] Have you got a plan?

[394] Have you got a map?

[395] Like, fuck, you're going to go with no map.

[396] You're just going to get lost, you know?

[397] So I found that very helpful.

[398] That's what I try to teach people as well, you know?

[399] Yeah, I think writing down goals is huge.

[400] And it's something that most people don't do.

[401] Yeah, I still do it now, like a daily thing.

[402] This is what I got to do today.

[403] Sometimes I won't get through it all.

[404] But, you know, at least it's there.

[405] I might put a couple of things off for tomorrow.

[406] But I find it very, very helpful, yeah.

[407] Yeah.

[408] have read it down like you know like let's say uh i don't know you want to stop drinking or something write it down i'm going to stop drinking alcohol sign it you fucking put it there on your table you don't just have it as a thought man you said it you've said it you've made the commitment you're put on a paper so you're going to you're going to let yourself down you're going to be a pussy you're going to be weak and you're going to break that you made that commitment man right you know it's there on a piece of paper so that's that's strong well especially for the type of person like you a dedicated focus guy like something like that is just extra motivation and like a you know it's a scaffolding yeah exactly it's there it's solid you know it's something i just say it casually i fucking committed to this i wrote it down you know yeah i'm a fair believer i think you should at least for a week you know at least for your week set it out and have a little checkbox next to it make sure you can look at that like i did this i got my workouts in i got my my my whatever whatever you need to get done whatever you're trying to slack off it's five things to do there.

[409] I did four of them.

[410] I didn't do the fifth one because I smoked a joint.

[411] Four out of five.

[412] Yeah, it's not bad four out of five.

[413] I would reward myself.

[414] If you do write things down, though, you'll just get more done.

[415] Even if you don't fulfill the entire list, you'll get more done.

[416] You're going to get more done than if you didn't do it.

[417] It's having a plan, man. Everything needs a plan.

[418] If you want to get somewhere, I use that analogy.

[419] If you want to get somewhere, if you're a captain on a ship, you don't just get in ship and say, hey, ho, let's go sailing and we're going to get there.

[420] No, you're probably not.

[421] You need a route to get there And you need to know What it takes to get there I'm going to do this I'm going to do this fight I'm going to competition Yeah cool But do you know what it takes to get there Right First of all this is what it takes Okay are you prepared to do this Are you going to do this Yes or no And if it's yes go for it You know if it's too much Be honest Just don't fucking do it You know There was a time when you were At the top of the heap Where there was there was debate as to like what a bodybuilder should look like there was like the frank zane look which was like a strong obviously fit guy but much smaller yeah and just symmetrical and then there was you that just came out like the fucking Hulk you know and then it was almost like overwhelming for a lot of people and then there was this debate to try to figure out absolutely because when I look at a bunch of bodybuilders on a stage and they're trying to pick out who's number one who's number two.

[422] I'm like, I can't.

[423] I mean, I always assume that it's like a lot of other things.

[424] Like, the deeper you are into it, the more you can see the intricacies of it.

[425] Whereas for me, a person is not a bodybuilder.

[426] I'm like, they're all fucking huge.

[427] How can you tell who's the best?

[428] Well, it's a matter of, you know, it's bodybuilding, right?

[429] Yeah.

[430] So it's muscle size is a big factor.

[431] It's not the only factor, but it is a big factor.

[432] If you look at the Mr. Olympias, for instance, in the era of Frank Zane, And Frank Zane is a body that probably most people would look at and say, fucking hell, that's, that's it, that's great.

[433] You know, they'd probably look at me and say, it's too extreme.

[434] But in the era of Frank Zane, who was Mr. Olympia?

[435] Was Arnold.

[436] Right.

[437] Arnold was Mr. Olympia.

[438] You could argue that Frank Zane's body is more aesthetic and nicer and prettier than Arnold.

[439] But Arnold beats him why?

[440] It just was bigger.

[441] More freakishly impressive.

[442] Yeah, he's bigger.

[443] And Lee Haney.

[444] It was eight times Mr. Olympia, you could argue maybe Lee LaBrader or somebody like that was better proportioned and put together, but he was much smaller.

[445] So, you know, it is bodybuilding.

[446] Frank Zane looks like a guy you would see in a gym today, like a regular dude.

[447] There's a lot of regular dudes like that.

[448] There's a category now.

[449] So you've got bodybuilding, but you've got other categories now that you didn't have.

[450] So you've got men's physique, which is more of this type of physique they're looking for.

[451] aesthetic, tight waist, everything like that.

[452] And you've even got classic bodybuilding now, which is height over weight ratio.

[453] So, you know, the guys are not that big.

[454] So you've got different categories as a reaction to people not really liking the direction that bodybuilding went in.

[455] And, yeah, I'll take responsibility for it going the size route.

[456] And I had a nice physique when I started, you know, I had a nice physique, I had nice abs and everything.

[457] But I'm like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this to the max.

[458] and I'm going to see how far, you know, how big can I get, how rip can I get, how strong can I get?

[459] I want to go to the max.

[460] And I don't want people to say, oh, that's, wow, that's a nice pretty physique.

[461] I want people to say, what the fuck is that?

[462] That's what I wanted to do.

[463] Well, you succeeded in that.

[464] You definitely succeeded in that.

[465] Yeah, the guy that inspired me before that was Tom Platts.

[466] I don't know if you know Tom Platt with the fucking freaky legs.

[467] You know, he was the guy when I started.

[468] He wasn't Mr. Olympia, but he was.

[469] very inspirational and when he talked it was just full of energy and enthusiasm for the training and pushing the body to his absolute maximum i remember tom platts saying you know when i walk out on stage at a bodybuilding competition i want to see those judges there with the pencil and the paper and i just wanted to fucking drop that pencil and just say what the fuck is that you know his legs were so big his legs were so freakishly big like that guy had like nobody uh has really surpassed tom plats his leg development i don't think to this day it's fair to say now is that just it's weird because it's very rare that someone's known very specifically for a body part the way platt's known for his legs but platt's made a whole career on on the legs and not only the legs the this passion he had for like pushing himself into the gym for the to the absolute maximum and that inspired me to do that and try and take it even further and that now is is missing that's not here anymore now for me the bodybuilding and the fitness industry people are just really more concerned with the cosmetic the look and you know taking their pictures and putting on instagram and all this kind of stuff they're not really into it's almost a spiritual side of it you know where you want to push yourself to that maximum and see how far you can go and how you know how far your mind can go into the pain and all that kind of stuff that's not really there anymore what's what's missing like what's the element that's missing like why isn't that there um i don't know man i mean uh because it's just a reflection of society in general people just want stuff like you know they want stuff easy now you know everyone wants to be famous to put the picture on instagram you don't need to do shit just be famous go on big brother be famous for for nothing you've done nothing yeah that's i don't know i think that's uh reflection of the way things are perhaps in everything.

[470] But what's the difference in the way the bodybuilders approach it today?

[471] I mean, they're obviously doing something because they're still huge and there's still, you know, these giant guys that are lifting weights.

[472] So what element?

[473] But if you look at the giant guys that are lifting weights now, they don't look quite like myself and the guys from the 90s.

[474] Now the guys are just big everywhere.

[475] The waist are huge.

[476] Everything's huge.

[477] And it's 20 years since I competed in a contest, so I don't exactly know.

[478] um but the guys are using a lot more different uh drugs than we used them a lot more insulin and IGF things like that so um i think what you're seeing is in the big guys is somewhat systemic growth it's like they just got bit bigger everywhere and that doesn't look uh so appealing i think right when like their guts extended yeah so maybe they're relying more on the chemicals and they don't really you know i haven't really heard anything from any of the bodybuilding champions in the last 10 or 15 years.

[479] I didn't think interesting or new or revolutionary in their training methods.

[480] It just, you know, they don't really even talk about it that much now.

[481] Everyone just does the same stuff, you know.

[482] Well, it was at one point in time where no one talked about it at all, right?

[483] Like, you would get the magazines and they would tell you to take creatine and you could look like me. But everybody kind of knew, everybody who knew people, who knew people.

[484] It was somewhat of an inner circle.

[485] You know, I remember I started in the 80s.

[486] and I read the magazines and I said a few things by Arnold and Mike Menser where they kind of admitted they used something but they've very downplayed it oh it's only for the last six weeks before a competition just to give us that last polish and stuff like that and I asked a few guys in the gym and when I first started they were a bit cagey like no no no no I don't do that you know later on I found out they're all they're all doing it right yeah and it was very much an inner circle in the gym bodybuilders now everybody knows about steroids and now it's mainstream and guys take steroids now just for cosmetic reasons because they want to look bigger and harder and quicker I just equate it to women having a Botox or having some implants the guys want to look bigger they don't want to work so hard they don't want to you know they just want it quick right so you get guys coming to the gym and they just take steroids pretty much straight away and they don't necessarily learn how to train really properly and it's not just competitive bodybuilders now I mean it's everywhere it's everywhere it's mainstream you look at Hollywood you look at hip -hop artists I mean come on they're all they're all doing a bit of juice man and look at Nellie 10 years ago and look at him now man he was just I've really been paying attention to Nellie no whatever there's a lot of them Nellie Cool Jail I mean you know they're all Jack man I'm you know there's not a fooling me I can see what's going on guys from Hollywood they want to get in shape quickly for a movie right you know guys just want to look good on the beach um it's it's it's everywhere now it's mainstream there's nelly damn nelly's jacked yeah we saw a picture of uh Hugh Jackman when he was preparing for Wolverine he's doing deadlifts and uh he was in his 40s yeah and someone was asking me do you think he's doing yes yeah why not how much did he get paid for the movie as well yeah fuck yeah well not only that Like, for a guy that's not really that kind of an athlete to all of a sudden look like that, like you've got to make some radical physiological changes.

[487] Yeah, in a couple of months.

[488] Yeah.

[489] Like, that's not even a good picture of him, man. There's real good pictures of him, jacked.

[490] But, I mean, there's pictures of him from the movie, too, which is just, he's enormous.

[491] Like, he just became an enormous guy.

[492] What I'm saying is, like, how much did he get paid for the movie?

[493] My point is, you know, he got paid for that.

[494] So maybe he took a little health risk or whatever.

[495] You can debate that, but he's getting paid for it.

[496] But is it worth it if you're just doing it, just fucking look good on the beach or look good for the girls or something?

[497] It depends on how much pussy you get, you know what I'm saying?

[498] Depends.

[499] But here's the thing, man. Once you get on that merry -go -round, you don't want to get off.

[500] That's the problem, right?

[501] And you don't want to get off because you took some stuff, you know, you got bigger, you're getting more attention from the girls now.

[502] Guys got more respect for you.

[503] Your self -confidence is up.

[504] You don't, you don't lose all that, man. Well, that's my question.

[505] I'm not speaking personally because I took it for a competitive sport, and when I stopped, I stopped.

[506] That was it.

[507] But that's my question.

[508] Like, how did you just accept the fact that you were no longer a superhuman -looking freak show of a man?

[509] Now you became a regular man. Was there a weird transition?

[510] My whole thing was, see, with bodybuilding competition, I never showed my physique.

[511] Even in the gym with the guys that I trained with, I was covered up.

[512] all the time.

[513] If I want to look at my physique and practice my posing and stuff, I did it at home.

[514] So on the street, I always wore long sleep.

[515] I don't give a shit about anybody else.

[516] Why is that?

[517] Because I did it purely for competition.

[518] But why did you cover it?

[519] Why didn't you just dress like with?

[520] Because it's like unwanted attention all the fucking time.

[521] And I'm not interested in it.

[522] You know, I'm a quiet guy and I just wanted to go about my business and reveal this thing I've been working on.

[523] I didn't see it as being, it's almost removed.

[524] It's like a statue I'm working on.

[525] You know?

[526] So I wasn't tied up in, like, I was tied up in being Mr. Olympia because that's who I was and that, you know, somewhat a role you're playing.

[527] But the whole huge body, and I didn't, I didn't need that for everyday use.

[528] Well, that sort of fits with this whole Spartan image that people had of you, you know, that you're, the image of you was like this guy that was just doing work that other people weren't willing to do and some sort of quiet isolation somewhere.

[529] Absolutely.

[530] We're in a, a basement in Birmingham, in the middle of it.

[531] England where, you know, it's not exactly a hotbed of bodybuilding activity, you know, you know, beaches or nothing, it's an industrial city.

[532] So I just locked myself away there and worked on this project, and I loved doing it.

[533] I loved, like, just being in that tunnel, you know, and seeing what I can do.

[534] And obviously, the further you get along, the more difficult it is to make any kind of improvements, but I was trying, you know.

[535] That's fascinating to look at it that way as almost like an art project.

[536] It was a statue.

[537] I was removed.

[538] It wasn't my, I wasn't like building this body so I could get, you know, admiring from the girls or the guy's going to respect.

[539] I was already like a fit, strong guy before I started.

[540] So I didn't come from that place of like, I need to do this to make myself feel better.

[541] I need to do this because I have some talent for it and I can change my life with this, maybe.

[542] I didn't know it was going to be Mr. Olympia, but I just knew that if I put my energy into this, something positive was going to come from it.

[543] and after a few years I won the British Championship and because of that I was a British champion I didn't have a car I went home to one bedroom apartment with no furniture I didn't even have a proper bed I had a mattress on the floor I don't have a shirt but I won the British Championship and because of that somebody put up the money for me to open a gym then I had a gym then I was making an income from my sport so even if it went that far it would have been worth it you know wow that's well I think that attitude is probably what's made you like very healthy, like mentally afterwards, the fact that you're separate from your body and then it was a project.

[544] There was a period afterward that was very tough because I was this guy, I was Mr. Olympia, and this is, you know, it's all I've been doing since I was 21 years old.

[545] And then I got an injury.

[546] So my exit from the sport was not calculated.

[547] It wasn't when I wanted it.

[548] I tore my tricep tendon on the left elbow and this had already one injury, a bicep tear, but I kind of handled that and it didn't affect my training too much.

[549] But this was almost a complete detachment that I have to have repaired.

[550] And after that, I just knew I couldn't, I couldn't lift properly.

[551] And, you know, you can't compete with the best of the world if you can't lift properly.

[552] So I had to retire.

[553] And then I was like in limbo.

[554] I was like, who the fuck am I?

[555] And what I'm going to do with my life?

[556] So it took me a few years to kind of slowly get back.

[557] But it wasn't about, oh, I've lost my muscles, what I'm going to do.

[558] Like, it was more about, you know, I don't know what my role is in life.

[559] I don't know who I am.

[560] It took me a long time to find that.

[561] And I think a lot of athletes that retire from sport, they have the same issues.

[562] It's a giant issue with fighters.

[563] You know, you've got this fucking tunnel that you're in, right?

[564] It's almost like being at war.

[565] Like, it's stressful, but, you know, you've got this role and there's this thing that you're just aiming for all the time.

[566] And now, it's gone.

[567] Like, what the fuck you're going to do?

[568] Who are you?

[569] What it's all about, you know?

[570] So it took me yours to kind of, you know, come to peace with that, but it wasn't about losing the muscles.

[571] It was about losing my goal and my focus and my role in life, I think.

[572] Yeah, for a lot of athletes, it's the intensity of life is all of a sudden reduced down to a mundane home.

[573] Yeah, and you're going to become a normal guy now.

[574] There's no highs and lows.

[575] It's just mediums all the time.

[576] But I turned it around because when I was doing bodybuilding, my life was very restrictive like a fucking monk, you know.

[577] I just had this regime and I didn't want to socialize.

[578] I didn't want to do anything outside of that.

[579] So after some time, I came like, hey, man, so you can't do that anymore.

[580] But how about the 1 ,000 -1 things you didn't do when you were doing that because you couldn't?

[581] Now you couldn't do all those things.

[582] You can go where you want, you know, not eat all day if you don't want to, like, eat six meals a day.

[583] You can do what you want, you know?

[584] So I started looking into some other things I was interested in.

[585] I was always been interested in wildlife, so I started going on a few safaris and things.

[586] things like that.

[587] And yeah, slowly I realize like, hey, there's a million and one things you can do in life.

[588] Like this, you know, I get over this.

[589] So just a transitionary period.

[590] Transitional period, yeah.

[591] But I can absolutely see why many athletes struggle.

[592] Frank Bruno, who was, you know, boxer.

[593] World boxing champion from UK.

[594] I know he had a really hard time.

[595] And almost like he was world champion when I was a Mr. Olympian, we retired at the same time.

[596] We both got divorced.

[597] Like, everything falls apart man like you know um and then you hopefully rebuild back to something else yeah it seems that very few athletes have a smooth process into retirement and fighters in particular they always come back when they shouldn't yeah well i know why they do that when i was a kid i was always why is ali coming back man like just you know who's the greatest and now he's going to get beat by some guy because he's coming back but you miss the fucking adrenaline or whatever it is of that You know, that all your focus, all your soul, everything is going into that one point.

[598] And, like, it's tough to replace.

[599] But you've got to know when it's time to step down, I think, you know.

[600] Now, when you did decide, did you have a plan?

[601] Did you write out a plan, like, how to step down?

[602] Because you wrote out a plan for the rest of your life.

[603] No, because it was like.

[604] New territory.

[605] It was like, I didn't have a plan.

[606] Right after the injury.

[607] Yeah, vaguely, I had a idea in my mind that I would like to open more gyms.

[608] when I finished bodybuilding.

[609] Actually, that didn't happen, but I started my own nutrition company, which I still doing sports nutrition during eight sports nutrition.

[610] So put a lot of energy into that and different things and being able to experience things in life that I shut myself off with.

[611] So that's how I dealt with it.

[612] And now I feel great about it.

[613] And I can look back and I can sit back and say, you know what, I couldn't have given any more to that thing.

[614] I couldn't have given any more so there's no regrets like a lot of athletes you know when you're young and you're there maybe you don't really appreciate it so much and then when it's gone you're like shit man what if I'd have done this what if what if what if what if what if you know I don't have those what ifs man I did 100 % even too much to the point where I got injured so you know I'm happy with that I can put that to rest that's a great lesson that's a great lesson for young people coming up if you just do all the work when it's over Do what you can do, man. Win or lose.

[615] You do what you can do.

[616] And then you have the self -satisfaction, the pride to look back and say, you know what, I fucking give it everything I had and no regrets.

[617] And that's the way I feel about it.

[618] And I know there's a lot of my contemporaries that compete against me don't really feel like that.

[619] That's why a few of them are still, they're in the 50s and they're making comebacks.

[620] That's one of the most horrible things to see someone who's lived a life of regret.

[621] Yeah.

[622] Or just nagging.

[623] Or even, I don't like to see athletes coming back when they're not.

[624] not as you remember them at their best and they're coming back and they're not so good, which I'm sorry, but inevitably at 50 years old is going to be the case.

[625] Is there any bodybuilders are doing that now at 50?

[626] Yeah, Kevin Lerone, who came second to me and Mr. Olympia, he made a comeback last year.

[627] Really?

[628] Yeah.

[629] How do you look?

[630] Well, it depends how I answer that question.

[631] How did it look compared to previously?

[632] Not good at all.

[633] How did it look for a guy that's making a comeback at 50 years old?

[634] yeah great but it's not a 50 year old guy looking good contest it's mr olympia's the best in the world so um you know but if you just tried to make a comeback within a year doesn't it take like many many years to get to that kind of shape so there's a thing with bodybuilding um you you got a thing called muscle memory so maybe it took me 10 years to get to be 260 pounds ripped but now that information is in my DNA.

[635] It's there.

[636] So I could theoretically not train for 10 years, lose all that muscle, and probably get that back in 6 to 12 months.

[637] Really?

[638] Yeah, absolutely.

[639] Well, I've heard of muscle memory, and I know that it's a thing, but has it been physically, if they isolated, what causes that or how it is in your DNA?

[640] I'm not really sure if they have or if they're interested enough to do the studies as necessary.

[641] but those of us, you know, that are in the sport.

[642] We know it happens.

[643] I mean, Arnold did it like 1974.

[644] I think Arnold was going to retire.

[645] But then he got this pumping iron movie that everyone's familiar with.

[646] So the 1975, Mr. Olympia, which is pumping iron, runs around.

[647] He basically made a comeback for that just for the movie.

[648] And previous to that, he did a movie called Stay Hungry with Sally Field and Jeff Bridges.

[649] And I think he had to get down to like 200.

[650] 210 pounds because the director didn't want him to be too big for that so he came off the back of that and then he just put all the size back on for the mr olympia for pumping iron really so the director made him sort of emaciate himself well he still look pretty big i guess for the average person yeah oh man that's nothing compared to how he looks but still looks big next to jeff bridges yeah i mean he looks like a really big fit guy that you'd see at the gym look at jeff ridges he he the dude abides i like jeff rogis man he too i love him that guy.

[651] He's still around, man. Still banging out great movies.

[652] We're talking about how many great movies that guy's been in.

[653] Absolutely.

[654] What's the one where he's a country singer?

[655] That was great.

[656] Alcoholic.

[657] Yeah, yeah, that was recent.

[658] Yeah.

[659] God damn it.

[660] I saw that.

[661] That was a good movie.

[662] He's just fantastic.

[663] He's a good actor.

[664] Yeah, he's good at choosing roles.

[665] So when a guy does get down to something like that, is it a matter of like taking less steroids, working out less, like your body just naturally starts to shrink?

[666] Well, if you're taking steroids and you stop, then you're going to lose a lot of weight pretty quick.

[667] And maybe just don't lift weights, you know, play tennis, do swimming, do something else, and your muscle mass is going to go down.

[668] So I'm guessing that's what it is.

[669] Now, when you first started bodybuilding, how long did it take before you did take something?

[670] After about 18 months, I decided I want to do a contest.

[671] And I knew the guys in the contest were taking stuff, so I just want to be on a level playing fill with them um so like two months before my first contest which take um a little bit of d -ball 20 milligrams of d -ball a day that was the first thing i ever had and then nearer to the contest i switched to some anavar and prima bowling but i mean 20 milligrams a day is like fitness chicks take that now you know do they really they do fitness chicks do take steroids right i mean it's pretty 100 % even bikini chicks really like skinny bachina because they want to look harder they want to look leaner and it's uh you know i get girls that are fucking strippers and all kind of chicks asking me oh um i'm going to take this windstrel stuff you know anything about that i'm like i do do you oh the guy just told me it's going to make me leaner and everything i said all right let me explain what this is this is anabolic steroid an alaboric steroid an alaboric steroid is a derivative of testosterone which is a male hormone.

[672] So what they try to do is minimize the androgenic part of the testosterone, the male like, and so you're left with more of the anabolic, the building part.

[673] But they can't completely minimize the androgenic part.

[674] So even though stuff like Winstrol anavar is less and estrogen, it's still derived from a male hormone.

[675] And if you're taken off, you're still going to get the male side effects, which is pretty common in women's bodybuilding and fitness.

[676] and so on.

[677] It's common in athletics across the board.

[678] You know, we see it in MMA.

[679] We see it in women in MMA as well.

[680] Look, man, if you're a competitive sport, a competitive athlete, you're going to do whatever you can do to win.

[681] There was a study once done by a guy called Dr. Goldman, and it's called Goldman's Dilemma.

[682] And he asked a bunch of athletes, including, I think, Olympic -level athletes.

[683] So if I could give you a pill.

[684] that would guarantee you would win the gold medal or whatever the equivalent is in your sport, but you would die at like 40, 45, would you take it?

[685] The vast majority of people said, yes, they would take it.

[686] That's the mentality you're dealing with, especially when you're young, man. You feel indestructible, like nothing's going to, you know?

[687] Yeah, it doesn't seem real, too, right?

[688] It's like global warming will one day make the seas rise.

[689] Yeah, but not right now, so fire up the fucking puik.

[690] Yeah, right now I want a fucking gold medal.

[691] That's all I'm interesting.

[692] And I'm not even, that doesn't even exist.

[693] I'm here now on the fucking gold medal.

[694] And this is a mentality of the, you know, the successful athlete.

[695] And, you know, maybe it applies to everything.

[696] Maybe it's a fucking businessman.

[697] If you said, you take this pill and you'll fucking make billions.

[698] Like, would you do it?

[699] You know, driven businessman would probably say, fuck yeah, I'll do it.

[700] If it's a solution that allow you to win.

[701] Yeah.

[702] Yeah.

[703] So that's what I did.

[704] I consider that I did a calculated risk, you know, as far as taking.

[705] and steroids with the possible negative health effects, which I tried to monitor.

[706] I had doctors, you know, blood tests and everything like that.

[707] So if something really was going wrong, at least I'd have to, you know.

[708] Did you ever find anything wrong?

[709] No, some things were a little bit out of the normal range when I was heavy.

[710] My blood pressure went up, like not sky high, but it was, you know, 140 over 90, 150 over 90.

[711] So it was edging up there, but it was 300 pounds, so, you know.

[712] And a couple of other readings were a little bit, but nothing of great concern, you know.

[713] But that doesn't mean to say that they're harmless because it's over a period of time, right?

[714] And I equated to smoking, you know.

[715] If you smoke for 10 years and then you stop, apparently after 15 or 20 years, you're back to, like, you know, a guy that didn't smoke.

[716] If you smoke for 20 years, 25 years, then maybe it's a different story.

[717] Have you ever seen Chris Bell's documentary, Bigger, Strong, or Faster?

[718] I haven't, no. I think I'm due to speak with the brothers, right?

[719] Yes, Chris and Mark.

[720] I think I'll be going on their podcast at one point, but actually I haven't watched it.

[721] Great guys.

[722] Really great guys.

[723] They've both been on here a couple times and very knowledgeable.

[724] And, you know, Chris just did a great documentary called Prescription Thugs, too, about the prescription drug industry and, you know, getting people hooked on these pain pills.

[725] But in bigger, stronger, faster, one of the things that was fascinated about it was he was going over, like, we were told that this is going to kill you.

[726] We're told that all these negative health effects.

[727] He's like, but where's the bodies?

[728] Where are the bodies?

[729] Like, can you think about all the things that kill people?

[730] Obesity crushes human beings.

[731] I mean, it is one of the number one causes of death in America, but yet it's looked at like obesity, smoking, alcohol, prescription drugs.

[732] Oh, all those things.

[733] All these things.

[734] There have been some deaths in bodybuilding that may be attributed to steroids, and there's been a couple that are definitely attributed to diuretics, which is, you know, diuretics, you lose a lot of water.

[735] You can lose electrolytes, you can lose potassium and sodium, which regulate your heartbeat.

[736] So then you're playing Russian roulette a little bit, and a couple of people played that game and lost.

[737] Yeah, that's an interesting thing to point out, because the diuretic aspect is critical.

[738] When you see someone on stage and you see them shoo, redded those guys are basically like almost dead right i mean well you know like probably the least healthiest fucking point you've been at all year is is when you're looking like that on stage and you look amazing yeah you look amazing but i can tell you you know you feel weak as a kitten you don't feel real good at that point but you know you do whatever you got to do yeah it's required um 9 in 96 when i was competing they had actually uh testing for diuretics because there was a couple of deaths.

[739] And the people in charge started getting concerned, you know, this doesn't look good and that affects your revenue and all of stuff.

[740] So they didn't attempt, they attempted steroid testing in 1990, but it affected the guys look so much that, you know, once you've seen a guy like this or once you've seen a guy fight late this or once you've seen a guy run this fast, nobody fucking wants to see you anything slower than that or less than that, right?

[741] the audience is not interested so they realize that real quick like fuck this we'd just forget about the steroid testing and anyway steroid testing is like it probably just makes it more unfair because the guy that's got more information and like the clearance times and all that stuff they're going to stop people from taking it they're just going to take it and try to avoid get around the test and it's the same in all sports and I don't care if it's fucking running riding tour de France whatever it is it's going on to some degree Well, what the UFC has done, and they've self -imposed this, is they've hired Jeff Novitsky, the guy who went after Lance Armstrong, and he's the head of USADA, and they just do random tests on people.

[742] And the punishments are terrible, like two -year suspension.

[743] I mean, I think first time, if you get popped first time for steroids, I think it's a two -year suspension now for the UFC.

[744] And this is, again, this is self -imposed.

[745] This is not even the Nevada State Athletic Commission or any other athletic commissions in positions.

[746] and they've radically cut back on the amount of people that are, first of all, caught, and second of all, doing steroids.

[747] They're just not doing them anymore.

[748] Well, if you do real random testing, you're around, then you have a better chance of, you know, eliminating something.

[749] It pisses athletes off because you're waking these fighters up at 6 o 'clock in the morning when they need their rest, but they take the blood, they take the urine, see you, go back to sleep, and, you know, that way nobody can be safe.

[750] And you've seen radical change in performances in some athletes that people were suspecting of doing steroids.

[751] They change the way they look.

[752] There's so many pre and post USADA pictures of people that post them on, like, Twitter and Facebook and stuff like that, where they, you know, in these groups where they talk about fights, they're like who's, you know, which athletes have been hurt most by USADA.

[753] Yeah.

[754] It's like, it's interesting because.

[755] Would it be more of the bigger guys or it's across the board?

[756] It's bigger guys.

[757] But it's also EPO.

[758] Like a lot of guys have been popped for EPO.

[759] They've been popped for, what does that other study, melodonin?

[760] There's another one.

[761] God damn it, I'm trying to remember it.

[762] But it's a similar thing to EPO.

[763] EPA, increase your red bloods don't count.

[764] So you get more oxygen, which would give you more endurance.

[765] Yeah, I mean, that's giant in the sport.

[766] I mean, physical size is not really that much of a consideration.

[767] There's very few guys that are, like, big and muscular.

[768] Well, here's the thing with steroids.

[769] I mean, they can give you muscle size, but it depends on your training.

[770] Like the kind of training you're doing.

[771] right so it can also help with your endurance so just because a guy is not big and muscular doesn't mean there's not benefiting from steroids you get runners and cyclists and yeah like Lance Armstrong is like you know he was on a pedestal and then he's demonized and he's down here like was he the only guy using a bit of testosterone or you know you know he was a you know Bill Burr was a good friend of mine at stand -up comedian had a hilarious bit about it and he's like Our psychopath was better than your psychopath.

[772] You got a dirty sport.

[773] He's like, we just had one psycho that was more psycho than your psychos.

[774] And he had testicular cancer, right?

[775] Yeah.

[776] So I'm assuming then you're not producing any of testosterone.

[777] So you've got to have to put it in from outside.

[778] How much?

[779] I don't know.

[780] Well, they had it in, they used to allow testosterone replacement therapy for fighters.

[781] They don't allow that anymore because guys were abusing it.

[782] And also there was questions of why.

[783] why they were losing testosterone in the first place.

[784] And one of the thoughts was damage to pituitary gland, because that's apparently a big factor with fighters.

[785] Once they develop damage to the pituitary gland from head trauma, they start decreasing the amount of testosterone in their body produces.

[786] And so the thought was put it back in, but other doctors are saying, well, maybe you shouldn't be competing anymore.

[787] Maybe put it back in for general health and wellness, but you probably shouldn't be competing anymore if this is the way your body's responding to head trauma.

[788] Yeah, and you shouldn't really need replacement testosterone until you're like 40 or thereabouts, you know, because you should be producing still.

[789] And there's ways to up it, right?

[790] Even, you know, like in your 40s.

[791] There's natural supplements to up it.

[792] Deaspartic acid is one.

[793] What is deaspartic acid?

[794] Deaspartic acid is a compound.

[795] I think it's from amino acids.

[796] But anyway, they've done studies on it that shows that it can raise your own natural testosterone.

[797] Some herbs, tribulus, terestis.

[798] Also has some, you know, some studies to back that up.

[799] Also exercise, right?

[800] Like high -intensity exercise, sprints, certain kinds of squats and deadlifts.

[801] How much is going to make difference?

[802] I don't really know.

[803] But yeah, heavy exercise would raise your testosterone over a normal baseline.

[804] But once you get to a certain age, it starts declining in any case, you know.

[805] Now, when you started taking stuff and you started off with D -ball, like at the height, what was the craziest?

[806] amount of shit you were taken?

[807] The most stuff I took was in the off -season when I was training real heavy, trying to build sized, because I had a regime that I used to get ready for contests, and I was always known for, like, really coming in shape.

[808] So I didn't use so much stuff getting ready for a contest, use more in the off -season.

[809] So, like, a thousand milligrams of testosterone a week, some deca deroblin, maybe 500 milligrams, and D -Bowl, maybe 40, 50 milligrams is average and growth hormone in the off -season.

[810] That's a lot of shit.

[811] It's probably about 30 % of what guys are taking now.

[812] God, really?

[813] 30%.

[814] I think so based on what people are telling me. I mean, I have people come to train with me that haven't even done a competition, let alone a Mr. Olympia, and their stack is more than that because they found it on the internet.

[815] I'm like, what the fuck?

[816] you know why i just saw it on the internet somewhere somewhere yeah there's i mean you go on the internet and have a look for dorian yates stack i mean i've been on there and it's i'm like first of all 50 % of this stuff i don't even know what it is right so i don't even know what it is and the rest of the stuff that i do recognize like if you take this you're going to get real health problems so like insulin's an issue right i mean insulin you take too much insulin and you fucking keel over in a coma.

[817] I tried insulin in the last couple of years I was competing because there's a few guys started using it and so on.

[818] And I don't feel that I benefited from it.

[819] I got a bit bigger.

[820] I got more bloated.

[821] The conditioning was harder to get.

[822] So for me, I didn't feel like I got any benefit from it.

[823] You can get bigger, but it's not the quality.

[824] I was known for like super hard, grainy quality.

[825] and I felt I was losing a little bit of that using insulin.

[826] So that's my opinion.

[827] I wouldn't recommend it.

[828] I don't recommend it to people that I train with because it doesn't have any real benefits and it has a risk.

[829] So why, you know?

[830] That's fascinating, like the quality.

[831] Like, what constitutes the quality of muscle that you're looking for?

[832] Well, I think in my case, I was known for muscle density.

[833] So you could have a 20 -inch arm that's, like, got good volume.

[834] Or you could have 20 -inch arm that looks like a fucking block of steel.

[835] So how do you get that look?

[836] What's the difference?

[837] I think the difference is in the training that I trained very heavy and primarily quite low reps compared to bodyballers.

[838] I was working in six to eight, mostly six to eight, a little bit higher on the legs, 10 to 12.

[839] But everything I did was like six to eight reps where most of the guys are doing 10 to 12 and they're relying more on pumping, just getting a lot of blood volume into the muscle rather than overloading it.

[840] So I had a density and a powerful look in my physique, that the other guys, when they stood next to me, they didn't have that.

[841] And that was just from really heavy training, I think.

[842] So you get the density of the muscle rather than just pumping it volume line.

[843] How did you figure out how to make that number, like six to eight?

[844] Like, why not three to five?

[845] Like, you know what I'm saying?

[846] Like, how did you arrive?

[847] Just over many decades, first of all, people in the gym and also studies as well.

[848] Most studies would say for muscle growth, you need to keep the muscle under tension from probably 40 to 60 seconds.

[849] seconds, which in most cases would be 8 to 12 reps. So I went a bit lower, like 6 to 8.

[850] That worked really well for me, but not on legs.

[851] I went higher 10 to 12 on the legs.

[852] So just a bit of trial and error.

[853] We know the lower reps will give you more strength and more power without the hypertrophy or the growth of the muscle.

[854] So that's ideal for fighters.

[855] I work with a few fighters in the UK and I try to explain this to them and it's hard for them to grasp because they think I'm in the ring I'm doing a lot of you know right I need endurance yeah you do but you're already doing that you're already doing that right so if you want to get more power behind the punch but you don't want to build muscle because if you build muscle you put on weight and then you go up a weight category so whatever more power you've got is going to be negated by the fact that you fight and heavier guys so if you could stay the same weight but be more powerful and stronger without building muscle size, that would be the key.

[856] And that's basically like powerlifting, low reps, like three reps and then have a really long rest.

[857] Totally foreign to MMA training.

[858] You're going to do it, boom, boom, boom, put it back and wait for three or four minutes.

[859] And do it again.

[860] So you get that power behind a punch, but a big rest.

[861] But without increasing your muscle size.

[862] Yeah.

[863] Because that would, you know, if you get more power behind your punch, but you've got up a weight class like so what you know you want to stay in the same weight but be stronger that would be ideal for a fighter so that seems counterintuitive for a lot of people because they assume that bigger muscles mean more power not necessarily i mean bodybuilders got bigger muscles and power lifters but powerlifters can lift more weight at least for one or two reps you know yeah they're training for that power boom right uh same thing with weight lifting it's a couple of reps but very explosive and powerful that's hard for people to understand kettle bells as well like yeah throw it up you know Power.

[864] Well, that's the thing about kettlebell competitors.

[865] They're not the biggest guys.

[866] No, but they've got the internal musculature, the core that does a lot of the lifting, right?

[867] Yeah.

[868] You know?

[869] If you're throwing a punch, I mean, who cares if you've got huge biceps?

[870] It's like the internal, right?

[871] Throw the toe all the way up through the core that's going to give you that power.

[872] So you've got the guy's like Fido Emilienko, who I'm a huge fan of him.

[873] I like his fighting style.

[874] Me as well.

[875] You know, I mean, the guy looks like, you know, he's got arms like sticks.

[876] It looks like he's got a pot belly.

[877] It looks out of shape, but he fucking hits like a baseball bat, man. Well, early in his career, he was bigger.

[878] Yeah.

[879] You know, and he stopped training weights and started training only sports specific, which is, it's a very controversial subject.

[880] Because if you talk to modern strength and conditioning coaches, they say it's absolutely the wrong approach.

[881] And if Fador continued to do strength and conditioning along with his martial, arts training, he probably would have been able to prolong his career, but who the fuck knows if that's true?

[882] That seems like a very, it's, it's very hard to say what would have happened, but the modern approach seems to be, do you have to consider strength and conditioning as a huge part of any regiment?

[883] In terms of like, some of the elite athletes focus primarily on strength and conditioning in camp and not really on skill work, because they feel like they already know how to fight.

[884] It's already there in the brain.

[885] Yeah.

[886] Well, it's already, the conditioning, it's all about, I mean, as far as the, you know, the conditioning of their motions and their ability to react is already there.

[887] It's just a matter of building the ultimate gas tank and having the body that can perform and react as quickly and as fast and recover as fast as possible.

[888] But the guys that hit the hardest, they're not necessarily the most muscular, though.

[889] That's...

[890] Some of them are, like Tyron Woodley, who's the UFC Welterweight champion.

[891] He's one rare guy that kind of...

[892] violates the normal build of professional MMA athletes because he's fucking jacked but he's also he's also very smart in his approach whereas like he's the consequences of engaging with him are extreme because he has tremendous power so he can pace himself more than like maybe some guys can because if you get in a firefight with him like one shot from him puts the lights out on you so he's got this ability to and he's developed a very very interesting way of fighting where he just paces his bursts but his bursts are so terrifying like when he comes at you when he can't when he does sprint your way he's so much faster than the average fighter and so much stronger that I guess in his mind having all that muscle and he says it's actually natural he just like in his son you know genetic yeah my son is is doing bodybuilding and uh he don't have a particularly good diet he fried chicken and burgers and stuff and he's like shared it all the time well tyrant's son is jacked and he's a little kid he's fucking yeah you know genetics are real there's no denying it's like me when i started i had already a physique i had the abs i was lean i had the shape everything was there um just had to get bigger so yeah jeans are a big thing as far as your body type is it insurmountable like if a guy has shit jeans yeah can he become like a jack no no no Whoa.

[893] He can get better.

[894] Everyone can get better, but...

[895] You can't be Lee Haney.

[896] It's a rare individual that, you know, can get up in the Mr. Olympia stage.

[897] There's probably hundreds of thousands of maybe millions of guys around the world that are in the gym training and maybe would like to compete.

[898] But, you know, can everybody be a UFC champion?

[899] Can everybody be a basketball player?

[900] No. You need certain tools to start with, and then you've got to work on that.

[901] and build that.

[902] But at least for athletes and fighters in particular, you see guys who don't have impressive physiques that have incredible records and wound up doing really well with their skill and their tactics and their mindset and their understanding of when to engage and when not to engage.

[903] With bodybuilding, though, it's a very specific...

[904] Look, if you're born with, like, slope shoulders and small hands and you're fucked, right?

[905] You need a...

[906] First of all, you need the frame.

[907] Right.

[908] The frame, you can't...

[909] It's a bone structure.

[910] You can't do anything about that with your training, right?

[911] So you need a relatively wide shoulders to smaller hips.

[912] You need the limbs to be proportional for bodybuilding.

[913] Most of the successful guys, they tend to have a little bit longer legs compared to the torso because it just looks more aesthetic and makes the upper body look more like that.

[914] So that's a bone structure.

[915] You can't do anything about that.

[916] You need to be born with a bone structure.

[917] And then you've got muscle bellies.

[918] So you've got the length of the muscle belly, which is genetic.

[919] So if you've got a short bicep, you know, it used to tell you, I'll go to the gym and do preacher calls and that'll, you know, you get along.

[920] No, your muscle attachments are genetic.

[921] So the longer your muscle bellies are, the more potential they have for volume.

[922] So somebody that's got uniformly long muscle bellies with a good frame and a good metabolism that tends to have naturally low body fat, then you're looking at somebody with potential to be a good competitive bodybuilder.

[923] If they don't have all those things, everyone can improve, but are you going to go win contests?

[924] No. Have you ever had a guy come to you and said, Doreen, I want to be a champion?

[925] And you're like, kid, you're fucked.

[926] Yeah.

[927] Damn.

[928] I mean, why, you know?

[929] Dorian Yates tells you're fucked.

[930] I don't say.

[931] I try to be a little bit more subtle than that, you know.

[932] But I'm like, you know, I'm not here to bullshit anybody.

[933] So if somebody asks me, I'm just going to tell them, like, yeah, you can improve, man. But, like, you know, you're just going to waste your time if you're dreaming about me, Mr. Limitman.

[934] because, you know, I don't be rude, but you just don't have what it takes.

[935] Like, you know, enjoy your training, you know, be healthy, have fun in the gym.

[936] But, yeah, forget about that because it's not going to happen.

[937] That's hard for people to hear, though.

[938] Yeah, it is.

[939] But it's better than me blowing smoke up their ass and saying, yeah.

[940] Oh, yeah.

[941] You know, yeah, pay me. And, yeah, you can have whatever you want, man, because somebody else is going to tell him that.

[942] Have you ever seen a guy that you thought, man, I don't think so?

[943] And then he became a great bodybuilder?

[944] No No Jesus Christ I can pretty much I mean I've been around like you know whatever 35 years I've been in this game man so I can see people and I've seen people probably with more potential than me but they don't get anywhere because they don't apply themselves so it's you know you got to have the physical stuff but the glue the thing that holds it all together is this so I've seen freaks in the gym but they you know first of all they're not that smart they don't really you know understand everything that's going on and and usually when somebody gets something real easy they're not you know they're not really that hungry right so it's not necessarily always the guy with the most potential that you know you can beat somebody with more potential by being smarter and working hard but it's you know it's only two degrees right yeah that's what i've always said that like you can get a guy who's the most dedicated the most hungry wants it the most, but when you're competing in basketball against Michael Jordan, you're kind of fucked because he wants it bad too, and his genetics are just so superior.

[945] There's just no way around it.

[946] So you can't equalize that.

[947] What are you going to do, you know?

[948] I saw this thing in England recently.

[949] Guy came over from the States, real, I don't know what his name was, but he was a good martial arts.

[950] He was a kickboxer.

[951] He was dedicated.

[952] He was lean.

[953] He was fit.

[954] And it came over to fight this gypsy fighter over in England.

[955] And this guy is like fat.

[956] out of shape.

[957] He turned up like 45 minutes late for the fight because he'd been drunk the night before.

[958] And he came in and he's just fat and it looked like shit.

[959] And for like half an hour he's getting his ass kicked.

[960] Well then I think he woke up, you know, and he kicked the other guy's ass.

[961] So this guy's been training, he's been dedicated, he's doing all this stuff.

[962] And this guy's the night before is getting drunk.

[963] But he's still coming and kick the guy's ass.

[964] So, you know, he probably just had more potential or he had a hard head or something.

[965] I don't know.

[966] There's a lot of factors involved in fighting.

[967] I mean, his experience, his ability to take punishment, that some of it is just inherent.

[968] Like, some people just have like a wider face, stronger neck.

[969] They can take a shot better.

[970] Yeah, these are all genetic.

[971] Some of it is.

[972] The ability to absorb punches, it seems to be, or at least the variables seem to be a lot of it based on genetics.

[973] Maybe you've got thicker bones or a shorter neck so your brain doesn't rattle as much or something.

[974] Mark Hunt's a perfect example that.

[975] He's one of the best kickboxers of all time.

[976] From New Zealand, just a tank of a man, you know, 5 foot 10, 265 pounds, just built like a brick shied a bazooker to take him out.

[977] Oh, dude, Crocop head kicked him, and he went down and got right back up.

[978] It's like, nobody does.

[979] Crow cop head kicks you.

[980] That's a rat, you know, and he's one of the few guys that survived it.

[981] Well, I got a, my friend, a business partner from New Zealand, I don't know if it's true, but he told me about Mark Hunt, who's got a brother, and the dad used to get him in in the backyard there and just like knock the shit out of each other, you know, until they're like, they're immune to getting hit.

[982] Yeah.

[983] I don't feel it anymore.

[984] Well, he's been knocked out a few times recently, like, but, you know, he's in his 40s now.

[985] But isn't it the case with fighters?

[986] I don't know.

[987] I noticed anyway.

[988] You get a guy that's like, seems to be invincible.

[989] Then he gets knocked out.

[990] And then after that he loses it.

[991] Like Chuck Lidale, for instance.

[992] Perfect example.

[993] Yeah, unquestionable.

[994] What is that?

[995] Well, your brain does not want to take that kind of punishment anymore.

[996] And what Chuck explained to me was that what it gets to is a point where your brain realizes that you're too tough and you're just going to absorb this punishment and it just shuts itself off.

[997] And it's down to protect itself.

[998] Yeah.

[999] And that's how he described it.

[1000] Obviously, that's not like a neuroscientist describing it.

[1001] There's also the connective tissue that keeps the brain connected and stable inside that.

[1002] It gets looser and more torn.

[1003] Have you ever seen connective tissue?

[1004] It's almost like a strong version of cotton candy is what it looks like.

[1005] It's not the toughest stuff in the world.

[1006] It's not supposed to take that many beatings.

[1007] Like in the wild, if you had that many beatings over a certain point, you'd be dead already.

[1008] Somebody would have already eaten you.

[1009] But MMA seems to be safer than boxing because you don't hit as many times.

[1010] I mean, sort of.

[1011] Yeah, I would say probably overall safer.

[1012] But that's like saying motorcycle racing is safer than like going downhill and a skateboard 60 miles an hour.

[1013] You're kind of fucked.

[1014] It's all relative, right?

[1015] Yeah, it's all like the study that they did that just came out this week on football players, which show they did a test on 111 fighters or 11 football players, 110 had traumatic brain injuries.

[1016] I saw the movie.

[1017] I kind of remember what's called now with Will Smith.

[1018] And the brain damage was causing the guys to, like, be violent and all kind of stuff.

[1019] Well, they were saying that 87 % of football players at all levels, high school, college, all levels have traumatic brain injury.

[1020] 87%.

[1021] What are you going to do?

[1022] Stop football, stop MMA, like, stop rock climbing, like, you know.

[1023] Everything's got its risks, right?

[1024] Every sport, unless you do it, like, you know.

[1025] moderately if you do things in moderation they're good but you never be Dorian Yates in moderation oh competitive sports are not you know they're not the healthiest thing in the world right no no I mean you're dealing well I mean I guess there's injuries involved in basketball right but you know you're not you're not so bad lose your ability to think but uh even like endurance sports uh marathon running stuff like that these guys die younger than a sedentary person because of the massive amount of free radicals they're producing, which is aging the cells.

[1026] Is that what it is?

[1027] Yeah, massive free radical from all this oxygen.

[1028] So, you know, you're aging yourselves.

[1029] You're wearing yourself out, doing all those endurance sports.

[1030] I think what's going to come out in the future, and I've been doing this myself and getting great results, is very short interval training.

[1031] They've done studies with five -minute cardio workout, and it's getting the same results as an hour.

[1032] What?

[1033] Yeah.

[1034] I do 10 minutes.

[1035] I do...

[1036] What?

[1037] I do 90 seconds, like, you know, moderate.

[1038] Then I do a 30 second all -out sprint, whether it's on a cross -train or a rower or kettlebells or whatever.

[1039] Get the heart rate right up like 160 or something, and then go back down.

[1040] Do that a few times, like 10 or 12 minutes.

[1041] And my resting heart rate was pretty good for a body bill.

[1042] I guess it was like 54, 55 in the morning.

[1043] I've had it down to like low 40s, 45 in the morning.

[1044] Really?

[1045] Yeah.

[1046] And that's just from doing a couple of times a week a 10 -minute workout.

[1047] And once a week I do a hard bike ride.

[1048] But, yeah, absolutely.

[1049] Because you want to get the benefits from the cardio exercise, which is a more efficient cardiovascular system, but you don't want the negatives for all that free radical.

[1050] So if you can get what you're looking for in a 10 -minute workout, why are you going to do an hour or two hours?

[1051] I don't know if it would be useful for a fighter because you're going to be in a ring for all that long.

[1052] So you've got to condition yourself with that.

[1053] I'm just talking about for general health.

[1054] Wow.

[1055] I've never even heard of such a thing.

[1056] Yeah, interval training.

[1057] But 10 minutes?

[1058] 10 minutes.

[1059] They've done studies on a four - and five -minute workouts.

[1060] Wow.

[1061] So I think that's the future where you want to get the benefit, but without the negatives.

[1062] Do you think you could run a marathon right now?

[1063] Could I run a marathon?

[1064] No. Running is not for me. No. Well, definitely not for you when you were in your prime.

[1065] Yeah, fast walking.

[1066] good.

[1067] When you were in your prime, how much endurance did you have?

[1068] Like, if you had to do something, if you had to go up a flight of stairs, where you were like, oh, yeah, it wasn't too bad because I always did some cardio.

[1069] I did some cardio and stretching, so it was a bit unusual for bodybuilders, because that doesn't give you bigger muscles, but I saw the other benefits of it.

[1070] Because if I got more efficient cardio, like I'm training legs and back, stuff like that, that's a huge amount of oxygen.

[1071] You go to failure on squats or leg presses, you know, that's a huge amount of oxygen.

[1072] So for me to recover from that, I needed a bit of cardio so I was doing three or four times a week and off season every day getting ready for a contest but it wasn't very intense it was more like moderate I did like fast walking for an hour or do stationary bike for 45 minutes sometimes twice a day so I was doing quite a lot of cardio work getting ready for a contest rather than starving myself oh I see you know I was bringing the calories down a little bit and bringing the activity of a little bit so it was a bit of both a bit of calorie restriction a bit of more um activity more but calorie burning now when you're doing calories restriction but you also have to keep all that mass how did you kind of contradictory goals yeah uh you know training we can debate because i train with some m ms guys in england uh a bit of jujitsu but mainly conditioning stuff and it's fucking hard man this is hard training right it's a super hard cardio and then someone's trying to punch you in the face at the same time that's hard so we can debate about the training which sport is harder yeah because i've done a little bit of both.

[1073] Well, what's harder in bodybuilding is when you leave the gym, it's still with you.

[1074] And when you're getting ready for a contest, you're going to do more training and you're going to eat less.

[1075] So most sports, you can go train hard and then you can go home and eat.

[1076] With bodybuilding, you know, two months before a contest, you're hungry all the time.

[1077] Because you're trying to lose.

[1078] You're trying to lose slowly, lose the body fat or maintain the muscle.

[1079] If you're trying to lose weight too quickly, your body will prefer, eventually burn a muscle because it's like body fat is an emergency store right your body doesn't want to give it up so you got to like coax it out slowly you know um but yeah you're going to be hungry and you're going to be tired for a couple months ago for a for a contest that doesn't sound like fun it's it's a constant mental battle as well because your body's telling you to eat you know you got to eat you got to eat and at night you can't sleep properly because you go to sleep a little bit And then your body's like internal alarm clock will wake you up.

[1080] Hey, you're fucking starving.

[1081] Go eat.

[1082] And you're like, no, I ain't doing that.

[1083] But how do you keep your body from absorbing all that muscle?

[1084] Because you're carrying so much muscle.

[1085] Is there a drug that you can take that keeps the mass?

[1086] Well, you know, you're taking steroids, which are antibolic and antacatabolic.

[1087] So that's going to stop you from losing muscle.

[1088] However, you know, if you restrict your calories too much or, you know, too much exercise and none of, you're still going to burn muscle.

[1089] It's just going to lower the chances of it.

[1090] So, you know, you've got to stack everything in your favor.

[1091] You're taking steroids, just, you know, try to keep the muscle mass and stop losing it.

[1092] But if you're to restrict too much, you're still going to lose it.

[1093] So you need to, like, one or two pounds a week very slowly.

[1094] Keep your body from going in a shock.

[1095] Yeah, that's where a lot of fighters go wrong because they starve themselves for a couple of weeks.

[1096] They lose muscle.

[1097] They lose strength.

[1098] They lose glycogen from a muscle.

[1099] And, you know, they're weaker.

[1100] Yeah, they're favorite.

[1101] very weak.

[1102] That's a huge issue.

[1103] And a lot of fighters are choosing to go up a weight class and they're having big success.

[1104] Donald Seroni's a great example.

[1105] That's been quite a few fighters.

[1106] Or you lose that weight very slowly.

[1107] So it's not depleting you down, you know.

[1108] What kind of diet were you on when you were competing?

[1109] Well, high protein, pretty high protein.

[1110] Offseason, there's still a lot of carbs, medium fat, and then getting ready for a contest, the carbs slowly come down.

[1111] But I was a big guy, you know, 270, 2 .80.

[1112] I was still eating probably 3 ,500 calories a day, which is probably more than I eat now.

[1113] But, you know, when you're that big, you're starving.

[1114] What do you weigh now?

[1115] Way now, 2 .30, something like that.

[1116] So, yeah, all that extra mass needed to be fueled.

[1117] Yeah, exactly.

[1118] Now, when you were in, say, like, out of contest, now what your goals were to put on muscle that you would eventually, like, you would get bigger.

[1119] bigger every year that was one of the things about you i would try to yeah and then maybe there's certain areas where you want to like work on at some point that's a bit behind so you put more focus on that and a bit less on something else to try and keep the balance uh it might sound strange now but when i first competed uh my first contest i lost to a guy called mohammed benaziza and his back was just like freaky thick it was like 3d coming out and i just stuck in my mind i'm like Fuck there.

[1120] I put a picture of him on my fridge at home.

[1121] I put a picture in the gym.

[1122] And funny enough, later on in my career, I became known for the guy with the best back kind of thing.

[1123] So, yeah, I was inspired by other people to do that.

[1124] So I worked on the back for a couple of years.

[1125] What is the difference between the way you approach nutrition when you were competing versus the way people do it today?

[1126] Because so much change is in nutrition.

[1127] I mean, it seems like every five or six years, years like you know oh no low fat's out now you go high fat you know high carbs are out now you go low carbs and it could change back and forth again i mean i think the the seven is like arnold area frank zane they go more low carbs getting ready for a contest um but then you lose size more quickly um why do you lose size more quickly that way um because you get catabolic you haven't got the energy so you know your body can use the amino acid from muscle for energy so there's a balance there and also you lose the glycogen storage your muscle is 70 % water and the water holds carbohydrates in the muscle glycogen so you lose that as well so you lose that bit of volume when you lose the glycogen you lose the water so shrink down a little bit so my approach was more was higher carbohydrates especially in the offseason getting ready for a contest to cut them down but not you know not zero and fairly low fat I think think people now realize that fat's more important and there's probably more fat in the diet than there was back then, which I think is healthy.

[1128] Fats have just got a bad wrap and it's bullshit, you know.

[1129] Well, that's, we've talked about that several times in the podcast, but there was a New York Times article recently about how the sugar industry paid off scientists to fake results.

[1130] And that was done in the, I guess, the 50s or the 60s.

[1131] And that's haunted people to this day.

[1132] They think that fats are bad for you.

[1133] I think it was essential.

[1134] I may be wrong with the organization.

[1135] Well, I think it was World Health Organization.

[1136] They basically submitted a study that showed how bad sugar was.

[1137] And some department of the U .S. government, which is getting a lot of money from the sugar lobby, basically said, I think you want to reconsider this, you know.

[1138] Can you like, so that's where the whole fats are bad, you know, low fat came from.

[1139] They knew back then how bad sugar is.

[1140] So I found it amusing when I first came to the States in 1990.

[1141] Got all these low -fat products.

[1142] I call my friends at home, I'll be how fucked up this is, man. They've got low -fat muffins.

[1143] Of course they're fucking low -fat.

[1144] They're full of sugar, though.

[1145] Yeah, it's weird.

[1146] Low -fat, low -fat yogurt, low -fat muffins.

[1147] It's fucking full of sugar.

[1148] It's the worst thing you could have.

[1149] So if people thought they were being healthy, but they were being misled.

[1150] And it makes you fat.

[1151] Yeah, nothing wrong with fat.

[1152] As long as they're natural, you know, if you get the fats in baked goods and all this shit, you know, that's not good.

[1153] But natural fats in animal products and coconuts and all that stuff, it's great.

[1154] Now, what would you use for carbohydrates?

[1155] So did you have a preferred method or did you vary it?

[1156] Complex stuff, like oatmeal was a big thing.

[1157] He was an oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and some fruit and fibrous vegetables.

[1158] Those are the main things that I use.

[1159] Nothing fancy, you know.

[1160] Did you mix your portions up in, like, little tubware boxes or something like that so that you could know exactly what to eat?

[1161] I used to weigh my food, like, pretty much all the time.

[1162] I didn't eat in restaurants very rarely.

[1163] And, yeah, I used to pack them up in boxes because, you know, you've got to have it all the time, right?

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] So that was one of the things I didn't miss, man. I'm so relieved.

[1166] And I carry no fucking plastic boxes around with food in.

[1167] I just go to a restaurant and eat whatever I want, you know?

[1168] And have an ice cream if you want to.

[1169] Yeah, exactly.

[1170] That must have been nice.

[1171] you realize you could just eat?

[1172] Yeah.

[1173] I mean, off -season wasn't too bad because I eat in good food, but a lot of it.

[1174] But, yeah, getting ready for a contest.

[1175] I mean, that was the real mental test, you know, because your whole body's telling you you've got to eat, man. And even at night, I said you wake up, you got to eat.

[1176] No, no, I'm going to eat.

[1177] I want to watch MTV for half an hour.

[1178] I'll maybe fall back to sleep a little bit, hopefully, you know.

[1179] So, yeah, the diet thing, I don't miss that at all.

[1180] It was, you know, it was a tough mental challenge, and I did it, and, you know, whenever you get through a challenge, I think it makes you stronger, but, no, I don't want to ever do that again.

[1181] Yeah, I could only imagine.

[1182] Now, when you give these seminars and you talk to these young bodybuilders that are coming up, how do you, I mean, you kind of have sort of a holistic approach to life now.

[1183] You're about health and wellness, but when you're coaching these kids or talking to these kids about how to be successful and competitive, bodybuilding is a multiple time, Mr. Olympia, one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest, you mean, you can't have a holistic approach, can you?

[1184] You kind of have to be a savage.

[1185] They come into me for bodybuilding advice.

[1186] Right.

[1187] And I don't have the body now necessarily, but I got all the information here that I can put across to people for the training, for the nutrition.

[1188] But it's goal specific, you know.

[1189] You want to be a competitive bodybuilder?

[1190] This is what you've got to do.

[1191] I'm not a competitive bodybuilding now.

[1192] My diet and my training, is geared toward what my goals are, which is functionality, health, and well -being.

[1193] And that's what I'm into now.

[1194] That's where I'm at.

[1195] I'm not a bodybuilder anymore, you know?

[1196] I'm a body -reducer, if anything, you know?

[1197] Right.

[1198] And I feel good, man. I fucking got a suit from Hugo Boss a couple of months ago off the rack.

[1199] And this was like, so happy.

[1200] I could just buy a suit off the rack, you know?

[1201] Before I had to have it made and if it go for a fitting, go for another fitting, all that shit, man. Sure.

[1202] If they looked at the measurements on paper, they were like, what the fuck?

[1203] What is this?

[1204] What is this?

[1205] You know, it's like, this wide going down.

[1206] What is this?

[1207] There's a wardrobe.

[1208] What is it?

[1209] You know?

[1210] So, yeah, I look on the other side of it.

[1211] You know, young guys coming up, maybe they think, that's strange.

[1212] And they ask me, don't, you do look at the pictures back and think, wow, I look like that.

[1213] I'm like, no. I don't look at, I just look at that.

[1214] And I think, wow, that was fucking extreme.

[1215] And what I did, and that's crazy.

[1216] And that's incredible.

[1217] but um does it weird you're out to look at pictures of yourself like does it a little bit sometimes when i look at those black and white pictures giant picture of dorian yates and his prime if you've got any of those black and white pictures man that's just like insane there it is look at that oh that's insane man that's like you couldn't really fit any more muscle onto that frame really you're not really like i know i went to places and i did things that other people you know in the gym look at your fucking forearms.

[1218] Well, my, there's a thing, forearms.

[1219] I never did any training for forearms.

[1220] All that was just from gripping the bar when I was doing back training, mainly, and some bicep training and stuff.

[1221] I had 19 inch forearms and I didn't do a single fucking exercise for them, apart from gripping on.

[1222] Look at that.

[1223] It's so ridiculous.

[1224] Well, that's a good picture, but it's not me. Who is that?

[1225] I don't know.

[1226] How dare you, Jamie, pull up a non -droid.

[1227] Because somebody put that one.

[1228] Somebody put it on Google.

[1229] Put up that one.

[1230] Keep going to your right.

[1231] No, no, no. Down where you were, yeah, go to your right.

[1232] One more.

[1233] That one.

[1234] Bam.

[1235] Side trisip.

[1236] Jesus Christ.

[1237] That's from a onstage picture from Mr. Olympia.

[1238] So what you can see, if you look on the legs, you can see the thinness of the skin and the, like, density of the muscle underneath.

[1239] Like, there's no fat.

[1240] There's no water between the skin layer and the muscle layer.

[1241] What percent of body fat did you get down to?

[1242] Well, I don't really know because I had skinfall calipers.

[1243] They used to do the skinfall calipers.

[1244] And they're not accurate.

[1245] They used to get down to like 3 .5, probably like a month out.

[1246] But I know I got leaner after that, but they didn't really register because they're not that accurate after that point.

[1247] So I don't know.

[1248] Maybe 3%, but it's, you know, nobody measures your body fat.

[1249] It's what you look like.

[1250] It's a visual thing.

[1251] Right.

[1252] It's really what you look like in the mirror.

[1253] How did you know, like, how much water to drink and when to back off and.

[1254] experience i don't really uh you're fucking legs dude i don't restrict uh water intake until like maybe 24 hours before the contest look at your right leg there that's preposterous yeah that's a huge medialis right over the knee there yeah that's a lot of sick work man that's like that's like i used to train legs pretty much once a week and for four or five days of every week i had trouble sitting on the toilet I had trouble moving around I mean if I didn't I wouldn't be happy man I had to feel that fucking pain pain in the ass pain in the leg just to sit down but hey satisfying because you know you've fucking done some damage right if it's like that and the damage repairs itself to get slightly bigger and stronger bodybuilding is just an adaptation to stress you know you put a certain stress your body's going to adapt to it fuck I need to get bigger and stronger so I can handle this stress next time that's basically what it is so you continually trying to stress yourself like anything like you want to get better cardio you've got to stress your cardio system so it adapts yeah there's no other way right to get that big i mean there's no shortcuts there's nothing you can do there's no easy route well i don't know it looks like guys are looking for the easy route now because i don't see them training that hard but then you don't see the quality of the physique the guys are big now but you look at the quality it's not the same it's not the same okay it's not the same it's generally accepted in bodybuilding that the 90s was the peak of physiques as far as the standard and the depth of the standard there was like six to eight guys on that stage that were like really like if you're off you know there's places could change now you've got one guy phil phil heath who's a mr olympia and it's pretty like distance between him and the next few guys now what is it though that i mean is it doesn't it open the door for a current modern day dorian yates like some super dedicated person i mean physiologically people can still do the same things that you did.

[1255] Yeah, but things have changed since the 90s.

[1256] There's a lot more avenues that people could choose to go down as like doing a sport.

[1257] I mean, for instance, UFC didn't exist in the early 90s.

[1258] I remember watching the first show on, I was in New York.

[1259] I watched on TV, the very first one, you know, with Hoyt Gracie.

[1260] So you got MMA, you got CrossFit, and you got all these other competitions now in the in the bodybuilding arena that's not bodybuilding.

[1261] It's men's physique where they wear the board shorts and they're going to have the nice physique and abdominals.

[1262] It's kind of physique that most people aspire to have, I guess.

[1263] You've got classic bodybuilding.

[1264] So you've got a lot of different avenues and I think the interest in pure bodybuilding is a lot less than it.

[1265] I mean in the 90s, everyone wanted to be a bodybuilder.

[1266] It was like hugely popular.

[1267] Yeah, what's interesting now?

[1268] What is this, Jamie?

[1269] What are you pulling up here?

[1270] This is a Mr. Olympia from 1996.

[1271] Is my Sean Ray in the middle, and that's Ronny Coleman, on the end, who became an eight -time Mr. Olympia.

[1272] You guys are all jacked.

[1273] It's so hard to tell.

[1274] See, like, I'm looking at this.

[1275] I'm like, how fuck do you pick?

[1276] I'll work it out for.

[1277] The guy on the end is the best.

[1278] That one right there.

[1279] Well, it's also got to be hard for that tiny dude that's next to you, you know, because you're just so much bigger than that.

[1280] Tiny dude has always been unhappy because it got beaten by me. The thing is he had a great physique, just like Frank Zane had a great physique.

[1281] Right.

[1282] You know, if he was the same size as Arnold, maybe he would have beat him.

[1283] But he wasn't the same size as Arnold.

[1284] And the same goes with a gentleman up there, Mr. Sean Ray.

[1285] He had a great physique, but, you know, I was twice as big.

[1286] So a big guy always beats a good little guy, right?

[1287] Yeah, yeah.

[1288] It's a crazy sport, man. Now, what about the top guys today?

[1289] Like you said, Sean Heath is the number one guy today?

[1290] Phil Heath, I'm sorry.

[1291] now there's so many different avenues now and a lot of them a lot of people are going towards like the internet route because you can make a lot of money as like an internet like famous person for being a bodybuilder then you're selling things and selling there he is phil heath yeah pre -jacked yep he's uh phil heath is you know giant is not very wide in the shoulders uh that's his weak point but he's got huge uh long muscle bellies on most of his body.

[1292] His pecks are not great, but the rest, you know, the rest is, it doesn't really have any weak points.

[1293] That's why he's ahead of everybody else.

[1294] And you just think there's just less people doing it now?

[1295] There's less people going into competitive bodybuilding because there's a lot more avenues and I think it's less popular now because it's almost like peaked out with myself and running and gone down a little bit.

[1296] It's like, how do you, you know, how do you support it?

[1297] past got to a peak and guys are trying to do that so that they you know they're trying to get big and they're getting big but they're getting big with a big waste and everything as well so it's not the same it's not the same look it's not the they don't have the same quality that's got to be super dangerous isn't it when you see those guys those enormous bloated bellies yeah there's a huge debate and like what is that you know what is it um I don't know is it internal organs that are well here's the thing initially uh that's what people thought right and And my waist started to get a little bloated around 96, 97, maybe 97, when I was using insulin, right?

[1298] It got a little bloated and a little distended.

[1299] But when I retired, it went down.

[1300] And I actually, in England, because I was always like, I'm taking steroids for this sport because I'm a professional.

[1301] When I'm not competing, I'm going to take them.

[1302] So stop taking them.

[1303] And also I took growth hormone.

[1304] And that was the thing.

[1305] A lot of people think growth hormone is going to increase the size of your internal organs.

[1306] and that's why guys are getting blow to waistline.

[1307] So I went and had a real, I mean, a battery of tests where they actually measure all your internal organs.

[1308] And mine were all totally normal.

[1309] Apart from my heart was a bit bigger and stronger, but that's just normal athletic heart.

[1310] So that wasn't the case.

[1311] So perhaps it's a fat that's building up around internal organs, or maybe it's just a lot of water in the intestines and it just bloats the waist out.

[1312] The short answer is, I don't really know.

[1313] Who's that guy in the far left?

[1314] That's like a turtle shell.

[1315] Doesn't it look like a turtle shell?

[1316] Jesus Christ.

[1317] So that could be insulin.

[1318] That could be a variety of different things.

[1319] We only seen this kind of thing happening since the guys are using insulin and IGF, which is insulin life growth factor.

[1320] Wow.

[1321] So, yeah, it's not a good look.

[1322] It's not a, you know.

[1323] It's weird.

[1324] The turtle shell look is so weird.

[1325] It literally looks like so.

[1326] So it's like the guys have got big but everywhere, systemic like growth.

[1327] You know, when you're training with weights, you know, your major muscles are going to grow, but not around the waist can thicken a little bit, but not that much.

[1328] Now, when you got off of everything, when you retired, what was the crash like?

[1329] Well, it wasn't something I was ready for.

[1330] I had a lot of things going on my life.

[1331] I had a divorce.

[1332] I had somebody close to me pass away.

[1333] and I'm you know retiring so you know they say a death in the family or divorce or retirement is like a major stressful event or how about over and all fucking three at the same time while you're not while you're coming down from steroids so yeah I definitely suffer from depression anxiety I don't like I don't know what's going on like why do I feel like this I didn't even like now I know right because you fucking stop cold turkey because I'm extreme And like, I'm using them because I'm doing this.

[1334] I'm stopped now and stop.

[1335] And I had no real help.

[1336] There was no real, like, there's guys now, especially in the States that, you know, they specialize in patients that are using steroids and all the possible side effects and coming off and all that stuff.

[1337] I don't really have any of that.

[1338] So I just went cold turkey.

[1339] And after about two years, my normal testosterone was still not coming into the normal.

[1340] So then I went on the replacement therapy, which is.

[1341] like twice a month uh testosterone placement and yeah then i felt normal again so the the come down like you you're taking this what were you taking like right before you stopped like what was the do you remember probably about a thousand milligrams a week total of testosterone a total of everything all kind of stuff deep all everything bit of testosterone a bit of uh deca or something like that and then then then then you know was it a gradual effect where your body's freaking out or was it like almost instantaneous um it's probably after a few months i started like noticing i wasn't feeling too good funnily enough like sex drive didn't totally disappear and actually had my daughter was conceived while i was not on anything so i mean they did trials with testosterone as a male contraceptive and it was moderately effective but not enough that they would market it so um yeah probably like six to nine months I was really not not feeling good at all and you know there's a lot of factors there if I was still taking steroids but those things happened in my life would I have felt as bad I don't know probably not but there definitely a lot of traumatic stuff going on all at the same time now was there any conventional wisdom in the bodybuilding community of how to slowly cycle off or what the factors would be and how how you could mitigate them not at that time now 20 years on I mean, you can go on the internet and find a ton of information, but not really then.

[1342] The only things guys were using was HG, which is like helps to juice your own testosterone.

[1343] Clomid and some natural stuff like that.

[1344] I remember going to an endocrinologist and asking him like, you know, what shall I do?

[1345] I shall do HG and this and that?

[1346] And he's like, look at me and he said, you know what, Doreen, you probably know more than me about this?

[1347] Thanks for that, man. You know, he's talking about this situation with somebody coming off sterile.

[1348] He didn't have a clue, man. Right, it's a different thing.

[1349] But now, yeah, you've got guys out there that have a whole...

[1350] I did a seminar up in Canada, and Ben Johnson was there, actually, the guy that...

[1351] Oh, Olympic gold medalist?

[1352] Well, for a while, he was.

[1353] He was there with his doctor and a couple other doctors there, and one of the doctors told me that absolutely every guy that was in that 100 meters race tested positive.

[1354] Every guy.

[1355] But I think it was CBS was covering the contest, and they're like, we can't fucking, you know?

[1356] Right.

[1357] I can't have every guy like, you've got to choose one and make sure he's not American.

[1358] Really?

[1359] Yeah, that's the story they told me. I believe that, man. There's definitely some real good evidence that they're all doing something.

[1360] The guy was just a scapegoat.

[1361] I feel bad for him.

[1362] He was like, fucking demonized.

[1363] I remember all the newspapers.

[1364] I remember my son went to school, and they did a whole thing at school about, you know, and he came home.

[1365] I mean, he must have fucking known his dad was jacked up like that.

[1366] You know, like the guy was cheating and he shouldn't do that and all this stuff they told him at school, you know, like, all right, son.

[1367] I'll explain to you when you're a bit older.

[1368] And he also had no recourse.

[1369] Like Lance Armstrong today has a podcast.

[1370] He's done a bunch of interviews.

[1371] He can tell his story.

[1372] And now, you know, I mean, I think there was a period of time where Lance was demonized.

[1373] But over time, that is greatly subsided.

[1374] and people now recognize, no, he literally was in a sport where everyone was cheating.

[1375] But is it cheating?

[1376] Well, if everyone's doing it, is it cheating?

[1377] The real issue, I think, was deception and lawsuits and saying that he didn't do it and suing people who said he did.

[1378] And there's a lot of stuff that wasn't exactly the smartest thing to do.

[1379] But you're dealing with a cornered person who's a super competitive alpha male trying to figure his way out of this mess that he's found himself in.

[1380] and this mess that exists systematically or systemically in this entire industry, the entire sport that he's involved in.

[1381] Yeah, I remember there was a car that got stopped in the border a few years ago in the Tour de France, going from France to somewhere, across the border anyway.

[1382] And it was a team car, right?

[1383] And they stopped the team car, and it was just full of EPO and steroids and all this stuff, you know?

[1384] Yeah.

[1385] So it's, you know, when was the first tour to France?

[1386] I don't know, but I know one of the very early ones I think the guy that was winning he died because he was using amphetamines back in whatever, I don't know 1910, 1920 or something like that so it's there as part of the sport when I came into bodybuilding it's not like I invented steroids they were already there you know my first Mr. Olympia is in 1965 Larry Scott was the Mr. Olympia in 965 and he said he was using steroids then that was 19605 So when did they start being used?

[1387] I don't know, but for sure, in the early 60s.

[1388] 1965 they had steroids.

[1389] When did they invent steroids?

[1390] I believe, well, you had testosterone.

[1391] I mean, testosterone was used in the Second World War.

[1392] The Germans were using that with the SS soldiers.

[1393] So injectable testosterone was available then.

[1394] Steroids, which are a more refined version of testosterone, I think late 50s.

[1395] How is it more refined in what way?

[1396] So you've got testosterone as a male hormone.

[1397] So it's basically 50 % androgenic.

[1398] That's male -like characteristics.

[1399] 50 % anabolic, repair, build.

[1400] So they wanted to take this.

[1401] They wanted this part, the anabolic, and minimize the androgenic, because that's what gives you side effects, prostate growth and all that stuff.

[1402] So they refined it so that those effects were minimized and more of the anabolic effect.

[1403] That was the idea.

[1404] And there's a guy called John.

[1405] Siegler I think and because they found out the eastern block they had their own had their own stuff called Turinibol so Siegler invented Dinable and I don't know don't quote me if I could be wrong but I think it was about 58 or something like that he developed that for the US weightlifting team 1958 I think it was 58 yeah but before that you had testosterone so who knows what when people started using it but for sure from the early 60s it's been a part of bodybuilding and And then other sports.

[1406] And there used to be a disclaimer inside the steroid thing saying anabolic steroids do not increase athletic performance.

[1407] That's hilarious.

[1408] Right.

[1409] So they stated this.

[1410] And they also told guys, if you take this, your fucking balls are going to drop off.

[1411] You're going to fucking die.

[1412] You're going to get liver cancer.

[1413] So guys started using them and seeing that that's all bullshit, right?

[1414] So then they don't want to listen to anything these medical guys are going to say.

[1415] Because you were lying to us then, so you're going to be lying to us all the time.

[1416] Not necessarily so, yeah, because you do have chances of side effects, but you could say it's been greatly exaggerated in certain areas of propaganda and deception, right?

[1417] Yeah, just tell people the fucking truth, man, and let them deal with it.

[1418] And that's what I do.

[1419] Because I saw all this stuff on the Internet about what I'm supposedly doing, and I thought young guys are going to read this, and maybe they're going to do it.

[1420] So I did an article in a magazine, muscular development.

[1421] I said, here, this is what I did.

[1422] This is what I did.

[1423] This is what I did for a contest.

[1424] And these are my opinions.

[1425] And, you know, my honest opinion is, like, I don't think it's worth it unless you, you know, you're competing and so on.

[1426] But ultimately, it's up to you.

[1427] Let me give you the information.

[1428] What you do is up to you.

[1429] And I don't know, 70 % of the people are like, this is bullshit.

[1430] He didn't really.

[1431] He must have talked much more than this.

[1432] Because I'm taking this.

[1433] Actually, I'm taking more than this.

[1434] And I don't look like him.

[1435] And oh, tough shit, man, you know?

[1436] Right.

[1437] I know a lot of guys that take more stuff than me. I couldn't even compete in a contest.

[1438] I'm not even good enough.

[1439] Is there a certain amount where it doesn't help you?

[1440] I think it gets to like the cup is full.

[1441] Right.

[1442] You know?

[1443] It's just a matter of hard work.

[1444] The cup is full and more than that isn't going to help you anymore.

[1445] It's just going to increase your chances of negative effects.

[1446] So when I was an amateur, my policy was always to take as little as possible.

[1447] to get the maximum effect.

[1448] And when that's not working, then you can go up a little bit more, you know.

[1449] But if you go day one and just throwing everything in there, like your body's going to get used to that, where you're going to go.

[1450] Where would you get steroids?

[1451] Where did I used to get them?

[1452] Yeah.

[1453] I mean, when I got them in the UK, it was just from the gym.

[1454] When I first started, I mean, people were bringing them in with trucks loads full from Europe and there was not, you know, the authorities were not even aware of it or concerned about it or anything.

[1455] Now, the policy, at least in the UK, and it depends from every country in Europe, but in the UK, it's perfectly legal to have steroids for your own use.

[1456] So you're going to be driving your car with a bunch of steroids on the fucking passenger seat and the police call you and they're like, what's this?

[1457] These are my steroids.

[1458] Okay.

[1459] For your own personal use, but selling, making money and not paying your taxes, that's all they care about.

[1460] Well, that's, I think, how it should, be.

[1461] You know, as long as there's education, as long as they're not lying.

[1462] But the problem is when you lie to people about the effects of things, then they think you're lying them about pain pills, you're lying about all sorts of other stuff that is actually deadly.

[1463] I think all fucking drugs should be legal and you should put money into education and treatment.

[1464] That's what they did in Portugal.

[1465] Portugal.

[1466] Massive results.

[1467] Right down.

[1468] Glenn Greenwald actually post something today about that, showing how it's changed over time and gotten actually better.

[1469] since they have made, especially in particular, marijuana, so they've made marijuana legal and started legalizing drugs in Portugal, they've had far less incidences of people having like real issues.

[1470] Absolutely.

[1471] And the money, they're using it to re -educate people and get them out of that cycle and trying to get them back into society, trying to get them a job and all that stuff.

[1472] You're just going to punish people for doing it.

[1473] How the fuck are they ever going to get better, you know?

[1474] Well, there's also a problem with telling people not to do something, and they want to do it.

[1475] Yeah, it seems more appealing, especially when you're young.

[1476] Sure, this is illegal.

[1477] Oh, let me do it, you know?

[1478] Like, here it is.

[1479] You can fucking have it if you want, but this is all the negative consequences, and what do you want to do?

[1480] And people are choosing not to do it.

[1481] The bodybuilders are bodybuilders that died.

[1482] Did any of them die from steroids, or did they die from complications involving a host of different issues?

[1483] Well, that's hard to say, because there's been quite a few, bodybuilders and mainly male and mainly the bigger guys.

[1484] Well, there's been a couple of women that have died from heart attacks.

[1485] So did steroids contribute to that possibly?

[1486] What else were they doing?

[1487] You know, they're individual cases.

[1488] Who knows?

[1489] Right.

[1490] Where they're taking pain pills, anti -inflammatories, where they're doing recreational drugs?

[1491] There's a lot of factors there but I think it would be probably fair to say that using steroids over a long term will probably increase your risk of heart disease perhaps I think it causes some inflammation in the line in the arteries can raise your blood pressure a little bit and so on so yeah I I compare it to smoking you know probably not as bad though yeah so you know the way I look at it is I smoke for 10 years and then I stopped so now I smoke good stuff you know now speaking of smoking good stuff how did you get how did you find out about DMT and how did you get involved because I read something about you having these positive DMT experiences yeah wow how how strange is it reading about you know this massive bodybuilder now getting into psychedelic drugs well um and speaking openly about yeah first time I did I was in Brazil I met my wife who was outside She lived in Brazil, so we went out to the Amazon, but this was like 10 years ago, you know.

[1492] So people weren't really, not like now, people know what ayahuasca is because there's so much information out there yourself talking about.

[1493] I'm talking about it.

[1494] It's a ton of stuff on the internet.

[1495] It wasn't so much then, but I heard about it.

[1496] And I heard about it's a life -changing experience and all that stuff.

[1497] So we were out in Brazil, and we got this guide and I ask him for ayahuasca, and he's like, bring me these two bottles of brown stuff.

[1498] I don't even know to this day if it was really Oahuasca, but I just got really sick and didn't see any great revelations apart from I got this thing in my head to stop poisoning yourself.

[1499] But the night before, I'd been out drinking, getting drunk and everything.

[1500] So, you know, that was my experience with that.

[1501] And a friend of mine out here in California, actually, I knew about DMT.

[1502] I used to live in Amsterdam and, like, I read the DMT spirit molecule and all that stuff.

[1503] So I knew about it, but I had no idea to get this stuff, a way you can get it from and everything.

[1504] So a friend of mine got it and that was my, you know, first experience of like leaving the room, so to speak.

[1505] And then since then I had some very positive ayahuasca experiences but with a shaman and doing properly and preparing like five days of, you know, restricted diet and no sex and all these kind of things you do to prepare and also afterwards.

[1506] So DMT is like, blow the fucking doors off your perception and realize that this world we're in is like, you know, it's nothing, it's just a little illusion, right?

[1507] There's so much more outside of it.

[1508] So there was that.

[1509] But with the DMT, I think it's like you've got a computer with like so much storage space and you've got, it's like a thousand times more than you can retain.

[1510] So you see all this stuff.

[1511] And while you're there, you're like, ha ha ha, ha, I know everything.

[1512] Oh, yes.

[1513] But when you come back, how much of it can you hold on to, you know?

[1514] So you've seen it, and that makes you look at everything differently.

[1515] What the ayahuasca is over hours, so I feel like from the ayahuasca I actually benefited more.

[1516] It was like going through therapy or something because it was much slower and I could digest it, you know?

[1517] Right.

[1518] But doing it with the shaman, I did it with a guy called Guillermo Averello, and he's one of the top guys in the world from Peru.

[1519] he comes to Spain a couple of times a year so I did it with him and um yeah it's probably i don't know it's probably two or three years since i did DMT because i sat down one day and i said right actually i fasted for two days before so i'll be like just in the zone and i said right i'm going to sit down i got my DMT here i got my vaporizer here i'm going to fucking smoke as much DMT as i possibly can to like like you know to like gone and pass out.

[1520] So I had that experience and since then I just, I don't feel any need to do it.

[1521] I don't think there's anything more I can take from it.

[1522] I've had many people tell me the same thing.

[1523] They had such a profound breakthrough experience that they're like, okay, I get it.

[1524] I had a crazy one in around 2000, I want to say like 2008 or nine or something like that.

[1525] And I took a long time off.

[1526] I didn't do it again until like five years later maybe.

[1527] Yeah, it's pretty intense, man. I mean, The iOS goes nice because it comes in nice and subtle and you go through hours of this thing.

[1528] But DMT is like, you feel very anxious when you're like, it's almost like you're leaving your body and you don't want to, you know?

[1529] Yeah.

[1530] So you get that bit of anxiety.

[1531] But once you go, you feel okay.

[1532] It's cool, yeah.

[1533] Have you done it more than one time in a day, like multiple times in a night?

[1534] No, I just, you know, just blasted it as far as it could go and that was it.

[1535] I've done it several times of the course of a few.

[1536] hours and you know you're more comfortable letting go that way in some sort of a strange way but it never gets less alien well we had a I'm not going to mention his name I don't know his name but we had an experience me and my friend a few months ago um that I've never seen before because usually people take DMT they're very calm and sit in the chair and you go off and you might start laughing but you know you don't move much right and this guy he just like freaked out like it wasn't for 10 minutes for half an hour my friend was a former MMA fights he used to fight with shamrocks so he knew wrestling technique so he had to hold this guy on the floor to stop him from hurting himself because he was probably freaking out so I could see the guy was going through something traumatic from the past so today I message him I say hey did you ever find out the guy what was that you know because it was he said yeah it was from his birth what he was from his birth when he was born he had the cord around his neck oh jesus and he went back and he relived this and like so that had been in the back of his mind all his life subconscious you know subconscious has a huge effect on us but we don't know it's there so now he opened that box and let it out and it's gone now you know so it can be therapeutic yeah i thought this guy's like wow he's going to but when he came back he was like hey i'm like you're good he's like yeah i'm good i'm like do you know what just happened he's like no I said, good thing we filmed it then, man. Go home and watch this.

[1537] I had a friend who freaked out, too.

[1538] He freaked out.

[1539] He threw up, took his shirt off, I was running around saying a bunch of crazy shit.

[1540] And then after he came down, you know, we calmed him down.

[1541] It took like 10, 15 minutes.

[1542] He goes, okay, well, obviously I'm a work in progress.

[1543] I'll never forget that.

[1544] I'll never forget that statement.

[1545] Did he know what it was that was troubling him so much?

[1546] Well, he had a bad childhood, for sure.

[1547] Well, everything is like, most of the, our shit is from there right yeah from the developing years no for sure yeah i mean especially like real traumatic ones abuse of being being beaten by his stepdad and a bunch of fucked up shit that was just haunting him but you know helps you to come to terms of that especially the iosk because it's longer i felt like the first time i did iosko properly with a shaman i felt like i was a different person the next day i felt it was like done 20 years of fucking therapy or something just a lot of stuff i'd worked out of my mom and mind.

[1548] I could even see other people's point of view on things and that I couldn't see before.

[1549] That's huge, right?

[1550] Seeing other people's point of view.

[1551] Because especially a guy like you who's so determined and goal oriented and just cut out all the bullshit and get it done.

[1552] Yeah, it can be a little insensitive to other people's feelings around it because it's just like, nothing, keep out my way.

[1553] That's a male thing in particular anyway, right?

[1554] And then add steroids on top of that and bodybuilding and intensity and competition and then being the best, arguably the best ever and just fucking grinding every day.

[1555] My son said to me a couple of weeks ago, he's like, Dad, you don't see yourself as other people see you.

[1556] So what do you mean?

[1557] He said, like, I remember when I was a kid, first of all, the size, you know, it was fucking huge, but it's your persona.

[1558] You might have said to me something very like normal, like, you know, whatever, what are you doing with a dog?

[1559] like just something normal and he said i'll be like oh because just your your your presence made me feel like that you know right that's got to be weird when you're a little tiny kid and your dad's a gorilla yeah i remember he did uh he did kickboxing right so he got his black belt when it was about 11 or something like that and that was my thing i used to take him to kickboxing and pick him up and he's like dad can you just can you wait outside i'm like what do you mean you want me to come in and like, can you just wait outside?

[1560] Like, you don't want to come?

[1561] It's like, yeah, but everyone's like freaking out and looking at you and Yeah, well, it's got to be nice now.

[1562] I'm like, no, I'm fucking coming inside, man. Semi -anonymous in crowds now.

[1563] Yeah, yeah.

[1564] I mean, unless someone's a hardcore bodybuilding fan.

[1565] Well, there's the thing.

[1566] Not necessarily slow because because of the interviews I did on London Real.

[1567] And I talked about iOS and DMT and spirituality.

[1568] and reality and all this stuff i get so many people coming up to me like they're not from the gym i get housewives at young kids like it's almost like you're the guy from london real you're the guy that you know so i got a whole bunch of other people that appreciate what i'm saying about spirituality about reality and and life and they're like fuck man what you said that really helped me and i got so many letters emails and stuff people you know like they just took something away from what I was saying so I mean that's that's really why I do these interviews it's trying to help the whole general vibe and the you know put it out there and there's a whole consciousness awakening revolution going on now and I'm just want to push some dominoes you know and like create that effect and then you know if you touch one person they touch somebody else and it's like you know the butterfly wings flap here and the other side of the world is a you know yeah it really army or something it does seem to be working in that in that regard it is it is the time man it's the time there's so many people that are more aware now than like 20 years ago isn't it kind of like mean there's parallels to bodybuilding right that when arnold first started doing it there was very little information for harley and you guys got to see what they did and build upon that and more information came out and now because of the internet there's so much information almost too much information people are aware more of what it's all about well with psychedelics i mean 20 30 years ago there's so much ignorance and so little understanding of and also so little understanding especially when it comes to something as extreme as DMT there's still a giant percentage of our population doesn't even know what it is yeah i mean they should all take it especially the fucking politicians i like to get those politicians man and fucking get them in a room and force them to take DMT and then see How they're going to behave afterwards.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] How they're going to look at the world and treat people after they had that experience.

[1571] I don't think it can be, you know, so self -centered and unfeeling as most of them are after you've had that experience.

[1572] I think that any breakthrough psychedelic experience, whether it's psilocybin or LSD or DMT, there's all pretty much, you know, ego dissolving.

[1573] Different road to the same place, you know.

[1574] Well, Terence McKenna used to say that DMT is the center of the monot.

[1575] The way I describe DMT is it's like mushrooms times a million plus aliens.

[1576] And then it just seems so titanically bizarre that there's like I've tried to describe it to people, but I always say, look, I'm going to tell.

[1577] You can't really do it.

[1578] Yeah.

[1579] I'm going to give you some bullshit words.

[1580] I'm going to try.

[1581] Because you can't.

[1582] There's no way.

[1583] We don't have the words.

[1584] To put it into words.

[1585] You know, you can attempt to, I went to this place.

[1586] Well, it's not a place, but I don't have the word for it.

[1587] The place is everywhere.

[1588] Yeah, it's like, and there's colors, there's numbers, there's shapes, and people, things, things, and there's like, everything is all one fucking thing.

[1589] And what I noticed is, like, my breath was connected to it.

[1590] I don't know how it happened, but I was in the trip, and I went, like that, and the whole thing moved.

[1591] I was like, really?

[1592] Let me try this, then.

[1593] And then the whole thing moved, and then there was music playing, and music was part of the thing as well.

[1594] Yeah.

[1595] Like the thing.

[1596] I don't even know what to call it.

[1597] The thing, the place, I don't have a word, you know.

[1598] We played a bunch of these shaman Ikaroes.

[1599] And the shaman Ikoros, this is the last time I did it.

[1600] And the shaman Ikoros literally made the DMT images dance.

[1601] Yeah.

[1602] Like, they had figured out a way with these sounds and songs to integrate these beats into DMT trips.

[1603] And as you would take these trips, these shamans had figured out the right sounds and songs and how to make the trips.

[1604] more intense and sort of guided in a strange way?

[1605] Well, that's what I had with the shaman with the ayahuasca.

[1606] He comes around and he sings these akaroes and it's like change his tone and then it goes deeper bass in his chest and it's like it's, it becomes part of it, you know?

[1607] And I was even moving involuntarily.

[1608] I was, my arms was going up.

[1609] My body was moving and it's like, I'm not doing this.

[1610] I don't even know how it's happening.

[1611] It's like somebody's picking my arms up and I'm moving.

[1612] and I was a move, you know, started dancing around with this becoming part of this rhythm.

[1613] Wow.

[1614] I had experience once one of the first times ever did DMT where I saw the difference to negative and positive thinking.

[1615] Like I started thinking negative and there was all this like black and dark green and like these threatening shapes and colors.

[1616] And then something recognized what was going on in my brain that these shapes and images were connected to negative thinking and I relaxed and the shapes kind of like settled down and then I started thinking positive like I heard all these like expressions of love but like you're hearing it but you're not really hearing it it's like the thoughts are getting into your head like someone's trying to say it without using words and then I started thinking positive and from those dark images blossomed these like beautiful like geometric flowers and colors and impossibly spectacularly beautiful images and I was like oh and I I recognized in my mind there is an actual thing that happens when you think negatively and an actual it's not just some sort of an abstract you affect the program you're in a program yeah and your thoughts the program's coming towards you and your thoughts are going and it's interacting with the program and that's why conflict like interpersonal conflict between people can be so negative it's not just as simple as you and some person getting into an argument it's those dark images and those negative forces it becomes a part of your system i had exactly the same thing so but it was almost like a tunnel i was in this tunnel and it was the same thing it was like yeah like all these images around and scary and everything and i was like instinctively i knew to be very relaxed yeah and i started laughing like fuck you're not even real you're not even real you're not even real And when I said that, it went away, and I just got this thing that came into my head.

[1617] You've just been in the valley, what's it called?

[1618] The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

[1619] It's in the Lord's Prayer, I think.

[1620] Yeah, either we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of the Death, it should fear no evil, because God's by the side.

[1621] Right.

[1622] I vaguely remember it from school or something.

[1623] But I got this thing, like, you were there, and you're in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

[1624] And because you, like, fuck, you were like, ah, it's not even real.

[1625] It just disappeared, and then I went to somewhere really nice.

[1626] Wow.

[1627] Yeah, I just wonder how much is real.

[1628] You know, it's such a hippie thing to say.

[1629] Like, how much is real?

[1630] I don't know.

[1631] You know, I've been having these thoughts a lot lately.

[1632] Like, how much of life do you manifest?

[1633] How much of life is real?

[1634] Because it's such a bullshit thing to think.

[1635] It's such a hippie thing to think.

[1636] And so many people that say that are so annoying.

[1637] Yeah, but scientists are saying the same thing now.

[1638] Quantum physicists are saying, who is it, I think it's the name's Professor Gates, or if you're familiar with him, Professor Gates, and he said that they've broken down reality into the smallest level, and it's a computer code.

[1639] Yes, I've seen that guy.

[1640] Not only is a computer code, it's a specific computer code of zeros and ones, and it was invented in the 1940s by somebody.

[1641] Yeah, I've seen that guy being interviewed.

[1642] we actually talked about it with Neil deGrasse Tyson and he I tried to get him to sort of break it down and explain but what it is is essentially that when you break reality down to the smallest level it mimics a self -correcting computer code not just not just a computer code but a computer code that's self -correcting which is right there I just had a bunch of noises that I don't even understand you know it's gone beyond my but now you're getting spirituality and science Right.

[1643] It's coming together because the scientists are saying what spiritual masters, well, they're already telling us that we live in an illusion and everything is inside, not outside.

[1644] They were saying that thousands of years ago.

[1645] But some of it is real.

[1646] Like you have to work hard or you don't get results.

[1647] Yeah.

[1648] Like your hard, fast, pragmatic reality of being the best bodybuilder in the world, it revolves around actual work, real results.

[1649] In this reality, yeah, in this program.

[1650] But also, probably probably, probably.

[1651] Probably there was a lot of mental shit going on there too.

[1652] Absolutely.

[1653] The work was being done, but also there was probably a lot of...

[1654] Thoughts all day.

[1655] I mean, that's all I thought about, literally all fucking day.

[1656] So, you know, I had to have the physical goods to make it happen.

[1657] I could dream about being basketball player all day.

[1658] Probably wouldn't help me because I'm not built to be a basketball player.

[1659] But those thoughts were just going out all the time.

[1660] And I was a kid in Birmingham, industrial city in England, And I was thinking, I'm going to go to America and I'm going to be a bodybuilder.

[1661] And everyone around me was like, the fuck you're talking about it.

[1662] So, yeah, there was those thoughts all the time.

[1663] So I think it's like a holographic program we're in, but we influenced it.

[1664] We interact with it with our thoughts.

[1665] That's kind of where I'm getting at now.

[1666] Yes, in some way.

[1667] And the guys that were spiritual masters, like Buddha and the guy they're called, called Jesus and all, you know that apparently did things that were called miracles because they were outside the box, outside the physical reality we live in.

[1668] How can you walk on water?

[1669] That's not possible.

[1670] Right.

[1671] But if you were so advanced that you really knew it was a program, then you can, like, hack the program.

[1672] And that's how they're able to do it.

[1673] They kind of remove themselves out of the program.

[1674] Hmm.

[1675] Yeah.

[1676] How can it, how can you, how can you, you know how can guys levitate or walk on water i don't know if they can yeah well i don't know i wasn't there see that's the thing there's no evidence whatsoever that anybody actually can levitate well people have witnessed people doing it but i haven't witnessed big foot there's a lot of people said some weird shit the problem with people saying things is they might have literally seen that but it doesn't mean it wasn't a hallucination and then again it doesn't mean that a hallucination is an alternative reality what's a little bit what is that, you know, people say you hallucinate when you take LSD or DMT, you're just hallucinating, what are you, or you're just seeing more stuff that you can't normally see because now you're shifted your vibration, you know?

[1677] Yeah, well, one of the things that I tried to explain to someone about DMT that I've kind of used over and over again since then is that I felt like I met with the divine force of the universe, like I've, or a divine force.

[1678] maybe my puny little brain could only comprehend this level of divinity and that maybe perhaps there was something even more profoundly more powerful and knowledgeable and wise past that but I wasn't ready to perceive it that maybe there's levels to that that it's fractal just like everything else and someone said like well you know how do you know that wasn't a hallucination I go well it could have been but here's the deal whether or not it was or wasn't the experience is the same like if you really go into some other dimension and meet god or you take a drug in which you experience going to another dimension and meeting god it's still the same experience the exact same experience and why why is everybody's experience kind of similar right you know we're to have a totally different fucking illusion no one seems to think it's no big deal yeah no one that i know who's ever done dmt is like yeah yeah it's no big deal you're not going to be the same afterwards you get your your perspective is going to be different your point of view is going to be different and uh it can only put i've never i don't know anybody that's done dmt and then they've said that was not a positive experience i didn't get anything from that every fucking body i know has said that what wow the fuck what is this where am i who is this that's like what are noises that come from my mouth and nobody's like nobody's ever said to me that even the guy that I saw that looked like he was getting raped by the devil you saw a guy getting raped by the devil I didn't see that but I saw his eyes and that's how I imagine somebody's eyes would look like if that was happening so he looked like in absolute terror is all I can say absolute terror I saw in this guy's eyes for like 20 minutes but when he came back he was like oh this is the guy that was really he didn't even No, I'm like, you okay, dude?

[1679] Yeah, man, that was fucking great.

[1680] I'm like, do you know what happened?

[1681] Yeah, it was great.

[1682] I'm like, okay, you need to watch this video when you go home because we filmed you, man. I had a friend, my friend Doug Stanhope, and he's talked about this many times on stage.

[1683] I got him high on DMT at my house, and he's the only guy that I've ever got high on DMT that I worried about.

[1684] Because he fell over on the couch and started moaning and, like, foam was coming out.

[1685] of his mouth he was moaned but he's so unhealthy he smokes cigarettes he drinks constantly and i was like oh my god did i break my friend that i i was really worried i was like maybe i should have considered the fact this fucking guy doesn't really take care of himself i think uh i think when your system's kind of toxic yeah you don't get the best oh he came out of it he got great results he came out of it it it was a fantastic experience for him he came out of it with all these revelations we had great conversation about it but in the moment he was like and I was like oh no I've killed him oh this guy was like spasim him and kicking I mean my friend had to hold him on the floor to stop him to smash in the furniture or hurt himself so wow and it was like thinking he was being choked it was like 15 20 I was like I was starting to get concerned like Jesus Christ half an hour later he came out of it But he was glad he did it now.

[1686] I'm glad he couldn't see himself at the time, you know.

[1687] Do you ever float?

[1688] A flotation tank?

[1689] I did it once.

[1690] And you know, fun enough, like when I was a kid, I read Frank Zane.

[1691] Frank Zane was doing flotation tanks back in the 70s.

[1692] Yeah, those samadhi tanks.

[1693] So I always wanted to do it.

[1694] And I saw this place when I was over in England.

[1695] They're everywhere now.

[1696] So I went in there and I say to the guy, like, talking about it, I said, listen, man, let me ask a question.

[1697] I said, is it good to smoke weed before you go in there?

[1698] And he's like, I'll tell you the truth.

[1699] He said, a lot of people come here.

[1700] They smoke weed outside before they come in.

[1701] He said, but the first time, I think you should just go with nothing and see how it goes.

[1702] And I'll be honest, I was in there for like, it was an hour thing.

[1703] After 40 minutes, I just got really fucking bored.

[1704] I thought to myself, I meditate every day, yeah?

[1705] So I was like, this is like, I don't feel this is any better than me doing my meditation.

[1706] and just getting kind of the same thing.

[1707] So I don't really, I wasn't blown away by it like I expected to be, to be honest.

[1708] But then, you know, I've done DMT and ayahuasca and asset and everything.

[1709] So maybe my expectations were too high.

[1710] I always give the same advice.

[1711] I say don't smoke weed the first time, just go on and experience it.

[1712] But my thoughts are that isolation tanks and the isolation tank experience is something that it takes time to really fully relax and settle in.

[1713] And there's layers to the onion, and you've got to go deeper and deeper and peel those layers away.

[1714] And I've done it so many times.

[1715] I have one in my basement.

[1716] So I've done it so many times now that when I go in, I can slide right in almost immediately.

[1717] But I'll tell you this, I rarely go in sober.

[1718] I almost always go in high as a kite.

[1719] And edibles preferably are the best way to really.

[1720] I can have full -blown psychedelic experiences in the tank on edibles, full -blown visual.

[1721] Well, going into the jungle, experiencing the center of the universe, like intense, intense stuff.

[1722] Because the relaxation, the fact that you're, the only information you're taking in is like there's a mild feeling of the water on your body, very mild that you have to think about to be aware of.

[1723] And occasionally you'll touch the sides of the tank and you have to kind of write yourself.

[1724] There's no. Some water gets in the air or something.

[1725] But other than that, don't rub your eyes.

[1726] It's salt in your eyes is a bad one.

[1727] But other than that, you're experiencing no sound, no visual input.

[1728] And in the absence of that visual input, I think all those other thoughts become more powerful.

[1729] So whatever the effect of marijuana is on a regular body, when you're just hanging out, sitting around, that effect is intensified in a big way when you're in the isolation tank.

[1730] Well, I find to go back and try that next time.

[1731] But when you're in town, I can hook it up if you want.

[1732] How many times are you in town for?

[1733] How long are you in town for?

[1734] We're on a hit till Thursday evening and go to Vegas to do a competition there Well they have them in Vegas too now They have them everywhere When I first started doing the tank My first experience I think was in the early 2000s And I got my first tank in 2003 Because when I bought my house One of the reasons why I bought it Is it had a basement And I was like I want a place to put the tank And because I had done the tank A couple of times at this place Called Soothing Solutions in Burbank Yeah if you got it there And you can do it every day then oh it's the best i'll do it out night and i get home from a comedy show and i'll say i need to process my thoughts and go over my material and i'll climb in that tank and just take off to the center of the universe and figure things out it also makes me reconsider like how my thoughts are being like one of the things about comedy is you know you have an idea and you've got to try to figure out a way to get that idea into people's minds and sometimes it's the wrong way like sometimes it's like too abrupt or too corrosive or it's too it's just not it's not it's not smoothly getting into people's mind so you have to like really consider it so that idea of seeing other people's perspectives like that we were talking about earlier that's huge with stand -up comedy and one of the best ways to kind of get out of your own way for me is to explore things in the tank because in the absence of any physical input you kind of stop thinking of your body and your your brain and you as an individual as like the captain of the ship and all the other things start to become more and more.

[1735] So you've got more room to the process.

[1736] Well, that's the idea is like you and I are having this conversation.

[1737] But one of the reasons why I like to do it in this room with no one else here but us is no distractions, right?

[1738] But if there was a guy in the other room with a jackhammer, it would fuck us up.

[1739] We'd want to get out of there, right?

[1740] Let's go over here so we could talk more quietly.

[1741] Same in the gym.

[1742] You want to get in the gym.

[1743] You want to be like in your bubble, you know?

[1744] That's why a lot of guys put headphones on, right?

[1745] You just want to fucking grind and get in your own head.

[1746] Well, in life itself, like while we're sitting here, your chair is sending signals to your ass, your hands on the table.

[1747] It's all data.

[1748] In the tank, there's nothing.

[1749] And in the absence of sensory input, I believe that your brain becomes supercharged.

[1750] And I think you can consider things in a much more clear way.

[1751] I think you have more resources.

[1752] I find the same with meditation as like when I try to explain to people, I said it's almost like I feel like it's slowed down.

[1753] thought process.

[1754] So now when I have thoughts, I see them coming in.

[1755] Yeah.

[1756] I'm like, do I want to act on this thought or not?

[1757] Right.

[1758] Whereas before, I already acted on it before it was, you know, I recognized it.

[1759] That's a huge problem as being a reactionary person and constantly dealing with input coming in and like instinctively batting it away or instinctively arguing.

[1760] And if you're like stressed and anxious, you're always going to react like that.

[1761] So you need to get rid of all that, you know.

[1762] And people know that.

[1763] that's one of the reasons why people have a real problem with president trump one of the real problems we people have with him like this is the guy that argues with people on twitter gates mad and wasn't he on the wdd wasn't that perfect training to be president but that's fun that's silly to me i mean that's yeah but it's the same thing man you're performing it's like you know for me that's just what a you know the president how much power does it really have how much you know influence or is it just a it's just a pantomime a distraction for people but that was before he was president.

[1764] What I'm reacting to is like him tweeting things today, like shitting on people, insulting people.

[1765] Like, when you're the fucking president of the United States, you're the leader of the free world.

[1766] You can't be going on Twitter and just insulting people, putting out that conflict energy that we were talking about.

[1767] For what reason?

[1768] People recognize whether they know it or not inherently, they know that this is not the way to lead.

[1769] This is not the way to be above it all.

[1770] This is not the wise person that we wanted to top of the hill, setting the standards for all the people.

[1771] Yeah, but, which, where's your alternative?

[1772] There's no alternative.

[1773] There you go.

[1774] I don't think there should be a president.

[1775] I've said this a million times.

[1776] I just think there's too many people.

[1777] How much power does the president really have?

[1778] I mean, you had Obama, right?

[1779] He said he was going to close down Guantanamo Bay.

[1780] Yeah, great, but it didn't happen.

[1781] I don't know why.

[1782] Did he want to do it?

[1783] But he couldn't because other people are really in control?

[1784] Or maybe they explained to him, like, why they shouldn't do it?

[1785] There could be a bunch of factors.

[1786] I don't know.

[1787] But I think maybe you go there with good intentions, but there's other people that pull the strings and, you know, president's just a front guy.

[1788] In that sense, one of the things about Trump being so bold and so egotistical, I think that's probably a positive, is that he's resisting the deep state.

[1789] He's resisting all of these other outside influences, and he's so wealthy that he has the financial power to, like, insulate himself from these other people that are like him.

[1790] well i you know i got friends in the states and that was the feedback that i got that the guys that like trump they liked him because i felt that he wasn't going to be controlled by the you know the big money yeah the guys that own a federal reserve and all pulling the strings on the military and all that stuff but i don't i don't think you can i don't think you can beat those guys you know they control the money system they control everything it's a mess i think i like your idea we need to get them all fucked up yeah get them all fucked up let's get Hillary stoned And make her a real nice call later, you know?

[1791] She would just go, I've killed so many people!

[1792] I confess.

[1793] There's a picture of a deer that was on the side of the road that was dead.

[1794] And you know one of those comic memes.

[1795] Yeah.

[1796] And it said, what did this deer know about Hillary Clinton?

[1797] It seems to be dangerous to know too much about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

[1798] Two people were killed just in the last couple of weeks that committed suicide.

[1799] A lot of people know.

[1800] this shit, right?

[1801] So they're like, we've got this fucking psychopath, or we've got this idiot guy that, but maybe he's a better alternative than the psychopath, so let's go with the orange guy, you know, let's go with the orange guy, because he's, you know, he's not part of this cabal and maybe he's going to, you know, he's going to change things for the better.

[1802] So that's why people went with him, I believe, because he was seen to be not controlled by the same forces, if you like.

[1803] Yeah.

[1804] You know, the Clintons, the bushes the fucking all these people they're on the same club right well it just seems that change especially change over our culture you know over civilization happens in these like slow ticks to the right or ticks to the left moving in a good direction or a bad direction it's so slow to change and like so when something like this comes around that is perceived to be a negative thing and is perceived to be a negative thing moving in a terrible direction and quite rapid It scares a shit out of people.

[1805] Well, that's feedback I get now of people over here.

[1806] They're concerned, you know?

[1807] Well, personally, I don't think it makes that much difference who's president.

[1808] So it's just a fucking side show to, you know, entertain people, keep them distracted.

[1809] Do you think that's on purpose?

[1810] Yeah.

[1811] Get all emotional.

[1812] Like, oh, Trump is, and it's like, it's just bullshit.

[1813] It's a pantomime.

[1814] It's just to keep you distracted, you know?

[1815] Keep you entertained, just like football and everything else.

[1816] Like, don't look over here.

[1817] Look over here.

[1818] It's a magician's trick, you know?

[1819] Wow.

[1820] I like to think that way sometimes.

[1821] Then other times I think it's probably just too complicated for anybody to really orchestrate.

[1822] And we're just reacting to these wants and needs and human instincts and all a variety of factors that have been set in motion, like the momentum of these things that have been set in motion forever.

[1823] And people are trying to profit, people trying to figure out how to control various factions of it.

[1824] but the idea of, like, one person or one group pulling the strings, as time goes on.

[1825] It's not a clear cut as that.

[1826] Yeah, I find it less and less plausible.

[1827] Yeah.

[1828] There's one small group that controls the debt.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] It's not even money.

[1831] It's debt.

[1832] Yeah.

[1833] You know, so if you control that, then you control pretty much everything, right?

[1834] But isn't everybody in debt?

[1835] Is every country in debt too?

[1836] So who?

[1837] Exactly.

[1838] That's what's so fucking confusing.

[1839] Who are in debt to?

[1840] If everybody is in debt to everybody.

[1841] Like, is that.

[1842] really debt anymore is it fucking print money and put a number on a thing and you know you i was x amount let's just cancel all the debt yeah no that's why they distract you with things like we gotta go after medical marijuana like that jeff sessions guy he's he's the ultimate distraction it's gonna start cracking down marijuana cannabis is like that's a huge thing in the evolution of consciousness and it's getting more available and more accepted and uh there's so many layers to it man it's like medically it's amazing spiritually it's amazing the hemp plant can fucking supply what you know Henry Ford built a model T Ford out of hemp hamcrete right not only that it's way stronger it's way stronger when he hits it with a hammer he hits the fenders it doesn't fucking rust it's lighter you know everything he fueled it with hemp ethanol as well so did you ever see them make that video where they have him hit the hammer against the fender it's like the first model tea.

[1843] They had met fenders.

[1844] They had made him out of hemp.

[1845] And he's whacking it with a fucking hammer.

[1846] And hemp, people don't understand if you've never experienced it.

[1847] The hemp stalk, the actual stalk of the tree itself, it'll get very big and thick, and it's extremely hard, but extremely light.

[1848] It's not like any other wood.

[1849] It's light, it's hard wearing, it's easy to grow, it's fucking hard like oak, but light like balsa wood.

[1850] Look at this.

[1851] That is hemp.

[1852] So he's banging his hammer against this fucking car and it's not even making a dent so tell me why he didn't build the car out of hemp then because of william randolph hurst that fucking cunt william randolph hurst was the guy who owned hurst publications he also owned a bunch of paper mills yeah and he's the guy who demonized hemp he's also the guy that was the motivation for orson wells to make the movie rosebud you know or the movie citizen cane rather he was something to do with the um the oil and steel industry is as well?

[1853] It has to do with a lot of things, but a big part of it was William Randolph Hearst because they are to cover of popular science magazine that was like hemp, the new billion dollar crop.

[1854] And they made that because there was a device that was invented called the decorticator.

[1855] And what a decorticator was, it was a machine that allowed you to effectively process the hemp fiber without the use of slavery.

[1856] See, for years and years, they had used slavery to process hemp.

[1857] and hemp was what they used for canvas.

[1858] That's why the name canvas comes from the word cannabis.

[1859] That's literally La Mona Lisa.

[1860] And they write the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper or something?

[1861] Yeah, on hemp paper.

[1862] It's a far superior paper than wood pulp paper.

[1863] Well, when they had come out with this article in Popular Science Magazine, hemp the new billion -dollar crop, they were essentially saying that hemp, because of the decorticator, now hemp would replace wood for paper, for all these other things.

[1864] So we don't need to destroy the forest anymore?

[1865] William Rondolph Hurst not only owned these newspapers, but he also owned these paper mills, and he owned these forests.

[1866] And he decided to combat this competing industry with propaganda.

[1867] So they started printing these stories about how these black people and Mexicans were taking this wild drug.

[1868] And rape and all white women.

[1869] Exactly.

[1870] And then everybody was like, Jesus.

[1871] So when Congress first made marijuana, first of all, marijuana was not even that.

[1872] the word for cannabis.

[1873] Marijuana was a word for a wild Mexican tobacco that had nothing to do with this.

[1874] But it's Mexican.

[1875] Exactly.

[1876] Careful.

[1877] Danger, danger to cross the border.

[1878] The brown ones.

[1879] And so they, people responded to this.

[1880] And when they made it illegal, they didn't even understand that they were making cannabis.

[1881] They didn't understand they were making the commodity hemp illegal.

[1882] Like to this day, until recently, like on it, we sell hemp protein.

[1883] When we first start, on it several years ago we had to buy all of our hemp from Canada because even though it's not psychoactive it was illegal still to grow in America it's so stupid it's just so titanically stupid but the you know there's a there's a crack in the dam now and it's it's that you can't stop it man that ball was rolling now and people are waking up to the benefits you know how many states you've got in the US now that's legal there's quite a few medical and I think there's something like, what is it, like nine, recreational, Nevada, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Washington State, Washington, D .C. Did I say that already?

[1884] I don't know how many other ones there are.

[1885] Maine?

[1886] Alaska.

[1887] Alaska.

[1888] Colorado, of course.

[1889] Yeah, so how many of them?

[1890] Legalized cannabis, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[1891] legalized and then jurisdiction with medical decriminalization.

[1892] There's a lot of funky weird shades to that.

[1893] There's more than three shades there.

[1894] They just make it legal across the board.

[1895] Well, it takes time, man. The amount of money.

[1896] What's fascinating is the amount of money that is coming in and that's affecting it because these people are getting involved in it.

[1897] Colorado is massive.

[1898] They put it back into the school systems and the medical.

[1899] They're giving people tax refunds.

[1900] Sorry, we made too much money.

[1901] Well, they tax it at 39%.

[1902] And everybody's like, okay, nobody gives a shit.

[1903] I read there in Nevada and Vegas, they're literally running out.

[1904] Oh, yeah.

[1905] They call the state of emergency.

[1906] Yeah, that's right.

[1907] Delirious, they're out of weed.

[1908] Yeah, well.

[1909] I hope not because I'm going there Saturday.

[1910] Oh, they'll get you some.

[1911] I'll hook it up.

[1912] I know people.

[1913] Nevada declares marijuana state of emergency to avoid $100 million tax shortfall because they wanted the money from the marijuana because they were making so much money in taxes.

[1914] Because I think Nevada has 39 % as well, right?

[1915] Are they at a 39 % tax rate?

[1916] It's 15 for recreational, I think.

[1917] Only 15?

[1918] Yeah.

[1919] Really?

[1920] I think so.

[1921] Well, they fucked up.

[1922] They should have went 39.

[1923] Nobody gives a shit.

[1924] It's still five bucks for it.

[1925] When you're buying, I don't know if the stores are getting taxed too for what they sell recreational.

[1926] They might get an extra tax.

[1927] The thing is the ball is rolling.

[1928] It's not going to stop now.

[1929] And so many people out there have cured cancer as well by using the concentrated oil and stuff.

[1930] I got a couple of friends that they've cured their own cancer from.

[1931] You know, changing the diet, going to a plant -based alkaline diet and taking the cannabis oil and the doctors are like baffled.

[1932] So there's that.

[1933] And that's a powerful thing.

[1934] If somebody kills their cancer, they're going to tell everybody.

[1935] I tell everybody they know, all their family, and it's just a matter of time.

[1936] Yeah.

[1937] They just had something on a mainstream, which I was surprised, a mainstream news show in England where they had this case of this kid who was in hospital was dying from.

[1938] I can't remember what it was, but anyway, the point is his mother was sneaking in the cannabis oil and he got cured for that.

[1939] And then they did this whole thing on the breakfast TV about how the, you know, the kid got rid of his cancer now.

[1940] But I noticed they still, you know, they're obviously told to say this.

[1941] You know, they told this whole story about the kid is like, you know, his cancer's gone now because his mom was sneaking in the cannabis oil and, wow, we need to look into this.

[1942] But we must state everybody, people, we must tell you, we must, you know, it's not a cure, right?

[1943] What the fuck you're talking about?

[1944] The kids, it's cured.

[1945] What are you talking about is not a cure?

[1946] But it's obviously something they've got to state, you know, because it's actually illegal to claim that you can cure cancer.

[1947] Well, it's illegal to possess the marijuana, so it's illegal probably to use it as a treatment.

[1948] Even though it's effective, you have to say it's not a cure.

[1949] Exactly.

[1950] And it's the influence of the pharmaceutical drug companies.

[1951] that will come down.

[1952] I mean, there's pharmaceutical drug companies that advertise on these networks, which becomes a huge problem.

[1953] Because if they're advertising Abilify and fucking Welbutrin and all this different shit that they're selling, they're not going to be interested in you telling positive stories about abandoning all pharmaceutical drugs and then taking natural remedies.

[1954] Of course not.

[1955] They can't patent it.

[1956] So what they're trying to do now is make, you know, slightly different versions of it that they can patent.

[1957] Yeah.

[1958] It's one company, I think it's GW, pharmaceuticals in the UK.

[1959] But guess what?

[1960] It doesn't fucking work when you do that.

[1961] No. So I'm laughing at them.

[1962] Waste all your fucking money.

[1963] The plant is perfect as it is.

[1964] It's a perfect balance.

[1965] It works as it is.

[1966] But they can't trademark it.

[1967] You can't trademark it.

[1968] So you want to change it a little bit to create something you can trademark and make tons of profit off.

[1969] But guess what, so because it ain't working.

[1970] Yeah.

[1971] Once you change it, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to work.

[1972] It's all people trying to control shit.

[1973] You know, it's people that are trying to control how much agriculture you could sell.

[1974] I mean, that's what it is.

[1975] It's agriculture.

[1976] With marijuana really is, it's psychoactive agriculture.

[1977] It's plants.

[1978] Like, the idea that you tell someone they can't grow tomatoes in their backyard is fucking bananas.

[1979] It's ridiculous.

[1980] It's a plant that grows from the ground exactly as it is.

[1981] God fucking made plant grows from the ground.

[1982] How can that be illegal?

[1983] Right.

[1984] So if you have tomatoes in your backyard, everyone knows tomatoes have lots of vitamins.

[1985] They're healthy for you.

[1986] And no wonder would say, oh, you can't.

[1987] do that.

[1988] Like, we're going to stop you from doing that.

[1989] Right.

[1990] Fucking Chinese have been using herbs for thousands of years.

[1991] Sure.

[1992] Marijuana is just the same thing.

[1993] But it's the mother of all of them.

[1994] It's like the fucking top.

[1995] You know, sometimes people get confused about like, oh, you know, you're supposed to be healthy.

[1996] You're supposed to be an athlete.

[1997] What are you doing smoking marijuana?

[1998] I'm like, that's the fucking healthiest thing I do.

[1999] Every day, I got like 40 tablets here, yeah?

[2000] I got fish oils.

[2001] I got vitamin C. I got versatile.

[2002] I got herbs.

[2003] I got everything.

[2004] You know?

[2005] But guess what?

[2006] More powerful than all those fucking things together, although they're beneficial, is my cannabis oil.

[2007] I take every day.

[2008] This is like, I don't know if you're familiar with a guy called Bob Malamade.

[2009] Dr. Bob Malamade.

[2010] His study is free radical, his human biologist, I think.

[2011] And he states that cannabis is the most powerful antioxidant, most powerful anti -aging substance on the planet, period.

[2012] That's it.

[2013] So I consider it a health supplement.

[2014] Yeah, I get high and I feel good.

[2015] It's a health supplement too.

[2016] And there's also ways you could take it that are non -psychoactive.

[2017] You know, people that take CBDs or I take this stuff, Charlotte's Webb, hemp oil.

[2018] I take this everyday plus stuff.

[2019] That's a high CBD.

[2020] It's fantastic.

[2021] It makes you feel good.

[2022] It alleviates aches and pains.

[2023] It's good for anxiety.

[2024] It's good for mental clarity.

[2025] It's just great for your body.

[2026] It's just some, it's an essential oil for your body.

[2027] I got my left knee.

[2028] The cartilage is nearly gone.

[2029] the shoulders, you know, not only the super spinaidus gone, you know, when I go for a scan, they're like, oh, do you know, your shoulder is, the arthritis is really bad, you must be in a ton of pain?

[2030] I'm like, nothing.

[2031] I don't have any pain.

[2032] I don't know if that's down to my cannabis use, but it definitely, definitely a factor in there, you know?

[2033] I'm sure it's a factor.

[2034] Do you think also a factor is mental toughness because the fact that your understanding of pain It's probably way different.

[2035] How you perceive pain, you know, like.

[2036] You're not going to dwell on the way of the average person.

[2037] A little amount of pain is not a big deal.

[2038] I mean, you live with that every day from training.

[2039] Right.

[2040] And actually look forward to it in a way.

[2041] Yeah, so probably my perception of pain is like, is less than everybody else's.

[2042] For sure.

[2043] You know, when I'm asleep, if you had real arthritis, I mean, it's going to wake.

[2044] You're going to get pain.

[2045] I don't get anything.

[2046] So something I'm doing is healthy.

[2047] Yeah.

[2048] Yeah, I consider cannabis to be the most powerful health supplement you can tell.

[2049] take, better than all the other stuff, but I still take all the other stuff as well because I'm stacking all the odds in my favor, you know?

[2050] Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important guys like you that are going against the grain explaining your position and also you as a respected professional athlete where people will listen to you and they go, oh, well, this guy is such a straight shooter about steroids and about training and about injuries and all these other things.

[2051] He's not going to lie about this.

[2052] Well, people have just been, had this misinformation.

[2053] for so long, so strong in their brain, it's like, it's hard to change.

[2054] It's hard to change that, you know, especially if you don't have any experience it with yourself.

[2055] Like, this fucking drug, like, I don't know if somebody put on an Instagram, I can't believe you ate smokes weed.

[2056] I just fucking hate lazy stoners.

[2057] Like, that's a pretty strong reaction, man. Like, you hate somebody because they're smoking a fucking plant.

[2058] How's that hurting you?

[2059] Lazy, calling you lazy as whole.

[2060] That's like, hilarious.

[2061] That's like, hey, man, I need to smoke weed to stop me from doing too much fucking stuff, you know?

[2062] Just to slow me down to, like, a normal level.

[2063] And listen, yeah, it can fucking slow you down and you can sit and smoke fucking weed all day and sit in a couch and watch TV and eat pizzas if you want, like, you know.

[2064] But if you're smart, you use it when it's the time to use it, you know?

[2065] Like, sometimes I like to smoke a little bit before I do cardio because it's always.

[2066] opens my broncles and I get a better fucking workout or it's generally in the evening when I'm relaxing or if I want to do something creative like I'm writing or something it helps me like think a little bit but there would be times when it's appropriate and times when it's not appropriate and that's it's it no I completely agree I just think that it's a lot like what we're talking about early with fats and sugar that there's this misinformation that continues forever it's like once you get an idea in your head oh low fat is good high fat.

[2067] fat is bad and then somewhere along the line you realize that that's bullshit like what you might realize that you might do the research you might go into the article and then look at the studies and go wow this is insane and how this happened and go into the new york times article about the sugar industry bribing the but once you get to a certain point in time you realize like most people are not going to do all this they're not going to look into this they're not going to look so most people are going to hear what they heard when they were little marijuana is for losers marijuana makes you lazy you're going to be a lazy stoner i don't want to be that marijuana like jeff sessions the fucking the guys on record saying good people do not smoke marijuana dude you're talking about millions of people you're saying none of them are good people you know how generally that is i think the people that smoke marijuana are generally nicer kinder more thoughtful um people and that realize that in some way we're all connected we're all we're not fucking independent.

[2068] So how's that a bad thing?

[2069] Because he doesn't smoke pot.

[2070] That's the problem.

[2071] Well, we need to fucking hold him down and make him smoke pot.

[2072] That's what we need to do.

[2073] But he'll freak out.

[2074] Apparently, Joey Diaz gave Pauly Shore some stars of death on his podcast and now Polly won't release the podcast.

[2075] He's like, hide it, burn it.

[2076] Burn it with fire.

[2077] Kill it like a demon.

[2078] I mean, cannabis is so good that when you smoke it, which is full of fucking tar and carcogens and everything you know smoke it into your lungs it doesn't even damage your lungs yeah i think it's supposed to be a different type of smoke though like the smoke that you get it's probably harsh but it doesn't have the same yeah but the properties of it don't have the same probably like the the issue apparently with tobacco in particular like just regular tobacco if you're smoking a regular rolled cigarette of hand -rolled tobacco just pure tobacco, no other bullshit ingredients, is not as bad for you as a cigarette, but still bad for you.

[2079] Cigarettes got a ton of chemicals in there.

[2080] Hundreds of chemicals.

[2081] By the way, approved by our government.

[2082] They're like, yeah, pour it in there.

[2083] What's the government says it's good.

[2084] It must be good, man. It's going to get people addicted?

[2085] Throw it in there.

[2086] Government.

[2087] Government.

[2088] Goverment is your mind.

[2089] But marijuana smoke has been shown to be an expectorant, actually can clear the lungs of certain issues.

[2090] It dilates the bronchles as opposed to tobacco is closing them up all the time.

[2091] I don't know if you're familiar with a study.

[2092] It was done here at UCLA, I believe.

[2093] A guy called Donald Tashkin, he did it over 20 years.

[2094] It was a properly funded study.

[2095] Why was it properly funded?

[2096] Because it was funded to look for negative results.

[2097] So the purpose of this study was to prove that smoking cannabis damages your lungs, just like cigarettes, right?

[2098] So they followed three groups over 20 years, cigarette smokers only, or tobacco, tobacco and marijuana together and marijuana only.

[2099] And tobacco smokers over 20 years, of course, loss of lung function, a lot of cancers, all the stuff we already know.

[2100] The middle group was way less.

[2101] And the marijuana group, smokers, like daily smoking over 20 years, was no increased cancer.

[2102] there was no loss of lung function.

[2103] In fact, that a da -da -da -da, slight increase in lung function as compared to non -smokers.

[2104] Well, they're exercising, taking big toaks.

[2105] Yeah, that's what he guessed because you're taking in.

[2106] But not only that, because the cannabis is dilating the bronchles all the time, if you keep dilating, it keep dilating, it's going to get more, you know, it's going to get more functional.

[2107] Well, it makes sense.

[2108] I mean, just, it's counterintuitive to a lot of people that think that's negative.

[2109] it's bad for you so i just see it as a super health supplement i don't see anything negative i don't see it as a drug it's just a plant and yeah you get high and you feel good and you laugh it's silly shit it's got to be good for you right i agree and i think that people are starting to understand that more now than when we were kids for sure yeah i used to smoke when as a teenager and in england we mix it with tobacco that's just right until i came here i don't know like people smoke it pure um i don't mixed with tobacco now because I realize the weed is good and tobacco is bad before I don't know I'm both probably bad for you I don't give a shit you know um yeah how did that get started in England because every time I've been over England they do that too they're like do you mix your weed with tobacco I was like what yeah I don't know man it was like I was always I was always done that way when I grew up um I grew up with in Birmingham there's a ton of Jamaicans you know so the Jamaicans were the guys that brought the weed in and stuff like that but even they used to mix with tobacco and a lot of people smoke hash so hash you got a you got to mix it you know with something right so people mix it with tobacco but i think last time i smoked tobacco was probably like eight nine years ago when i became educated and i was like wow this cannabis is really good on its own a lot of people in america they take a cigar they take out the the tobacco they put the weed in yeah and they make a blunt out of it but you're taking in tobacco and the pot too and it gives you this weird high yeah because you're getting that nicotine buzz like uh head buzz But you're also inhaling in a way that you don't do with cigars.

[2110] Yeah.

[2111] You don't usually inhale.

[2112] A cigar, you puff it out, right?

[2113] Yeah, you get the tobacco, it gets into your body from your mouth, but you don't really inhale deep into the lungs.

[2114] I like to use the hemp papers and also a vaporized extract as well.

[2115] Yeah.

[2116] Like dabbing, they call here.

[2117] Right.

[2118] So I do that.

[2119] I don't know.

[2120] I find it's a bit different between smoking weed and dabbing the extract.

[2121] Smoking weed, I find a bit more relaxing.

[2122] Dabbing the extract is like, I'll do that before I go on a bike ride or do cardio or something.

[2123] And I'm like, whoa.

[2124] Ready to roll, man. It don't get tired.

[2125] It freaks out too.

[2126] I know, right?

[2127] Is it amazing?

[2128] You can, you know, whatever you're doing, running.

[2129] First of all, it's dilating your bronchal so you can deliver more oxygen.

[2130] But I think also it's the mental thing.

[2131] They're like getting that zone.

[2132] And perceived pain is less.

[2133] Discomfort is less.

[2134] so you just keep, you just keep going.

[2135] Yeah, now the guys in Brazil, they all smoke before they do Jiu -Jitsu.

[2136] Oh, yeah.

[2137] It helps to be relaxed, right, when you're doing that.

[2138] You don't want to be all tense all the time.

[2139] Not just relaxed, but also singularly focused.

[2140] Focused, yeah.

[2141] Yeah.

[2142] That's America, too.

[2143] The giant percentage of people smoke pop before the Jiu -Jitsu.

[2144] Yeah.

[2145] Yeah, it's a big thing here.

[2146] Yeah, bodybuilding as well.

[2147] Really?

[2148] I mean, I'm the only one that talks about it because all those guys are, like, scared, like, it's going to be viewed negatively or their sponsors are going to, like, you know, drop them or something like that.

[2149] Yeah, that's a problem, right.

[2150] Well, I can tell you, like, half the guys on the Olympus stage, they're all stoners.

[2151] Because, you know, it helps you relax after training.

[2152] You can't drink, right?

[2153] You know, because of the calories and if you drink the next day, you're not going to perform so well.

[2154] I mean, you can get totally fucking high tonight, and you can go in a gym tomorrow morning.

[2155] 100%.

[2156] Zero negative effect, right?

[2157] Zero.

[2158] Do you remember the Arnold?

[2159] I'm sure you do.

[2160] Arnold is numero uno?

[2161] You know, he's serious.

[2162] Toking on a little one there.

[2163] I mean, that was, people were like, what is he doing back then?

[2164] Yeah.

[2165] It was almost like he was getting drunk or something like that.

[2166] People didn't even think about it.

[2167] And he was the only one.

[2168] It wasn't, he wasn't like passing around other people.

[2169] He was the only one on camera, smoking.

[2170] Yeah.

[2171] The other guys were probably scared on, the smoke at men and not on camera, you know.

[2172] Yeah.

[2173] Well, it's weird.

[2174] But, yeah, it's still viewed negatively, you know, like an athlete saying he's smoking.

[2175] smokes marijuana.

[2176] He's risking maybe losing his sponsorship and I don't give a shit.

[2177] I don't have sponsors.

[2178] I'm independent so, you know, a bit more free to speak out.

[2179] Well, the crazy thing to me was the NFL.

[2180] The NFL saying that these guys can't smoke pot and they suspend them for smoking pot.

[2181] Meanwhile, it's okay to run full speed at each other and smash into each other and the massive amount of damage that's doing, that's not, that's not a problem.

[2182] Well, maybe the cannabis would actually help them with the brain injuries because a lot of studies, you know, with Alzheimer's and stuff like that, it's very protective on the brain.

[2183] So maybe it could have helped them if anything.

[2184] It definitely wouldn't harm them.

[2185] And even if it's just CBD oil, it's a neuroprotectant, you know, cannabinoids.

[2186] Yeah.

[2187] Yeah, it's, I mean, we're living in an age where information is leaking out there.

[2188] and people understand things more today than they ever did before, but there's still a massive amount of ignorance that you have to combat.

[2189] But it's, you know, it's ahead of 10 years ago, right?

[2190] And I live in Europe.

[2191] I live in Spain now.

[2192] And in Spain, it's not legal, but it's legal to grow in your house for your own use.

[2193] It's legal to smoke in your house for your own use.

[2194] So what's happened is these collectors have been created.

[2195] so all right so i can smoke in my own private residence and i can grow whatever let's say three plants for myself arguably so what if there's a hundred of us now in this collective in this club so now we can grow 300 plants and so that's how it is it's supposed to be a non -profit organizations um so when you go and you buy a weed you're not technically buying your weed you're contributing to the upkeep of the collective that makes sense so that's how it works there And then in Holland, it's tolerated, they call it.

[2196] Technically, it's not legal.

[2197] It's tolerated so they can sell in the coffee shops there and whatever in Amsterdam.

[2198] So those two countries a little bit ahead, but everywhere else is still not legal.

[2199] Like in UK where it come from, it's not legal.

[2200] But the police have already stated they're going to arrest people for smoking weed because they consider a waste of their time.

[2201] So any major city in England, you go walk down the street, you can smell weed.

[2202] People just walk down the street and smoking weed.

[2203] If the police are there, they might say, hey, you know, come on, put that out.

[2204] But that's as far as it goes.

[2205] So technically it's still illegal, but it's kind of like, you know, the police are not, they don't care about it unless you're selling it.

[2206] I think Canada is set to essentially legalize it nationwide.

[2207] I think that's the most recent revelation from Canada.

[2208] They're essentially ready to just.

[2209] Canada has always been a pretty good weed country, right?

[2210] Yeah, well, Vancouver in particular.

[2211] There's a great documentary about the marijuana industry and its impact on Vancouver.

[2212] It's called The Union.

[2213] Fantastic documentary, just showing how ridiculous it is and how inexorably tied marijuana is to their entire economy in Vancouver.

[2214] I mean, it's the money that comes in from marijuana is just a gigantic portion of their economy, and it's all this underground.

[2215] That's why, you know, Colorado is setting such an example.

[2216] making so much money like it got to be other states looking at it like oh i think fucking detroit should get on that train fuck yeah yeah detroit's a mess right and coming back with like handmade stuff there's a bunch of things like different industries and different um you know small businesses are starting to emerge in detroit that are kind of very very promising but yeah that would be a huge factor yeah there's a huge industry out there uh not just growing the all the other i come here and it's like i'm a kid in a candy shop you know right you got chocolate and it's like tells you how much THC is in each square we got breast spray man you got butter you got cakes you got everything man you know like yeah you're careful with those cakes though yeah well edibles and i always tell people be careful with edibles because if you're smoking a joint and you take a couple of puffs it's going to hit you pretty much immediately to your brain so you're going to feel it and you're going to decide whether you want to smoke some more or not or maybe you want to just put it down right and chill but when you eat it is going to take 45 minutes to an hour to hit your system and you don't know what how strong that's going to be and if it's too strong which most of the time it is if you're not experienced then you're on that fucking ride and you can't get off for hours for hours and it can be pretty unpleasant I mean like too much THC for somebody that's not used to it.

[2217] You can feel very paranoid, very uncomfortable.

[2218] You can feel nauseous.

[2219] You might vomit.

[2220] You're going to get low blood sugar.

[2221] All this stuff.

[2222] It's not going to be a nice experience.

[2223] And probably then you're going to have a negative view of cannabis.

[2224] Like, fuck that shit.

[2225] I'm not going anywhere near that again.

[2226] So unless you're experienced, I would just say stay away from edibles or like just have a small piece and wait a fucking hour.

[2227] Don't be tempted to like, oh, I don't feel anything.

[2228] I'll take another one.

[2229] Then you're going to be fucked.

[2230] That's great advice.

[2231] Go step gingerly.

[2232] Yeah, go very slowly on the edibles because it takes time to digest it, time to get in the bloodstream, and time to feel it.

[2233] So most people will eat some and say, I don't feel anything.

[2234] I don't have another one.

[2235] And then, boom.

[2236] You know, I've said it happens so many times.

[2237] That's too late.

[2238] Yeah, and it's not going to be over in five minutes.

[2239] You're going to have hours of that, like, you know, and then they're just going to say that's, stuff, that's cannabis stuff is bad.

[2240] It's horrible.

[2241] But you're fine.

[2242] That's the beautiful thing.

[2243] Even after a horrendous, terrifying ride.

[2244] Nothing bad can happen to you physically.

[2245] You might vomit.

[2246] It's like the worst thing that can happen.

[2247] But you got to be careful because I read the other day, right, that there is a level at which cannabis can kill you.

[2248] So you've got to be careful that you don't smoke.

[2249] 628 kilos of cannabis in 15 minutes.

[2250] Because if you do that, That could be toxic.

[2251] That could be lethal.

[2252] Someone out there is going to try to prove you wrong.

[2253] Yeah, 1 .5 fucking tons in 15 minutes.

[2254] If you're going to handle that, like, good luck to you.

[2255] I think that's actually the LD50 too, which means lethal dose for 50 % of the population.

[2256] Yeah.

[2257] And 50 % of the population are most definitely pussies.

[2258] So you probably survive that anyway.

[2259] I mean, I couldn't smoke a fucking, I don't know, in 15 minutes.

[2260] How much could you smoke?

[2261] Like, five grams or something?

[2262] Yeah.

[2263] I don't know.

[2264] In the bong, you could do more than that.

[2265] And a vaporizer, you can get pretty deep.

[2266] But you're not going to get anywhere near 620.

[2267] I don't know where they came with 628.

[2268] It's theoretical.

[2269] It's 627 or 629, I don't know.

[2270] It's theoretical anyway, because no one's ever died from it.

[2271] No one's ever died from it.

[2272] So, like, what other substance can you not die from it?

[2273] Even water is like, you have too much water.

[2274] You're drowned, right?

[2275] Yeah.

[2276] I mean, this is a pretty harmless fucking substance.

[2277] If there's no feasible, toxic.

[2278] level all right 628 kilos i'm taking the piss like you know i couldn't smoke that in my lifetime how often you smoke pot every day damn every day man every day man every day take my vitamin c every day as well fish oils respiratory at all like all the antioxidants it's the daily thing man i might go i go sometimes with not smoking for a week or two just because i want to have the discipline just right you know to say i'll need to do this every day but i fucking like to do it every day so why not you know i hear you man and and when i you know i don't get up in the morning and smoke when i got the shit to do because it might not help me do that stuff but if i'm working out or if i'm going to lie on a beach i'm going up the mountains yeah i'll take a joint with me why not why not it just enhances everything you know enhances your experience enhances food enhances sex enhances music you're preaching to the choir man yeah i know i know i know you know Other people are listening.

[2279] I know I'm saying I'm with you.

[2280] I'm saying I'm with you.

[2281] No, I mean, I couldn't agree more.

[2282] Listen, man, we just did three hours.

[2283] Wow.

[2284] That fucking went quick, right?

[2285] Like that.

[2286] Yeah.

[2287] I would say that's like an hour and a half or something.

[2288] Anything else to say to the people before we wrap this bitch up?

[2289] I hate to be the guy that goes on chat shows and promotes things, but I'm going to have to do this.

[2290] Please do.

[2291] Yeah.

[2292] I'm going to be in Vegas on Saturday.

[2293] And we got a thing called Super League.

[2294] The date, actual date, Saturday, is 29th?

[2295] Yeah, I'm going to be in Vegas.

[2296] We've got a competition called Super League.

[2297] And this is for bodybuilders slash strength athletes.

[2298] And it's somewhat functional because, you know, you get a bodybuilder on stage and the general public look at that and they say, what the fuck is this is like strange and maybe a product of just taking drugs and they don't appreciate the work that goes into that and how strong and athletic some of these guys can be.

[2299] So this competition has two rounds.

[2300] The first round is lifting.

[2301] So you get judged on eight different exercises.

[2302] You score a maximum of a 12 -reps set.

[2303] So there's that.

[2304] And then there's a physique round, but it's done by a computer.

[2305] So it scans various areas of your body and gives you a score on that.

[2306] It sounds a bit complex, but if you want to go on Super League Live, it's got explain everything how long have you been doing this for this is going to be the first one and we weren't sure like what reaction we get with the first one but it's been off the fucking hook and I think we're going to get a new breed of athletes that are maybe not purely physique bodybuilders as like the Mr. Olympia we've got guys coming from powerlifting we've got guys coming from bodybuilding there's a lot of guys out there in the gyms around the world that are fucking athletic strong freaky guys and girls We've got both categories that maybe don't want to compete in a body building competition for various reasons, or they do want to compete in a body building competition, and they want something alternative to do.

[2307] We've got a competition between Team L .A. and Team Atlanta as well, and we've got interest for the – roll this out internationally.

[2308] So keep your eye on that, man. So how do people go to it?

[2309] What casino is it at?

[2310] Super League Live, and the contest is in the City Athletic Club, gym in Vegas, which is.

[2311] like, I know, the biggest gym in Vegas.

[2312] Okay, and so the website for it would be...

[2313] Super League Live or Superleague.

[2314] Live, I'm not sure.

[2315] What, Super League Live?

[2316] Dot Live, yeah.

[2317] Dot Live, Super League.

[2318] Yeah, Super League.

[2319] And I'm going to be there Sunday and a lot of other people from the sport.

[2320] And I'll invite Joe Rogan if you've got spare time.

[2321] I'm actually going to be at the UFC Saturday.

[2322] It's in Anaheim in California.

[2323] So, unfortunately, it's a good card.

[2324] I'm very excited about it.

[2325] John Jones and Daniel Quartz.

[2326] Army.

[2327] Oh, great.

[2328] Is that in Vegas as well?

[2329] No, that's out here in Anaheim.

[2330] Cowboy Soroni and Robbie Lawler.

[2331] It's a great card, actually.

[2332] It's one of the best cards of the year.

[2333] I'm just joking.

[2334] So I would have...

[2335] Do whatever you want, folks.

[2336] But Super League is going to be awesome, I'm sure.

[2337] Listen, man, it was an honor and a pleasure.

[2338] I really appreciate you.

[2339] Thanks for having a month.

[2340] It's been, yeah, like three hours has gone like nothing.

[2341] Like nothing.

[2342] I'm sure we could talk for fucking 24 hours, but...

[2343] I bet we could.

[2344] It's time to smoke a joint or something.

[2345] I agree.

[2346] All right, everybody.

[2347] Thank you, brother.

[2348] Appreciate it.

[2349] See you guys tomorrow.

[2350] Oh, that was cool, man.