#131 | Vinny Galanti |

In this episode, we sit down with  Vinny Galanti, who has made an impressive mark on the world of bodybuilding over his extensive career. As he gears up for the upcoming Masters Olympia in Tokyo, Vinny shares his journey from his early days in bodybuilding to his present-day preparations.

From discussing the evolution of his training regimen and how he adapted after major surgeries, to the impact of social media and influencers on the current state of bodybuilding, Vinny provides a deep dive into his experiences and insights. Tune in for a conversation filled with nostalgic tales, lessons learned, and Vinny’s unwavering dedication to the sport.

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https://www.instagram.com/vinnygalanti_/
https://www.instagram.com/nicky_rizzles/

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00:00 Bodybuilding's Golden Era Highlights
05:39 80s Bodybuilding Memories
11:14 "Success is a Continuous Journey"
21:02 "Fame and Human Error"
26:11 Rediscovering Fun in Training
31:50 Eyeing Nationals: Finding Balance
37:50 Travel Opportunities from Guest Posing
43:20 Bodybuilding: Business vs. Competition
51:13 Perseverance Despite Health Challenges
58:31 Weight Loss and Contest Strategy
01:01:38 Influencer Sponsorship in Bodybuilding
01:06:23 Comprehensive Coaching Essentials
01:11:00 Mastering Mind-Muscle Connection
01:17:16 "Bodybuilding: Coasting Over Conventional Cuts"
01:24:51 Gym Tip for Dumbbell Shoulder Presses
01:31:08  Muscle Memory Analogy 
01:39:59 Bodybuilding Journey: Hard Work & Discipline
01:41:06 Strategic Growth Over Popularity

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Transcript

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When you have guests, one of the cool things is that you want to get a little bit of a deep dive on them and you want to kind of do a little bit of research. And something that I really love about AI is that it can search the web for information regarding the person that you're going to sit down with. You have to give it a little bit of information about them. Vinny Galante, bodybuilder, getting ready for a Master's Olympia Tokyo and this and that. And then it scours the Internet and does a deep search. That's amazing to come up with different things that you've done in your history. I mean, it gave me a chart of your wins. It's a lot more losses. Whoa. The current. Any current? It should be. It should be NPC Junior Nationals 92, USA's 93, Junior Nationals 97. You're going back. I know. You're going way back. It went back. It went back. NBC Masters, National 08, Masters Pittsburgh 19, Hurricane Pro 19, Masters Baltimore 21, Masters Tampa 22, Masters Daytona 22 and Masters Olympia 23. They didn't do last year's show. They didn't do last year's show. Okay. Yeah. Where I did the Daytona as a warmup. I took third and then went into the Hurricane three weeks later and won all three age groups. And 55, 50 and 40 and 40 qualified me for the Olympia. Swept it. Yeah. It's cool. You know, it's cool, like now going into the Olympia with a win opposed to being invited. It's kind of. It has a different feel to it. So I'm excited for this. Yeah. Does the invite. And this is no dig at anybody that gets the invite, but it. Does it feel more participation trophy? Ish. No, they just extend it. No, no, no, I don't think so. I don't look at it that way. You know, the. The NPC and the IFBB have a qualification system that's been in place for many, many years. It's been the way it is for. The invitation portion of it of every contest. Right. So if you go into a local show, you know, top two qualifies you for the next level, you know, national level, and then so on and so on. So when you, like, you know, over the years it's changed. I think there was a point system at one time. I remember the point system. Yeah. So. And then there was a qualification system, top three. And they're just trying to find the right, I think, right mix to get the right amount of guys and women involved in Each category now, taking the. Business side of it out. What do you think personally competing in all these years, what do you think is the, is the most efficient way to qualify for Olympia larger shows? Well, if you look at like other sports, like race car driving or any, anything that has a qualification system, it's kind of the same thing. You know, it's not like, you know, guys can race in 30, 30 races and qualify for a larger event. Same thing on bodybuilding. It's not a big deal. I think that if someone goes around and asks the powers to be that they could be invited to something and they get in. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that, but if you're within the criteria of what it takes to get in and the powers to be, believe you belong there, awesome, no problem. I mean, they're trying to get new guys in the show. Not new guys, but they're trying to get the Masters Olympia, you know, exciting again. So to invite a few people that don't really need to compete in the Master show. Yeah, great, awesome. Bring, bring it on. I want to compete against them. I want to have fun with that. You know, I want to stand on the stage with the best. I don't want to stand on stage with, you know, C level competitors. I like to, I like to think that when I was in the bodybuilding world and very engulfed in that lifestyle, that that was some of the. Even though, you know, you have the golden years and all that stuff, the 90s. Yeah. I like to think that I was in some of the most exciting times watching Kai, Phil, all these guys, you know, Jay, all these guys battle it out. And then the incorporation of classic physique and seeing Arash in the early years of that and Bumpstead come and start, just really, you saw the progression of his physique and then obviously his long spread of domination. It's just so interesting to see those bookended years from the 2000s to like the mid 2010s and then to kind of go now. It's not that I think for me it lost the excitement, but I, I liked watching you guys go out there and battle it out. I mean, to me you're one of the main guys from that generation as well. I think I told you my first experience really seeing you was on the Animal tour and you would do the road to the Arnold and had everybody, Antwan and everybody packed out in a car and you guys were going to the Arnold, just goofing around. But training and Venice and all these really cool vlogs that Made the fans feel as though they were sitting right next to you guys while you were on your way to one of the shows that a lot of people wish they could even attend. You know, we were on the cutting edge of all that stuff. You know, it was the first time we were doing any videos, and I'm blessed that I was able to be a part of that. Not a lot of people know, but I was with Animal Universal for 18 years, and I got to travel all around the world with those guys. And I remember. I remember saying, you know, we were. Some guys were doing some crazy lifts, and I'm like, you sure we want to video this? Like, what if he gets hurt? And, you know, like, it's on camera. But, yeah, I was nervous videoing some of the stuff. We were the first ones to do it. It made me nervous doing it, you know? But, you know, going back to what you just said about the era you grew up in, I got the tail end of the 80s. So when I was 16 years old, I was at Billy's Bodybuilding Gym in Bayonne, New Jersey, And I've met some great guys there that have been lifelong friends, that have become lifelong friends. And, you know, just getting like we had in Bayonne. It was a gym, the World Gym Bayonne. They had Tom Platz come there and do a seminar. And I got to train next to John Nadashak when he was training for the 1984 Nationals in Universe. I was 16 years old, maybe 18. And, you know, back then, it was a lot of ball breaking, a lot of teasing, ribbing, and, you know, I got my. My balls broke from John all the time, but in a loving way, you know, made you a little shocked, like. Yeah, like a big brother. And watching all those guys bring their physiques to a level, like, I was like, wow, I want to do that one day. And just to fast forward, for me, winning the USA in 93, that was like, wow. I. Now I'm. Now I'm on the same level, right? And then to watch and hang out with Sean Ray and Chris Cormier at Gold's, when I go out there and do photo shoots and stuff, you know, it was a different world. I had a. I would. I looked at it as a business. So what I did was, you know, I. I did the nationals nine times. It took me 16 years to turn pro. So it was a very difficult era to turn pro. I was going against guys like Craig Richardson, Rodney St. Cloud, Robbie Lopez, so many other. Rob Russo, Kai has talked to me about Rodney Yeah, great physique, Great physique. And, you know, I was always coming in, like in the third, fourth slot. And I said, if I'm going to do this thing, if maybe the nationals is just my Olympia and I'm never going to get past it. So I looked at it from a business point of view. What I did was I did my first photo shoot back in 92, and it was by fluke. I was in 1992. I had just won the, the New Jersey State championships, and now I'm in Culver City, California, like a week or two later doing the Junior usa. And I'm in the gym training, and one of the photographers came up to me and I can't remember his name off top of my head right now. He was like, hey, listen, I'm getting my feet wet. I'm trying to do some photo shoots. You're going to be in town in the next couple of days. And I'm like, now I'm actually. My flight's going home tomorrow. I'm going home tomorrow. And he's like, ah, too bad. I'm like, wait a minute, let's do it right now. And I was in the middle of training. I said, let's do it. So we did it. Did a photo shoot right there at Gold's on the spot, no prep, and in walks my Christian. And it was cool that he knew who I was. I was like, how do you know who I am? Like, you're my Christian. And just to rub elbows with those guys and start, you know, working alongside them. I went to the USA a year later. Now I really don't know anybody just yet. Fortunate. I win the usa, I win my class. And I had probably, this is the first time now I can't eat after a show. I've got four days in a row of photo shoots. And my girlfriend, wife, now at the time, she says she comes into Gold's Gym, it's Tuesday night, I'm getting done photo shooting. She goes, I have good news, I have bad news. You can't go off the diet tonight. I'm like, what are you talking about? She goes, joe Weider's office just called and they want to shoot you on Thursday. I'm like, photo shoot for muscle and fitness or go eat some food. And I really, I thought that I was like, blow this off. I'm like, no, I got. This is a business now. It's all different. So I, I gotta approach it different. I gotta, gotta look at it differently. So I put your name out there. More yeah, so I did that. And all week I made contacts with about probably five or six photographers. And the next year when I did the nationals, I contacted every photographer and I ended up with like two. I think the first time they guaranteed me a photo shoot, back then, they were. They were completely free. You call a photographer up, set it up, do a shoot, they submit the pictures to the magazines. Magazines pay the photographer for whatever they buy. It's almost like a paparazzi type scenario kind of. Yeah. So you pick a. Pick a body part and go from there and train. And then the next year, next year, it just kept picking up. And I would do. I would probably stay out in California after each. It was my own. My own expense, too, so I would pay my own way to go to California. But in return, I was getting guest posings. I was getting small little contracts from companies. I was traveling around. I was, you know, doing appearances and stuff. And I remember the first time when I went to the Arnold, it was, you know, to work, I should say. And they had like, this big poster of me. I stopped. Man, I can get choked up right now just thinking about it. Like, oh, my God, like, I made it. This is. This is it. But you quickly learn, as we were talking earlier, you quickly learn to whatever level you get to, there's another level. And if you think you made it and you don't continue working hard, you quickly fall, you know, I'm going to be 58 years old this April, next, next month, April 18th. And I've always looked at it from a business point of view, and I've gotten that mindset from my father. He owned a. Actually, he owned a cab company for 30, I think 31 years. So I learned a lot of business stuff from him and how to handle people and how to talk to people and, you know, stay out of the bullshit. Don't. Don't get involved in stuff and just move forward and. And, you know, it's. It's paid, paid off. Yeah. Keep a positive mentality as you, as you truck there. I mean, thinking about how long it took you to go pro, too. I mean, 16 years. What kept you in that framework mentally to just keep hammering away? Was it just the love of training and getting after it every day and the, the byproduct of it was getting to compete at the show? Well, I think that if I didn't have the contracts, traveling, competing would have ended a long time ago. Like, I'm, I'm. I try to be a realistic person, but I was with Universal for 18 of those years, I was with other small little companies. In the beginning, I was going to. Ask you who were the small companies that were doing contracts? The very first one, and actually I got fired from them, was jbn. Jbn. It was just Be Natural. They're still around. They're a great company. And the owner taught me a lesson that set me straight for the rest of my career. And he basically kind of like, you know, berated me a little bit about how I wasn't working hard enough behind the cameras and I wasn't professional. And I thought, like, how are you talking about? I'm professional? And it turned out that he was correct. You know, he wasn't wrong. And you were what age at this time? Probably this was like 91. Okay, 92. So I was just cracking the door open a little bit. Yeah. Just getting on the scene and here it is. Just Be Natural. Never heard of it before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to see if I recognize any of the labels. Same owner still or. No, same owner. Oh, really? Yeah, I saw him for the first time about three years ago. How was that? That was fine. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I think he was thinking I was walking over to him to get a contract again because he was a little standoffish at first, but then he realized that's not why. I was just saying hello, what's up? That's awesome. He's. And they're out of. They're a U.S. company. Yeah, they're in Pennsylvania. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting to see the. The constant. Not turnover, but the constant emergence of all these brands. And you see who lasts, who doesn't. It's. Well, if you remember back in the day, how powerful and exciting EAS was. Yas. Right. So that was like the tail end. You got that? Yeah. Eas. Metrics. Metrics. I remember reading all of the muscular development magazines, and it was an exciting time. I saw who made it. Anabolic Halo was the supplement. Okay. Who made that supplement? Muscle Tech. Muscle Tech. Yeah, Muscle Tech. I remember just being in science class with my buddy and I'm like, yo, bro, we gotta walk over to gnc because it was a GNC in Plainview. And I'm like, we gotta go and get this, because we just started training and this is the thing. This is gonna make me look like the dude in the magazine. And it didn't. It didn't make me look like the dude in the magazine. I got two funny stories for you. So one of the companies that no longer exists is Cybergenics. Cybergenics. Remember them? Right? So they were based in Jersey, and it was, I think, 1988, 89. Franco Santoriello was their athlete at the time. And for those who don't know him, Franco was a national champion and he had a great career. He sounds familiar. You don't know that name? He sounds familiar. I want to see if I. If I can recognize the face. Yeah. He didn't have a long pro career. Franco Santoriello. Yeah. Yeah, he looks familiar. Later, pictures from Jersey, South Jersey. And Franco was the easy physique. Yeah, crazy physique. He was the. The guy for Cybergenics. And I was cocky. Yep, great picture, right? And I was cocky. I was saying to my friends, like, I could. I could. I got. I got this guy. I could be the next Cybergenics guy. So I competed in the 1989 NPC Suburban Championships, which later became the Kemper Championships. They changed it after John Kemper passed away. Our chairman. And they renamed it so I won the middleweight in overall at the. In the novice division. And I thought I was king shit, you know, I was like, I made it. I'm big. So, like an idiot, I drive down unannounced to the Cybergenics offices. And I walk in and they thought I was just insane. They were like, get out of here. You put your coat down, you went, all right, I'm here. What are you gonna do? I could be your next guy. And I don't know exactly what I said, but they were like, thanks. Don't let the door hit you out in the ass. Where's the president's office? I just wanna go see if the desk is big enough. I may have to put my own in here. They didn't get me past the front desk. I didn't get past it, But I made such an impact. They laughed at me, right? They laughed. It was a joke. So now Fast forward to 1993, and the same people that I spoke to that day had a booth at one of the shows, and I was guest posing. And I walked up to them and I said, hey, I see you're looking for an athlete. And they were like, yes. Would you be interested? I go, no. You kicked me out of your office a few years ago. Like, what? I said, remember? I was the guy that came in and bragged about how I could be. I could be better than Franco Santiago and I could be your guy. And they're like, that's you? I said, yeah, I just won the usa. See you. Yeah. Yeah. I was then. Because then, like, you know, I Was a little more arrogant because now I won the usa. I was like, fuck you. How did that. How was that on the USA stage? Being elbow to elbow with everybody on that stage? You know, I got this, like, I got this memory of. Of training for that show. Had no idea what I was doing. Right. No idea what I was getting into, no concept of the level I was entering. You know, I knew it was the Mr. USA, NPC, USA championships, but not like what this is gonna bring for me. Now, let me clarify. The USAs would get you a pro. Card, Overall winner would get you. Overall winner would get the pro card. Because I'm just. How did they structure it? So back then it was just one guy. Okay. One woman. That was it. I think there were three or four pro cards. I kind of like that. Yeah, it's like, kind of like that because, you know, what A little prestigious. How many pros I meet today, I have no idea who they are. There's no energy built up around them. It would be like one guy after another going, battling it back and forth in the USAs and the Nationals, and they were household names. So when I won the usa, yeah, it was awesome. But I had. I had no idea. Like, it was another level now. Yeah. And that was probably the worst thing that happened to me in the start of that part of my career because nobody paid attention to me. Like, nobody cared what I did in the off season. No one. Like, we're Italian. We like to eat. And I knew my. I knew my boundaries of what I can eat, when I can eat, how much I can eat it and not get out of shape. But it was like the microscope was on me. Everywhere I went, anytime I was in a gym or something. How you looking? How you looking? It was like, leave me the fuck alone now. Stop. And then I went on a two year, kind of like a little depression where I just didn't want to do it anymore. I wound up taking fifth in the Nationals in 95 and 96. And it just. It just, you know, it wasn't right. And I just took off in 96. I'm sorry. 1994 and 1995, I took fifth in the nationals in the middleweight class. In 96. I just walked away from the sport. Altogether for two years. All of 96. Okay. And I wasn't even planning on competing in 97. And just burnout. You just were kind of mentally burnt out. I wasn't burnt out physically. You still were enjoying the gym? I was enjoying the gym. I love the gym. I just wanted everybody to stop, like, saying, hey, can't eat that slice of pizza. Hey, what are you doing? Hey, I saw Vinnie doing this, and then. And it was getting back to me, like, hey, guys, like, calm down. Calm down. A lot to constantly have on you. Yeah. So that's before social media. Yeah. Oh, man. I, you know, I see all the things that are going on now with, like, you know, Nick Walker and all those guys. It's like, yo, give it a rest. You don't. These. These guys are human. They do have. Well, people forget. And I've had this conversation with Kai as well, because. And I want you to continue that portion because I. So please remember where you're at. Just a really quick segue is what I find very interesting. And it goes for bodybuilders. It goes for just people of notoriety. It goes for people that have a million followers or 10,000 followers on Instagram. You're constantly scrutinized for everything that you do. And the second that you step out of the ordinary line that these people look at you as, it's like, who could be the first to point the finger? And all the likes underneath the post. Yep. And unfortunately, these people. And this is a conversation I had with Kai, These people that wait hours in line to shake someone's hand for. Four seconds that they idolize, the first ones to insult. Not only they're the first ones to insult, but they're also the ones that forget that you're a human being and that no one's perfect. Yeah. And there has to be some level of. There has to be some level of error that is within margin as a human being. But they forget that because you have the 2 million, 3 million, 4 million followers, or you were in that entire universal road to the. Every video series I ever watched, I saw you, like, no, no. You're around all these big names, and it's like, I'm a guy. That's what I tell people, too. I'm just a regular ass dude. I have people message me about the podcast, and I'm flattered, and I just go. I just want you to know, like, I'm. You know, they start saying, oh, I'm a big fan of this or that. I'm a regular ass dude, man. I just. I hang out with cool people. We have conversations. That's really all it is. It's not. I'm not better than anybody. I'm on the same level. But unfortunately, these people that idolize these figures, especially if you go to the Middle East, Dubai, they're, like, so crazy. About the fandom of bodybuilding, which is great for the sport, but you see the interaction levels. Like when I went over there with Kai, there's just a next level infatuation with this person and, and everything that they do to just want to watch everything. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, no. So after 19, in 1996, I decided. Yeah, it took more mental burnout because you were tired of being under the microphone. And I stopped going to the gym I was going to, which was strong and shapely at the time in East Rutherford, and couldn't connect with my training partner. His job changed. So, like, everything was changing. I hate when that happens. No, I thought it was great for me at the time. Oh, it was good for you. Okay. Yeah, it was good. I hated when that happened to me. I really good tr. Like training. Oh, he was a great training around. And then all of a sudden, like, one went to school and the other one went here. And then it was just back to being me. And again, I liked it, but I always missed having that, the. The spotter that I could depend on. And I had two great training partners, my friends, Joe Caputo and Chris Baron. Chris. Chris moved out of. Out of state, started a family. Joe got another job. And it gave me the excuse, I don't have to go to this gym anymore. So I started getting away from that gym and going to different gyms and just bouncing around. I just wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew me, but everybody knew me. And it was like Jersey. Yeah. And, and, and, and at that time, if you're a USA champion, a national champion, everybody knows you. You don't blend in. You're not one of these pros today where you have to boast about being a, a pro. You could walk into any gym and you're like, oh, shit, there's Vinny Galante. Hey, I want to talk to you. And I didn't mind that. I didn't mind that. It's flattering. Yeah, but I, I just wanted to get away from, like this, the, the micro under the microscope, just as celebrities. Try to duck away from the cameras when they've just had enough. No, but it was, it was people I knew that were doing it. Okay? It was people I knew, people I knew in a gym. And so I just got to get away from that. So I didn't. I decided to get away from it all. 96. Right. So if you recall, I was also on ESPN's American Muscle. I was on there every Saturday on ESPN. It was. ESPN's on was American Sports Network. American Muscle. How'd you get linked up with that? The guy was lose wick. He contacted me and I was just fortunate to get to travel with them. And I was hanging out with Dennis Newman all the time. You know, he's another USA champion whose career ended really quickly because he got sick. I forgot the disease he had. I don't want to say it. Yeah. Cuz I don't remember. That's unfortunate. Yeah. But he never really stepped on a pro stage. He was handsome guy, good sense of humor. We got along great. He was a ball breaker. We had a lot of fun. And we did that for about. About two years. And he linked me up with. Do you remember Perillo? John Perillo, yes. So John Perillo had. Was one of the first ones to push MCT Oil. Okay, Right. And he had a magazine, Perillo Performance. So he says, hey, listen, I'd like to have you come out in June and do a photo shoot for the COVID of the magazine. I'm like, all right, great. So it was really cool. It was my first time training for something that wasn't a contest. You know, there was no pressure. It was no. Like, I. I didn't have to, like, you know, weigh myself all the time. Nobody was, like, scrutinizing me. So I trained. You're just in your lane. In my lane and having fun training, trying to, like, hey, I want to do different exercises. I want to do different types of like. Like, I remember, like, reading back in the day, like, guys would do chest and back together. I never did that before. So. Is that the encyclopedia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, let me try this. And I would do a couple of workouts like that, A couple of weeks of it. The push pull was really popular back in the day. Now it's popular like they invented it today. Right? Like, it's been around for like 40. Years, reinventing the wheel every single time. There's nothing new. There's nothing new. The only thing that's new are people kneeling on the ground doing rows, which I don't make. That makes no sense to me. So. And all the people that stack a bunch of shit on top of Bosu balls. That's new. I don't get that. You're going to break a head. You can break your head. So I had fun with my training. I had fun. Like, it brought back fun for me, right? Just being a gym, just training. I get in shape for this thing, like it's a contest. I go out to the photo shoot and he says, john Perillo says to me, are you actually going to do the Junior Nationals here next week? I'm like, I didn't even know the Junior Nationals were here. He's like, yeah, why don't you stay the week? I'll dial you in for the week. I'm like, okay. All right. So I called home, got it straightened out with my job. They were fine with it. And. But I said to him, I said, John said, I won the middleweight class at the USA in 93. Now it's 1997. I'm going to go into the Junior Nationals. Like a step down. He's like, no, you'll be going in a light heavyweight class. So it's a step up. I'm like, okay. And what was the light heavyweight weight? Because I up to 198 and a quarter. In bodybuilding, it's over 176 and a quarter, up to 198 and a quarter. And I was having a hard time making the weight class in 94, 95. And I think, like, my. The weight before the day of the shows were I was like, 181, and I had to make 176. So that was hard for me to lose that weight. And I became flat. My head wasn't into it. So when I. When I did this, I was bigger and fuller. I'm like, oh, my, I must be, like, in mid-90s now. And I was still 190, 181. I was like, what the hell? But I think the stress was gone. Yeah. You know, I was having fun again. Training was great. It's crazy how much it affects the body. Yeah. People, like, they realize it because you hear it so much in different studies and, and obviously you feel it when you have that stress. It's that knot in the middle of your chest. But until you take that outside perspective look, or you have an opportunity to do something where the stress is not involved, but you're still doing what you love. All of a sudden you just go, oh, I'm able to, like, actually operate. Yeah. And look better. So I ended up winning the light heavies at that show. And I had no intentions. I wasn't even, you know, a contest wasn't even on the radar that year. And then I ended up doing the Nationals again, and I took fourth in the light heavies. And then, then I had some good success as a light heavyweight, taking, I think, fourth, a fifth, third twice. And then I think the year of nine, 11, I slipped to, like, 15th. But that was just. I shouldn't have done the show. It was chaos. That was stupid on my part. I just should have backed out, But I was like, I just took second the last two years. And third, why was it stupid? You just weren't into it or there. I wasn't into it. There was way too many people I knew lost their lives. We had. One of my wife's co workers was forced to live with us for a little while. So my environment was. I couldn't do my thing. You know, you can't walk around your underwear when some dude is in your house, like, you know, on the couch, like, looking for a job, waiting for his job to come back. And, you know, everyone was sad and depressed. And I actually went out and bought a beagle without any thinking about, like, I went to the mall, there was a dog, and I bought it, and I was. I became one of those people, like that asshole who gives a dog back real quick. I hate that. That I did that. But I had to do it because we bought a beagle and no thought process. Right. And the thing was howling every night. It was crazy. I try to tell people all the time, especially because I told you a little bit about Kenji before this. I did a ton of research on Kenji. I knew the breed in and out. My dog had died seven months before I put money down to get Kenji. And I try to explain to a lot of people now that tell me all the time they can't wait till they get a dog. Oh, yeah. I go, I just don't think you understand how much work it is. It's a lot of work. I tell people. I go, you hear people preach to you and lecture you? Right. When you. They hear, you know, then you look like you're anti dog. I'm not anti dog. I love dogs. I love my guy Kenji. I almost love him too much. Yep. And you're under the impression that I was under, which was that I'm just gonna have a healthy puppy and everything's gonna be fine. Well, we were pretty distracted at the time. Oh, not you. I'm saying. I'm saying people in general. No, I know, but I. And I. And shortly after that, when things calmed down, I actually got a English bulldog. Okay. And we had her for 11 years. Yeah. Yeah. And then I rescued a bulldog later on after Lola passed away, and we had Savannah for a little while. And, you know, like, it's not the right time for me to have a dog, so I won't even. I. Fortunately, mostly all the dogs in my neighborhood love me when they see me. They can't Wait to play with me. So the uncle. Yeah, I'm Uncle Vinny. The uncle of the neighborhood. Yeah, that's, that's the easier way to own a dog. I tell people all the time, best way. Yeah, best way. But so you, so you. 2001 was not the time to compete. It was just a crazy time for you. Yeah. And then I, the following May, I opened up my first personal training studio. And first time doing entrepreneurship. Yeah. And I was really okay with. My career's over. I've gone as far as I can go. Doesn't seem like this thing's gonna pan out to be an IFBB pro. Gotta be realistic about it. Gotta settle down, get a, you know, lock into a business and just make some money. So I was doing that, and now Fast forward to 2005. I'm like, getting the itch again to compete, you know, and now I'm closer to 37 or 38, I think. And I'm thinking, like, I want to do the nationals one more time. And, you know, I had to have that conversation with my wife and say, hey, listen, what do you think I'm going to do the nationals. She's like, and this is like in January. She's like, okay. All I ask you is one thing. I know what you're, I know how you're going to become, how, you know, tunnel vision you're in and how, you know, you're going to be like, laser focused on it. You gotta have balance. If we have weddings, we have anything coming up, you have to, you have to show your face. You can't just ditch out and not do anything. Because there were a couple times when I just didn't show up to stuff. Most bodybuilders. Yeah. And preps do that. So I said, okay, no problem. And she said, if you don't make the top five, you don't do this again. Don't chase this again. This is the last time. Yeah, I said, you got it. So I, I did a, I had to qualify again. I, it was kind of weird getting on a local show, a local, local stage and compete in a show that, you know, the caliber wasn't there. And I, I, I won it. And actually Orville Burke won the heavyweight. Orville. Orville Burke, who's national champion, like, one of the best out there. I don't know. Oh, my God, that name. I don't know. Well, anybody who's listening to this, Google. Orville, they're gonna be like, oh, this guy Nick, he doesn't know. Yeah, Orville got sidelined due to some dental work or something. And just never, like a blood clot. And something terribly wrong went wrong with him, and he was never the same guy. Wow. I don't know the details, but he was a monster. Orville Burke probably could have gave some guys a run for the money in the Olympia. Damn. But he never. He never matured into that potential. Definitely. So I'm great. You can keep talking. I'm grabbing a drink. Yeah, yeah. So I lost train of thought. Sorry. Oh, no, you're saying Orville Burke, so you have to. Yeah. So I had to make. No. So I won my class at the local show. At the local show. I think it was the Garden State and qualified me for the Nationals. And I ended up in fifth. Right at the. Right, the C. Yeah, I ended up in fifth and I was in the first call out. They called five of us out. They put five of us back in. Never moved anybody. And. Because it was Stan. Was it Stan? No, I can't remember the guy's name who won that show. Quaid, is that your turn? No, no, no. I can't remember his name over top of my head right now. But what was it? Maybe it was. Research will help me. 2005 NPC Nationals. Who won? Which. Which category was it? No, it wasn't Stan McCoy. It was. It was Asian, but I can't remember. It was light heavyweight. Yeah. Yeah. So I got fifth and. And then right after that, I just decided, like, I got to focus on my business. Nicole Berg. Who. Oh, no, that's. That's. Nicole Berg is heavyweight division. No. 2005 NBC Nationals light heavyweight division was Nicole Berg. You looking at the women? Because they still had women bodybuilding back then. Yeah. No, men's light heavyweight. Really gotta type men's in Rard. Rardi. Arty. Yeah. Great. Light heavyweight. See, this is. These. There's. So there's millions of guys that nobody knows about. Yeah. I don't know the name. Yeah, great competitor. Great competitor. And now think. And like you said, now think about all the pros today. I mean, how many IFBB pros do you see? And you just look around and go, oh, okay. Like, where it used to be this. You'd see him in a crowd and you were just like, whoa. Unfortunately, IFBB Pro, they have amazing physiques, but nobody knows who they are, you know? Well, it's an over saturation at this point. Somebody said to me in the gym where I work out, where I work, a powerhouse in Saddlebrook, what would you do if you were in today's? Era. I said one, I'd have 2 million followers because I hustled my ass off. I made myself available. So all these guys are like, so I'm giving some free tips right now. This is just the way I think. You got this large amount following. You compete fantastic. And possibly you have some companies sending you some money, right? So some people make. Some people make some money and that's fantastic. But you're only at the cusp of it right there. You could extend that where you. I would contact promoters all around the country and say, I am available. Fly me into your show, put me up, don't pay me, don't give me a fee, just put me up, let me do my thing on stage, let me guest pose and let me sell my pictures at a booth. I would do such a fucking amazing posing routine. I'd give maybe 10, 15 guest posings away for free to get my name out there and have people go, vinny Galante is a fucking awesome poser. You gotta hire him for your next show. And then that's what I, that's exactly what I did the first, like probably in 94, I did that. I was guest posing for free like 25 times that year. I didn't make any money. However, I got more guest posings. Oh, you're good. Don't worry about it. It's just, it's just a scissor arm. You're good. However, I made more guests. I got hired for more guest posings the next three years. So you have to look at it as a business. So you're looking at it more as a networking prospect for potential the next level down the line. Yep, yep. Yeah. I mean, like, I don't, like, I think somebody would say, crazy, I'm not going to do that for free. But if you're getting your airfare paid for, if you're getting your food paid for, you're getting your hotel paid for, what? What's the big deal? You go, you do your guest posing, you meet so many people. The amount of people I met at the Arnold Classic and different guest posings to have the opportunity to go to Budapest, Colombia. I've been in Colombia a couple of times. Amazing travel around the world, Italy, Poland. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't give free over here. And then I got paid double over here. It was great and that. And, and the person I learned that from was working alongside Bill Phillips at EAS back in the day. I got to rub elbows with him all the time now. He was the guy, I don't know if you remember this, but he was the first steroid guru. He wrote the books on steroids, so he had little. Little booklets and that's where everybody would go to for their information. Like the encyclopedia for competitors. Yeah, but without pointing at that. They. Bill sold those out of his mom's garage and then created an Empire with EAs, you know, then he got. He got into Metrex and he was the. I think the. He was the advertising guy for them. What was his name? Bill. Bill Phillips. Bill Phillips. Bill Phillips back in the day was the shit in bodybuilding. And it's so funny. What. We're so far removed from him that nobody knows who he is today. It's bizarre to me. I like those EAs, back in the day, those chocolate shakes. So when Metrex, the original Metrex formulas was a base and a plus. Yeah. Two containers. I believe the base was your carbohydrates and the plus was the protein. I made pudding out of those. Oh, did you? Yep. And I. You were the first protein pudding. Well, I mean, I didn't. Yeah, I guess. I mean, privatized protein pudding. I remember going to a seminar and Lee labrada was there and I was like, all, like showing off. Like, I had my metrics on me and he didn't give a right, so. Great. Exactly. I used that product for the usa. I ate it three times a day. I had three solid meals and three of those. Three of those. And I'm sure that helped with dieting. It made it feel like you were getting something sweet. Oh, yeah, it was great. Everybody swore that there was like, Anavar in that thing. Unless the sweetener has an extra ingredient that I don't know about. And then they changed the formula and made it into little packets. And it wasn't. The formula didn't. It wasn't anywhere near what it tastes. No, it wasn't Suck. When they change, shit like totally happens across every industry. They change the original formula, which is what you just. You fell in love with the product. Yeah. And either it's cost cutting or they just didn't want to. Couldn't source a certain ingredient anymore and they had to change things up. And it's just, you eat it or you consume it the first time you just go, ah, it's not the same. You say, I'm over it. Dump it. I did a photo shoot late 1994 at. No. Yeah, yeah, I think. No, it could have been 98. It was at. I was married at the time and I was doing A photo shoot in San Diego out of the Metrics gym. And it was real popular at the time. All the pros were going there to train and. Like the Southern Golds. Yeah. And I told. I told them. I said, Dr. Connolly was who. Who was the guy who made the formula. And I said, I lived on this stuff. I wish I had. I wish the original formula was still in existence. He goes, oh, come here. Takes me into this little room, and there's pallets of them. I'm like, oh, my God, could I buy a case? He's like, I'll give them to you. I said, all right. I said, call home and tell my dad. Because where I was living at the time, I was living in an apartment. And it was when I first got married. I didn't have a garage. I didn't have any space. So I'm like, hey, dad, do you mind if I ship this case of protein powder? He's like, yeah, no problem. Well, we didn't talk to my mom about that. And when the pallets came, it was on a truck, man. And it's how Rain used to deliver my drinks. Yeah. It was like five or six pallets of cases and cases of the stuff. So she's like, you better get over here. I had to drive from hackensack, you know, 30 minutes I had. You got to get here. Now they're in the middle of the street. So how many did he send? Five or six pallets? Yeah. So I'm like, I. I contact him, saying, thank you. But you. You sent me basically the whole warehouse. He's like, well, we had to get rid of them, and we just use them. And I gave him away like. Like, it was given to all my friends. When you were down to that last packet, were you just like, this is it? Yeah, the last one? Last one. Yeah, but. But, yeah, man. You know, I experienced a kind of a cool era, different vibe back then with bodybuilding, and how exciting. You know, listen, the Arnold Classic's exciting still, but it had a different feel to it 25 years ago. I think it has a different feel than even 2017. I think it just. I think it. As we progressively get deeper and deeper into the business model that is bodybuilding versus what? The showmanship or the competitive edge. And this is nothing against the industry. I think every industry is a business when it comes down. There's money to be made, There's. There's asses to put in seats, and I think that they do a very, very good job at doing that. But on the competitive Side of things, it just. For me, it doesn't excite me anymore. And I know a lot of people that have kind of not fallen out of love with it, with the competitive side of watching. Yeah. But there's just. I don't know if it's because of social media, because you see these people, it's watered down. That's what I'm saying, watered down. You know, that's the perfect way to put it down. Because you're watching these people from third party over their shoulder on a daily basis. You see every. And to use Nick Walker as an example, just in general, you see every meal he puts down, you see every training session he puts down. You see what he looks like the entire off season to. In season going to the show. Whereas, let's just use the 90s as an example. You saw them at the show, maybe. You saw some photo shoots. Some photo shoots that they did here and there. And you saw it in a magazine where you didn't have this publication delivered directly to your hand every single day, every single second. Well, what you were seeing in the magazine magazine was from last year. You're not seeing them progress back in the day. Oh, so it didn't. So the way that the photo shoots went, if you shot. You did a photo shoot leading up to a photo, up to a contest, or immediately after. So whatever was going into a magazine was that time frame. Yeah, Right. So what you're seeing is not progression. Yeah, you're seeing that. No progress. You're seeing that. That single state that they were in around that time period. Yeah, yeah. In that. In whatever. The Olympias in October. It's interesting to watch. It's interesting to see how things are changing in the dynamics of growing. You mentioned Nick Walker. Yeah, right. And look at the stupid stuff that's going on between him and Bob Ciccarillo. Can I tell you. Yeah. I have no idea what's going on. Okay. I know that there is silly, immature, exactly what it is, though. Yeah, I think it's silly, immature. And somebody said, but we need it. Yeah, you need it, because bodybuilding is not exciting anymore. They want the WWE shit. They want that. We didn't need that back then. And we had nothing to go on except the allure of the buzz of like, hey, you see this guy from England, this guy, Dorian Yates? Yeah. I mean, I remember going to Shadow. He just showed up his thing. Dorian shows up, 89 or 90, something like that. 90. And he comes in second to Muhammad Ben Aziza. Now, do you know that name? I don't. Oh, my God. So Muhammad Benaziza died backstage, I think, in France from dehydration. And he was a guy who pushed the envelope with diuretics and stuff, and he dropped dead. Yeah. Body shut down. So Dorian comes in second to him. And if you take Dorian's physique at second place in the 1990 Night of the Champions, now the New York pro, he would destroy probably. He'd definitely be in the top five. I'm not gonna say he'd win it, because I don't want to take it away from anybody. Right. From the current guys. Yeah, but it was different. It was different, different. It was so different. Like, I was having this conversation with a buddy of mine, and we're trying to figure out what was it, how. What was so different? We came down, we broke down a few things. Guys didn't overeat back then. Okay. In season and off season or just no off season. Guys ate. Okay guy. I mean, if you saw Dorian, he was a. He was a balloon. If you saw Lee Priest, he was a balloon. However, when it was time to do the work, to do the cardio, to do the training, to do the diet, that was first. And steroids were way, way, way down the line in the rear view mirror. Rear view mirror. Not saying that. There wasn't a conversation about them and not gonna say that these guys didn't do them. Not saying that. What I'm saying is, now guys overeat, take too many drugs. Look how many people have died in the last five years. Scary. It's scary. Was it due to Covid? I have no idea. Was it due that things were just catching up with people? I have no idea. But they're dead. There's. There's at least 20 people that are dead for what? This makes no sense. It's stupid. We shouldn't be dying in our sport. Yeah, you get into the sport theoretically, to be healthier. I'm. I'm going to be. I said this before. I'm going to be 58 years old and knock on wood, man. I'm. I'm doing this 41, 42 years. I've never pushed the envelope. I'm scared to. And I have longevity. Now. Somebody could turn around and go, well, if you had a set of balls, you could have been Mr. Somebody. Yeah, maybe I'd be dead. But I don't. I don't want that worth it. And that's. That's what I try to explain to some people, is, is that worth the trade off? You know, you have a lot of the guys that I've seen, and it's no one specifically, so I'm not actually speaking about particular people, but as a group, I've seen the posts of people over the years since I've been watching the sport is, well, I'd rather live 40 years as a lion than 80 as a sheep. No, they wouldn't. Because if it came to it, because then it does. Begging for their life. Is that at 39 or at 45, when they start having organ shutdowns because of the pushing of everything that they've done, food, peds, whatever. Have you, all of the extra shit that you've done, now your body is having trouble processing things and what function. Now you're on. You're on Instagram saying how sad you are. And I would do things differently. It's like, I remember that lion post, brother. It's like, which. Which one are we? Like, when it comes down to it, you actually don't feel that way in the moment. You're trying to have the justification for the use of all the excessive use of everything, not just one specific thing. What, What I find interesting is that there's a lot of guys today. And, you know, I had a client who would talk like he knew everything there is to know about the 90s because he's following all these podcasts, and we had a conversation about, like, oh, you got guys back then didn't push the envelope with. With any drug. I'm like, you have no idea. I said, I got a good friend, John Riggins, that I trained with at Strong and Shapley. I don't think he made it to 35. I mean, there were guys who pushed the envelope. Very few amount of people who did it, but people did it thinking they were going to, like, become Mr. Somebody. And, you know, you don't. You don't get very far. Not at all. You know, here I AM Now, I'm 20 weeks out today. Like I was saying to you earlier how. How ironic it is that five years ago I was making my comeback thinking, like, you know, after my rotator cuff surgeries, I wanted to do a contest and, you know, get the ball rolling again, see what I could do. And in 20. Was it 20 just time that we spoke? Kind of, yeah. So 2017, I took dead last in the masters Baltimore pro. 2018, I took dead last in the Masters Baltimore Pro. And I think that's when we started talking. We met at Bev's. Yeah. I had just started doing videos within the industry. End of 2017, I kind of started doing some video work and I was working a lot with Arash and I was doing some stuff with Max Charles and then Flex and then Kai, I started working with in 2018. Yeah. And then that's when I saw you were, you were. That day you were with. God rest his soul. Sean. No, no, no, George. Oh, George. Yeah, that day. And see. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes you don't even know who you're talking about, right, Rip? Yeah, I don't know if you. I don't know if you know John Whalen. John Wayland passed recently. Yeah, I know John. Very close with John. That, that broke my heart because we were keeping in touch and we respected each other as a Masters competitor and. And he was so quiet about it, you know, having cancer, I didn't even know. I know he has full blown cancer, you know, so. But like, you know, I know, I know I had to keep my head up high and walk into the gym and say, I'm gonna do this right? People I know, I know were like, he's nuts. Like, you're too old now. You're never gonna do this. And I just had to figure out a way how, at my age now, how do I progress, how do I recoup what I had? And I think if I didn't have the two major shoulder surgeries I had, I have nine anchors in this shoulder and five in this, this one, I would never have changed my training. As I see so many guys who are my age, 50 and up, who are married to the idea of still doing what they did when they were 25. And I try to tell them, you gotta approach it completely different. You have to have a better warm up for the body, then you have to warm up the muscle. And whether you like it or not, you. You gotta dedicate 20 minutes to doing all that crap before you even start training. And I've done so many different types of training now, and, you know, I'm 11 pro wins since we met, and I'm going into my second Masters Olympia and I'm excited, you know, man, before my feet hit the floor in the morning when I get out of bed, I am. I'm like a little kid again. I'm thinking, I got this second opportunity, second chance to be on the world's biggest stage, on an Olympia stage at the age of 58. How cool is that? It's awesome. You know, so it's awesome. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication. It's. It's the years of culmination of everything that you've done to get to this point. I mean, it's pretty. It's pretty astounding when you think of it like that. Everything was a building block to get to this day. I was looking for some external stuff to get me motivated, to get me going. Now, I don't know if I told you the story, but when I first started getting back into it and I was two losses in, I reached out to a coach and he told me that he was retiring from competing. He was trying to be nice to me and not want to say he wouldn't work with me. I didn't believe him. And then I reached out to somebody else. I'm not going to mention these names because we're all. I'm cool with all of them now. Yeah. But at the time, they really rubbed me the wrong way because none of them would work with me. I had three coaches basically tell me no, and two of them said. One of them said, your better days are behind you. Leave it. Stop. Don't, don't. Don't push this envelope. I'm like, no, I have more. As Rocky says, I have more in the basement. There's something in the basement. So I'm like, I want to do this. And I just picked an obscure coach who nobody knew about. He had no real success rate except for some local people. And we worked together, put a program together, and I just need somebody to say, hey, you need to lower your cars, pick up. You need the Overwatch over shelves. I needed it. And you know what you need to do. But it is always a smoother journey when you have that outside perspective. And I pick so many brains. I mean, I have a really good friend in Florida, Scott Applebaum, who I always bounce shit off of him with nutrition. And he's an outlier because he's always eating clean. So he doesn't understand off season eating. Right. So talking to him sometimes he's. I know he's rolling his eyes at me, but, you know, I'm, I'm. I. I work better. Getting heavy and big and then dieting into a show. I. I don't know if I could do. I don't know if I could stay lean the whole entire year because then I'd be lost. Like, where do I go? Hey, how do I get into shape? Now I'm already in shape. Like, what do I do? So I like to be a little out of shape to get into shape. What does that look like for you? Like, what is. You can see my ass off site. Well, I'm saying like, food wise, what does that off season diet look like? Is it just like unrestricted eating to some. No, no, no, no, no, no. So I'm eating five good clean meals a day, but along the way I'm going, when I'm going to work, if I'm in the mood for like pizza, I'm gonna stop and go get a slice. I'm not bothered by it. If I want to get some ice cream, I'm going to get some ice cream. Do you get. Even though you're not bothered by it, do you, do you still get that mental. Oh, it's a mind. Yeah. Like, like I'll be like, I shouldn't eat that. You know, my pants don't fit me. Do we are. We are idiots. Right? So it's like all of us. So it's like, sure, but, but. And then it takes me at least six to eight weeks to go into a transition phase where I clean everything up. And you really do get rid of all the extra bullshit. Get rid of everything. Yeah, yeah. And just clean it up. And then where I'm at right now, I did the cleaning up the last eight weeks. Usually I'm doing that into 12 weeks out. So now we're 20 weeks out. So mentally, diet wise, training wise, I'm ready right now. If there was a show in 12 weeks, I could turn the switch on right now and train for a show. But slow and steady is always better. Well, I am going to go slow and steady. I'm just doing it over a longer period of time. That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah. So just, you could be ready in 12, but this really nice transition. Yeah. I'm working with Justin Hebert. He's my coach right now. And once again, I've been removed from. The inside the body space. So Justin and I teamed up about four weeks before the Daytona pro last year. And I was thinking, if I could win a classic, I could get to the Olympia. That's, that's my shot. And everybody was like, no, you're not classic. I'm like, well, look at my physique. I have a small waist. I, I have this symmetry. Yeah, but, but you're too big now. You're not going to make the weight class. You got to remember, it's an eight. It's a heightened weight. You're never going to look good at that weight. Like, well, there's only one way to find out. And I'm not scared to lose. See, people don't understand warmups. Like back in the 90s, we did warm ups and it, mentally, it didn't mess anybody's head up. But today you're saying warm up shows. A warm up show. Yeah, do a show, two threes before the main show. Make some adjustments, get some data, figure out what went right, what didn't go right. You know, I could only help you. As opposed to having to. Yeah. Go directly to a big show that you're planning for and then you don't know if you're gonna properly peak. Well, the foods don't work with you or whatnot. Yeah. So it didn't work. I looked okay. I ended up in third in the over 40 and I couldn't fill out. I couldn't, I couldn't get that pop back. So you're saying you couldn't get the pop back because you had to cut too much weight? Yeah, yeah, I had a. And, and oddly enough, it wasn't that much weight. It was only like five pounds. It makes difference. But on me, five pounds is like losing 30 pounds for somebody who's bigger. Right. So three weeks into the hurricane, we just ate up and kept eating and kept eating. Then a couple of days he pulled back a little bit and ended up winning all three age groups. 40 is where I got into the Olympia. And then I had two guest posings after that. And he's like, look, I don't know if you're tired or not, but I want to really see what we could do diet wise. Eat after the contest, get it out of your system. And we're going to get back on a diet Monday and I want to train for these guest posings so I can learn your body a little bit more for next year, which is the. Nice, proper way to approach it. Yeah. So we approached the guest posings like it was a contest and I was really happy. I was really shocked at being in a dieted state and then ramping up the calories. I never did that before and so I'm pretty soaked. And so going into this at 20 weeks out, we're going to be approaching it that way. I got a couple of guest posings lined up as a contest, if you will. So I'll be guest posing at the, at Jason Orange's Muscle beach in the summer and Dwayne at Diamond Gym. I'll be guest posing at the Dwayne's. Great. Yeah, I'm, I'm training there, man. I'm training, you know. You're at Diamond? Yeah, I'm training at Diamond. I can tell you a funny story. So I drove. And I want you to say that I drove out to do the Arnold, the animal event they had at Diamond Gym. Oh, when was that? Oh, my God. This has got to be.09. Right before I competed for the first time. This has to be the summer of 2011. No, summer of 2012. I might have just ended it with them. Yeah. Because I answered. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. Right? No, I don't. I don't. Truthfully, I don't. Yeah, I wasn't there because that was. I know. The first Josh. That crazy dude Josh with the crazy chest. Yeah, I was the first event. I wasn't a part of Animal anymore. Okay. Yeah. Because they were offering me no money. So we. I was getting a paycheck every year. And the year before they cut. Two years before they cut it down, the year before they cut it in half. And then they said, we're gonna keep you on, but no, no, you're gonna be an ambassador and sell the products and we'll give you a code. I'm like, fuck you. I'm not doing that. I'm not. I'm not selling your product. No. And get nothing out of it. That's been. I know. I wanna. We'll circle back to Diamond Jim. Cause I want you to talk about the training going into this now. But that's been an interesting thing to watch from my side of the camera because I work with a lot of supplement companies and you're seeing that they're not necessarily pairing with bodybuilders specifically for sponsorships. They're pairing with a lot of influencers too. Yeah. And some of these guys, I mean, yeah, you're in good shape, but you're not like what you would assume a sponsored athlete in the bodybuilding world would be or for the supplement company. So you see this almost surge in influencer type sponsorships where they're not. And if you have to look, you can. I don't mind. Where they're not necessarily sponsored because they won the USAs or they compete at the Olympia level or anything like that. It's because of the following that they accrued, and realistically, they may have 0.3% of the knowledge that you've accumulated over your entire career. It's annoying. It's very wild to watch. Now, I can say from my side, because I know some of these athletes, I know they get no hits on their codes. So it's more of a. You almost want to look at the supplement company and go, okay, is it more of an awareness thing because they have so many eyeballs on them. But then what's the roi? Because you're not getting anything in return for it. You're spending money on this person who is out of the industry that you're really targeting. I think they're looking at it as if we can get 10,000 guys and women to do that. That's how many messages we'll get out, in a sense. I don't know if that makes sense. And if just one person has a large following, maybe they're happy. I don't know. I don't know. The mindset behind it really has shifted. Away from, like the pure bodybuilder guys. And I think that along with digital and social media, I think that's also been the. Obviously the reason that the magazines have kind of fallen under 2. Listen, it's always been in existence. Now I'm gonna throw you two other names that you probably never heard of. Let's see, let's see. So when I was a kid, two guys would be in the magazines all the time. On the covers, it was the Barbarian twins. Okay, I'm Googling it. Yes. He goes, yes. The Barbarian twins. So they were known for how much weight they lifted. And Joe Weider saw them training at Gold's Gym in Venice. They had a movie. Yeah, Barbarians. They had some silly movies out. David Paul. Peter Paul. Yep. Yeah. Very intelligent guys. The. There was a whole, you know, thing on them. I think they. They were like. They were writing children's books too. Oh, the hair is crazy. Yeah, they had long hair. The hair is crazy. The outfits with the Raiders. Yep, yeah. Long mullets. But these guys could, you know, shoulder press 405 and bench. Yolked. Yeah, they were. They were joked. They were yolked. There was no joke. No joke. Y. No joke. So they were influencers, but in a different way. Yeah, because the platform was different. The platform was a magazine. They also looked the part. They. They lived. They. They look and live the part. Yeah. So. And there were other people just like him. Like them. I can't think of them. Think of them off. I'm a. I'm a historian of bodybuilding. I love the sport. I can tell stories about shit that I've experienced over the years. And people be like, who? Who's that? And as we're going, we're doing that. And you're, You're. I'm hitting the old Google machine. Yeah. So, man, it's cool. I mean, I appreciate this generation. I come at it like. And this Will segue into Diamond Gym. The way I was brought up in the gym and the way I tried to put a fire under some young guys asses today, it doesn't work. Today a lot of kids are growing up in the era of everyone has deserved a trophy and now they're adults and they don't know what to fucking do when I tell them the truth and go, you don't fucking train hard. You don't train hard. Dude, do me a favor, put 315 on your back. Let me know how that goes. After a few sets of 20 reps, let me know how you feel. And you want to throw up in a bucket. That's the way you got to train. And they're like, no, you don't. You could do the leg press, you could do extensions. I'm like, you, you are so uninformed. And when you have a trainer, I personally know a trainer who has more clients than me because he's a good bullshit artist. He does not know how to train. He doesn't train his legs and his clients only do what he does. And it scratches my head because I see like two or three who have amazing potential. But I can't say anything. I can't say anything because I wouldn't want a trainer to step on my toes. So I'm not going to disrespect them. However, you're doing an injustice to people who should be learning how to. If you're going to be a coach, a trainer today, you got to know how to train every body part with every exercise. You can't say you don't need this exercise today. We could get away with this exercise. How, how do you know that if no one's doing it until just now? Kid says to me, I want a, a physique like Frank Zane. I'm like, okay, that's phenomenal. Did you know Frank Zane was a powerlifter? You know he was a weightlifter. He deadlifted and squatted and like, what? I'm like, yeah, go google him. Your coach is lying to you to say Frank Zane never squatted. He's like, comes back, he's like, I had no idea. I go, yeah, because you don't know the history of the sport. What legs like Tom Platts. But I don't want to do it. I don't want to do any of the leg movements, you know? Yeah, I mean, like, come on. So I, so I go back to diamond to train and my first show that I won was the Suburban Bodybuilding Championships. Like I Mentioned earlier, and there was a guy at the show who I was like, I want to look like this dude, that black guy. Darrell Perry. I'm sorry. Cut that out. Don't say that name. Daryl James. Daryl James. Daryl James. Yeah. So Daryl James was backstage, and we became friends over the years, and he got out of the sport a little bit, got back into it. And so I went up to him back in, like, December, and I'm like, I need a better back. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm going super heavy, and it is not working for me. Everyone's saying, go heavy, go heavy, go heavy. And I'm doing it. I don't feel like my back is improving at all. All it's doing is just getting denser. But I'm not. It's not. It's not competitive enough. So we did a workout or two, and now here's where the old school comes in. So here I am. I'm thinking, like, you know, in my mind, I'm. I'm training hard, and he calls me. He's like, yo, we're done. I'm like, what do you mean? You aren't ready for this? I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, you're not serious. In the gym? Don't fucking waste my time. Don't call me. Don't contact me. Leave me alone. When you see me at Diamond, I'm like, dude, what are you talking about? I was fucking pissed. I'm like, no, that's not me. Like, how dare you tell me I'm not ready and focused? So you're catching me in December. Where? Probably coming off of a good month of eating shit and, like, enjoying the holiday food. My mind's not into contest prep yet. So a couple weeks go by, and now you do that to me? You're done. I'm not contacting you. I'm not kissing your ass. Don't worry about it. I won't call you. Don't worry. Like, you got no problems hearing. You're not gonna hear from me. I lost no sleep over it. I was pissed. And it. I think it. It, like, he saw when I walked into the gym, I attacked the weights a little differently. I was, like, going right back to when those three coaches told me I was never gonna amount to anything. I'm like, no, dude, you don't do that to me. I'm not like that. I'm not that guy. Like, give me a chance. Just get. Let me. I just need my. My shit together again so that Brought me right back to that. And then he came, he called me, and he was like, when do you want to start? Like, we're not hung up. Call me back. He goes, what are you doing? He goes, I'm trying to. With you. I go, I know. I'm with you, too. I got you for a second. But, you know, like, I. I took it. I took it serious. I took it serious. And, yeah, so we're training, and he's bringing me to a whole nother level in a completely different way. Like, if you saw the way we're training, you'll be like, why aren't you using any weight? Like, we warm up with, like, 20 and 30 reps, and I'm so pumped up, so ready to train. And he. He took me from point A. Now I'm at point C, where it's like, we're going to revamp you a little bit. We're going to. We're going to retrain the muscle to learn what it feels like to get a pump to fire up some muscles. Because you're 57 years old, you're going to be 58. We cannot train. I said, this is what I've been looking for, because I've been on that. On this search for a couple years now. And I thought I was doing it, and I have been, but this is exactly what I wanted. And so now, like, say the other day we were training back, and I think the first time we did barbell rows, it was with the bar. He had me do two sets of 30, and I got a pump, and I think we ended up with just a quarter and a 10. And the other day I'm rowing 275, but I can get a pump with it because I know how to activate it now. I know where to feel it now. Where for years I'm training with 275, and all I'm doing is yanking the weight, thinking I'm building a better back, and I'm not. So he'll stop me in the middle of it. He'll be like, what are you thinking about? Like, what do you mean? When you think about going to Japan, what do you think about? I said, oh. I said, well, you know, I want to go to a Major League baseball game and I want to see Samurai fighting. Goes, what? What are you thinking about? The fucking show, asshole. And I'm like, oh, yeah. No, I mean, oh, yeah. I'm thinking about it. Goes, no, no, no, no, no. He goes, no, you're not there yet, dude. Where is your head? I'm like, okay, I get it, I get it. I am. But I thought you meant, what am I doing after the show? He goes, if you knew what you were doing after the show, your first answer should always be, I am going there to win. And I'm like, well, that's a long haul. He goes, where's your fucking. He keeps going, where's your fucking head? So he's bringing me. He's bringing me to a place that I used to be, which is so cool. Is when I walk into the gym now, it's like, I just want to train. Yeah. I just want to train. Get right into it. I want to get right into it, you know? And he knows my style now. I need to get there about 15 minutes early, do my own warm up. I can't do his warm up. I need to get comfortable to. To then get into what we're doing. Training has been awesome. The, the, the. The refocus in mindset. Like, I don't want to sound like I wasn't focused, but, like, you think you're focused, and then you get somebody who brings you to another level. I'm really right into where you need to be. Yeah. And whatever happens August 9th, it happens. I mean, all I know is I'm leaving no stone unturned. I'm not gonna say I'm winning the show. I. There's gonna be monsters there. All I want to do is be the best version that I've ever been in all my master shows. Vinnie 3.0. Vinnie 3.0. And I gotta make a shirt. Yeah. Vinny 3.0. Vinny 3.0. Yeah. I just want to. I want to be the best that Vinnie could be. Stay in my own lane. Just be concerned about what I need to bring. I can't. Last time when I went to the Masters Olympia, I'm going against guys who are like, Max Charles. How tall is he? Like, he's got to be a little over six foot. All right. Yeah, I'm five, six and a half. And I'm winning master shows against guys who are, yeah, 6 foot, but like, 210, 220. Got Max Charles, who's like 240, probably. Yeah, yeah. Different level. And so when I was going into that, I'm like, I'm not going to win this. I'm not winning this. I got to come in the most ultra shredded I could be. And not realizing I was getting flatter and flatter going into the show and I wasn't bringing my best. I didn't stay in my own Lane. I just kept looking in the mirror as being ripped, but I didn't see how flat I was becoming. I wasn't seeing that. What was that due to? Just over dieting and just really trying to really, like, hone in on conditioning. I should have been eating more. I should have been coming in fuller, not so much in condition. I'm always in condition. But that was just like, I went past being in condition where I was so flat. I was holding water. I looked like I just didn't belong on that stage. And I came in, like, close to dead last, I think. Or I did come in dead last. I was too small. Way too small. You know, I like Steve Weinberger's quote in Phil Heats movie, the documentary. Was that the Olympia? His documentary. I can't even think of the name. Can you pull it up? Can I start over with that? You don't have to. I mean, were you gonna cut it? I could if you want, but, yeah, cut this. Can I just take a sip of water? Yeah, take a sip. Yeah. What's it called? Breaking Olympia. So going into the. The Olympian, thinking about what Steve Weinberger said about Phil Heats documentary, Breaking Olympia, he said, you know, some guys win some pro shows, and then when they get to the Olympia, they shit their pants. And Vinny Galante shit his pants when he got to the Olympia. I didn't stay in my own lane. I didn't do what. What should have been done. And I remember it was like, Thursday or Friday. I knew I should eat more, but I'm in Romania. I don't know the food. I don't know where to go to get something to eat. If I had access to a couple cheeseburgers, I probably would have ate them to fill out a little bit more. But I knew the damage was done. And, you know, you learn it's tough. When you're traveling and you try to have to get all the meals on the go. And, yeah, I had everything with me. I was organized. But eating an extra chicken breast and potato weren't. Was not gonna help at that point. You know, I needed dirty food to fill out. How do you know? Obviously, it's trial and error with your body, but how do you know that cutoff point between I'm filling out with the dirty food and now I'm spilling over. So I truly believe. All right, one, I don't believe in peak week. I think that's an excuse for people who didn't do the work the last 11 weeks, 15 weeks, and now they're like, oh, shit, I'M not in shape. I need to make all these adjustments to get on stage. I see a lot of guys look worse during and after peak, or they. Think they're living the dream and they got to do what everybody else is doing. I have to make these changes because everybody else makes these changes. And you're not a bodybuilder if you don't eliminate water and cut your sodium and whatever they do manipulate carbohydrates. When common sense says, if you're ready on Monday, coast in. And I gotta be honest with you, I usually just coast in. I keep my salt intake high. I drink at least two gallons of water, don't really manipulate it all that much, and I just walk on stage as is. I don't really need to make any adjustments to fill out. But for that show, for the Masters Olympia, I definitely needed it because I was doing things that I normally don't do to come in so ripped, but I was losing so much muscle that I was looking like I was getting a little fat. But it was really just holding a lot of water. So the subcutaneous water came out of the muscle, landed between the muscle and the skin, and you really couldn't see much. And like, my pecs were horrible. Everything was just. And to get rid of that is what. It's just getting the water out via cardio and. Well, no, you're at that point, you're not getting. I'm saying after that, it's just. It's rebalancing the water table, I guess. No, I said, fuck it. I just ate normal food. I was going home. I was. I spent three days in Germany eating pretzels and having beer. All right. And then literally when I got off the plane, go back into. In back home, I was in contest shape. I was full, big, hard abs were. Ripped shotgun to beer backstage. Yeah, I was. Why? I didn't drink a lot of beer, but I had like two beers and I had a. Probably about four pretzels. Five pretzels. And, you know, just overdid everything and over stressed about it. What we say earlier, you live constantly a student. Yeah, constantly a student. I'm glad that I had the experience so I know how to apply it now. And I have a good coach in my corner with nutrition and I have a good trainer in the gym. I have two good people on my side. So I'm hoping. And I think I'm going to bring a better package than ever this year. Who knows, you know, we could all talk and say we're going to Be the best and, you know. But I'm working. It's a matter of how you show up, getting to that point, but just. You can only worry about today and how you're going to continually show up every day. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just. Just grateful that I'm able to do this again, you know? It's amazing. Yeah. It's. Now for Tokyo. You need to know. So I care about what you're going to do afterwards. I care about the show, but I also care about what you're going to do afterwards. You want to see some samurai fighting? You want to. Do you want to see sumo wrestling? I definitely want to see sumo wrestling. Wrestling is gangster. I definitely had it. They had it at the. At the Garden. I know. I take a girl to it. She wasn't answering me. I was like, I should just go by myself. And then it was just too late. And I said, ask her. I'll go next time. I want to go see that. I want to see that. And I definitely want to see a professional baseball game. Yeah. Do you show that? Did you see the game yesterday? They were smacking the Dodgers. No, in Japan. Oh, really? Yeah. No. Oh, Dodgers were in Japan. Yeah, they played. Who. Who they play now that. That's if baseball season lasts through that. That time frame. I don't know. Oh, what to August for Japanese baseball? I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea, but it'll be really cool. And then they have. Let's see. I heard the Nippon. Yeah, Nippon Baseball Organization. It runs through. Let's see. Oh, yeah, you should be good. The All Star Games are in July, and then the Nippon series is October 25th. Oh, so, like, they'll be playing in July. August. Yeah, they should be playing in August, so you could definitely see it out there. But yeah, they have. From what I understand, at Mount Fuji. At the foot of Mount Fuji is a forest, and there's something about a sacred ground where there's people who have committed suicide there. Yeah, the suicide forest. Suicide forest? Yeah, the Paul brothers. I forget which one it was. They were under some crazy heat years ago. How quickly the public forgets he was filming somebody that had just committed suicide. They still do it. Oh, in the forest. Yeah. I don't know if it's the same one, but there is. I thought it was something that took place in, like. No, I mean, there was. There was an actual suicide forest. I don't know which one it is. I have to look it up. But there was a suicide forest. That one. I don't know if it was Logan or Jake. I don't really know which one it was. But they were under a lot of heat years ago because they filmed a guy who had just committed suicide. And they were like, I can't even believe. Like, they're doing that fake YouTube shit. Like, I can't believe it, bro. So crazy. And, like, you could see the dude hanging there. He's like, bro, have a little. Have a little, like, self, like, respect for people and things. Not everything needs to be filmed. But once again, we said what we say before I cut the podcast on. I'm not about that. Sensational. I'm not about that. Like, how far can I keep raising the bar? Well, that's. That's one reason why I like to ask you to be on the podcast. Like, you're. You're not that guy. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, we've known each other long enough to know the level of your respect. And I know that you respect the bodybuilders. Oh, for sure. You know, I know that. And we get a lot of people in this industry who. Who wish they could compete, wish they could do what we do. They can't. But they're intelligent guys or women and have access to things that we could utilize, and they take advantage. Yeah. And you're not that guy. So I thank you. I appreciate you, dude. Listen, I did my two shows and I called it quits. It was tough. I wanted nothing more than the IFBB name and my Instagram handle. But then I just realized that it just. It wasn't for me. I just realized the competitive side of it just wasn't something that I thought it was going to be. You know what's funny? Yeah. So we talk about all these people, like, about, you know, getting pro cards, and nobody knows who they are. I'm an IFBB Pro, and on my Instagram handle, I do not have it. Yeah. Somebody asked me, why. Why don't you have that? I said, does Derek Jeter have mlb? Like, legend. MLB legend, shortstop? No. You know who Derek Jeter is? I don't know who you are because you just blend in with the rest of the people. I think Phil Heath has IFBB Pro. Neither did Kai. Yeah. And they're not going to. Yeah. Yeah, they're not going to. Now, that was that fantasy of getting the supplement sponsors and all that stuff. That's when P28 was around.28. Yeah. Oh, my God. I would eat that peanut butter like crazy. And the bread. All the. All the different. You know, it was it was really popping on the scene at that point of just like the sponsors were really pay. Starting to pay some money, like they really were. Because it was the. The dawn of, oh, we have to be digital. We have to be on that online vertical to start getting these sales as opposed to just an ad every now and then on a website banner or on a magazine. You know, it's pretty cool. Just recently, I'm at Diamond, I'm on a bike and it's. The bike at diamond is right next to the front desk. It's. It's broken. It. It's just a pedal and it's just for people wasting time, like, kind of thing, like sitting there. Yeah. The real cardio is upstairs. Yeah. It's upset, but it's also trying to get the pyramid of dumbbells to get all the dumbbells off. Yeah. So I'm just sitting on a bike. I'm. I'm waiting for Daryl to come in. And I'm looking over at these two guys who are professional wrestlers, young guys, and they're good guys. They're just really good guys. And professional wrestlers, as in like, professional wrestling? Yeah. Grappling or wwe. Wwe. Okay, cool. Yeah, they're on another organization, but they're on that. They're on their way into the wwe and I don't follow that too much, so I can't, you know, expand on it, but they're doing dumbbell shoulder presses. And I wasn't looking at them if they were doing it right or wrong, but I said, hey, can I show you a better way? And I was explaining to them that there's a tendon in your elbow and if you spot and squeeze the tendon, the dumbbells will go up a little bit easier. It's an old school trick. I learned it probably before 1990. I was spotted by. I always spotted by the elbows, but I never squeezed right. So if you're. If you're holding somebody's elbows, if you just squeeze the tendon, it'll go up easier. Really? I don't know why. I don't know the science behind it. I didn't know they were videoing it. So he post it. Somebody sent it to Joey Swole. Joey Swole makes a comment on it. No. Good. Okay. Because I know Joey Swole personally. I started. I was about to roll my eyes a little bit. I was like, oh, what did he say? No, no. Joey Swole is a good guy with me. I met him. I met him when I was a Kai. He was nice with me too. But I just know sometimes it could be perceived. No, it was all possible if you knew him. Okay, all positive. We have over 5 million views on that. It went, it went viral. Right? And now, mind you, I wasn't paying attention to where his elbow placement was, his hand placement. I was just showing him how to spot better from the elbows. And instead of people looking at what I did and what I commented on, they all focused on what I didn't do. And it blew up. And people were messaging my. My DMs blew up for about. We were leaving for vacation two weeks ago and I was joking to my friends, I go, oh, wow, look, there's 500. No, like five. 5,000 people following, like, the video. That's weird. When we landed, it was a million. And through the week it went up to like two and a half. Dennis has been growing. Now it's five million people in two weeks. And my own Instagram followers went up by like 2,000 people. Crazy, right? I had a shot. I had to leave the phone in the hotel room because if I kept looking at how many people were DMing me. You're a typical old school jerk off. You don't know what you're doing. Like the names I was being called, I had a laugh. And then I saw who. Just recently, Chris Acedo made a comment that he doesn't look at his social media and his guys that scroll all day long and it can play havoc on your. On your mindset. And I just deleted all of them. Got. Got rid of everything. Like, I'm not reading this stuff. I had that problem when I. With my TikTok because my TikTok blew up. I have 53,000 on TikTok, but it's from podcast clips. And I would have Andre Ferguson on, and I have all these other guys on. And listen, we. They say what they say. We put clips up and you know, that's the most sensationalism you'll get out of me is just taking a clip from what we did in the episode and just putting it on the Internet so you'll see it in the full video. I'm not hiding it, but here, I just took 30 seconds and I put it here. And listen, some of this shit that goes out there is, you know, it rubs some people the wrong way, but other people love it. And you just, you're always gonna get that push and pull. Yeah. When I did my podcast with Aaron Banks, he was talking about sponsorships and how to be a good athlete and this and that, and somebody walked in front of his tripod in one of the gyms and he had a face or he made comments. I don't even know. All of a sudden, I started getting thousands of comments on our podcast clip. Fuck you, I'm gonna walk in front of your tripod next time. This and that. I was like, what is going on? And everybody was beating up on my post because he turned off the comments on all of his stuff. So I was like, y'all are yelling at me. It was just a podcast clip with him. And I guess Joey had put it out there that he got angry that somebody walked in front of his tripod. Yeah, I saw it. You saw that one? I didn't even see it. So I just. So some people kept commenting and after a while, I couldn't. I couldn't. Like, I messaged a couple people. Like on the post. I was just like, yeah, you guys are messaging as if he's watching this. It's just me. I'm just hanging out. Like, it's just me hanging out at my. In my apartment. Like, I'm not relaying the information to him. It's just. I'll let him know next time. He didn't like that. He didn't. He got angry at somebody walking from his tripod. I don't know. But it's just the Internet gang up is very weird. And the comments and the constant checking. Hey, this is not the first time I have a box of letters. I got letters constantly in the 90s. A lot of weird ones. A lot of. A lot of. A lot of, like, women contacted me to say, could you meet me at the airport and pick me up? Yeah, my husband just went to prison for 10 years. Oh, no, I'm not joking. Oh, I know you're not joking to. Oh, lady talking to me, like, telling me you ruined your physique. You. You're. You. You should be an ectomesomorph or not a mesomorph. Now you turned it into, like all. This weird one science. They've one science based article about one person's body type, and now they know everything about yours. It's a little bizarre. It's really bizarre. We go back to, like, people just. They. They forget that you're people at the end of the day and they just. But I saved the box because I. I think it's. I read them sometimes. Every few years, I'll read them. I'm like, holy shit. Because. Because sometimes crack a new one open. You're just like, oh, if an athlete comes to my house and we're talking about his prep or her prep, whatever. And they're like, did you read this? I go, I want to show you something. And I break out the box. And I'm like, this is what I got back in the 90s. Like, people wrote you letters. I'm like, yeah. Picture a world, take your phone, throw it in the garbage, pretend it didn't exist. That's the way we lived our lives. I'm envious of that world, actually. And they're like, how? How is that? Like, that's the way we live our lives. I'm envious of that, except for the fact that I need Google Maps. That's the only thing I can't. You get. Y'all could take everything else. I was saying to a client the other day, said, listen, I used to use this analogy. It's not going to really apply anymore because of Google Maps, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. And I was talking about. I said to her, we're doing legs. And we were doing legs. And how I wanted to work, how I wanted her to approach it. And the next set is going to be easier because your brain already knows the muscle connection, right? I said, well, you invite me to your house for dinner. I go, but I got to read the instructions on how do I get there the next time I come. I know where you live, so it's a lot faster. So when you use the exercise, your brain is going to know what you're doing the next set, the third set. And she's like, okay. But I don't get the analogy too much. I go, yeah, because I use weight. Because you have to look at your phone. It just tells you where to go. Yeah, so that's pretty funny. I had a conversation with my mom about that. I said, so y'all just had maps? Literally had a map. You just pulled the map out. I said, you guys are worried about us texting and driving, but you had a full size map out like you're a pirate sailing the Caribbean? Yep. Really? But I'm a problem when I say, yeah, be right there. Yeah, totally, totally fucking year. My generation quickly forgets what we did. Yeah, yeah. All the time. My nephew, my niece, always break chops. And I'm like, I'm not that. I'm Generation X. I don't give a. Yeah, yeah. You're not Generation X. I'm like, I am. I was born in 67 rolls right off. It ain't that big a deal. Yeah, so. But what food are you looking forward to? In Tokyo. Sushi. Sushi. Okay. What is. What is Vinnie's Achilles heel of food? Oh, you're Italian. Achilles heel would be pizza. Preferably a sausage and pepperoni. Okay. But, you know, raviolis. Meatballs. My sister. My sisters. I have three sisters. Two of them take after my mom, and they cook. The. They cook. And my sister Charlotte is the oldest, and she's the one who's always making me meatballs. She's like, we got our meatballs when you get back. Like, whatever show, you know, and so that. Her meatballs. My sister Mary's meatballs. But, like, I start craving things that I don't normally eat, like when I'm in prep, like, full prep. What's the weirdest craving? Like, odd stuff that I don't think of. Like. Like Yodels and Twinkies and, like, I don't eat that. I just don't eat it. I like bubble gum ice cream. Like, what? I. Yeah, like, every prep. I do. And I don't look at this as a refeed or cheat meal. It is part of the program for me. I'm a horrible dieter. If I do not eat one bad meal a week, I will not stay on the diet. So I like a good cheeseburger, French fries, some ice cream once a week. I do it every Sunday. But then I start, like, I also have cravings for sweets. So, like, candies. And I'm a sweet craver. You know, I'm big on that. You know, walk my dog in town. All the time because I live right on the outskirts of town. And I'll be walking past the candy store that they make homemade chocolate. Homemade chocolates, like, all types of different ones. And I walk past the ice cream spot, the multiple pizza spots, the Chinese spot. I'm just like, oh, God. What got me after the hurricane was. It was football season. And I grew up on Sundays eating pasta, antipast, and all that. My parents are gone now my nana's gone, so I don't have that. So I love to make a little plate of antipast, some bread, and just. Watch olive oil balsamic. Yep. And just watch the football games and just nibble away for a couple hours. And, you know, and that just wreaks havoc with sodium. Like, oh, man, I could salt my food all day long. I eat some. Some. Some salami and provolone and, like, Edema's calling. Edema's calling. Why are my ankles so swollen? Holy shit. I. I gotten so far into prep some for years where I couldn't even name the foods anymore. I'm like, what's that me called again? And my cousins were like, you don't know what it's called? Like, I haven't eaten it in so long, I've completely forgot because it would be part of. It was a staple in our family. It would be. It would be in the refrigerator. Totally out of your regimen. Yeah. I grew up with prosciutt and capicole and, you know, mozzarella in my refrigerator. Shoots, my favorite. Of course. Yeah. Top. Top dog in my. Get a little lemon, wrap some prosciutt around it, pop them in your mouth. People don't understand. It's amazing to be Italian. Yeah. The food. Ah. I have a small Italian family, so that's the only thing that sucked about my family. Well, mine's smaller now. Oh, yeah. It used to be bigger. I mean, always small, though. Like, my. It was just. It from. From the start, it was just me, mom, grandma, grandpa, my aunt Angela, my cousin Michael, my cousin Diana, and my Uncle Charlie, and that was it. So we were. So were your parents from Italy? My. My. My great grandparents were. Okay. My grand. My grandparents were the first generation. Oh, okay. My parents were first generation. Okay. So, yeah, my parents are first. My grandparents are first generation. They were born here. And then my. My mom's second. I guess that's second generation. Okay. Then I'm third. So I guess my mom is the last one that I could get the dual citizenship with. But she didn't want to apply for that because then I would have had to have been enlisted in the Italian army. Evidently, with how it worked. Not anymore. When I was younger, though. When I was younger. This is like early 2000s. Okay. So I don't know. So that's why she didn't do it back then. But. Yeah, I've seen, like, a lot of the ads for that. I'm like, oh, I should do that. Yeah. I would like to do it just because I think it would be cool. You never know. Yeah. I think it's. It's cool to open up. And I've traveled around the world and I'm not. I'm not opposed to living in Italy, but I'm also not, like, gung ho about it like other people might be, but I wouldn't. I mean, maybe it's cool. Maybe it's a cool. Maybe it's a cool endeavor later in life. I don't know. It's an amazing place to visit. Yeah. When I went there, I liked it. I liked Switzerland better. I know my Italian. No It's. My Italian relatives are rolling in the grave right now. They're like, you, mother. Where do you think of all the places I've ever been to, had the best food? Best food? Probably Europe. Yeah. Give me five options. Five options. Because I feel like you've been everywhere, so it's tough. Germany, Romania, Poland. Poland. I knew you were going to say Poland. Pick those three. Germany, Romania, Poland. Italy, too. And Italy. I don't think Italy was number one. I think Italy was, like, number two or three. Poland was number one. I was going to say Poland. I was going to. I was going to put Germany at the third slot. Germany was good, too, but Poland. Oh, my God, I was completely shocked at how amazing their food was. Ingredient quality or just the way that they. Well, you know, everything. It is 100 true. On. The food in Europe is so much cleaner than our food. Yes. Less ingredients, less fillers and fillers and all the. Yeah, there's foods that I can't eat here that I can eat over there in any country that gives me no stomach issues. But the one thing that really caught my eye was when we ate beef tartare in Poland. And when I first saw it the first time, I was like, no, I don't want that. That looks disgusting. I'm not eating that because they have. The raw quail in the middle, too. So I was with Evan Centipani and Flex Wheeler. Evan's the man, the glass Tupperware. And we're on this tour from Germany through Poland. And the first meal they took us to was on a roadside off of the Autobahn. And I thought, well, we're never gonna get this again. I should have ate it because I had a little piece of Evans at the end. It was delicious. And then every. Every place we went to, from lunch to dinner, had beef tartare. Yeah, they ate it all the time. And I loved it. It was delicious. Delicious. And other foods, too. And I fucked with Flex Wheeler a little bit because Flex would not eat any of the food. And he. He only wanted McDonald's or spaghetti. That's all he wanted. And with tons of ketchup on it. I was like, you're ketchup on the spaghetti? Yeah. I said, flex, you're in. We're in Poland. What are you doing? So he said he would try the pierogies. I think it was pierogies. And I was swapping out his pierogies for ones with different flavors in them because he wouldn't try anything. Yeah. He didn't have no idea. Having a Picky eating kid. If he hears this is the first time he's hearing it because I was swapping his stuff out. He didn't have no idea. But yeah, a good time. I mean, I, I'm fortunate to have rubbed elbows with some of the greats in the sport and to work alongside them and, you know, gain their respect and, and just a lot of information I've learned over the years to apply to my own bodybuilding and really there's no secret. It's just hard work and being disciplined and knowing when to stop, knowing when to be so disciplined that there's nothing but the contest on your mind and knowing you want that balance in your life. So I met a lot of good people that have, that have taught me that over the years and I think that's why I have longevity in the sport. And, you know, we're not curing cancer, we're just training for a contest or some people who are misinformed that influences are not bodybuilders. And I hate that they're mixed and intertwined into our sport. They have nothing to do with stepping on stage, nothing like these influencers. Great, fantastic. I applaud you for doing what you're doing and putting all that hard work in, but personally, I want to win a title over having how many people follow me. I mean, if I were 25, I'd be doing the same shit today, but with my mindset, my business thought process, I'd be getting more than just followers. I'd be branching out to promoters in different areas of life where I could endorse something and bring, bring my name to their, their platform and mix it. You know, I think that's the perfect way to end in segment. All right, that was perfect. Vinnie, can you please tell the people watching where they could follow you, find you, if they don't already. And then obviously we have the Masters Olympia in August in Tokyo. So if they want to follow the journey going into it, I know we spoke, you're going to be documenting it and showing the, the road going into it as well. So it's going to be awesome. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to be doing a couple of different things, different approaches going. I'm going to approach it a little differently with the road to the Olympia. There's going to be some training, but it's going to be more content where I'm just talking about mindset stuff. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, you can follow me on Instagram at Vinny Galante underscore and I also have my makeshift podcast please, on at Masters Muscle. So give me. Give me any. Any. Any relevant links, and I'll make sure that it's in the show notes for anybody to watch as well. All right? Yeah. So. But thank you for having me today. It's been a pleasure, Vinny, Absolute pleasure. Are you going to train at Bev's after this? Yeah. Okay. I figured if you got to make. You got to make the most out of train. Yeah, gotta make the most out of the trip. Everybody, please go follow Vinnie. Go follow the journey. He's one of the great old school guys that are still clanging and banging in the industry and doing his thing, and it's been a pleasure to get to know him personally and obviously sit across from him and hear his story in person. Thank you. No, for real, thank you. And everybody, please do the thing like share, subscribe, comment, do all the things that help me to continue sitting down with amazing human beings like Vinny. And on that note, I appreciate everybody for fucking with us, but for now, peace, peace.