Muscle gain update... Weight gain, calories, injuries & goals!

Today we're doing a chatty update on my muscle gain phase! Talking about rate of gain (and comparing this to people who think they might put on 3kg's every time they eat out 🫣) my current training (and injury 🤪), and my expectations and goals for muscle gain phase, and year as a whole!

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The Eat Like Ruby podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature and should not be used to treat any medical conditions, health conditions, illnesses, injuries and/or any nutrition related conditions, deficiencies or similar.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello gals, welcome back to the pod. I am back today doing another episode about my own nutrition training and muscle gain phase update. But like always, I'm gonna talk about a few things that have come up for me and kind of relate them back to how I've seen them come up with clients as well, and just kind of like handpick a few little things that have been playing out over the last few weeks that I think we could have a cool little discussion about. So, nutrition, training, mindset, muscle gain, fat loss, body image, all the shit we usually talk about. But like always, we'll go in a few different directions, see what comes up. But the first thing I wanted to say before I get into that is the last episode we did was the episode about Shaq's events and me feeling quite nervous and anxious during those events. And sitting here right now, that episode came out on Wednesday. It is now Friday. Shaq is doing the half marrow on Sunday. You guys will hear this episode on Monday. So sitting here right now, he hasn't done it yet, but by the time the episode comes out, he would have. So it's a little bit weird timing. But the first thing I wanted to say is I got so much love and support and feedback from that episode, which is awesome because I honestly contemplated it so much. Like I contemplated recording it, and then once I recorded it, I was like, should we even bother editing it? And then when we edited it, I was like, should we actually upload it? When we uploaded it, I was like, should I actually listen to it? Like every step of the process, I was like contemplating deleting it. Glad I didn't because so many people just reached out and they were like, that was just so cool to hear, like a bit of a different episode. But equally, a lot of people reached out and just said that they had been through similar things where, like, not the same thing, but like losing someone in a particular way and then being quite triggered by that scenario playing out in other areas of their life or moving forward. So that was just kind of cool for me to be like, well, I'm not the only one. Um, and it was actually so much more beneficial for myself than I thought. Just recording the episode and listening to it back helped me so much. And I don't even really know how to explain that, but it definitely did, um, which is cool. I actually played the episode for Shaq a couple of days before it came out because I didn't want him to just be blindsided by it. Like if he didn't listen, and then people started saying to him, like, wow, that episode from Rubes was a bit gnarly, and he's like, What the hell? So played that for him, and like always, he was super good about it. And so I just feel like even that helped so much. And I also had a fair few of my clients reach out to me and say like they had lost certain people in their life that I didn't know about, like years ago, and just different things that had gone on for different clients. So just felt like it kind of opened up some cool combos that wouldn't otherwise have happened. So that was just cool to experience that. And like I said, sitting here right now, he is gonna run in two days. I am feeling quite good about it. I did say in that episode that I do feel good until the events start, but I am feeling quite good about it, and I've got like a little bit of a plan of how I'm just gonna try and start slowly navigating each event a little bit differently, like just implement a couple little things at each event. So I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about that on the podcast. We might touch on it again as he comes up to his next event or something, but just wanted to say thank you for the support on that one, and I will do maybe a few little Instagram updates or whatever over the weekend, depending on how he goes. Um, and then we'll just touch on it a little bit moving forward. But coming back to today's episode, like I said, gonna do a little update on where I'm at, and then just find a few little lessons in that that we can riff on throughout the episode. So if you are new here, first of all, welcome. But you may not know, I am currently 13-ish weeks into my muscle gain phase. I've got about seven weeks to go, I would say, sitting here right now. So I'm doing a 20-week intentional calorie surplus slash muscle gain phase. So literally intentionally eating more calories than my body needs to put on weight, ideally in the form of muscle. A little bit of body fat is coming along with that, but that is fine. We might talk about that today. But if that is something that interests you, I'd say I've done probably five or six episodes about this over the last two months. So definitely go back and have a listen to those if you haven't. If you are a regular listener who's following along, we're just gonna break down a few more things in that muscle gain phase today. And like I said, I've actually got a few little pointers that I want to cover, and I actually think some of these are then gonna segue into bigger episodes of their own. So I've got a few episodes planned for the next few weeks, and I feel like a lot of the things we touch on today, I've then been like, ooh, I think this has its whole own episode that we could do. So we'll just see where we go. But a little bit of an update. Like I said, sitting here right now, I'm about 13 weeks down, seven to go. So nearly three quarters of the way there, which is crazy. I am ending my muscle gain phase on whatever the Sunday is. I think it's Sunday, the 26th of July. So that will be my last day of the surplus, and then on the Monday, it's like that starts on Monday, literally, um, into my deficit, and we will rip into that from there. So I'll definitely do a detailed episode about what that's gonna look like, like what the deficit's gonna look like as that gets closer. But right now, if we update on the muscle gain phase, I am still eating around the two and a half to three thousand calorie mark. I said in some of those recent episodes that I was finding that my surplus needed to be a little bit higher than I thought, and therefore my maintenance might be a little bit higher than I thought. So that's always a good thing, I think. Like we can eat a bit more than we thought. Who doesn't love that? But it's something that I am having to be quite conscious and like proactive and staying on top of at the moment. And what I mean by that is I'm kind of finding that I just naturally want to eat around that two and a half thousand calorie mark, and then I have to kind of remind myself to be like, no roops, have something else, like get that bit more in. Because I think that if I was to be coming in around two and a half thousand calves every day, I would be under-consuming a little bit for the goal that I have. So I wouldn't be under-consuming, like I'm not gonna drop dead of starvation on two and a half thousand calves, but I just feel like based off of the last few weeks and months, I'm getting that feedback that I do need to push just into those high 2000s to really make sure I'm in that surplus that I want to be in. And so what I was saying there is I kind of plan out my day roughly, but I'm also just giving myself that wiggle room to just be like, what exactly do I feel like? So what I mean by that is I might think to myself, like, yeah, I'm gonna have eggs at some point today. But then when I actually go to have the eggs, I'll be like, okay, do I want eggs on toast? Do I want an omelet? Do I want cheese on it? Do I want olive oil? Do I want avocado? And like, sounds like little things, which it is, but I'm just giving myself that bit of wiggle room. So then, therefore, what exactly my calories and everything come in at for the day is kind of getting decided as I go. So I have an overall plan where I'm like, I will have pre-training, I'll have post-training, I'll have a yogurt bowl, I'll have eggs, I'll have some sort of meat and veg dinner. I've literally eaten these meals every day for 10 years, but what exactly I put in them and then therefore exactly how they add up is just a little bit different day to day. And then that's what's resulting in my days either being like two and a half thousand cows or up closer to that three thousand. So something that I was finding is that when I'm planning those things of like pre-training, post-training, breakfast, lunch, dinner, essentially, that was coming in at around two and a half thousand cows. And then I was just like, I'm good. Like, I don't need any snacks, I don't need dessert, I don't need anything else. And then that's where I was just consciously being like, yeah, but if you do have a snack, you're gonna pull yourself up closer to that like two, eight, two, nine mark, which is a bit better for the goal that you have. So there's a huge win in this, in my opinion. And just want to point out there'll be a lot of people in deficits listening to this, going, wow, what a first world problem. You're like force feeding snacks. Which side note, I'm not force-feeding snacks. And I did say in a recent episode as well, like every phase, every goal can have its struggles or its ups, its downs, whatever it is. So this is definitely not something I'm struggling with, but it's just something I've noticed is that my natural, I don't even know what the word is there, just like what I'm naturally gravitating towards is like, I don't need a snack. I'm good. And I think that is such a win. I've spoken about this at different times over the years on the podcast, where spending so much time out of a deficit, you can just reduce your food focus so much. And I, I've never really had a high food focus ever, but I would also bring that back to the fact that I spend very little amount of time in a calorie deficit. I spend very little amount of time restricting myself and being on a restrictive diet. So people can kind of hear that and go, oh, well, you don't know what it's like. And it's like, yeah, but I don't know what it's like because of the effort and the intention that I've put into the way I structure my nutrition. So, like I said, I've never had to deal with that big food-focused thing, but I've also navigated my nutrition very intentionally to optimize that. So that's just a cool thing to point out. And this is a huge thing I see with clients, even clients that come to me, like the most common client that I've worked with over the years is a person who has had a history of just miserable dieting, like somewhat restrictive, bit shitty, just a bit up and down, just kind of miserable overall. And then the more they learn about nutrition, the more they start to realize like, yes, I can have intentional deficits, but I can also have very intentional time out of the deficit. And when we do that, one of the biggest shifts and one of the biggest wins I see for people is just that big reduction in food focus and just being so much more chill around food and being okay with including things at times, being okay with not including things at times. And like I said, the whole thing is just a lot more chill compared to someone who's just always in that restricted mentality and then therefore always thinking about what they can't have or what they want to have or what they're craving, etc. So a little bit of a tangent there, a little bit of a side note, but just a cool thing. I always love to point that out to people as they are going through something like maintenance or a surplus, they start to see it. I like to point it out to them, and it's just a really cool thing to acknowledge. And I would just say right now, I am at the absolute peak of that. I would say I have complete food neutrality. Honestly, like I could eat a whole pizza right now, or I could eat a celery stick, and I wouldn't care less. I could eat 800 calories tomorrow, or I could eat 8,000, and I genuinely wouldn't care less. And so I just think that's such a cool position to be in because it's just not taking up any of my brain power and especially not taking up or contributing to any like negativity with my food mindset or just my mindset in general. So that is awesome. I'm very stoked about being in that position. And then I've seen this with a lot of clients over the years as well, whether they are pursuing a surplus like this to pursue muscle gain, or I see it a lot with athletes as well, where they need to have a high intake in place for their goals. And they're like, I just don't really care that much. Like I'm not excited to be eating 3,000 calories a day. I'm just trying to make it as simple as I can because I need to eat that much for the goal that I have. And like I said, that can be so cool for someone's mindset and like their food focus and everything. But then you almost start to encounter another problem where you then have to be like, okay, cool, but you do have to hit a certain amount, especially when we look at athletes and their training volume. It's like you might not want to consume that much, but you actually kind of have to, or you do have to, for the goal that you have. So coming back to my goal, I don't have to do anything, like no one's got a gun to my head, but I know the best thing for my goal right now is to go to those high 2000s every day. So it's just like catching myself just naturally wanting to stop at that two and a half thousand mark and just being like, have the snack, have the like usually I just have dark chocolate and a piece of fruit in the afternoon, nothing crazy. Believe it or not, she's eating simple meals. Um, but just literally, I when that time comes around, I think to myself, I don't really care if I have it or not. And then I just go, yeah, but it's gonna be better for your goal to have it. So have it. So that is just a cool little thing to acknowledge. And like I said, I always like to point that out to my girls when they're experiencing that as well. Coming back to my progress and just where I'm at, so coming in around those high 2000 calors every day, give or take, my weight is sitting around the high 68s, low 69s. So for the last week and a bit, probably looking at my spready, probably even two weeks, it's pretty much been hanging between like 68, 7, 69, 1. So that is cool. And that is definitely one thing I've noticed is that my rate of gain is a lot lower and slower than I thought. And I think this is just a cool thing to think about because I'm essentially sitting here right now, having spent the last three months plus, like I said, it's been about 13 weeks, intentionally eating in that calorie surplus. And so eating up in those high 2000s, but then also like going out for a meal every weekend. And when I go out for these meals, it's like no real boundaries, no guidelines, not in like a crazy bitch way, but just you know, obviously, if you go out for a meal and you're in a deficit or something like that, you're just kind of thinking, oh, maybe I'll get steak and salad, maybe I won't get chips, or say no to an entree. Like sometimes you just put those guidelines in place, which is awesome if that works for your goal and it makes sense for your goal. For my goal right now, I'm like, I can just enjoy a meal out, right? I'd rather over-consume than under consume. So let's go. I'm getting the entree. And like I said, I'm not doing anything crazy, but I'm literally just going out and enjoying a meal with no guidelines, no extra thoughts around it. And so those days would definitely be up over 3,000 cows because I pretty much eat my normal day. And then instead of having my normal dinner, which is like 600 cals, I go out for dinner, which has got to be up in the 1,000 plus cows. When you think about like having a whole pizza or burger chips, having entree, maybe a dessert. I'm racking up the cows. So my point here, and the thing that I wanted to look at is like I said, I've been eating in the high 2000s, plus doing a meal like that every week, and I'm pretty much sitting three to three and a half kilos up in 13 weeks. And the reason I want to point this out is because we have people who genuinely think that going out for one meal is gonna result in them putting on three kilos. And there's gonna be people laughing at that because they don't think that. There's gonna be people laughing who are like, oh yeah, I actually do think that. And it does sound kind of crazy when you say it out loud. There's gonna be people listening that are like, no, that's a genuine fear of mine. Everyone's kind of in a different position with that thought, depending on, you know, where you're at, what you've been through, etc. But I just think it's really worth pointing out here, and not to say that every single person is gonna experience weight gain at the exact rate that I have and in the same position I have and everything, but again, think about the fact that I'm like intentionally pushing those high calms, and I've put on three and a half kilos, give or take. So if you're someone who's eating in a deficit or even at maintenance really consistently, and then you're having this odd meal out here and there, like once a week, once a fortnight, whatever it is, again, just clock that thought of like, oh my god, I'm gonna put on three kilos in one meal. First of all, if we let's actually pull those numbers apart just for one second. If someone genuinely thinks they're going to put on three kilos in one meal, first of all, we know that weight will fluctuate temporarily due to things like higher food volume and food mass, increased carbohydrate intake, increased sodium, etc. So if we do go out for a meal and then we hop on the scale the next day and we see that spike, we know that is a temporary spike because of those things, not an increase in body fat. And that's what I want to look at here. We've spoken about this before, but I think it's just worth repeating it here. A kilo of body fat is worth 7,700 calories, meaning we need to have an excess of 7,700 calories come in to put on one kilo of body fat. So if you think you're gonna put on three kilos of body fat in one meal, that means you have to go out and eat a meal that has, let me run these numbers, about 23,000 calories in it. Just pausing to let that one sink in. I don't know if any human being has ever eaten 23,000 calories in one day. I mean, there's probably some sort of food challenge where someone has, but I personally did the 10,000 calorie challenge a few years ago and I couldn't do it. I literally intentionally tried to eat 10,000 calories in one day, and I hit the wall at about 8,000 and I pretty much had like a carb sodium sugar hangover the next day. Like I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. It was wild. So coming back to my point, if we are in that mentality of thinking, like, oh my god, if I go out for one meal, I'm going to undo all my hard work, I'm gonna put on X amount of body fat, etc., it's important to first of all know the difference between temporary weight fluctuations versus body fat gain. And then if we really hone in on that body fat gain for a second, like I said, one kilo of body fat gain is 7,700 calories excess. So even looking at that right there, if a person's body uses 2,000 calories in a day, like let's say your maintenance intake is 2,000 calories, you would need to consume 9,700 calories that day to put on a kilo of body fat. So again, if you think you're gonna put on three kilos in one meal, it's it's impossible. So that's just a funny, important, cool thing to think about. And obviously it's kind of off topic to where I'm at, but I just think that's cool to look at, is like Rubs has been intentionally pumping in these cows, and that rate of gain is just chipping away gradually over time. It's not like I've just packed it all on in one night. So I just really wanted to point that out. So I am sitting around, like I said, those high 68s, low 69s, just kind of fluctuating a little bit every day, but hanging there pretty steadily. And if you've listened to all these episodes, you'll know that's just gradually come up, like through those 67s, into the 68s, back to the 67s for a while, through the 68s, now hanging in those high 68s, occasionally seeing a 69. It is such gradual weight gain over time. And like we said, I'm 13 weeks in. So nearly three-quarters of the way there. I feel like I'm gonna end this in the 70s, maybe 71s, which, if you've been listening from the start, was my goal. Like that's perfect. I'm so on track with that, which is really cool. And I just think it's cool to step back and look at the overall trajectory of that, especially if you're someone who gets caught up in those day-to-day numbers. And then alongside that, my steps have been sitting around that 9 to 10,000 average. There were a few weeks here on the sunny coast where it literally poured with rain all day, every day. My steps were pretty low. I actually didn't even wear my watch. I feel like I get into this habit of being like, meh, I'm not stepping today, so I won't put the watch on, which is I'm not recommending that at all, especially for someone who is like aiming for a certain amount of steps and really trying to factor that into your equation. Definitely not a smart move. I'm not really factoring my steps into my equation too much, but then after about a week of that, I was like, mm, Rubes, you kind of are. Like you do just kind of want to make sure they're just hanging around like a healthy average, just for your health, if nothing else. And you also just want them to be quite consistent. So charged up the watch, put it back on. Also started doing like a little walk again in the mornings. The weather's calmed down. So probably had I reckon one to two weeks there where my steps would have been like 6,000 a day, maybe. But now I've bought them back up around 10, which is cool. And I'll just aim to keep them there, give or take, um, for the remainder of the surplus. So not too much more to talk about there. Training, we can look at training. Training is having some ups and downs, and this is gonna segue into another episode that I want to do in the coming weeks. First of all, if you've been following along this journey, you'll know my main goal is lower body growth, in particular glute growth. That is going swimmingly. So lower body is feeling good, training good. I'm at the point now, if you've listened and heard me talk about those DOMs. I'm at the point now where I'm just getting like a little bit of glute DOMS the next day, and that's pretty much it. So, literally sitting here right now, I trained legs yesterday. I do have glute DOMs today. I feel like they might linger a little bit into tomorrow and then pretty much be gone by Sunday. So that is perfect. I feel like I've worked hard to keep conditioning myself and keep consistent with my sessions to get to the point where I am conditioned enough to them now that I'm not getting those gnarly DOMs, but I'm just getting a little bit like that's the absolute sweet spot to me is I can feel it enough the next day to be like, oh, that worked, but it's not so gnarly that it's putting me out of action for five days anymore. So I ideally want to train glutton lower body twice a week, and I feel like I'm in the perfect position to do that now. If I was to train them on Monday, I'd be a little bit of glute DOMs on Tuesday, Wednesday might still be a little bit or it might be gone. By Thursday, definitely gone, and I can hit them again either Thursday or Friday, go through that process again, hit them again Monday, and just repeat from there. So that is perfect for me. That is why I love two lower body sessions a week. I think that is ideal to just allow enough recovery, but also enough frequency to progress the way I want to progress. So I'm stoked with that. I'm pretty much just running with those sessions that I've rattled off in recent episodes. Like I said, I'm getting those nice little DOMs that just let me know they're working. So it ain't broke. I'm not gonna fix it. I love those sessions. I've really refined those to just suit me so well. And there's one little thing I do want to touch on there before I move on to my upper body. I had in my notes for today's episode, I had food neutrality, which we spoke about, and then I had result neutrality, and then I had next to that expectations and glutes working good. So what I meant by that is I've been really thinking about like my overall expectations of the muscle gain phase. And there's one thing I want to point out, which might sound so crazy to people when they're like, wow, Rubes, you kind of dedicated your whole year to this. First of all, like, yes, I did, but in an enjoyable way. It's not like I've dedicated my year and then therefore put other things in my life on hold. I've just kind of looked at my year and gone, like, what do I want to do with my nutrition and training this year? I want to do a muscle gain phase. So the reason I'm Saying that is because when I say this next thing, people are gonna be like, wow, that's crazy. My expectation for this muscle gain phase is that pretty much by like doing the 20-week muscle gain phase, and then I will go into a fat loss phase, which will be anywhere from like say 10 weeks, give or take, like three-ish months give or take. I would expect to get to like November or December and be in a good body composition that I'm happy with, like lean, athletic, in shape, all the things, and literally probably have glutes that are slightly more perky, bigger, and potent than they were at the start of the year. And I mean slightly, very slightly. And the reason I say this is because I feel like I talk about my goals. Like obviously, if you've followed along, you'll know that I really wanted to hone in on the glute growth more than anything in this muscle gain phase because I'm pretty muscular overall. I've done muscle gain phases in the path. I'm just naturally pretty athletic and can build muscle quite easily. But I'd had a lot of lower body injuries and niggles and things that had just kind of kept my glutes behind the rest of my body. So I wanted to dedicate this phase to really essentially just bringing them back up to match the rest of my body. But I feel like people might hear that and then be like, oh, robes is like chasing, you know, the Kimi K board. Robes is never gonna have the Kimi K board. And it's not really my goal. Like, slay Kimmy K, she's a queen. But it's not really my goal, and it's definitely not something I could expect to work towards because it's just not in my genetics, it's not in my shape, it's not in my makeup. So I just thought that was worth talking about because, like I said, I'm gonna go through this whole process and essentially come out the other side and be like, okay, yeah, cool, my glutes are like a little bit perkier than they were. They're just a little bit more prominent than they were at the start of the year. And that's pretty much it. And to me, that's enough. Like, that's cool. Because, like I said, I'm always gonna train, I'm always going to put some sort of effort into my nutrition and training. So to me, I was like, yeah, let's just do this for the year. That's cool. I love the idea of them being a little bit perkier, just a little bit better. But it's not gonna be anything crazy, it's not gonna be anything wild because I don't have the genetics to have big wide hips and a big wide ass junk in the trunk, whatever we want to call it. Like that's just not in my makeup. I've got those narrow hips, I've got quite an athletic body which has like big shoulders, big quads, like muscular overall, but I'm not just gonna like change my whole body into like a big, voluptuous pear-shaped body. So I wish I could. In a perfect world, I would have that. And I feel like it's one of those things where people that have that would say they want my body, I say I want that body. It's like people with straight hair want curly hair, curly hair want straight hair, like it's just one of those things. But I just know that I am gonna be able to build on that muscle a bit and change my shape a little bit, but I'm not gonna be able to change the shape of my structure and my bone structure and the width of my hips and all of that. So I just thought that was something worth mentioning. And people might hear that and go like, wow, all this talk, all this effort just for that. But like mentioned before, it is one of those things where I just think to myself, like, I am always gonna train, I'm always gonna be mindful of my nutrition, so let's just gear it towards this for a few months, give it my best shot, happy days, I'll be stoked if we get a little bit of change there, and then I'll just go from there. So I just thought that was worth mentioning. And the other little thing I had there is glutes working good. So if nothing else, like if I get to the end of this year and go physique-wise and aesthetic wise, I don't look that different to before I did all this. If nothing else, I'm gonna be so stoked because my glutes are working so much better than they've ever worked. And if we think about, you know, especially any like trainers or educated people listening, you'll know that strong glutes can just have such a flow-on effect to stronger hips, stronger lower back, knees, like so many of these niggles and injuries we get can come back to weak glutes. So not always the case. Please don't take that as a diagnosis. But I just think if nothing else, I am stoked with the fact that if you've been listening for a year or even longer, you'll know that I kind of stripped my training right back to just be like, my glutes don't work that well. My quads work very well, my back works really well, but my glutes just kind of tap out. I'm gonna strip everything right back. I'm really gonna get them working. I'm essentially gonna build them from the ground up, and I feel like I've done that so well. That's been about 10 months now that I've been doing that. And I feel like now I'm going into sessions where I'm doing bigger lifts and I'm pushing heavy weight and my glutes are doing that. It's not them tapping out and my cords taking over, or them tapping out my lower back taking over. So absolutely touch wood, but lower body-wise, injury-wise, like that's been so good. And I truly think this is a huge part of it. Like my lower body is just working so well. So I'm stoked with the effort I've put into that, and I'm stoked with where it's at right now. And now I just feel like I am in a position where yes, I can chip away at some gradual glute growth over time, and anything I can visually see with that, I'll be stoked with. But again, if nothing else, I'm just gonna be stoked to think that my body is working a bit better. But then that does bring me to my final point. So, long-term listeners will know that I spent most of 2025 not training my upper body because it did a pretty gnarly injury to my right shoulder. So I did that in June last year. I know how I did it. I didn't train much upper body for a really long time. I didn't train much upper body at all just because I have, like I said, pretty muscular, jacked upper body, didn't want it to be more muscular or jacked. So I've never put huge effort into my upper body training. And then, long story short, I started going down and training at my husband's gym for a little bit. This is um in June last year, and they just do a lot of like kettlebell swings, push press, shit like that. And it's very high volume. It's like, how many can you do in a minute? Like that kind of thing. And I wasn't doing anything crazy, like I wasn't doing crazy heavy weights or like trying to send it with, I don't know, as many as you can. Like I just didn't care that much. I was mostly just there for Shaq. But that is how and when I did my right shoulder, and I think that was literally just going from not doing much to then going into these like high volume classes. Something just set my shoulder off, and then it just wasn't ready for that volume. So that's what happened last year in June. Went through rehab, literally, like tried to let it rest in July, started rehab August, September, October, November, got a cortisone into it in November. The rehab helped a lot through those months before it, but then it was just kind of hanging in a position where it was like still needs a little bit to help it fully heal. Got the cortisone in November, did more rehab through November, December, January, and then come into January, I pretty much just started my upper body training from scratch again. My left side of my upper body just basically had a six-month holiday because I was doing everything with the right to get it better. Then when I got to January, I was like, okay, pain-wise, it's good, rehab-wise, it's good, like I can get back into normal training, but I'm also very mindful that the right shoulders spin through a gnarly injury, the left shoulder's done nothing for six months. We're gonna start really small. So I literally started with two sets of six push-ups, like six reps, two sets on my knees. And I'm a person who could do like 30 push-ups on my toes. So, like, not to brag, but just to show, well, low-key brag, but also just to show that that's how much I scaled it back. And I was literally just doing like a few cable rows, lap pulldowns, started so light and just focused on technique, and essentially was just like I'm rebuilding my upper body strength from zero, right? So I did that through Jan, Feb, March, April into May. I have no idea what I did in May, but my left shoulder is now injured. And I'm pretty much just laughing about it because it is what it is, but I genuinely have no idea. There was no moment in training that I did something and thought, oh my god, I've just injured my shoulder. Um, I train with such little ego, it's not even funny. Like, because of injuries I've had in the past and just things I've been through, I could not care less. I will put five kilo plates on a leg press next to a person who's got 300 kilos on a leg press. Like, I just do not care because I've been through injuries because I've been through pain, and I'm like, I would rather play it safe and have everyone in the gym think I'm a little bitch than do another injury. Like, I just don't care at all. I would say if anything, like I play it too safe, and I have to remind myself sometimes like ribs, you're not injured, you can push a bit more, but I can't stress enough. Like I said, I went into the gym for weeks on end and just did six push-ups on my knees, two sets, that was it. I wasn't like, oh my god, like gonna do some ego push-ups on my toes, gonna see how many I can do. Like, I just have not trained like that for years, and I just gradually built that upper body stuff. So gradually, so progressive. Did D-loads, did physio, did Cairo, did massage, did all the things, and I have no idea what has happened to my left shoulder. It's definitely not as bad as the right one was, and I am booked for physio next Thursday. So sitting here right now, it's Friday, booked for physio next Thursday. I reached out to my physio, so like I felt it. I was just cleaning my house and I was like, what the hell is going on with my left shoulder? And at the time I was like, oh, it's just maybe a bit sore from the sesh, whatever, a couple of days, something's niggling, whatever. Like, didn't think that much of it. And then it didn't really get better. Went to gym, tried to do a few things, was just like, nah, it's not loving life. Reach out to my physio. She was like, I can see you in about two and a half weeks. And I was like, no, that's actually perfect because it'll be cool to see how it's feeling over like after a few more weeks. It's definitely not getting better. It's definitely not one of those things that's just getting better with a little bit of rest. So I'm gonna see her next Thursday, see what she says. Like I said, I definitely don't think it's as bad as the right one. I don't think I'm gonna have to go through as much rehab for as long as the right one, but it definitely needs some work. So I don't really know what this means for my upper body training and for my upper body goals. My main upper body goals will pull up some push-ups. It's definitely not vibing push-ups at the moment at all. If anything, it can pull up a little bit better than it can push up, but I'm pretty much waiting to see her and see what she says in terms of rehab and then see what she says in terms of what exercises I can do around it. So that is what it is. I'm absolutely stoked again, touch wood, that it's upper body, not lower body. Um, and I'll just see what she says and I'll just roll with whatever she says. So I am actually gonna do an episode about injuries. I think not the next episode, but maybe the episode after. Very soon I'm gonna do an episode about injuries. I've actually sat on that episode for about two years. I have had a lot of notes about an injury episode, and I've just always been like, meh, it's not the right time. And for some reason, right now, I feel like it is just the right time. So I'm gonna talk a bit more about injuries in the coming weeks, but sitting here right now, my left shoulder, if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see like I'm using my arm fine. That is the difference between how this one is feeling compared to how the right one was feeling when I did it. When the when I did the right one, it was so bad that just like my day-to-day life. I couldn't really use my arm. I couldn't, I couldn't like wash my hair or taking off my sports bra was like so painful, like shit like that. Whereas this left one right now, it's pretty much fine day-to-day. And then it's just like a few particular movements will set it off in my day-to-day life, and then a few things in the gym. But it is definitely when something sets it off, it sets it off. Like it's not good. So that is what it is. Like I said, I'm gonna do an episode literally about like injuries and mindset and navigating all that sort of stuff, and then obviously I'll do some more episodes just updating on my muscle gain phase, and we can update on the shoulder as I do those. So I think that is all for me today. Kind of a random chatty episode, but I think, I don't know, just some cool things to think about there. And I've actually had heaps of people reach out about these episodes and just say, like, it's so cool to just hear all the ins and outs of like what you're doing and how you're doing it and stuff. So I hope this was another one of them. I hope you guys got something out of it. I will be back very soon. I think I'm gonna do a nutrition topic in the next episode, and then I'll go into that injuries combo very soon as well. So thank you so much for listening. As always, I will be back then.