#36 - Biohacking, Bodybuilding, and Beyond: Insights from Kris Gethin

Kris Gethin's journey from a Welsh farm boy to a fitness industry veteran is nothing short of inspiring. In this episode, Kris opens up about his transformative path, starting with a motocross racing career that was unexpectedly halted by a back injury. Discover the pivotal moment that introduced him to resistance training and led him to explore a healthier lifestyle, even amidst the chaos of frequent travel. Join us as Kris shares how he maintains a youthful vigor at 50 and the strategies he uses for health optimization on the road, including biohacking techniques and the potential of regenerative stem cell therapy.

We also delve into the nuanced challenges faced by veterans, law enforcement, and blue-collar workers striving for fitness while navigating demanding schedules. Through Kris’s personal story of addiction and recovery, he sheds light on the adrenaline-fueled pitfalls of extreme sports and the turning points that redirected his life towards bodybuilding and personal training. His candid tales from the bodybuilding stage to his editorial role at bodybuilding.com reveal a commitment to ethical practices in the supplement industry, emphasizing the need for transparency and quality in ingredient sourcing.

Amidst the personal anecdotes and professional insights, Kris reflects on enduring immigration challenges, the impact of mold toxicity, and the rich experiences gained from building a fitness community. The conversation expands into the realm of cold therapy, biohacking, and creating deeper connections through family and community engagement. As we wrap up, Kris’s wisdom on reducing biological age and fostering a lifestyle centered on health and connection offers valuable takeaways for anyone looking to transform their well-being. Tune in for a transformative conversation that offers a wealth of insights into health, resilience, and personal growth.

If you want to follow Kris's journey through revolutionizing the supplement industry, please check out Unmatched Supps

Kris's Instagram: CLICK HERE to follow!

Chapters

• 0:05 Fitness and Health on the Road
• 8:50 Nutrition and Fitness for Everyday Challenges
• 14:58 A Journey Through Addiction and Recovery
• 18:36 Turning Point to Redemption
• 25:07 From Bodybuilding to Personal Training
• 38:10 Building a Fitness Community
• 48:22 Regenerative Stem Cell Therapy Benefits
• 56:07 Life in Limbo
• 1:08:34 The Effects of Mold Toxicity
• 1:20:14 Cold Therapy and Mental Stability
• 1:23:42 Optimizing Sleep and Recovery With Biohacking
• 1:27:30 Biohacking and Reducing Biological Age
• 1:38:11 Creating Community and Connection Through Family
• 1:43:59 Steroid Use and Body Dysmorphia
• 1:55:02 Supplement Quality and Efficacy
• 2:01:23 Ethical Supplements and Ingredient Sourcing
• 2:10:32 Supplement and Fitness Expert Interview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

we're ready. Rock and roll you ready, kiddo? Yes, cool dude, chris. Welcome man.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Thank you very much for having me buddy I'm I'm pumped over this one because you know, going back and forth with zach and and just looking into everything, I mean you're one of the OGs that just you're just doing everything fitness wise and I mean you know the ins and outs of the industry in the good, the bad and the evil, and I definitely want to jump into that. So why don't you give me an intro, pretty much, if nobody ever heard of you before? Who are you, what are you? And let's, let's go from there and then we're just gonna roll right into.

Speaker 2: 0:41

It Sounds good. Whenever people say the OG, I know they mean old Been around for donkeys. But yeah, this weird accent comes from Wales Wales and I grew up in Wales for the first half of my life. So the first 25 years I was there grew up on a farm, built quite a strong work ethic from a young age because I was forced to work don't have an option on a farm to not have the work ethic and uh.

Speaker 2: 1:12

So it become robotic after a while. But, um, you know, I I absolutely loved my upbringing because I'm definitely a little bit more of a hermit. I like my own company. So, you know, being an only child for the first nine years was great. You know, not saying that my sister was so. You know, being an only child for the first nine years was great. You know, not saying that my sister was a burden, but you know, I just enjoyed the adventure and my own company. And you know, the majority of my time was taken up from the age of six years old, racing motocross Really, yeah, racing motocross really, yeah. So from a developing age I was racing and you know, and I just continued that up until the age of I think I was nearly 20 that's a tough sport.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah, it's tough on the body man, like I'm feeling a lot of the repercussions now, a lot of them, like the reason why I retired was because of injuries. Yeah and uh, you know it was a back injury that really put an end to it. I'd had a lot of other injuries, uh, you know, tornness broken at, know, it was a back injury that really put an end to it. I'd had a lot of other injuries, uh, you know, tornness broken at, but it was the back that I just could not get around, could not fix it. You know, and I went to, you know, a lot of different specialists and that kind of put that nail in the coffin. But you know, all these things happen for a reason.

Speaker 2: 2:20

You know, I still love the sports, but that's what really got me into resistance training. You know, I find it quite funny and ironic that a lot of athletes get injured and then they find weight training or bodybuilding or something like that, but it was healing. So, you know, when I was racing motocross I didn't do any weight training. You know, there wasn't that much education around it other than just do a lot of cardio. Yeah, so a lot of running, a lot of cycling and time on the bike. You know, twice a week would be on the motorbike, you know, apart from race weekends and uh. But through the resistance training which I'd fallen into via physiotherapy, I was able to strengthen the muscles around my back and kind of alleviate the issue that was going on with my spine at a severe curvature. I still got it now but I'm able to manage with it. You know, through movement. If I'm stuck on a plane for a while, that's what really screws me up and you travel a lot.

Speaker 1: 3:19

A lot. You're the only person Zach and I were talking about it. You're the only person that I know that's on the road more than me and you're gone a lot, yeah, which is I'm sure. I just got off a flight the other day and I was just smoked like absolutely wiped on that. I feel your pain when it comes to those long flights.

Speaker 2: 3:37

Usually I'm okay with jet lag. I've found a way of hacking that. Okay, I want to dig into that down the road. Yeah, but it didn't work for neither myself or my wife. When we went to Dubai recently, you know, that kind of screwed us up on the way there. On the way back I was fine and I never get that Very interesting, never get that. So I don't know what happened there, but usually I'm okay with that. But you know it's funny that I go and travel to talk about health optimization and longevity and biohacking, where I know that is putting a stress on my system For sure, changing the time zones and dealing with the stress of trying to stay on top of your work while you're traveling, taking these opportunities that I don't know if they are opportunities anymore.

Speaker 1: 4:20

It's funny you say that. So here you are teaching this health life, but you're on the road and it almost I mean so you probably have to work even harder to live that life that you're preaching while being I mean the a diet alone. I mean that's my biggest struggle since I travel so much. It's just finding and I'm not like in a city where I'm there for four or five days okay, cool, I can find these cool restaurants. These ones are really healthy. I can just get my protein you know clean proteins and all that stuff. Like I'm just driving all day and half the time it's across like the middle of bumfuck, nowhere. So I'm like trying to like okay, I got a gas station in the next three hours, that's all we're having. Like that's one of my biggest struggles on the road, especially getting older.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Just hit 40 this year, you're correct me wrong, 50 correct, which blew my mind when I heard this and I was like, absolutely not just by your obviously look, physical appearance, skin and everything. I mean you look incredible for 50. So that's what I was like. I have to talk to this guy because I need to know and I want and I have many, especially veterans and disabled vets that we've just completely destroyed our bodies over the years and been run ragged.

Speaker 1: 5:29

You know, I've been in some pretty bad accidents almost killed myself two years ago in an ATV wreck and it's like that's when I really woke up, because I kind of went stagnant for a little bit and I was like, if I don't get ahead of this now, I don't want to be that old grandfather that I can't play with my grandkids, or even I got a 10-year-old and in the next 10 years she's 20 and still active. Like I don't want to be stiff and that's where I'm catching myself now. So that was my biggest thing, Like I can't wait to pick your brain. But it's funny that you're bringing that up, Because you always look at these fitness people, influencers, and you're like I'm the healthiest, but they never talk about the actual like hey, I'm on the road and this is the struggles and the things I have to do. So I'm really glad you're bringing these types of things up right out the beginning. I'm going to have a million questions for you. So, okay, on the road, continue.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I'm sorry, but… no carry on, mate, that's fine, this is going to be a whole can of worms?

Speaker 2: 6:22

Yeah, so I've definitely learned over the years to control my environment when I travel, as opposed to getting controlled by it and justify an excuse I guess having clients. You know, I've trained a lot of people in the past and I do online training now, but encountering a lot of the issues that they go through and I'm thinking well, if I've got to be the shop window front, I've got to live it Absolutely. Lot of the issues that they go through and I'm thinking well, if I've got to be the shop window front, I got to live it absolutely and never give in to excuse. I can't justify it, you know, I have to live it with commitment. So I've been able to navigate that, you know.

Speaker 2: 6:54

For instance, let's say, if I'm on the road, I'm driving, I'm going to freeze a lot of meals pre-prepared and maybe in two days time, you know, in a cool box they would have defrosted, but they're good for a good couple of days after that. As well as a backup, I'll always have like protein powder. There are a couple of clean protein bars out there that you can choose. 99.9 of them are really bad, but there's a few brands, especially now over the last year, that have come about. So that's an option.

Speaker 2: 7:22

You know there's always some sort of backup that you can lean upon. But you know, as the age old saying says, you know if you're not prepared, you're going to prepare to fail. Okay, so you've got to be prepared in that environment. You know, if I am traveling overseas, I'll usually try to find a food prep company if possible. So I'll have food delivered to my hotel or to the airbnb and whatnot. But, like we were in germany this year, there's no such thing as a food prep company really yeah, because one of my friends who's a like the world's leading bio dentist.

Speaker 2: 7:53

We went to visit um because he's into bodybuilding and I said why didn't you get food sent here? And he's like there's no food prep company. I was like bulls, crap, there has to be. And I contacted this guy that I know that just competed in the olympia the year before. Yes, and I said where do you get your food from? Because he's german. He's like there's no such thing. I thought that was so bizarre because everywhere, like third world countries, have food prep companies now. So it just makes it much more convenient, interesting, much more convenient, of course, just like you having a coffee out to the coffee shop as opposed to making it at home. It's going to cost more, but my time is money. I don't want the stress and, as you mentioned, as you get a little bit older, you think about the future and you're like man, I gotta, I gotta continue to heal my future, because the way that I'm going to go with the excuse, I'm just going to harm it.

Speaker 1: 8:45

This is going to be. I mean just that alone. I mean it's just there's so many people because I know and I speak a lot about the veteran community because that's where my world's been involved with the military, law enforcement, especially these cops, I mean they're sitting stagnant for so long all day and we talk to them, and the veterans that are on the road and traveling, and it's just that's the biggest struggle. And even just dads, you know, these guys that are out working their nine to five and it's just so hard for them to find any type of good food source and so. But I guess that's a huge problem is. I mean it does? I mean a lot of times could come down the cost. But I mean you're talking meal prepping, as far as freezing it all, and you're getting just a cooler that you didn't you know, like obviously a bag cooler that you're just traveling with and that's what helps a lot with that yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 9:30

And like, let's say, if I'm taking an international flight a lot of the time, I'll put those frozen meals in my check-in luggage as well. Okay, you know. So that's, I've got my food for the flight. If, dependent on the time zone I'm going in, I may fast during that flight because that makes the kind of hangover jet lag a little bit easier. But yeah, there's always a way around it because, like, we've all been delayed, we've all had to spend overnight somewhere and then what are we going to do?

Speaker 1: 9:58

You're stuck in a hotel, you know, and you're just stuck at some shitty hotel bar eating chicken wings. It's like this, is it? You know, and I've been on the streak and I've been good for you know, hitting, been actually getting hitting my goals, got a routine down.

Speaker 2: 10:16

And then now it's like everything just goes to shit has been one of my biggest problems, and I think what a lot of the time. You know, you mentioned the like the people that you deal with, like in the armed forces military, whatever. Like the people that you deal with, like in the armed forces military, whatever. When I started putting video series on bodybuildingcom back in 2009, I just had a huge influx of people from around the world in various camps following these plans and they would tell me what was the food that was available to them, and of course, it wasn't. The best scenario was the food that was available to them, and of course, it wasn't the best scenario, but having a visual perspective through these videos gave them a little bit more clarity and understanding of what they can achieve, as opposed to what they don't have available to them. So that was good, because of course, you know, a lot of these people have a very, very strong mindset. It was just the awareness and the education and the understanding that they were lacking, but once they got it, like I saw some amazing transformations from those people.

Speaker 2: 11:11

You know, there's a guy that I know, uh, from wales, paul reese's. His name is um. He's about to go back to libya. You know he's doing security work over there and it's just been an absolute shit show there for some years and it looks like it's going to continue to be for the next five years because he's going to do another five-year contract. But you know, watching people like paul just navigate through you know lack of a better word all these like minds, um, has just been very, very inspiring for me. And when I see other people's transformations, it isn't so much from the neck down seeing the physicality train, it's the change in their mindset, and that's what's really inspiring to me. That keeps me accountable as well.

Speaker 1: 11:56

So let's back up fitness, you get in a bad wreck and you're pretty much your racing career is done at 20. What was the next step after that? What did you realize? Okay, because you're talking to healing obviously the most, building the muscle and the strength around that, and this is a big curiosity. The big side of me that I'm curious with is because, like I have horrible, I hurt myself. I'm probably going on four and a half five years now. I was carrying a guy on my back and we were coming down a mountain. He's a double amputee. We're coming. I'm carrying him on, you know, down the mountain. We just went on a huge hunt and he shot an elk and it was.

Speaker 2: 12:34

It was incredible.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Yeah, but I'm hiking him down and I slipped and I thought I threw my back out at the moment, but like I have this guy on my back that's missing both legs got blown up in afghanistan. Like how do you bitch, right? So I'm just, I'm just gritting teeth, we get them to the truck and I'm like, oh man, like I, you've obviously hurt yourself enough. You know when you're hurt and you're just like, okay, this is serious. Not like, oh man, I pulled something. You're, I knew I was. I majorly messed up something.

Speaker 1: 13:00

After eight months or so of chasing it and going to all these people and chiropractors and specialists come to find out. I rotated, I twisted my pelvis and I've been chasing that ever since and I've just been in chronic pain. I mean, if you watch me sitting here, I'll shift. I can't sit still and you know, and it's just like constantly. So I want to back up with you and then how you even got launched into the fitness world and then how you the the evolution to where you're at now with biohacking. So you get hurt.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Okay, you got to build the muscle around it because obviously there's chronic pain runs rampant in our world of of guys that you know fitness guys, law enforcement, military, blue collar workers how did you take that path and start learning or got educated on? Okay, I need to build everything around it, cause I feel like if you go to the chiropractor like cool, let me snap crackle, pop you off, you go, and then it doesn't actually your body pulls itself back to the original injury. I feel like at least with me, I'd go and get worked on within a few days. I'm right back and then I'm starting to work on really my mobility. Flexibility is what's really been helping me lately. So I would love to hear your kind of your journey on after an injury and realizing, like you're 20 years old, that's scary to be ending a career at 20.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Yeah, you know, just in a stupid manner where, okay, I started getting alleviated of the pain in my my back, but I didn't have a sponsorship anymore.

Speaker 1: 14:35

I'd packed that in, so I downhill mountain bike racing had just started really coming in.

Speaker 2: 14:38

It's just as bad yeah, but I didn't think it was.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:40

And, uh, you know, you had guys like Steve Peach, sean Palmer, mr Giovi, all these top people racing. I just thought it was so badass, it was so cool, you know, and these tracks that you'd be hurtling down, they were gnarly, they were gnarly. But now, when I look at the sport today compared to then, that is next. I wouldn't even attempt. Some of the things those guys are doing now, jumping over these 40-foot crevices.

Speaker 1: 15:08

On a basic course. It's not. There's 10-year-old kids ripping backflips over these things and I'm just like yeah. Evolution is scary At every sport. It's been absolutely wild to watch.

Speaker 2: 15:19

Yeah, but because I'd lost my. I felt like I'd lost my identity because I'd been racing motocross for so long. And that's when I felt that I was able to do something good with my life, I was able to excel at something. So I flunked at school. I hated school, didn't want to be there. So this is like made me feel good, made me feel special that I could actually accomplish something.

Speaker 2: 15:40

So when I didn't have that and I started to get alleviated of the pain in my back, I started doing the downhill mountain bike racing. But it was now me showing up to these races with my buddies. So I'm getting hammered, I'm getting drunk, I'm doing drugs. You know, full on, full on now and thinking, okay, I'll just leave my brain on the start line and go for this. But you know it doesn't work like that because you are gonna you know pilot you are gonna hurt yourself and you're not necessarily going to be racing at the best of your abilities when your reaction time is so much slower. Now, you know, as you get a little bit older and you're a little bit more fragile. So, uh, I kind of packed that up after a couple of years, but I continued going further into the drug and alcohol hole. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:31

How so.

Speaker 2: 16:33

I was very easily influenced, okay, and you know I knew it didn't sit well with me. It definitely wasn't sitting well with my family. You know, as much as I was trying to hide it, I couldn't hide it. And I think you know like every Monday I'd say I'm not doing it again. You know, after a while Never drink it again.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Yeah, I'd get a call on Thursday.

Speaker 2: 16:58

I'm like okay, I got to be in it, you know. And then it just started all over again to be in it, you know. And uh, then it just started all over again and this is like the early 90s, when the rave scene late 80s, early 90s, when the rave scene had really started to propel itself in the uk.

Speaker 1: 17:13

So ecstasy was your, of course. It was your choice, or what okay?

Speaker 2: 17:16

yeah, ecstasy, you know a lot of other things, a lot of psychedelics, you know, acid mushrooms, a lot of weed, you know, acid mushrooms, a lot of weed, you know. And it got to the stage where, you know, I was smoking the weed like every day. You know, I'd go to work, uh, smoking weed. How I did that, I don't know, I couldn't even think about it now, you know, but everybody's different, uh, but that was just kind of the hole that I was in and I had a great time. Yeah, no doubt about it, I had such a good time and I wouldn't change anything, you know, because maybe that wouldn't have mapped out the course of my life today to be here, to be with my wife, or whatever yeah you know.

Speaker 2: 17:52

so those are just all experiences, um, but then I got arrested by the cops and, uh, even though I'd moved out of home, my my OG address was still my parents' place. So I'm handcuffed. There's a cop. What'd you get arrested for? For drugs, possession of drugs, really, yeah, in my car. In my car.

Speaker 1: 18:15

And this is still in Wales. This is in Wales yeah, how serious. Is it over there? Is it equal to the US as far as seriousness and ecstasy, or is it even worse?

Speaker 2: 18:24

Well, I didn't have ecstasy. Luckily, at that time I just had weed. Oh, okay, I was lucky, but I had a decent amount of it. And so they said that you know that they'd gained a warrant to search my house, which was my parents. And I'm like, oh my God, because I know my dad's can be pretty gnarly, you know.

Speaker 2: 18:43

So, your parents have no idea what's coming. No idea until like five or four o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the door and I'm handcuffed to this huge copper, you know, and they just they walk you up with a warrant and yeah, yeah, and then they go into my room and whatever, and they found, like um, you know which was my room, but still a lot of my stuff in there. They found a bong and found some other pieces of paraphernalia and yeah, and it was at that moment, you know, just looking at my dad's face and I knew exactly what was coming, without him having to say a thing. And that's when I thought I just cannot live this life. Were you pretty close?

Speaker 1: 19:22

with your parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then it hits even harder. Life it's pretty close with your parents yeah yeah, so then it hits even harder. So it's not like you're some already some troubled kid that grew up and no, no, no, I was always pretty good, you know, that's even worse.

Speaker 1: 19:31

I feel like, especially when you truly let your dad down, like there's that's, that's for the guys that have, I'm really close to my dad and if you let them down, you're like all right, like that never happened again yeah, so that was your aha moment, that was my aha moment, for sure.

Speaker 2: 19:47

That was the tipping point that allowed me to have the accountability to kind of turn things around and change I feel like that's a pretty good one, though I mean if that was rock bottom in a way yeah, it was you hear other guys stories in their way. I mean they lose everything before they wake up oh yeah, like I know, a lot of my friends within that circle aren't here today. You know, one of them's locked up.

Speaker 1: 20:08

No kidding.

Speaker 2: 20:08

Yeah, because you know, sometimes it does affect. You know, different drugs affect people's brains For sure. You know the I guess I don't know the synopsis or whatever it may be where they just even when they're not on drugs, they're just not themselves. Now, and I noticed that with a couple of people, how they would change over time. Either I was in denial, but it didn't. I don't think it happened with me, but I saw it in other people, oh 100, and who knows, it could have possibly happened further down the line, had this incident, uh, not happened. So then I decided, okay, I'm gonna go back to the gym, start working on myself again, because I did feel better mentally, because I was alleviated of the physical pain that I was going through and, uh, because I'd lost a lot of weight. By this point.

Speaker 1: 20:58

I was like skin and bones because I wasn't eating, I was doing drugs if you don't mind me asking, is that a big reason why you were doing was, was? Were you in a lot of pain? Because? Then I asked because I we have a I know somebody personally that was super cross racer and he's broke, I think, 57 bones, color bone dozens of times, both of them. And now he's. It's a battle for him.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Yeah, it's normal to do the color bone to do your wrists, to do your ribs, to do your wrists, to do your ribs, to do your ankles. It's very normal. It's not a matter of if it's just when when, and then you get in that chronic pain.

Speaker 1: 21:28

Was that a lot of I mean? So you were feeling good physically in a way, I guess without the alcohol, but then I mean obviously mentally it's taken its toll. Was that what you were chasing, or was it just the party scene in general? It was both.

Speaker 2: 21:39

It was the party scene, it was an escape, because I didn't have purpose, I didn't have any direction in my life. I didn't know what I wanted to do. You know, at that point I was working. At where was I BSW? Yeah, it was like a sawmill factory. Okay, I was like a trainee engineer, both a mechanical engineer and precision engineer. But I knew it just wasn't what I wanted to do.

Speaker 2: 22:03

I was at college as well and I just didn't know what I wanted, even though the crazy thing is, from a very, very young age, even when I was racing motocross, I'd buy bodybuilding magazines because that was like a comic book for me, even though I had no interest in bodybuilding and I had to keep my weight as low as possible from motocross. But I just enjoyed that and I I don't know if that planted a seed. But then I thought, okay, I know that you're definitely and I recognize I'm an all-or-nothing character in certain instances. You know I'm all into getting hammered, wasted or all into just being on the straight which could be really scary yeah, it's like a white knuckle ride.

Speaker 2: 22:42

You just don't know what's coming next.

Speaker 1: 22:43

You just hope it's the right the right path I have a couple buddies that are when they're in. They're in that's drinking gym women, car I mean they it's just, yeah, it's like bro, and they go all in. That could be.

Speaker 2: 22:56

That could be a scary path yeah, it can be good and it can be bad if you channel it, absolutely yeah. So, um, so, anyway, I, I I purchased this newspaper it's called Muscle News and I saw some bodybuilding shows at the back and there was one at this place down near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and it was like just over a year away and I thought, okay, I'm going to enter for that really. I entered for it with zero experience before.

Speaker 1: 23:28

I mean obviously just whatever gym, nothing whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 23:31

I was just training at the college gym and uh, and during that time literally like two months after there was a really, really good college course in my local town uh, that was that allowed you. It was a three-year course, but you'd be internationally recognized as a health and sports therapist, so that could be massage, it'd be personal training, weight training, coaching, physiotherapy, blah, blah, blah. So I thought I'm gonna sign up for that. So I did that at the same time and started working a couple of jobs to kind of support it. You know, working a bar, working on a door and things like that. And luckily, through that, because this was a passion that I really wanted to submerge myself into all of a sudden, what I wasn't able to retain in school whatsoever, you know, I thought I was dumb, stupid.

Speaker 1: 24:24

I was able to retain this because you're able to relate to it.

Speaker 2: 24:27

It's, it's, it's engaging yeah, yeah and uh, that was. That was like an aha moment for me. I'm like, wow, I'm actually doing pretty good at this. And I, because you know you're very frustrated in school. You no idea what's. You know what's wrong with you. The teachers don't give you any advice, like definitely not in our school, anyway, you know. You just thought it was like stupid and that led to a lot of frustration, you know. So if I read something now and I can't understand, I get very frustrated. It's kind of like some form of PTSD. I don't know what it is, you know, but I'm like I don't want bloody anything to do with it.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Don't try to explain it to me. Delegate you, you know. And so I did this college course and well, go back. I did the bodybuilding show, but I had no idea back then. It was such a thing as enhanced bodybuilding and natural bodybuilding. You know, I was looking at the people in the magazines, like dorian yates and lee priest, and I was thinking, okay, I could do that dorian yates was one of my legends when I was in like my peak fitness.

Speaker 1: 25:26

That dude was a machine. Like how he trained is what I time under attention and all that. So I love dorian yates, yeah, absolute, intense.

Speaker 2: 25:34

Yeah, I've become very good friends with dorian over the years. That's awesome and um. So when I competed in this show, I noticed backstage. I'm like damn, I'm like the smallest person here, what am I doing? Uh, but I was able to get second place in that show because I was just shredded you know I just went zero carbs for like eight weeks. You know I was hallucinating.

Speaker 1: 25:55

At the end I didn't know what I was doing, completely wrong. Yeah, yeah, I had no idea, you know, I think the majority of the size that I'd put on.

Speaker 2: 26:01

That time I probably uh, lost, uh, when I got ready. But I was, I was very, very lean. And I remember a cup, uh, one guy in particular who won his category, I think it was a master's. He was saying it's like, what did you use to like dry out? And I was like well, you know asparagus, and uh, some you know went 5, 000 milligrams of vitamin c or something. And he's like no, what diuretics? And I didn't know what, what he was talking about, you know.

Speaker 2: 26:27

But then after that I realized okay, there's natural, there's tested and there's untested. Okay, you know, I don't frown on either, but I definitely want to go the more natural routes. You know, I've got no interest in being a freak, um, but I love going to watch freaks. You know, I would never go to a natural bodybuilding show to watch. It's boring to me. I want to see something that's unattainable. You know that I like, I like that aspect of it and um, so then I got my qualifications in college and then I thought, okay, that's my ticket out of here, because I was still encouraged and certainly influenced by the drug scene, by the alcohol by the party and I thought the only way that I can get on the straight and narrow is just to completely change my social setting.

Speaker 2: 27:17

Have to, and my friends and whatnot. So I got a job. Then working. I remember this company called Steiner came around to the college and they're talking about how you could actually get sent onto a cruise liner and be a personal trainer or a massage therapist. So I was like like, sign me up, get me out of here, yeah, and within like two months I was then, you know, porting out of fort lauderdale on cruises around the caribbean. And, oh my god, how was okay, how was that experience?

Speaker 2: 27:50

it was good, but it backfired, yeah turned out to be a bigger party on there than it did at home. No drugs, but just a lot of alcohol, a lot of alcohol. It was tax-free and you're in the middle of the ocean. You're given this like card, which is your room key basically, where you can put everything on there, you know. So it just and everybody else you know, with. You know the staff was drinking as well, so it was just too easy for me to get influenced again. How long did that last? Eight months, eight months.

Speaker 2: 28:23

So I cut the contract and I met this person while I was on there. She was my boss, actually, and she was going back to Australia and she said why don't you just come over here and visit? You know, and I think I was in London at the time. I was in London and I thought you know what? Why not? I'd love to go to Australia. I'd saved up a decent amount of money when I was on the cruises because I had no idea that Americans tipped. I'm like great, I'm living off the tips here, this is awesome. I'm living off the tips here, this is awesome. And so I went over to Australia and within 24 hours I was able to get a job on a gym floor, you know, putting the weights away and cleaning up and all that sort of stuff when in Australia, sydney, I love Sydney, I love it.

Speaker 2: 29:06

Yeah, so this is North Sydney. And then from there, you know, I went and watched a natural bodybuilding show because I'd never seen one before, and there's a guy there called marcus stancy that was guest posing and he looked like an absolute freak, you know. Striated veins all over his abs. There's no way this guy's naturally can't be, you know. But he later become my training partner and and that's when I realized, okay, I'm living under a very short ceiling here and this guy is just like blown the roof off and this is what it takes to kind of live like that. You have to really take yourself into dark places and this is how you live your life.

Speaker 2: 29:48

So I thought, okay, I really want to try this, compete in natural bodybuilding. And so as I'm doing my cardio in the morning, I'm putting these trifold leaflets through people's doors advertising one-on-one training. I can come to your home, meet you on the beach, meet you in your park, etc. I didn't offer like just personal training, like buy a pack of 10 or anything. It was like you either sign up for 12 weeks or you sign up for 18 weeks, dependent on where I feel that you're at, if you're a little overweight, then, yeah, you may need 18 weeks. So I had that commitment because I really wanted to get before and after pictures from these people to utilize as my marketing, because that's what sells.

Speaker 2: 30:28

Yeah, I mean, anybody can just claim a coach, but I mean when you're seeing results, that's when people are like, okay, yeah, this, this is what I want, yeah. So then I decided to buy myself, you know, some boxing gloves, pads, kettlebells, had these uh, I don't know if you remember the total trainer that Chuck Norris used to advertise on tv. I bought one of them. Throw that in the trunk of the car.

Speaker 2: 30:51

So I'd show up at people's no kidding houses on the beach or whatever. It's cool. I loved it. I loved it, so I was no longer now had to work at the gym I'd created, uh, so you're doing in-home training.

Speaker 1: 31:02

You're showing up people's houses, bringing everything in, working them out for 30 minutes to an hour, whatever, then off to the next one.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Yeah, the majority was always outside, in a park or on the beach, and what I'd always do I'd have like a sandwich board. Wherever I was training people, I'd have a sandwich board there with leaflets so people could see and pick up a leaflet and I just wanted to get ahead. And then, after a couple of years of just saving up, my dream was always to have a gym, have my own gym. So after two years managed to purchase a gym that was half mma and half uh, like personal training studio you're still in sydney.

Speaker 2: 31:41

Still in sydney how old? Are you at this point? Uh, this would have been 2002. I'm 50 now someone do the math. Yeah, I've got this cankless.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Kill that fan yeah, you're asking a marine.

Speaker 2: 31:54

No way not happening how old was I in 2002?

Speaker 1: 32:00

everyone's stuck on it.

Speaker 2: 32:01

I'm that old, anyway, let's say, let's say I'm uh, 28, yeah and uh. So I I got the gym and I tell you what. That was the worst decision I ever made, because now.

Speaker 2: 32:15

I'm working such long hours, I didn't really know how to delegate and find the right staff, and you know I was literally opening the doors at 5 am in the morning and closing at 8 o'clock in the evening. It was gnarly and you know I'm trying to find the enthusiasm to train myself, which is a little bit difficult, but I did it, did it for a couple years, competed in uh some shows and did very, very well. I uh got. I kept on getting second all the time, though, but I would, after I got second, instead of trying to go back and win that very same show because the top three would usually qualify for, like the state titles, the national titles or whatever I'd always go into that next one. So I'd get a second again and second again. But and then, as I qualified, they chose me to go to the world titles, which was in Canada, and I got second here as well.

Speaker 1: 33:11

So you're like you can't break the second? Yeah, I was like man give me fifth, give me sixth.

Speaker 2: 33:14

So you're like you can't break the second. Yeah, I was like man, give me fifth, give me six, I'm on second. No one is so close, you know. Yeah, but anyways is what it is. Uh, but, like you know, I I loved that. I loved having something to work towards. So life wasn't so much of a white knuckle ride and I was able to stay on the state straight and narrow, and I just felt like I was succeeding at something. Every time I left the gym. You know know, I felt so much better. My mental stability was better. You know, I didn't have so much frustration or anger and that felt really really good. You know, at this time I wasn't looking into the longevity aspect, I just figured, okay, this is healthy.

Speaker 2: 33:49

You know, I'm eating clean, I'm taking the right supplements, I'm not doing drugs, this is healthy. It wasn't until years later I realized a lot of these things weren't healthy that I've been able to change since then. But then 2005 came, and the year prior to that I'd started thinking I want to reach out to more people. How can I do that? So I started contributing to magazines. I purchased Miriam Webster's book on journalistic writing, taught myself how to write, started submitting content good for you. And uh, a friend of mine, uh, gary phillips. He taught me photography because he was working as a photographer for like flex magazine, muscle and fitness.

Speaker 2: 34:33

And uh, you know a lot of the cameras. You know you get a 40d or 20d canon. They'd pretty much do it for you. Yeah, you know, you just had to have a good eye. Um, because I quickly figured out that if I could submit content with pictures that accompany, the chances of them getting accepted is much higher. So I, I, I kind of did both and after they started to stick and I started to get published, I thought I actually enjoy this more than personal training, you know, in person, one-on-one, and I can't keep doing these hours.

Speaker 2: 35:04

So I decided to kind of leave everything and risk a lot and move to venice, california uh, to be in the bodybuilding mecca, just so I could cover a lot more, and I'd been submitting pieces for Muslin Fitness and Flex international, but not the US, and the US was the hub, so that was the goal. I need to get a job there, so I just harassed the people at Weeda Publications. Luckily, peter McGough, who was in charge here he's from the UK two of the head photographers, kevin Horton and Chris Lunn they were from the UK, so I had a bit of an inroad there. I felt that we connected so much more and after six months I finally got a writer's and photographer's contract.

Speaker 1: 35:52

Really, how exciting was that. Oh, it was great.

Speaker 2: 35:54

Because I mean, are you on a?

Speaker 1: 35:55

work visa, or you're trying to get something at this time, or how did that work then? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 35:59

try in, try in. So I was. You know, there's two of us from Wales Flex Lewis, who's won the 212 Mr Olympia like seven times. He had just moved to Venice at the pretty much like within the same month that I'd moved there, had just moved to Venice at the pretty much like within the same month that I'd moved. So we connected, I knew who he was, he recognized who I was and we kind of connected and both of us neither of us had visas or athlete visas or anything like that so we would drive down to Tijuana, get our passports stamped and come back.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Really, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so that's what we did for a couple of years until we was able to get sponsorship, you know, from from for me with like weeder publications. Okay further, and it was it's still a shit show after that that we can go into. I was chucked out the country some years after, um, but with that, you know, I'm working there full time and still continuing to compete yep in in in bodybuilding and I was just the best time of my life. But after a while, like looking at how my content was being edited in weeder publications and they wanted something not so hardcore and gritty. You know like back then a lot of the photos was like, say, of ronnie colman like they've sprayed him up, he's wearing sunglasses.

Speaker 1: 37:19

I'm like that's not real he's gonna train like that, you know yeah, fake weights and whatnot, but not that ronnie needed fake weights.

Speaker 2: 37:26

Um, so I decided how hard can this be? I'll just publish my own magazine, you know, and uh, so I started caged muscle magazine this is wild.

Speaker 1: 37:36

Okay, all the pieces are coming together. Yeah, that was you, that was me yeah, caged muscle magazine.

Speaker 2: 37:42

Good for you. And uh, you know what I want, because I absolutely you know it's called caged fighting. Back then I love mma. You know what? I was actually, uh, doing a lot of kickboxing when I was in Australia, loved MMA, so I thought, well, I want to cover both MMA and bodybuilding, so I'll just call it caged muscle, you know, and put the K on there. You know, based on my name spelling, and you know it was great. I enjoyed it. I had really good people on board. Dorian Yates was one of my contributors, lender Murray, bill Grant you know a lot of the guys from Arnold's era, so you had some hitters on there.

Speaker 2: 38:19

Yeah, I had some real good hitters and they all loved the publication. Everyone loved it. There wasn't one person that had anything negative. However, I was no good at marketing. I'm not marketing. I'm not good at that. It wasn't my shtick. I wanted to do content and that was it. So you know, it's very difficult to make it financially viable, but I was just doing it as a hobby.

Speaker 2: 38:40

You know, I was making money contributing content to other publications and you know, websites had just started to come about then, so I'm selling them to bodybuildcom, I'm selling them to ProSource, I'm sending them to, you know, a lot of other areas as well. So I was well, so you'd get paid well back then.

Speaker 1: 38:56

So you're taking that money that you're publishing elsewhere and then putting it in the cage, Exactly into my magazine and I wasn't making money.

Speaker 2: 39:04

I wasn't making money but I just absolutely loved it. But I kept it up for two years and then decided to kind of get rid of it. Because at that time Ryan DeLuca reached out to me and asked if I wanted to come and interview to be the editor-in-chief of bodybuildingcom, because I'm giving them content, I'm covering shows for them and I would always get my content online quicker than like Muscular Development or Flex Magazine and they had a team of people. So he really, really liked that. So I interviewed for the job and that's what brought me up to Boise in the end of 2007. And it was a good time. There was only like maybe 30, 35 of us in the office.

Speaker 1: 39:47

How was it in the beginning days? I've heard some crazy stories like it was just wild and fun. It was it was.

Speaker 2: 39:55

It was wild, especially when we'd go to events. You know, um, and you know, once everybody had done their work that needed to be done, you know, a lot of people would just have a major blowout and sometimes it was just over the top. How so over the top? Well, I'm not going to name any names but like I remember, like, in Germany after FIBO. There was a strip club there, and a couple of the guys from BBCOM are actually on stage as well you know, and getting checked out, just things like that, you know.

Speaker 2: 40:26

But it was a lot of fun. No one got into any real trouble. A couple of them did and got let go, but you know it's the nature of the game, but it was great. It was a very good, tight community. No one really knew where this thing was going to go, but DeLuca had. He's definitely a visionary he knew exactly where the company was going to go and you know, he didn't really bow down to any other companies that were bigger than his in order to meet their expectations. He was just on, you know, a single track road and nothing was going to stop him.

Speaker 1: 41:00

Yeah, that thing, it was a machine for a long time.

Speaker 2: 41:03

Yeah, like within a few years. Now there's like 500 people working there. You know, it was just a revolving door. I didn't recognize half the people Half the time. I'd go into the you know cafeteria and didn't know half the people because it was just growing so quick and these people weren't from Boise, they were all getting flown in. So it was a really, really good time to see that happen and be a part of it, and I was a part of it up until you know.

Speaker 2: 41:27

So I'm going to a lot of the events covering the bodybuilding shows and doing what I do as well and just managing the team. And you know we're putting out so many articles and videos. And I started doing video trainers myself where someone would follow me every single day for like 12 weeks on how to burn fat, how to build muscle, how to get ready for an Ironman, whatever. You know. Is that exhausting? Yeah, it's a huge undertaking because the thing is you've got camera in your face every single day for 12 weeks. You know you're like geez, if you're having a bad day, it's like, well, I still gotta bloody show up and do this shit. You know, I mean you're fully committed. Yeah, yeah, you're in like I remember the first one that I did within the first, I think, four, five weeks.

Speaker 2: 42:12

Yeah, I got pneumonia and I was like, well, I can't stop, can I? You know I got to carry on. I've got this commitment. I'm, you know, third or fourth way through it. You know I gotta continue and it just is what it is like. In another video trainer, I tore my lat on the second day of training. I've only ever had two injuries in the gym. The rest have been outside, and I didn't tell the videographer, I didn't tell anybody. I just thought'm going to have to carry on somehow and just train around this.

Speaker 1: 42:39

With a torn lat.

Speaker 2: 42:41

Yeah, I just told my dad and that was it, because I just didn't want any sympathy or anyone to bring attention to it. Because then if you bring attention to it, you think about it, then it's worse than what it really is and I much prefer to kind of be in denial of certain things like that.

Speaker 2: 42:56

You know it's like it'll be fine, because I think part of the way of healing is the mindset Absolutely Big time. You know you invite that positivity. It's not going to be as bad as other people think it may be and usually you're okay.

Speaker 1: 43:13

It's funny you say that because you know, when you tell yourself like, okay, I'm going to be laid out for eight weeks, I'm always fuck. No, I'm not, I'm going to be up way before that.

Speaker 2: 43:21

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 43:23

I could be up and running in four weeks.

Speaker 2: 43:25

For sure.

Speaker 1: 43:25

Hey, you got to take it easy for X amount. No, because I feel that a huge battle of recovery is the mental side of it. Because then if you're laying there, okay, eight weeks, I gotta be in this brace and I just gotta take it easy. And then then you know, then you're in at eight weeks. But if you're like, okay, I'm starting to feel a little bit better today, I can move more, and then you, slowly at least that's who I am as a person.

Speaker 1: 43:47

It might not always be the best decision. You know, I've shattered my whole hand and wrist one time but I was like I was all casted up and I was like I'm over this and I was like I feel I'm good and I cut that thing off at work and I probably was a little soon, but I took it easy and I was like I can't, I can't afford this anymore, like I, I have to be up and moving now. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to watch, like the sympathy route and how long it takes to recover, how long everything takes to heal, versus, hey, I'm nope, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to accept that?

Speaker 2: 44:17

yeah, exactly, you know, I think we we consider ourselves to be way more fragile than what we are 100 on a physical aspect 100 you know we, you know people treat each other like bone china, like if it breaks it's okay, we can fix it. If it is, we can fix that too. And today, with today's technology, now, and what we've got available to us.

Speaker 2: 44:37

It's like man, you can really heal. You know you've heard of I don't know if you've heard of peptides oh yeah, you know bpc 157, body protective compound. And then you've got stem cells. You know, usually I head overseas for them because they're much more efficacious than what you can get in this country. But I found things like that have just been very, very healing. Not so much that it completely fixes, like the old injuries, but the symptoms are much, much less. Because I don't want to slow down, I have no plans on slowing down. You know, like I tore my tricep a few years ago, 68% off the bone, oh my God, snowboarding. But I'm like, well, I'm still gonna go and snowboard, yep, what can I do to ensure that I can be optimized? So had surgery, obviously you know, to reattach the tendons. I got that feel.

Speaker 2: 45:26

When I'm doing yeah, when you tore it, I my wife was filming me, so I was probably showing off always what a camera.

Speaker 2: 45:33

So she said I'm not filming you ever again. Well, I rag dolled it down in this powder, you know, and it was a complete whiteout and I'm very, very light, sensitive, very light sensitive, so I couldn't see anything, but I'm still kind of plowing down and I've just rag dolled it. But I think I may have partially torn it prior, like a month before, okay, you know, because I was having some issues there. I just didn't know the severity of it because I got quite a high pain tolerance and uh, then, as soon as I ragdolled it, I felt something there, you know, I heard something. And then, when I felt it, I'm like man, my triceps just hanging off you, and I said to my wife I said, can you feel that? She couldn't really tell, but I knew that he'd come off, but I knew there was nothing that we could do about it.

Speaker 2: 46:18

And this happened on. Was it valentine's day? Yeah, happened on valentine's day and I'd already made a reservation at this place in jackson hall and they had bone marrow and I love bone marrow on the menu. So I'm like, well, we're not canceling that. So when we went back to the hotel, I managed managed to get one of those ropes. You know that's. You know that you get on robes, okay, and just strapped my arm straight, just so obviously I wouldn't knock it into anything or hurt anything. So we had the dinner then and then, following, when we came back to Boise, I went to see Dr Caleb Redding.

Speaker 2: 46:52

Yeah, yeah yeah, and he's like you're screwed man. So had operation and they had to drill a couple of holes through the ulna and humerus just to reattach everything. But mentally I'm fine with that, I'm good with that. Yeah, it's just inconvenience. That's what I don't like the inconvenience and fair dues. The surgery hurt a lot more than tearing it. You know, when I Fair dues, the surgery hurt a lot more than tearing it. When I come around having a couple of holes drilled but then a year later it still hadn't healed as I had hoped, I'm still dealing with probably about 70% discomfort and 30% strength has come back, which isn't much. And then I had stem cells. Went to Mexico, had stem cells and within six months, great.

Speaker 1: 47:34

Now, when you're doing stem cells, how many treatments is it a one-time thing then you wait for, or are you going every month? Every is it? How does? How does the stems no one shot?

Speaker 2: 47:42

so that's it yeah, so, um, you'd have it injected acutely to the areas of concern. So while I was down there I was like, yeah, I've torn my shoulder, I'll have that done. I got torn acl and meniscus in my knee, I'll get get that done. Just get topped up, but then have an IV to follow, because if you do have areas of concern or inflammation that you may not be conscious about, then the IV will take care of that. No kidding, yeah, so the localized will not dissipate or home in on other areas of concern because you want it all localized For sure. Yeah, so that's what it was, just a one done for that. I don't need to have that done again there. I don't feel anyway, but you would recommend it for sure. Really, I've changed.

Speaker 1: 48:23

I've sent so many clients there really, and it's all clean, good clinics, everything problems.

Speaker 2: 48:28

For sure.

Speaker 1: 48:29

Like all these clinics that you find in panama, costa rica, mexico, they're all run by americans and I've heard that I've had buddies that have gone and traveled and done things like that and they're like either they're americans or their doctors came and studied here, yeah, got their doctorate, learned everything in the states and they take it back to brazil, south america, wherever they are. So it's really just it's american doctors down there at the end of the day that are just either locals there or have moved down there.

Speaker 2: 48:56

Yeah, and you know, since then, or since yeah, since then, you know I've got to know Scotty and Ed Clay, who own CPI. Okay, they are the official sponsors of the UFC, so the UFC send their guys to.

Speaker 1: 49:12

CPI.

Speaker 2: 49:14

And you know Ed's such a good guy, really knowledgeable fella, and you know that they're doing it all for the right reasons. It isn't just for financial remuneration, because they're both well off anyway.

Speaker 1: 49:25

So would you recommend just an average guy, that's just. You know been through the shit his whole life, is it? Good just to go down and just do it especially me turning 40 be smart, just and see how well, how much better I feel after I mean 100, like I've really.

Speaker 2: 49:40

I try to talk my dad into getting it so many times because he's, you know, dealing with some some things.

Speaker 2: 49:45

You know, like he should have probably had a hip replacement 15 years ago, um, but too stubborn. But I think it can be, because as we get older, our ability to produce stem cells is much, much less. That's why, you know, as a kid bruise, next day it's gone, you know, um, because we're healing, we got that many more stem cells. But as we get a little bit older and if you've drunk a lot of alcohol, if you stay up late, you know, or don't sleep much, maybe you've done drugs or had a lot of injuries, you're always taking an extraction of those stem cells. So how much is left in that bank? So that's when we go to somewhere like Mexico or Panama or whatever, to say I'll have those stem cells that were donated, because a lot of these people have. Obviously, just like in the US, you have the choice to have your kids' stem cells banked. Now they don't necessarily need all of those, and some places will bank those stem cells for those people for free, should they want to sell some to a participant, ie me.

Speaker 1: 50:52

Interesting. So what's a treatment? I mean you don't have to give me your price, but what's a treatment if I want to go down and get injected in certain areas and then the iv? I mean what? What am I? What are you looking at on average?

Speaker 2: 51:01

so it all depends, obviously, on the severity. So like this is how it works you have a consultation and then you have a consultation with the surgeon. The surgeon will need to see your x-rays, or MRIs, to see how much soft tissue damage you have and then, based on that, they will say this is how many stem cells you need and this is how much cost.

Speaker 2: 51:21

Or maybe you're not even a candidate, you can't take stem cells, you know because my wife, she's not a candidate and um based, but you're looking at twenty thousand,000 minimum, got it. But that same $20,000 minimum there would cost around $50,000 here. However, you're not going to get the efficacy here. They're not allowed to harvest them, they can't expand the stem cells in this country. It's just silly laws, you know. But you know it's just the land. Like I had stem cells once here I'm not naming the company, uh, but it didn't do anything for me.

Speaker 2: 51:59

I'm not saying it doesn't do anything for everyone, but didn't do anything but you draw.

Speaker 1: 52:02

You saw a drastic change when you went to mexico yes how long does it last? Or is this something that it's good, I mean? Is it? I mean obviously, you said it's a one and done deal, yeah, do you feel it immediately, or is it just over months of?

Speaker 2: 52:14

recovery. It's funny because there's a friend of mine who's in Tulum. Michelle and her mother, joan, just had stem cells done like five weeks ago and Michelle reached out and said, you know, because I referred them, she said it's not worked. It hasn't worked and I said, well, it's only been five weeks. It took me about six months to feel the complete efficacy of it. You know it takes yeah, it took me about that long and that seems to be about the average. And you know, the hardest part is that you can't train for a good couple of months following because if you are causing more trauma, you know through breaking down muscle tissue, the stem cells are going to go there. Now and you know, same with uh, you know you want the inflammation, so you can't do ice baths, which is a killer for me, I love my ice baths, can't do sauna.

Speaker 2: 53:00

You know, there's a few things that you are very, very restricted. You do cardio. That's good. So, like, uh, with the first time I had stem cells, um, I decided I'll just, you know, I need to do something. I get ready for an iron man. So I did an iron man. That was my kind of training. You know a lot of pool work, a lot on the bike, um, you know.

Speaker 1: 53:19

So that was fine really damn I, because I know some guys but they haven't got into like depth about it, so they find that fascinating yeah I I'm always I want to know because I feel like right now I have so much chronic pain I'd strongly suggest it.

Speaker 2: 53:35

yeah, you, you know if you can get some MRIs. There's a couple of ways of doing it. You'd be better off getting the MRIs here, to be honest with you, and then you know, submit them down there. Submit them. I can make the contact. But yeah, it's not cheap but it's the best money I've ever spent Really.

Speaker 1: 53:53

I mean, it's your body. Yeah, you're investing in your longevity.

Speaker 2: 53:56

I'm sure you have no plans on slowing down. You're still going to be riding ATVs. That's my problem, I'm all gas, no brake on everything.

Speaker 1: 54:03

I mean the wreck. It didn't slow me down, but it opened my eyes. It's like okay, risk versus reward. I kind of plan those out a little bit better now. I think of that. But as far as slowing down, absolutely not. I feel like when I slow down I'm done, exactly, I'm done.

Speaker 1: 54:20

Exactly. I have to keep it going, and so that's where I have a lot of curiosity. That, and then the peptides and all that stuff which I want to get into. So where were we? Tore your tricep off, got surgery, got that fixed? What was next for you? I mean, so you're still at bodybuildingcom at this point? No, no, no.

Speaker 2: 54:42

This only happened a few years ago.

Speaker 1: 54:43

Oh, no shit.

Speaker 2: 54:43

I left BBcom at the end of 2010. I was still working for them for about a year year and a half after that, remotely, for about a year, year and a half after that, remotely. What happened? 2010,. It's a week before the Mr Olympia and we've got a big crew going down there. I'm in charge of the content side and the admin team at BBCom were asking for my visa, my visa extension blah, blah, blah. And I put them in touch with my lawyer and they contacted me and said there's something suspicious going on about this lawyer. He's not giving us these numbers and this one, blah, blah, blah. All to find out that this lawyer of mine had not filed for my extension.

Speaker 1: 55:38

So I'd been in the country literally for over 11 months illegally and you idea, no idea, and you're paying this guy.

Speaker 2: 55:41

yeah, of course, typical lawyer, huh yeah well, that lawyer, that lawyer, and um, so I was told, then look, if you leave the country by the time the 12 months are up, there's a very strong chance we can get a waiver signed. You can come back into the country. If you leave it more than a year, you automatically have a five-year ban. That is it. You can't come back. So I'm like, oh, wow, well, I'm gonna have to go down to olympia because that's still my commitment, so I gotta fulfill that. And then I literally come back and packed what I had to go into a suitcase and then flew back to wales, wales to kind of, you know, submit a waiver to get back into the country.

Speaker 1: 56:20

How long does that take, or how?

Speaker 2: 56:21

long can that take? We thought it would probably take about six weeks, but it took two years.

Speaker 1: 56:28

Yeah, you couldn't come back. For two years Couldn't come back, so you're over here starting a whole life.

Speaker 2: 56:33

Oh yeah, I had a home, I had two investment properties in Nampa, I had pets, everything. What did you? It was gnarly Two years, yeah, yeah. So during that time, you know, luckily some friends came together. My parents even flew over here to put all of our you know my stuff in storage basically. Yeah, to put all of our you know my stuff in storage basically. And, you know, found a couple of people from BBCom to take over you know, the pets, and that was it and just had a. You know like, I went and submitted paperwork which I had, paperwork from, you know, people like Dorian Yates, from Joe Weider, from Simon and Schuster, the publication house, because I'd written a book at that time as well.

Speaker 2: 57:21

And it was so weird. Every time I'd go to the immigration, you know, with all my paperwork, I'd be like no, need this, need that. And I had so much paperwork Apparently I had enough for a family of four, but I've been told it still took that long. Yeah, I've been told that some of the people at, you know, the people at the immigration, have more power than the president, you know, if they've had a bad, shitty morning, if they haven't had their coffee in the morning they'll just turn you away and that and that's just so they can completely just screw your life.

Speaker 2: 57:54

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, just because the last time because you, after you submit it, I think you had to wait like three months before you could go back again. Yeah, so it's just waiting. And I went in this island, I went in England, you know, tried different places and the last time I submitted it it was the exact same paperwork that I admitted three months before. Because the lawyer said there's nothing more we can give you. This is it, this is it and it let me in.

Speaker 1: 58:25

Did they give you an excuse, or is it just accept or deny? Accept or deny, that's it, so you don't even.

Speaker 2: 58:31

Don't know what to fix.

Speaker 1: 58:32

In two years and you couldn't come back at all.

Speaker 2: 58:34

No, no, not at all Damn. But during that time because I'd recently flown to India because I'd released this book and I needed to go there for book release signing uh, while this was happening and I'm back in wales, I was in a supermarket. I had a phone call to say, hey, there's this guy, he is a huge bollywood star, he read your book, he is, you know, got issues with his back as well. He had a slip, that bulging disc, and he's just like smoking, he's eating, he's really out of shape and he's got to get ready for this action role.

Speaker 2: 59:12

There was like a trilogy and this was the third of this movie. So I figured, okay, yeah, I'll chat with this guy, give him a consultation. And he really wanted training. So then I flew to India and transformed him over like a nine-week period. It was supposed to be 12 weeks, but he was easier to transform, so we did it in nine weeks. That hit all the major newspapers, news stations, stuff like that, because it was a very good transformation. So now all these other celebrities are wanting me to train them Over there.

Speaker 1: 59:44

Over there. Is this how you started to blow up over in India, because you're massive?

Speaker 2: 59:49

over there. Yeah, it was BBCOM to begin with. Okay, because there's a lot of traffic on BBCOM from India. They wouldn't convert, they wouldn't even in the top 10 because it's so hard to get supplements into the country. Okay, but they just wanted to look at all the free content. But then, yeah, obviously training the celebs helped. And then, you know, I just couldn't train all these people, so I started flying in other personal trainers, like Neil Hill from the US here, joe Tong, a couple of guys from the UK.

Speaker 1: 1:00:18

So you're the celebrity trainer for all these Indian actors and actresses? Yeah, really. So you just fall into this niche because you got kicked out of the US. Yeah to this. Yeah, niche completely because you got kicked out of the us. Yeah, that's so I made well with my time.

Speaker 2: 1:00:35

Yeah, fortunately I had to abide yeah and um. And then during a lot of travel around the india because we started qualifying personal trainers as well and uh. So with a lot of that travel I was like god, the gyms here are really bad, you know, not so much always like the equipment or anything like that, but just the way you know personal trainers were treated. You know they weren't treated as professionals. They would do what the client told them. It was kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 1:01:06

So I thought, okay, we have to create authoritative figures out of this industry. So that's when my business partner and I decided to start up a gym franchise there that we kind of considered more like academies, but they are gyms, because we could definitely see a void there and we wanted to get obviously good equipment as well great infrastructure. They're definitely more expensive than any other gym there, but we want to provide a better service. So that's how that started at that time as well. Interesting. So I was.

Speaker 2: 1:01:37

I was very busy while biding my time to get back in into the US, you know, and once everything you know the end of 2013, just before the Olympiaia, I was allowed back into the country. So I thought, well, I'm not ready to move back just yet, but I'll go over for the olympia and do all that be at the booth and because I'm not the editor-in-chief anymore at this stage, but I was still the face because of these video trainers were very, very popular, okay, and I was still providing content. I even did a 12 week musclebuilding video trainer while I was in India, got a great film crew together and they submitted the content. I had to fly to Canada to do the overview videos with the BBCOM team because I couldn't get back into the US. So we still made it work. We still made it work. How's India?

Speaker 1: 1:02:27

Chaotic, I feel, india is just pure wild chaos.

Speaker 2: 1:02:32

Yeah, it is chaos, you know like there's parts of india that I absolutely love, it's mostly in the country you know, up towards the himalayas, like I've been heli boarding in the himalayas it's phenomenal absolutely phenomenal. What is that like?

Speaker 1: 1:02:44

oh, it's great, absolutely phenomenal yeah, you get dropped off, obviously at the top of a mountain. You've been given like a cb radio and you just phenomenal. What is that like? Oh, it's great, absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 1:02:49

Yeah, you get dropped off, obviously at the top of a mountain. You've been given like a cb radio and you just call them when you hit the bottom, they hit well, they always have a mark. You have to find the mark, you know. And uh, it's just so much freedom, really really good. And then obviously there's places like goa really nice prestige beaches, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:03:07

I'm just not into big cities regardless their cities are next level, yeah I mean I've, I've I'm sure you've traveled way more of the world, but I've been fortunate to go to a lot of cool countries. I feel there's nothing as far as population wise, except for asian. Some of the asian countries that are just you can't breathe. I mean it is just so overwhelming and just, I mean between the, the little bikes and the carts and the people, I mean you just it's just noise it's just never ends.

Speaker 2: 1:03:37

Of course the pollution is bad, like we know pakistan place in pakistan and like delhi is the worst in india. But what gets me is the noise pollution, because everybody's on the horn all the time, like there's never no traffic. So that's the one thing that gets to me.

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

So what does that do to your psyche, like when you're there, because obviously you're very in tune with your body and I'm sure you, you're in one of these major cities for even a couple of days and you just can't hear a bird chirp, you just can't hear the wind blow. I mean I feel like a guy like you, especially me, and I was talking about not too long ago with my buddy. He he's lives in the, he's a country, just works a ranch, and when he goes, like even comes to boise, he's like a couple days and it's too much. Yeah, I mean, do you start to feel yourself? I mean, is I'm not saying like a form of depression, but is it? Does this start to affect you at all where you have to get out and get out of the city at all, or you just grind it out?

Speaker 2: 1:04:26

I grind it out, but I have a couple of times in the past, in the early, early years, it did affect me, uh, but it was a couple of contributing factors. You know, I unbeknownst to me, I had mold toxicity at the time which can. It's like a neurotoxin, so it can affect you mentally, and the biggest symptom that I had was I just couldn't sleep. I was sleeping three hours a night for quite a while. What, yeah, mold toxicity from a property that I was staying at in this place called um uh, not juhu. What was the other area called bandra bandra? I was training a celeb there and I was downstairs in an apartment block there and it's very, very humid in Mumbai, very humid Like appliances only last a couple of years there and there was mold in this property. But I had no idea, couldn't see any mold. It was hidden and I'd got what's called mold toxicity. So, as I mentioned, one of the symptoms was I just wasn't sleeping. So now I've just become really on edge, really on edge.

Speaker 1: 1:05:34

It wears on you, it breaks you down mentally and physically, I don't sleep. That's one of my biggest problems, right? Well, I've fixed that now. How did you discover this?

Speaker 2: 1:05:44

It took a couple of years because nobody could figure it out. I couldn't figure it out. I'd gone through every like dietary supplemental intervention, even started going through medication interventions. Nothing was working until I was recommended to go visit this person called Dr Spanaug in Oldsmar, florida. And when I visited him, like he had me do like 60 odd blood tests on the first day and urine, stools, saliva, brain scan, everything and then when he had everything in front of him and he explained the symptoms without me him asking what my symptoms were, he described me to an absolute tea.

Speaker 1: 1:06:27

and you were like, oh shit, yeah, this guy, this guy knows, yeah, I mean that had to have been a huge sigh of relief.

Speaker 2: 1:06:32

Then it was I was just hoping that I could get detoxed or fixed from it. So I had to stay at his clinic for six weeks to go through a detoxification protocol. He would have had me there six months if he'd had his way, you know, because there was just that much toxicity in me and you know I, besides the mold, or was I mean?

Speaker 1: 1:06:52

was there other things or was this the prime?

Speaker 2: 1:06:53

old, just the mold it's a six months, six month cleanse, yeah yeah and uh, I, I continued to do the cleanse myself to what I, what I could, and eventually, I'd say probably about a year later, I felt that I kind of got it out of my system.

Speaker 2: 1:07:10

What's the cleanse consist of? It's all sorts. So you know I'd be doing an IV five times a week and that would have, like ALA and glutathione and chelations you know ingredients that would chelate to help bind the toxins so you could detox them out. Had to do chronic hydrotherapy five days a week as well. You know just so much cleansing. You know sauna every day. There was a huge list of supplements that I had to take during that time as well, but you know.

Speaker 2: 1:07:46

So, going back to what you mentioned, how did I feel being in a city in mumbai? Well, at that time, like I was in mumbai luck no, delhi, uh, everywhere. But at that time, man, I was just not a good person to be around. I was like, if someone would stare at me more than, of course, you know, looking at the way I do, a lot of people would stare at me. Someone stared me more than three seconds. I'd be like what's your freaking problem? You know I was just that on edge, but I didn't recognize it at the time and I would use this anger that I had in me as a fuel of energy for my workouts. I'm like I don't care if I'm not sleeping, I'm still going to outwork you. I'm still going to out train you. You know, it was like an egotistical mentality and I wasn't like aware of myself and my surroundings until it was just too much. You know where I just wasn't sleeping. You know, the only way I could describe my sleep was like having to get on a long haul flight in economy every single day, every single night. That's hell. You know where I'd wake up and think god, is it time to get up? Yet I'd only been asleep for like 10 minutes and that would happen every 10 minutes. I'll wake up. You know, it's just horrendous, horrendous. And that's when I started seeking uh, you know other people alternate methods, like educating myself.

Speaker 2: 1:09:06

I didn't know malt toxicity was even a thing, but now, because I've had it and being part of like the biohacking anti-aging community, I see it's. It is quite common really here in the us. Yes, yeah for sure, and it doesn't always have to come from. You know what we consider mold in the walls. Yeah, like, the biggest um carrier of mold that we consume is coffee. You know, the majority, vast majority, like over 95% of coffees have mycotoxins, mold spores in them. Because, you know, let's say you know you've just picked a lot of these. You know coffee beans. A lot of them aren't necessarily dried out immediately. Maybe you know, obviously you've got herbicides, pesticides, all that sort of stuff. But maybe they're not shade grown, maybe they're not single origin. They're coming from everywhere and they're not being dried out, much like the grains aren't being dried out once they go into the vats.

Speaker 1: 1:10:02

People have no idea.

Speaker 2: 1:10:04

Yeah, so there's a lot of mold and the thing is our toxicity levels in the US are much lower than what they are like in europe. So, for instance, if something gets rejected in europe, the us will take it. She sees the coffee drinker. Oh, there you go. Well, there's great coffees out there. You know I'm not sponsored by these people, but you've got key on coffee. You got fabula coffee, you got danger coffee. So they will all state that they're mold free. You know they're tested. You know you can go into their sites and find this here ways. That's just.

Speaker 2: 1:10:35

I had no idea yeah, yeah and you know, like chocolates will have it, wine will have it. Yeah, so you have to kind of go down that rabbit hole of figuring out what to have. You know a biodynamic rhyme, for instance.

Speaker 1: 1:10:50

That's fascinating.

Speaker 2: 1:10:52

It's scary too, it is scary, because who doesn't drink coffee?

Speaker 1: 1:10:56

Exactly, you don't, I don't, oh really, I just had my first coffee with a guest and he's a Marine and the only reason I did it is because he's a Marine, just like these guys. He's a Marine too, to support him. So I love supporting veteran companies. But I had him on and he's a local guy here and he knows because he's tried for years, like, let me say, he's a coffee, I'm like I don't drink it. So people, all these companies always send me coffee and it's for the wife. You know, I'm like here, let me know if it's good or not.

Speaker 2: 1:11:20

I just no coffee, no caffeine interesting I'm a water guy, pure water and so that's fine, but's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: 1:11:27

I do decaf, yeah, if I have coffee yep, I just had it, though on one of our episodes. He, but he had, like the espresso. Did you feel the caffeine hit from it? Oh, immediate, because I'm just not a cat. Yeah I bet, even with your subs, because I got um your pre-workout and I was like bro, I can't do caffeine and there's no caffeine in any of our pre-workout, and that's why he was like dude, it's perfect.

Speaker 2: 1:11:47

I'm like all right.

Speaker 1: 1:11:47

Because if I take anything because I've had such a hard time sleeping as it is, I've tried so many pre-workouts and Zach he would, you know, try to get me to work out later afternoon or in the evening I'm like I can't. I physically cannot, because one I Caffeine. It has to be very early in the morning because I'll just lay in bed and it just compounds on top of whatever my sleeping problems are already. And so, yeah, that's where I am a huge anti-caffeine guy. Like energy drinks when I drive, there's times because I guide in the fall, you know hunting guide, and I'll buy like a Monster sometimes but it's the sugar-free, all that stuff. It'll take me two days to drink it because I just I'll sip on it and half the time I'll try to drink it and drink it I'll go, I get tired and go to sleep Like it has the opposite effect.

Speaker 1: 1:12:35

So I'm weird, like they, even in the military, you know, when it came to smoking tobacco dipping. Never, I never did any of that stuff. I would just sunflower seeds and water. That was it. The guys I don't know if you ever seen being overseas anywhere. They called, they're called, rippets, which what we had a lot of those overseas and that stuff was like crack in a can. I mean, dudes were literally like dying from this stuff over there.

Speaker 1: 1:12:56

no, way hearts were failing because they were taking that, they were drinking, they were mixing. You'll know this shit. There was no explode at the time.

Speaker 1: 1:13:04

Yeah, bsn, um, all those crazy ones that they had huge amount of caffeine and various other stems, sometimes ephedrine that was a big one and those guys were chugging them with these rippets and I mean the guys were dying in their bed. I mean they were just over there and so I was. I've always been weird like that. I just my dad ruined coffee for me. I went on to it about a podcast, because we'd drive in the morning to go hunting and he'd always buy this French espresso shit and I thought it smelled absolutely horrible and we were on a windy road to go to our hunting spot and I would just get nauseous. So every time I'd get nauseous, sitting in the back of the car or the back of the truck, I'd smell this coffee. So my mind, just ever since I was a kid, would relate.

Speaker 2: 1:13:49

So I'd smell coffee and I'm like, no, I'm good, so I'm like that with tequila. I, I, I. I got absolutely wasted when I was about I don't know, 1920 in Portugal on this really bad cheap tequila. I can't smell it now, I just can't go near it I'm.

Speaker 1: 1:14:02

Whiskey is another one. I was a young Marine. We were at Halloween downtown San Diego in the Gaslight District on Halloween, where they'd block all that off. I showed up to the party late. I had to work that day. We got off, showed up All my boys are wasted. When I get to the hotel room my boy hands me a handle of Captain Morgan. I take the lid off of it, popped it and I just boom and I chugged like half this handle handle and then I finished another big chunk of it before we even left. Don't remember I almost got shot and arrested. I thought a cop was dressed in like a Halloween costume and I go up and I grabbed his sidearm, as my buddy said, it was like this is a realistic costume and I grabbed this dude and this cop like palms my face and like throat, chopped me and throws me to the ground and my buddies were like no, no, no, he's just fucked up and I legitimately feel I had alcohol poisoning because I mean I threw up that whole entire night.

Speaker 1: 1:14:59

The next day we drove back to Oceanside it was a Sunday because we had to get our haircuts and right in Oceanside there's a little barber shop and across down the street there's a fire department. I ended up just laying in the lawn puking the whole entire time. Never got my hair cut. Come monday morning I was still puking. I couldn't even go to work monday morning. My buddies covered for me. I legit feel I had alcohol poisoning. But ever since then, like all my buddies, let's get some whiskey, let's go have whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

Speaker 1: 1:15:23

I'm like I smell whiskey or coffee and I'm like my body's I, I don't care what I have to do. If I even just sip whiskey, I instantly get the spits. And I'm like, no, I can't do it. Interesting, even if it's mixed. We just had my wife had some chocolates and it had like a rum or whiskey mix in it and I was like I was like what's? This isn't just like a plum chocolate. And she's like, oh, it's got bourbon or something. I was like, oh, I knew it, my body just rejects it, yeah funny.

Speaker 1: 1:15:50

It's weird how you do that yeah, thank god it has never happened, for like cheesecake or something.

Speaker 2: 1:15:55

Yeah, I don't know if it'll ever happen with that something you enjoy.

Speaker 1: 1:15:59

But uh, I want to get into biohacking because obviously you, being 50 years old, you look incredible. Thank you, and I feel like obviously you know I'm big into the sauna is huge for me. I've always been a huge sauna fan. I hate, I absolutely hate the one at the gym. I rule I want to get my own because it just doesn't do it for me. I could sit in there for an hour and I'll sweat, but it just I don't feel that sauna where I'm just, you know, I feel like I'm flushing my system. I finally got the cow trough out back filled up. I love doing. That benefits to, are you? I mean, you said you're a fan of ice baths. Are they as beneficial as people say? Because I hear so many controversial things on it. Some people say it's more mental and some people are like absolutely, it burns the specific fats and all that stuff. What's your take on ice bath and sauna?

Speaker 2: 1:16:57

Yeah, there's a lot of benefits. Like, I have an ice bath and sauna at home. I was in it this morning. Yeah, and the benefits of the sauna and there's a lot of Finnish studies on the benefits of sauna. I think to quote one of the sauna and there's a lot of Finnish studies on the benefits of sauna. I think to quote one of the studies is that if you did sauna for like 25, 30 minutes five days a week, you can decrease all-cause mortality by 43%, which is wild, yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal, wild, yeah. So it creates a lot of heat shock proteins which helps repair your damaged proteins, your folded proteins, damaged dna. There's a lot of benefits to it. Then, obviously, it'll help with growth hormone production. You can collate a lot of, you know, detox a lot out of you.

Speaker 2: 1:17:42

Um, what I like to do is take some type of binder beforehand, like what? So? Something like chlorella. Chlorella, something that's not too um, what's intrusive. It's just like a, it's like a green powder, it's a plant, okay, and you know, just have like a tablespoon of that before you jump in, for you know, about 15 minutes before you go in. Um, some people do niacin. I've done niacin as well. That will help with the blood flow to help collate a little bit better. And there are other types of binders, you know, activated charcoal being one, but that can be a little bit harsh because it can deplete you of your minerals as well I mean because that's what it's technically created to do is to pull all of that right yeah so it could be

Speaker 2: 1:18:27

a little harsher. You do that maybe once a week, but you'd want to make sure that you are hydrating and rehydrating yeah, minerals at the same time, and then, when the ice pass, I think there's a lot of benefits. You know, I learned all about contrast therapy when I was in college in the 90s. Okay, you know, that's when we first started doing it. You know we'd jump in the sauna and then we'd jump in the snow if the snow was, if it was snowing outside, etc. So I've always been into the contrast therapy and the. Of course. It can help with inflammation. It can help with the browning of the fat to mobilize fatty acids, so it's easier for you to then burn fat. The more you're able to brown your fat, the more active it will be interesting. Yeah, so uh, but the main reason why I do it is just for mental stability okay, thank you, because you I hear these guys, they're always talking this benefits, benefits, benefits.

Speaker 1: 1:19:20

The two things that I've noticed is if you can convince yourself especially here I don't have the fancy covered and the water flowing when you're breaking three or four inches of ice, getting in that shit, the mental state that you're, it sets your whole entire day in the mood. I mean, if you could convince yourself to do that, there's nothing in the rest of your day that you can't do. You can't do. We used to do it when they were fighting and right as we would get ready to leave, the day we're leaving, I'm like, hey, go get in the ice bath. And she would get in. And I'm like, if you can convince yourself to do this, I go. I guarantee you none of these other kids are mentally strong enough. It's a great idea to get in. And I'm like this that way you have that upper hand. You just, you just did something that nobody else that you're going to fight against is doing, especially kids down in las vegas. And they show up. You're looking like there's no way that kid's getting an ice bath. And here she she is. We're in the middle of February. I'm breaking six inches of ice. She's getting in, does her dunk maxes out. Okay, let's go Get dressed, let's hit the road.

Speaker 1: 1:20:14

And so that's where I felt the biggest benefit for me was the mental side. But then, at the same time, with the inflammation and correct me if I'm wrong so with my hips always, you know, my hip being twisted, I could almost pinpoint the inflammation in my body because it would just it burns almost like aches where I can like if I already have like like that chronic pain in certain areas when I get in, because I don't do any more than like three minutes for me and like that's, that's perfect, I'm good, I don't have anything to prove. Three minutes, I'm, I'm about done. But I can feel like if I say you do like a hard leg day my calves, I have the tightest calves on the planet. It is disgusting, it's I've. This has this. This table has more flexibility than my calves. I get in and they just they're on fire. Is that the inflammation? Is that that cold is shocking and helping with that inflammation?

Speaker 2: 1:21:09

yeah, so that that is quite normal. Like I don't feel it so much when I get in the ice bath. If I do cryotherapy because of my injuries. I feel it so much more cooler in those areas where I have inflammation, so it's quite normal for that. Of course, you know, if it is more inflamed you're going to have more blood flow, maybe it's warmer, so the contrast of that is going to be more pronounced, got it. But as far as the like, the mental stability, you know we have our vagal nerve and you know that puts us in that fight or flight response. Absolutely the more that that can be like toned, the more stable that you'll be and not maybe as reactive or, you know, just off the cuff, moody or whatever. So I don't necessarily feel that, hey, I feel a hundred bucks today. I just feel stabilized. You know where I'm. I'm not an arsehole, yeah, you know. And I do feel so much better for it.

Speaker 2: 1:22:05

It's like having your double a batteries as well and knowing that you're being harder to kill at the same time, you know you are being a little more relentless, and especially when you're doing it first thing in the morning, it's still dark outside. You're like, yeah, how many people are doing this? And it makes you feel good that you're doing something that other people aren't and hopefully you're going to get results that they're not because they ain't doing it and it's, it is a battle. You know, it's like when I you know my wife knows this I have the ice bath of 32.

Speaker 2: 1:22:36

It's freaking cold, very, very cold, but, um, you know, the colder it is, just like the harder your workouts, the better you feel after. You know, and I just love that because, as you mentioned, there are going to be days that you don't want to do things, but you're much more empowered to do them knowing that you've just done the hardest stuff first thing in the morning, got it out of the way yeah, you got out the way, and it just has a transverse effect onto so many other areas of your life as well that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:23:05

I'm glad. I'm glad you recommend it because you hear, you know you get every, especially online and social media now it's become trend, trendy yeah yeah and then.

Speaker 1: 1:23:14

but you see this, I think people, a lot of people, just do it for the views and they just go in and dunk themselves. But it's like what I'm doing? I'm like, okay, you know, I've never posted about it, you know, you know how it is. You see, these guys, especially being trendy, everybody's got to do and day 63 of not missing an ice bath. Like you know those guys, and it's good on them. I mean, there's times where you see them breaking, I mean they're pulling out blocks of ice, and it's just that to me is the mental battle where I'm like, okay, like we're good, nothing is going to get in the way of today.

Speaker 1: 1:23:42

Do you recommend doing it in the morning or at night? And the reason I ask is because there's times after you get out, you get that surge. For me, you're standing out back, it's snowing and you're in your board shorts or whatever. You get that surge. But I feel that when I've done them at night, I've had two different reactions. One, it wakes your body up, where it's hard for me to go to sleep. And then there's other times where it's some of the deepest coma sleeps that I've ever had. Have you ever seen a difference in that?

Speaker 2: 1:24:12

Yeah, I definitely prefer cool before bed. Some people like to have a nice warm bath, which is fine, but if I'm going to have a warm bath, I prefer that to be earlier in the day, because that affects my sleep. My core temperature is just way too high. The balance that I've found is that do your three minutes in the morning, okay, and if you're going to do it in the evening, just do it for one minute, no longer than that. It's too much. I feel your body's core temperature is way too cold and it takes too long for it to heat up while you're trying to sleep, because it takes a while to defrost For sure, you know, after three minutes. You know you're usually still pretty cold after a couple of hours, because I always finish with cold, always finish with cold. So it takes a while to warm up. So I wouldn't suggest any more than one minute in the evening.

Speaker 1: 1:24:57

Okay, biohacking. I know there's a lot of people that follow me that are going to be like what in the hell is biohacking? I don't know how deep you want to get into it, but I'm super curious into this. So, as far as you want to go with it, I want to hear it all Sure.

Speaker 2: 1:25:15

So you know it's basically hacking your biology. You know our biology is designed to be lazy. You know we go out and hunt and then we store you know, we wait, we feast.

Speaker 2: 1:25:26

Wait for the next season, until next season? Yeah, exactly. So obviously that's why a lot of people do find it difficult to maybe get up in the morning, go to the gym, get any ice bath, whatever, because our bodies are designed to be kind of lazy. But you know, in the environment that we live today it's very, very different to you know, just like 20, 30, 40 years ago. You know the food supply. You know we see supplements, the pollutants. Now we've got EMF, non-native EMF, wi-fi, et cetera. We're under artificial lights all day. We hardly ever get outside. You know we're working now in the morning while it's still dark. We get home when it's dark. So there's a lot going against us. So biohacking is using our ancestral wisdom, let's say grounding. I was just gonna ask grounding.

Speaker 2: 1:26:15

Yeah, get in sunlight whenever possible, get in fresh air, maybe doing your cardio out in nature. You know those are our ancestral tenants. But then we are able to combine it with today's technology. So if you can't go outside and ground yourself, you can get grounding shoes. You know you can have a grounding mat that you can sleep on, for instance, or at your desk. You know you've got blue light blocking glasses to block the blue spectrum of the light that maybe at nighttime is penetrating your retina and is increasing your cortisol levels.

Speaker 2: 1:26:49

You're not releasing your melatonin or oxytocin or serotonin, so now you're having difficulty to sleep. You know so, and there's a lot you know like, when I'm traveling I do a lot more biohacks than when I'm at home because you're in control at home control the environment. I'm a little bit more in the country where we live, as opposed to being smack bang in the middle of like London or Dubai or something like that, where there is a lot more non-native EMF and Wi-Fi and you're stuck in air conditioning the whole time. So you know there are aspects to it that you can combine. I think there's a lot of value to them. Some people feel that it can be a little bit obsessive. But if that obsession makes you feel better and you're able to look at your blood markers, for instance, or your biological age and say, wow, I've reduced my biological age by two years or my blood markers are now perfect, well, if that obsession is creating that and you feel better about yourself, then be obsessed.

Speaker 1: 1:27:48

So you're 50. What is your bio Biological age?

Speaker 2: 1:27:51

26.

Speaker 1: 1:27:52

Biological age is 26? 26.

Speaker 2: 1:27:54

Meaning that you have?

Speaker 1: 1:27:58

is that bone density testosterone, I mean? What makes it 26?

Speaker 2: 1:28:02

So there's various ways of having a biological age test. You can do methylation. You can do telomeres biological age test you can do methylation. You can do telomeres. So telomeres are like strands from your dna. Okay, that shorten as you get older. If that shortens much quicker than your chronological age, obviously biologically you're going to age a lot, a lot more. Um. And then it's glycans. So every cell has this glycan in our body. So you can actually do a glycan age test as well.

Speaker 2: 1:28:33

There's various forms of measuring your biological age. So that will look at, for instance, your organs, your hormones Everything's kind of in balance here Inflammatory markers. It'll look at all of those things and give you that number. It's probably an estimate of those things and give you that number. It's probably an estimate. But what I like to do is suggest that you do that one test and then do that very same test every year and use that as your marker, as opposed to going from one test to another, to another. It's much like because you know you jump on the scales here and then you jump on the scales in a hotel. It's going to be wrong. I don't care if your scales at home is wrong, as long as you give me the weight on that every single week, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:29:12

So I mean, where do you? Where does somebody start? Like for me? I'm 40 years old. I want to start rewinding myself. I mean, where is the average Joe? Because obviously you have the knowledge and everything. I mean obviously, besides, somebody can reach out. I'm sure you do clinics, classes on these, online coaching. Yeah, where do I even start? If I want to stop my process right now of aging and get into the biohacking where I'm? I mean, obviously, let's say it's not even that accurate, but you cut off half of your life right there.

Speaker 2: 1:29:48

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:29:49

Rewound half, let's say it's 30 or 40.

Speaker 2: 1:29:53

I'd be happy with 10 years knocked off yeah, yeah, like when I first had it tested I was two years older than my chronological age, really unable to reduce that. So what I would suggest is number one you first get a blood test, okay, analyze that, see where your markers are off, where your deficiencies are. You know a lot of people say, well, what supplements will I take, should I take? Well, I don't know, I don't know what your deficiencies are for sure, you know we should only fill what you, what you're deficient in, really, um, and then you know. I always suggest to begin with take a biological age test, like glycan age, because that usually gives people the accountability. Go, go, wow, I need a change Because me, as a trainer could tell you but usually the quantification tells another story that people listen to that much more when you see a hard number and now it's a wake-up call.

Speaker 2: 1:30:42

Yeah, exactly, it's not just me telling you, it's documented from studies, from a test. And then you mentioned that you're lacking in sleep, like there's a lot of biohacks out there. But I always say, well, the number one biohack for me has been sleep. As soon as I fixed my sleep I was able to start reversing my biological age, met my wife. She's a lot younger than me, so that's a great biohack. Get a younger wife. I'm not saying that people should go out there and get a divorce and but it's worked for me, you know. You know, on the farm we always used to get, when a dog is like on its last legs, for the last couple of years we'd always get a younger dog and it'd always give him a lease of life, you know, new couple of years.

Speaker 2: 1:31:20

Maybe that's what's what's happening in the biohacking world, yeah, but um and then you know, like blood glucose monitors, for instance, like a 24-hour blood glucose monitor, you can buy them everywhere now. Nutrisense do them, ultrahuman does them, and so then you're able to look at your blood sugar spikes, because you may be able to consume, like, say, sweet potatoes Absolutely fine. But for me, it could give me a massive spike. So I'm like, okay, I'll go for white rice instead. I'll get less of a spike on that, because you don't want too much fluctuation in these spikes. Of course, at certain times around your workout it's absolutely fine, but throughout the day, not. So, again, that gives you another form of accountability, because if you're testing yourself, you are going to look at the food groups that you're eating Way different, much more, much more. And I just wore it for like a year and the first time in 2017, just to kind of learn everything and then kind of go with it after that and then so once you dialed yourself in that's, you don't need to continue it.

Speaker 1: 1:32:19

No, as far as food, what you found, what spikes?

Speaker 2: 1:32:21

it and I mean, I know, I know what's what's going to spike it or not. And then you know we do have these rings, you know, like, uh, aura ring, ultra human. Where that can you know? Quantify our sleep? You know we do have these rings, you know, like aura ring, ultra human. Where that can you know? Quantify our sleep? You know, are we getting enough REM or deep sleep? You know, because that's going to help with the detoxification of our brain. So we've got good memory recall as we get older, we don't have dementia, alzheimer's or whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:32:45

There's a few things that you can do and I just think having that form of quantification will really help you focus, like, on your sleep. Okay, I got to get a bed at this time because I know if I leave it two hours later, even if I do get eight hours sleep, that my quality is going to be decreased. So I found that, like eight, seven, 38 o'clock in the evening is my sweet spot for me, but everyone's going to be a little bit different. You know, using that and you know, the other biohack I was going to say is I mentioned earlier, like the blue light blocking glasses. You know we have red bulbs upstairs in our house. So it kind of looks like a brothel outside, especially when we've got the red light panels on and stuff outside, especially when we've got the red light panels on and stuff, um, but you know, having that so you don't have the flicker that is constantly raising cortisol, because cortisol is an anti-catabolic hormone. It's uh, can also be bad for the heart. So blocking the blue light if you are exposed to a harsh lighting, you know, maybe in the evening or throughout the day, you know can be a a good idea.

Speaker 2: 1:33:49

Like there's a lot of things that you can do. You know you maybe in the evening or throughout the day, you know can be a good idea, like there's a lot of things that you can do. You know you can go hyperbaric oxygen. You know you can do the stem cells. But you know it all depends how far the rabbit down the rabbit hole you want to go. You know, like our water supply is very different to what it was, our food supply is very different. So you know the majority of people in the us today are deficient in magnesium.

Speaker 1: 1:34:12

So maybe you need a supplement in magnesium, for instance that was a big reason where we I you know, I wish it wasn't the the you know how late in the fall we are, but I've converted my whole backyard to a garden and we grow. I grow everything from a seed. That's cool, save our seeds, and we replant everything every single year and I feel in in one it's you're outside all day. The whole family's out there grazing, helping, just spending time out there. You're grounded all day long. I spend the majority of my time from when we plant things till we harvest it all. We're out there every day. There's not a day that doesn't go by where you're out in the sun, grounded.

Speaker 1: 1:34:50

You know earth and my I'm a huge person on grounding. I'm I'm one of those and I realized that when I was in the military and I spent time when we would be out at sea, it just I always I didn't feel right until we would hit port and get back in. But like I am a barefoot flip-flop, I I hate being in shoes, hate being in boots. It drives me nuts. When I travel on planes, I bring a pair and I swap out my shoes because I just can't. I hate not being grounded.

Speaker 1: 1:35:20

I grew up as that kid when the snow melted and the ground was thawed, we were running barefoot. I mean we never, unless we were at school, never. And so, like I'm big on that, with the family, we do our walks, walk barefoot, and I mean I'm sure people in there would probably think we're weird, but I feel that has a huge benefit and is, yeah, it comes to your body and connecting and the energy and you know, you talk to people like man, that's some pretty hippie shit, but it's like no, no, no, there's a there.

Speaker 2: 1:35:46

There's a great couple of. There's a book by Clint Ober and it's a movie and it's called Earthing. The Movie you can find it like on Vimeo and YouTube, and you'll see a lot of the studies and the science that backs it up, that it can reduce a lot of inflammation in the body. Now, because we have a lot of satellite Wi-Fi 5G, everything yeah, 5g. So you know, if you hold an EMF meter with your phone, for instance, the EMF goes all the way up. But now if you take your shoes and socks off and stand on the grass, it goes all the way down because it's penetrating through you instead of into you and you are absorbing a lot of those negative eons, which is a good, positive charge for your body. And you know you mentioned being in the garden out there earlier. You know one of the things that we know from studying, like the blue zones. Yes, I'm big on the blue zones.

Speaker 1: 1:36:40

Okay, continue.

Speaker 2: 1:36:41

I'm sure you're way more knowledgeable on this but yes, yeah, where people live to a disproportionate age, like centenarians, are over 100 years old, but they are in good health at being over 100 years old as well, and they'll notice. There's a few things that's common between these blue zones like okinawa, sardinia, etc. Is where a lot of these villages are on steep hills and these people are still walking around. In places like sardinia, there's no word in their language for retirement, so they just don't know what retirement means, so they've always got that purpose around. In places like Sardinia, there's no word in their language for retirement, so they just don't know what retirement means, so they've always got that purpose. And the other common denominator is that they have great connection with their family, with their friends. You know they're not loners as much as, yeah, community. So that connection is very powerful.

Speaker 1: 1:37:28

I feel sorry I may interrupt I feel humans and my wife and I have talked about this a lot Like we are a we're a community creature. We are not built to be alone. That's why they have these shows and they send these guys and they go up to Alaska and they dropped them off by themselves and then, I mean, they all mentally break down. I mean you could be the biggest survivalist in the world. I hate solo hunting. I got buddies like oh, I love getting in the mountains by myself. Like day two. I'm like I'll stub my toe, fuck it, I'm out. I just need somebody there. It's not a fear thing. It's not to have to rely on somebody. I love having a partner or somebody to be able to share something with, and that is a huge thing.

Speaker 1: 1:38:11

That, I feel, is us as a society. We're burying ourselves in our, our work, burying ourselves in our home and technology and phones and kids are disappearing to their rooms and their parents will have to deal with them and we're creating this lonely society where people don't have that family community anymore and that's something that we I mean we push so hard here. That's why we pulled our kids out of school. I'm with my kids breakfast, lunch and dinner and you know, whatever they need, we're with them. My kids don't come home, they don't just disappear in their rooms.

Speaker 1: 1:38:37

I mean, obviously you have a teenager, teenage girl. They need their time and their friend. You know I get it and understand that my wife's always hard for mommy and for that. But like we do everything together, then I grew up I mean we did everything as a family together and then it's it's sad to see I got buddies and they have no idea what their kids are up to and I'm just like man, like you're setting the future of them to not I don't want to say be a loner as in like a loser loner, but like they have no drive to go out.

Speaker 1: 1:39:03

Now these kids are have a full conversation on snapchat and through social media, but then they meet up together at a restaurant or in and out. They can't even have a conversation because they don't know how to like communicate and act and interact with other people and it's it's really sad and I feel like that's been kind of an agenda with this government and everything, especially the last several years, is oh great that separation for sure divide and conquer and these you know, and it's, it's, it's really sad to watch some of these families that just they live under one roof and they all have a different life, and it's, it's sad.

Speaker 1: 1:39:34

And then you look at some of these ancient communities and it's the neighbors that this guy's growing this and this one's got the eggs and they got the cattle, and I mean it's just that's how it is and that if I hadn't my dream, that's how it'd be. I'd want to have a property where my kids never had to leave but everybody, you had a community where everybody had a purpose and just helped each other. I mean that. And that's where, you see, with those blue zones, I mean every, that's where we really got into getting rid of all the breads and bad carbs and we really switched our. We have a bread company and we were going to make you a loaf and I'm like I'm sure this dude does you do sourdough.

Speaker 2: 1:40:06

Yes, that's the only bread we eat. We do sourdough, damn it. No, no, no, next time, next time.

Speaker 1: 1:40:12

I'll, actually we'll bring you some, because it's fermented, yes, and it's leavened. I mean, that's biblical.

Speaker 2: 1:40:18

They talk about it in the Bible.

Speaker 1: 1:40:31

And it doesn't give you like a got into it, because I got I. I, when we were living out of homes in iraq, they would just feed us random food. Or the iraqis that we were working with, the interpreters or the, the military police, they were allowed to shop in stores and things like that. We couldn't stop them. That's kind of one of the not rules. But when we would be coming back from patrol, they needed their own food because they wouldn't eat a lot of our own, they would cook. Or when we would be coming back from patrol, if they needed their own food because they wouldn't eat a lot of our own, they would cook.

Speaker 1: 1:40:53

Or when we would run checkpoints, a guy would come through with sheep in the back of his truck and they would go bam, bam, let's buy, let's buy, let's buy. And when we would detain people or search people, they would always have money on them. Or you'd find cars and smuggling money. So we always had cash on us. We would buy. I would buy these guys a sheep. They'd take it back to their little camp and they'd come back with this big pot of stew, these cheap stew. So who knows what we caught over there. As far as pesticides. We've actually we're getting ready to do a whole pesticide cleanse here as a family, cause we're big sushi we eat. I mean I'm sure you go through it because you're eating all over the world, but it was one of those things Like we, we I don't know what I got, but I got we, my whole team, a bunch of guys that we were all together, got tore up guts and there were it was years, my, the whole, my whole marriage with my wife I eat something straight through me.

Speaker 2: 1:41:41

A lot of parasites, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:41:44

And done. We got to figure this out, and so that's when we really switched over to sourdough and started making it, and we'll never go back yeah it's a. It's amazing. It is good. There's nothing better than pulling a fresh loaf out. Normally it's we. Every guest gets it, but I'm like that, this guy there's no way he's eating sourdough, like you're talking about sardinia.

Speaker 2: 1:42:02

You know they they always do uh. They always have uh sourdough bread, you know? And the one thing I was going to mention as well is that they've studied like an ock an hour. Is that a lot of these people that are centenarians? They don't have seats in their home. They sit on the floor and on average, they stand and sit on the floor about 40 times a day. That's their resistance training. You never hear of these people losing their balance, breaking a hip, dying six months later because they've got that bone density. They're working on their coordination. They're not necessarily going to a CrossFit box or working out in a gym, but they're staying active.

Speaker 1: 1:42:40

But it's an 80-year-old woman that's sitting on the floor and getting up every time they need something.

Speaker 2: 1:42:44

Exactly I even struggle with that now, but it I even struggle with that now, but you know, it's something that we can learn from and be inspired by. Like I am terrible, I admit, on the aspect of the human connection. Maybe it's because of my upbringing being on, you know, mostly doing stuff by myself. Like I always participated in individual sports, you know, like motocross, mountain biking, ironman, triathlon. You know, the only time that I participated in a team sport was rugby. I didn't like that. I didn't like it. I liked the sport until I broke my wrist. But I've just never done well so much around a lot of strangers. You know, when I do my talks, I love being in front of people, but I don't like the the bit before after where you have to mingle with you on that, I would prefer to be with my kids, wife and kids over anybody.

Speaker 1: 1:43:35

And it's, you know, us having companies we have to go and meet and greet and I'm always like get the fuck out there go well.

Speaker 2: 1:43:43

It's an energy exchange at the end of the day, and when you do it long enough, you realize it's it's.

Speaker 1: 1:43:49

It just sucks your energy for sure and you're like why? You know, I have no problem, I, I, if I had my way, it'd be like and introducing, and you walk up, do your thing, gone. But when, when you're sitting there, especially trade shows, yeah, those are the hardest on me and we just pulled from our last trade show that I've done for the last nine years and it's a almost, it's a four and a half day show, it's five day show.

Speaker 1: 1:44:12

You're there from eight in the morning till 7 38 o'clock at night indoors standing all day, then you have to go to a banquet immediately afterward, and that's I hate it. Yeah, I hate it, I'm with you it's the same thing over again and same talks and same stories and same people, and I'm just like, god you know, and some people live for it, but me I'm like if I never have to do any of that shit again, yeah it would I would be so happy with that, because it's just what it comes down to me is my energy, yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:44:44

It's an energy exchange, because at the end of the evening, yes, whatever team that you're there with, you're usually invited to a dinner that you kind of committed to go to, and it's the last thing I want to do. I just want to go back to my hotel room and just have silence. Um, because I usually work out first thing in the morning. I just don't want any of that. But I am quick to recognize some of these things. You know, like with all the travel that I've had to do this year, for instance, you know I'd be like, oh my god, not another bloody 12 hour flight or whatever. But then I'd quickly realize what I'm thinking and just say shut the f up. If this was you 20 years ago, you would dream of this position, right?

Speaker 2: 1:45:24

now so you know, enjoy it because it isn't always gonna last.

Speaker 2: 1:45:28

However, but in saying that, like, I've said no to several, quite a few engagements next year, because I'm like I just want to, just want to be in boise, just want people with my wife, just want to focus on the things that are in in front of me, as opposed to traveling all the time because time goes so quick then you know, and we're trying to be present in the time and allow time to slow down, and you know, with all that travel, it's very, very difficult. You know, and there's a reason why I moved to Boise. I love Boise, I love the Four Seasons, but if I'm not here to experience the Four Seasons, you know, am I really living my life? You're living everybody else's life.

Speaker 1: 1:46:05

Yeah, you're living for that, that lifestyle which definitely wears on you over time. Yeah, kind of changed the pace a little bit. I want to talk steroids, not saying you've done them because obviously you're a natural guy, but this young generation, seeing these kids now that are just they got the sam Solix and all the trend twins Because you know I watch her generation kids.

Speaker 1: 1:46:33

And I have kids, guys that they know me. I've talked about it. I ran cycles when I was in the Marine Corps. I did it completely wrong. I mean the heaviest I was was like 298.

Speaker 1: 1:46:42

I was giant giant. I mean, I was military pressing, standing, 315, like it was nothing, like freak. And you ask Zach, even now I'll tell you I'll go. He won't see me for six months. I go in the gym and he's like you're the only person that could just not touch anything for months. And you come right back in and within a week you're right back to where it was.

Speaker 1: 1:47:03

For these young kids that are listening they hear the hype, they see everything. That are listening, they hear the hype, they see everything. What's the reality of these young kids that are that are falling into these traps and watching the wrong influence? Because I I didn't have. I was fortunate enough when I first got into and I was doing it wrong. There was these big old school arnold white t-shirt, dickie jeans, white, and they pulled me under their wing. You're like you're gonna. You're gonna completely fuck yourself. The, the long-term effects are horrible. Can you touch on just the do's and don'ts? Or were you seeing these kids now? And they're why they're idolizing these wrong guys with the steroids and the long-term effects for them? Because it's, it's young, they're young, it's flashy, it looks cool, they're putting size on, but is it worth it, I guess, is my question at a younger age.

Speaker 2: 1:47:53

Definitely not worth it. The funny thing is I haven't been in the industry for so long and, knowing pretty much all the top bodybuilders, the competitive bodybuilders, competitive bodybuilders you'd be surprised how little they take in comparison to the. You know, like some kid, you know, maybe in Boise or an amateur bodybuilder, they take so much less. You know they always have their blood work taken. You know I'm not saying what they do is right or wrong. You know I'm not here to judge them. I don't have the right to judge them. They don't have the right to judge me. But they generally do it the right way. Where they go see their doctor, they have their blood work every three to six months and see where they're at. They come off, they go back on.

Speaker 2: 1:48:39

But what we're seeing today is that people never come off. They take extortionate amounts and social media has to blame to a lot of this, because you've got your Sam who looks like. I don't know Sam personally, but you know some of the stuff that I see he's put out. It's like eating a crap load of cereal with milk and whatever. I'm like, regardless of your ticket, taking gear or not. That's not healthy. It's not healthy, you know, obviously. You know, taking the steroids is going to have a compounded effect on that For sure, on your testosterone levels, on your heart, your organs, your liver, your kidneys, absolutely everything. Everything is going to be enhanced in a negative way internally.

Speaker 2: 1:49:23

And then when some of these people come off now they don't feel as good, they feel flatter, they don't have the focus. They don't have the focus, they don't have the energy. So what do they do? They go back on and they can't come off now. They're stuck Now. They're dependent on it and it's very, very addictive, I've noticed for a lot of people Very, very addictive. They can't live a life without it. Is it addictive or is it the body dysmorphia? No, I don't know if it's that, because I've got body dysmorphia, I always will probably.

Speaker 1: 1:49:54

Well, that, well, my, when I ask for that, because they see themselves at like as a, as a number, you know oh my god, I hit, I finally broke 200. But when they get off, they don't realize how much water weight they're actually going to drop, yeah, how the strength is going to go down. I mean, is that the addiction or is it the actual drug that you think they're addicted?

Speaker 2: 1:50:10

I think it's the drug, because the drug gives a certain feeling to some people like I know. There's certain drugs that they can take that helps with their joints. There's certain drugs that they can help for their strength in the gym, so they see the numbers going up. There's certain steroids that they can take specifically for size, some for mass building. So all of these effects can be addictive, especially when people do have like body dysmorphia, I'm sure, but I think everybody that got into bodybuilding was either bullied or they had body dysmorphia. There was some sort of um insecurity that they're trying to deal with. And look, there's more insecurities in the world now than ever before. People are comparing themselves to to what they see online, and what you see online is just what people decide to put out there, not necessarily exactly what they're dealing with. And kids today not everybody, I'm generalizing are getting very easily influenced, because I always tell people prioritize the sacrifice and the success will come. But a lot of people just want the success and they want it now, overnight because that's what they see.

Speaker 2: 1:51:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:51:13

They see the Ferraris, they see the mansions, they see these kids that are just all of a sudden out of nowhere and they have it all, but they have no idea that the kid's renting it. Yeah, it's his dad's house, it's his dad's cars Exactly, I feel the mental battle really sets in, it creates insecurity you know, because now they're reflecting that to their own life.

Speaker 2: 1:51:30

It's like, well, where did I go wrong? So if a steroid is an opportunity for me to look a certain way a lot quicker, then they're going to take it without considering the repercussions. You know, like Dorian Yates even said you know, obviously he's on TRT now but he went cold turkey for like five years. He didn't know any better and he went through major depression at that time. Yeah, like I was with him at that time. He was doing a lot of drugs, alcohol and stuff like that Again, just kind of masking the issue that was underlying.

Speaker 2: 1:52:02

But you know, you ask him as a 20-year-old would you have said, hey, if you take this pill you will win the Mr Olympia, but it'll take 20 years off your life. Would you have taken that pill? It's like for sure, because that's how a lot of people that are in their teens or 20s think. They just think I want that, regardless of the sacrifice that I have to make. But unfortunately, what we're seeing today is a lot of people are making major sacrifices to their health way before their time. Like there's a guy that I know, jackson. He passed away last week from Australia. He was like 28, I believe very, very young, you know died and it's happening so often now. So often it's like you look at some social sites like Generation I and it's more of an obituary than it is like a news information uh social platform now.

Speaker 2: 1:52:57

Yeah, it's. It's terrible sad.

Speaker 1: 1:53:00

Yeah, it's really bad and I think it's you know, I, I feel I'm with you on that, it's, it's all social media is the main is the main engine driving for sure insecurities with these kids.

Speaker 2: 1:53:09

That's what. And you know, with eating disorders, absolutely everything is across. That's what. And you know, with eating disorders, absolutely everything is across the board. You know, and you know. I always try to tell people you need to use social platforms and not allow it to use you. You know, bookend your day. Be conscious that. You know that you're not scrolling all the time. Try to post. I try to post and ghost and that's it. I try to post and ghost and that's it. I'm off, you know, until I have to post the next day Because you spend so much time on her anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:53:33

You know emailing and shopping and whatever it's a drug that is so accessible. If you want to get cocaine, steroids, alcohol, whatever it may be, you usually have to go and make an effort to get those things. We have all those drugs in the palm of our hand all the time the emails, the WhatsApp, the texting, the Amazon, the social platforms it's all there and that gives us a dopamine release. Not only does the artificial blue light give you a dopamine release, but so is the action of scrolling for reading. You know, it activates the brain and activates dopamine, which makes us feel good. It activates the brain and activates dopamine, which makes us feel good, and the more that we activate it, the more we're dependent on getting that activation. We get depleted. We get depleted even more. It makes us dumb.

Speaker 1: 1:54:19

Yeah, absolutely so. Shift gears a little bit and then I'll get you out of here. One first question is so these young kids? Obviously you've been in this game a long time and I feel and don't take this the wrong way I feel the fitness industry is one of the most unhealthiest industries. Competitive-wise, yeah, because what I mean? The fact women are losing their periods going through these preps, and I mean that can't be healthy for a woman and what that longevity. There are guys that are just depleting themselves of everything to step on stage for these young kids that are looking up to these role models, good or bad, what's a healthy way or a smart way for them to get into it? Supplement wise supplement wise?

Speaker 2: 1:55:05

um, well, obviously, like I do, I am an advocate now, ever since I got the mold toxicity because through experimentation, I went went grass-fed, human-raised, organic, wild-caught. And then all of a sudden I was like, wow, all that inflammation that I felt in my knees, in my elbows, is all gone after about a month. I thought it was just a byproduct from weight training, but no, it was the inflammation of maybe higher omega-6, because I'm having factory-farmed fish as opposed to wild caught, so I was lacking in the omega-3s. But making sure that you are eating single food ingredients, because everything that we see out there now is preserved. It could be low fat, but it's got a laundry list of ingredients that you can't even pronounce and that has a negative effect. You always have to look at that food as is it going to feed my workouts, is it going to allow me to recover and is it going to fuel my future? Is it going to heal my future? If it doesn't, don't touch it, don't touch it.

Speaker 2: 1:56:06

Sugar is the biggest killer, oh for sure. Then we've got seed oils and stuff like that. But then, when it comes to supplementation, I'm not a huge advocate of caffeine either, because that does raise your cortisol levels. You're going to raise your cortisol levels in the gym anyway. You don't want it raised even more so, and that can also have a diuretic effect. You should be fully hydrated in the gym, so try to stay away from that. Of course you in the gym, so try to stay away from that. Of course you want something that's going to allow you to get more of a pump so you can get better mind muscle connection, something that's going to buffer lactic acid so you can get out more reps, or endurance dependence on what your sport is going to be.

Speaker 2: 1:56:41

And then you know, for instance, like a protein powder is going to be more convenient for some people than others. There's other people that I can eat six times a day, no worries, okay, then just have your post-workout shake. But other people, they just can't eat that many times, so maybe they're going to have to have more shakes to rely upon. Again, whenever possible, try to go for grass fed. But the one thing that you know because you don't want again the antibiotics and all that crap in there, but the one thing that I am an advocate of that I've become more of an advocate over recent years is going for naturally sweetened products. If anything's flavored, it's a powder. Try to go for naturally sweetened as opposed to Ace K or Sucralose. Okay, because over time that can have an effect on your gut microbiome. Now you may have gut dysbiosis, you may have leaky gut or whatever, but that inflammatory reaction in your gut can lead to a chemical reaction in your brain because your hormones are created in your gut, the majority of them as well, your gut is your gut's.

Speaker 1: 1:57:41

Everything. I feel like.

Speaker 2: 1:57:42

You have to prioritize it. You have to prioritize it. You know people will get away with it earlier in life, but after a while, you know, know, something will come to fruition. You know it's like if we get heart disease, if we become diabetic, if we've got a certain cancer, a lot of that was started like 20 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, and it's just that accumulation, that death of a thousand cuts. So making sure everything is kind of perfected. And you know we have, especially in the US, energy drinks. People in the UK and Europe do not drink much water. You're a water advocate, hydrate man. You know your body's made up of at least 60% fluid and if you're not hydrated you're probably not going to have the energy to work out, you're not going to have the enthusiasm. You could have a headache because your brain is dehydrated. You know the brain shrinks by about 50 during the night.

Speaker 1: 1:58:36

You gotta hydrate, yeah I mean I literally go to bed with this thing, wake up with a trout I thought I left it on the plane the other day and I was devastated, devastated, but it's just insane. So let's talk your supplements then. I mean, what separates? I'm a huge anti-supplement guy because I feel it's just such a gimmick. What was that series? Now that I think about it, was it bigger, stronger, faster?

Speaker 1: 1:59:07

yeah where the guy just made supplements in his kitchen. I know that guy bell yeah, throws a label on it and gets it picked up at GNC and it just shows you how fucked and easy it is, so anybody can slap anything. I used to work especially, and the reason I'm so anti is because there's all these outdoor supplement companies right, these guys, and they're just white labeling Mountain Ops.

Speaker 1: 1:59:30

They're the biggest example. I don't want to throw names out there, but now that we mentioned them, yeah, those guys, because when they first came out, they were sending out label packages that you would peel off their label and it was another brand's labeling underneath. They're literally slapping their label over and you see these guys and they're like man, this is the greatest, helps me conquer the mountain and it's like you turn it around and it's pure bullshit. Yeah, what, what is so different about your sups that separate you from everybody else in in this industry? And what should we as consumers be looking?

Speaker 2: 2:00:02

for so luckily. You know when I got into like the bio hacking world I really started focused and prioritizing longevity over aesthetics.

Speaker 2: 2:00:12

And you know, when I started having a closer look at the supplement industry, I realized, okay, this is part of the health and fitness industry, but supplements aren't healthy. So how is this helping in the fitness industry? How's this combined? You know where's the bridge and you know, so we know that a lot of these products have proprietary ingredients less of them now, thankfully where people will just have a load of ingredients and then the proprietary at the top, not knowing how much of each one of those ingredients are in there Really.

Speaker 2: 2:00:42

So the cheapest ones could have the majority and the more expensive and efficacious ones could be a fairy dust, so we call it fairy dusting. Efficacious ones could be a fairy dust, so we call it fairy dusting. So you may look at the label and say, wow, look, how many ingredients are in here. But it could be a very, very small amount and you have to have an efficacious dose that is shown in studies to have a positive effect for that to really be on the back so for instance, let's say, if it's citrulline that's going to help with vasodilation, youilation, thinning the blood, helps with the pump, you need a minimum of six grams of citrulline.

Speaker 2: 2:01:15

But on some of these products the scoop could be six grams, so you're just not going to get the efficacious amount. A lot of them are filled with artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, so we do not have any of those. You know, much like in the UK you can't have artificial colors and flavors and whatnot. Here in the US you can. So I'm just taking the ethics of like in the EU and just bringing that over here. You know you'd look at a ketchup bottle over here. Compared to their or cereal, it's a very completely different ingredient profile and we actually, you know, with our whey protein, for instance, we get that from grass-fed cows in the uk and you went and personally visited these, these farms.

Speaker 2: 2:02:03

No, no, okay, I haven't visited, not yet okay next time I'm in wales I may, uh, but um no, that's where we get it from. Got it Because we know that it's just not going to have the hormones necessarily, or pesticides, glyphosate, supericides, whatever that is necessarily.

Speaker 1: 2:02:20

So you're going that deep into your whey protein Like you're making sure these farms aren't using any of that stuff, because that obviously all trickles down into the supplement itself? Yeah, of course. How many of these supplement companies are actually doing that?

Speaker 2: 2:02:33

I don't know of anyone um, maybe yamamoto, but yamamoto isn't sold over here. It's uh more of a, so you're talking stateside these whey proteins, I mean.

Speaker 1: 2:02:42

You're getting all the hormones, pesticides, toxins, everything that these cattle are just being fed shit.

Speaker 2: 2:02:47

The majority, yeah, the majority, vast majority. And it's the same like with you know, I mentioned citrulline before or just other amino acids, like you know, your essential amino acids, bcaas or glutamine, for instance unless it is fermented, would you believe it? You know, we know it in the supplement industry, but a lot of your listeners probably don't is that it's usually extracted from bird feathers, animal fur or human hair. If it's fermented, it can come from a plant source which still retains the same nitrogen.

Speaker 1: 2:03:18

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's rewind that.

Speaker 2: 2:03:22

Yeah, they're sourcing this from Bird feathers, animal fur and human hair. Why? Because that's where the amino acids are. You know, you can extract the amino acids from those sources and it's, and clearly it's cheaper to use those than it is to ferment something yeah, and you know you'll get a lot of people that are vegan but they're purchasing these products and I'd have no idea, you know.

Speaker 1: 2:03:48

So it's not really kosher so you have vegans that have no idea they're using animal and human parts yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:03:56

So my job is to tell people and there's other people like myself to say look, look for fermented amino acids. Doesn't have to be from my brand, but if you're getting it, make sure that it is fermented. Yeah, and we're a lot. You know people like where do they get the hair from? It's from convicts. They collect the hair in the prisons for the amino acids. Wait, Maybe some of your hair when you was in the military was shipped off for some aminos, who knows?

Speaker 1: 2:04:38

They're using convict hair, yeah, to pull amino acids for supplements and people have no idea.

Speaker 2: 2:04:41

No, some people do, like some of us in the supplement industry know, but like think about it, those companies that do know that are utilizing that they're not going to tell the world.

Speaker 1: 2:04:49

I mean, I get it. It's sterile, but it's still.

Speaker 2: 2:04:54

Yeah, it's still. It's not God. What's the word that I'm thinking of? I've lost now, but it's not ethical. It's not really ethical. I would say so yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:05:08

I would agree with you on that. I mean, I guarantee you if they put sourced from human hair, yeah, their sales would drop in a heartbeat. Yeah, that's just which house shows you, not not that example, but like how blind people are to marketing. And just, oh, ronnie colman's using it.

Speaker 2: 2:05:27

It's got to be great yeah, yeah, ronnie doesn't use anything or never used to anyway never used to um, but yeah you, yeah you have to take a very close look.

Speaker 2: 2:05:39

You know it's much like, for instance, like the cbd industry. It's just a wild, wild west. You know you have to. You know if that company is reputable. You know we, you visit all of our manufacturing plants. You know I've flown overseas before to look at. You know, for instance, astroganda. You know KSM 66 is a patented form of that. I visited their plantation and you know the way that it's sourced and how they look after their employees. And you know we are getting our products manufactured. You know we visit the plants. We'll film inside.

Speaker 1: 2:06:15

Maybe that's what I was thinking of, because I knew at some point I've heard or watched you talk about how you visited locations of sourcing your supplements.

Speaker 2: 2:06:20

Yes, exactly so. Wherever our ingredients are actually being mixed, manufactured, that's where we'll usually go inside and check they're on board. You know they're all cgmp certified facilities, all third party tested. You know, just to ensure that if anybody was to ask for coa, we can provide it. You know all of our products are third party tested and this is all unmatched correct.

Speaker 1: 2:06:43

All unmatched, yeah, because I mean you haven't I've. I like how humble you are. You didn't come out and say the name of your brand or anything like that, but it shows just the confidence that you have in it.

Speaker 2: 2:06:54

I mean yeah, because at the end of the day like, for instance, my little nieces, you know they drink, you know what's called electroshred it's a hydration product. I'm not going to give that to them if I know it's full of artificial crap.

Speaker 2: 2:07:06

I would feel I would know half the stuff they feed to kids is artificial anyway, but I don't want that for them. So I feel, look, if it's not good enough for them, it's not good enough for anybody. Really, it's like, okay, we could have much bigger margins, we could shave a lot of these ingredients, but we don't need to be multimillionaires. We have to have a purpose at the end of the day. Well, and you care, yeah, multimillionaires. You know we have to have a purpose at the end of the day. Well, and you care, yeah, and you should. You should at the end of the day, you know some of these supplement companies do, but others, you know people behind don't even work out.

Speaker 2: 2:07:41

So you know, I always say knowledge without mileage is bullshit. You've got to put in the mileage as well, you know. And if you want authenticity to what you're trying to educate on or sell or market, then it helps if you really believe in what you're doing and what you're putting out there. You know. And there's other products that you know, without sounding like I'm pitching here, but you know we really look deep into the benefit of certain ingredients and how, in combination, that could possibly provide more. So we have a creatine called cregatine. We're the only company in the us selling this is sold in europe and australia. Whatever is that, it's creatine combined with gaa, guanidinoacetic acid, with b vitamins to bring the home cysteine levels back down, but that has been proven to cross the blood-brain barrier so much more efficiently and be more neuroprotective than creatine alone.

Speaker 1: 2:08:39

And this is something that you could just take on a daily. Yeah, of course, workout or not.

Speaker 2: 2:08:43

Everybody should be taking it. You want to protect your brain? Take creatine.

Speaker 1: 2:08:48

Because there's so many studies coming out recently. I mean there has been, but now I don't know if it's just because it's trending there is more, more but there's a. I feel like the last couple of years there's been a huge. Creatine isn't just like a pre or for workout, it's. It's an actual supplement that you should be adding to your diet daily, for men and women.

Speaker 2: 2:09:08

Yeah, it's much studied amino acid out there on the market and you know we were talking about gut health earlier. You know, I'm sure you know a lot of your listeners are aware of colostrum. So the beneficial part of colostrum is the immunoglobulins. So we've been able to isolate the immunoglobulins. You know, without the dairy, without the bovine, so it's just much more isolated. So I think claustrum is about 50 percent um immunoglobulins. We're like double that. So we've been able to source a much more efficacious form and there's just been a white paper released now about three weeks ago, showing how far superior it is really. Yeah, because you know we, a lot of us, are exposed to a lot of artificial sweeteners or contaminants or whatever, and we do have some form of gut dysbiosis, leaky gut or don't have the opportunist flora that we need to better digest to break down. People have bloat for it. So this is a form of healing the gut.

Speaker 1: 2:10:08

I definitely got to get with you after this and I want to build out a list of stuff I need to pick up from you because I want to. I just gut health, sleeping, everything.

Speaker 2: 2:10:17

I want a full list I'll help you with the sleep. We don't have any supplements for sleep as yet, but there's a lot of things that you can do to help with that yeah, definitely, man.

Speaker 1: 2:10:26

I appreciate your time, I appreciate it too this is a. Yeah, this is a great conversation. I'm very grateful you came on. You opened my eyes up to some things, especially the supplement world and just your life in general. It's awesome to get to know you because obviously you're good friends with Zach he's one of my best dudes here he's the man.

Speaker 1: 2:10:44

He's a great guy. We're going to have him on here. The industry and the behind the scenes and the kind of why he got out of competing and all that stuff. And yeah, I'm really glad you came on, man, and I'm hopefully that some people will be able to pick something up from you and just be able to. You know, get ahold. Oh, people want to reach out. How do they find you If they got questions, supplements, online coaching, anything, cause? You provide it all.

Speaker 2: 2:11:06

So how does somebody get a hold of you, it's probably best to just go to my Instagram, send me a direct message on there. I'm pretty responsive. So that's at K-I-S.

Speaker 1: 2:11:15

Gethin, chris Gethin, g-e-t-h-i-n cool and we'll get you tagged and everything. Dude, I appreciate your time, man. I know you're a busy guy. No, thank you, I appreciate everything. This is awesome, man, thank you, appreciate you having me on buddy, Absolutely. Anytime Cool dude.

Speaker 2: 2:11:33

Thanks, man Lovely. No, thank you, that's awesome. Thanks for the knowledge man.

Speaker 1: 2:11:37

Yeah, I definitely want to get on and get your subs all lined up, because once I jumped on the pre-workout, Well, like I said, you just send.

Speaker 2: 2:11:43

I sent you the link.