NatX's Podcast

S1E3 - Why Annual Competing Holds Natural Bodybuilders Back

NatX Season 1 Episode 3

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0:00 | 31:22

We challenge the myth of competing every year and lay out a practical roadmap for a recovery-first off-season that actually builds new muscle. From post-show timelines to nutrition without tracking, volume tweaks, weak-point strategy, and why coaching beats bias, the plan is simple and hard in all the right ways.

• recovery window before real off-season
• focusing on weak body parts with priority and frequency
• setting strength targets on anchor lifts
• nutrition structure without constant tracking
• monitoring bodyweight trends for surplus control
• when to add training volume and when to deload
• program length, exercise swaps, and progression cues
• realistic off-season timelines of two to three years
• coaching versus self-coaching trade-offs
• data-driven peak week and the role of transparency

Physique focused fit premium feel Canadian built sportswear for serious training. True North Sportswear, use code TEAMNATX for 15% off

We will be at WNBF Vancouver on May 2. If you want us to meet us in person and say hi, we will be there


Setting The Case Against Yearly Competing

SPEAKER_01

Welcome back guys. Thanks again for uh listening to uh back on the Natx channel. Uh today our third, I would say, third episode, yeah, on our new season. Uh but it's great to uh have you guys back here. Uh I hope you guys had a really good week. Today we are here to continuing to preach about the topic of natural bodybuilders. Now, there are uh so many people out there who are uh looking into competing into natural bodybuilding, which is really good to hear that it's finally getting a little bit more recognition that it should be. Uh, there is still this whole vibe out there about people uh once you get to compete, you compete every every year. So you compete and then you go in off season for I don't know, like a little bit less than six months, and then you prep again for your next show every single year. Yeah, I think we want to just address this idea that uh it may work for some people, it usually does not really work. Um so just competing every single year, and of course we've talked we've talked about this before, is uh not very ideal. It's just that the room for improvement is somewhat limited. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that there um there's this just uh the training aspect of during this off-season on what it actually looks like. So, Brandon, why don't you start us on with uh what do you we actually do in the sort of quote unquote off-season trainings?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

Post-Show Recovery Before True Off-Season

SPEAKER_00

So a lot of people think too, like right after they finish the show that they're going directly into an off-season, where I would actually frame that like four months after a show, like a recovery period. Because like realistically, your hormones aren't really in a good spot to be adding more muscle to your tissue. You're pretty much in a prime position to gain body fat. So a lot of that period is just gaining body fat back to a healthy level. So you generally don't actually start your off-season or quote unquote be productive in an off-season until like two, three, possibly even four months post-show. So that's where you want to like usually the recovery period's quite a quicker rate of weight gain. And then once you hit that recovery, once you're fully recovered, then it starts to really slow down over time how much weight you're putting on. But this is yeah, this is really where you want to focus on those weak body parts. Like when you just compete it, you got some good feedback from judges or from your coach on where you need to improve upon. And like now you want to be like, okay, like how can I set up this off season to really prioritize? Okay, like if my adults are lagging, like, okay, let's make your program set up so that it's really prioritizing building some tissue to your adults so that when you do go to compete again, you're actually gonna be looking different. Um, and like the length of the of the off-season, like you mentioned, is you don't want to be doing like competing every single year because like the actual length of that off-season, it might not even be six months, it might even be like three months if it took you like four months to recover. So, and then by the time some people by the time they're just feeling like recovered from a prep, they're going right back into um another bodybuilding show where they might not have even built back all the muscle that they may have lost

Targeting Weak Body Parts Strategically

SPEAKER_00

from doing a competition prep. So they can actually look worse that next year. So it's yeah, it's a little tricky. Like you wanna, though it is nice from a motivation standpoint. Like if you are competing every single year, um, you constantly have it on your mind, it's kind of a closer goal. So sometimes motivation-wise, it can be an a little bit nicer to keep you more locked in. Whereas when you do have a goal of competing, like maybe three years down the line, yeah, in the offseason, you can start to find have periods of lower motivation where you're kind of like, oh, that goal is so far away. Like I like it's hard to stay in it, but that's where it's having like mini goals throughout the offseason, like making sure, okay, like what certain movements, like maybe it's your RDL or maybe uh a body part that you want to bring up, but like find a main movement for that body part and be like, okay, like what's set up a goal to try to hit for me. It's been like hack squats. I want to build my quads more, so I'm really trying to build up my hack squat. I've been able to build it up to four plates per side. So I'm like, okay, like I know if I'm getting stronger over the course of this off season and my weight's slowly creeping up over time, that I'm gonna be adding some tissue to my quads. So things like that can be very useful. And then from a nutrition front, this is where a lot of people tend to fall off as well, is like they start um steering away from tracking, which it's okay to steer away from tracking if you have good structure with your meals. If you're getting in protein with all of your meals and your calories aren't getting so blown that you're gaining too quickly, which is what often

Off-Season Nutrition Without Macro Tracking

SPEAKER_00

happens with most people. So having some level of structure around your nutrition um to ensure you're feeding yourself properly, you're getting the adequate amount of protein and calories to ensure that you can build muscle over time. Those I would say are like the main things just to have your nutrition in check, have your training. Another thing with training is some people tend to actually train a little bit less during their off season, where it's like this is where you're getting the most fuel coming in. So you can actually prioritize pushing a little bit harder with your training, maybe even adding a little bit more training volume during this time. Um, and play around and experiment. I find with off-seasons, you don't want to program hopping all the time. But if you do have like a certain structure where you're okay, I'm gonna lock in with this technique or whatever for three to four months, see how my body responds. Okay, it responded really well. Let's run this again. Oh, it didn't respond quite as well. Let's make some uh small adjustments to it. Um, but making sure that you're doing it for a long period of time and it's not like every two weeks, you're like, okay, uh, I did this, I don't see big changes. Like in the offseason, you're not gonna see a substantial change within a short time frame. Like it can actually be even quite challenging because you have more body fat kind of covering your muscles. So it's sometimes even hard to see, like, oh, have I actually made progress? Uh and sometimes you don't even recognize it until you actually drop back down next time you compete or after doing a mini cut. Um, but yeah, man, what what are you some of your your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01

No, I think uh you've ticked off a lot of the boxes that I do believe, I trust as well. But just hopping back onto some of uh things that you've pointed out, you did mention on nutrition-wise, if you have a good structure with uh your protein intake and your daily calorie intake. However, you did say that we're gonna say if we steer away from tracking and do you have any like good pointers for listeners on what do you mean by good structure versus uh without tracking? Maybe, yeah, that would be a good question.

SPEAKER_00

So, like for me, like right now, like the past couple weeks, I actually haven't been tracking my macros. Um, I've literally been like every meal I want to meet the threshold of having at least 40 grams of protein in it. Most of the time it's actually like 50 to 60 grams, but at least a minimum of like 40 grams of protein. So I generally have four or five meals a day. So it kind of helps me hit that protein target. And then for my portion sizes,

When To Add Training Volume

SPEAKER_00

I pretty much like when I was tracking the off-season, I've yeah, I'm like, oh, I have a good idea. So I'm usually having like four pieces of toast for like breakfast. So I'm just gonna keep rinsing and repeating that. And I have a lot of the same meals each and every day. Um, so it's not like there's a lot getting changed. So I can already be like, okay, like this meal, I know if I track it, it's gonna be roughly around this amount of calories. And since I've been tracking, I've had the experience of tracking for the past like 14 years. Um, well, not 14 years, 10 years, have a good understanding of where things should fall. Um, if you are somebody that is just getting into tracking or have only been tracking for like maybe a month and then trying to go into more of this kind of intuitive style eating, it's probably not gonna go well. Especially if you if you haven't tracked long enough to actually see results, like usually it doesn't work too well. Um, but yeah, if you're somebody that has been more experienced that have been tracking for a long period of time and have really good habits with your nutrition in terms of what you're putting in your body, usually it can work quite well. Another key factor is tracking my body weight. Like over time, like if my body weight is slowly going up over time, I know okay, I know I'm in a calorie surplus. If my weight is starting to drop over time, it's like, okay, I know I'm losing weight, I need to consume more. So maybe if it's like I was having three pieces of toast, oh I'm having an extra piece of toast. Um, if I was having like um 300 grams of rice, oh maybe it's adding 350 grams of rice to that meal. So just making small incremental increases um will help put me back into a surplus. That's that's kind of how I go about it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think that's uh some pretty good tips for the nutrition and on how you may be able to just keep uh on track without tracking, if that makes sense. Um also goes just going back to some of the uh training progress. Now, when you first mention post-show, there's about three to four months during your recovery phase. Now, we do put on a good amount of recovery phase just to get your hormones back to level, and the foods that you'll be eating is more or less going to be the same on what your uh prep foods were, and then slowly introducing new foods uh just for so your body can recover back to normal, quote unquote. Now, the question was uh during this three to four month phase, uh, we still want to go back and train and work on those lagging body parts. Now, when you mentioned that we can start experimenting

Program Length, Swaps, And Progression

SPEAKER_01

with more volume because we're starting to eat more, how long would this uh process be before you're able to have what an optimal what an optimal off-season volume would be? I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I see what you're you're saying. Yeah, like how long should you be waiting until you start increasing volume over time? Yeah, that's a better way to word it. Yeah, um, yeah, so it's it's gonna be based on how you're feeling. So with your training sessions, if you're noticing like you're finishing finishing your training sessions, you're like, oh man, like I got like I feel like I got more in me. Like you get you almost know what it's like. That or say you're doing like two sets of something, you're like, oh man, like I uh I feel like that second set felt really good. Like, I'm pretty sure I have another set in me to so like with more time, you you'll kind of understand, okay. Like there's there's more in the tank. Like I I can I know I can do a bit more. Um, so that's gonna go alongside with like sleep. If your sleep is getting fully back to normal, if you're noticing your hunger levels are getting like relatively back to normal too. Um Lobido, like if you're noticing, if you're having more of those kind of thoughts, um that's a good sign that you're getting fully recovered so that you can start pushing things some more. Um but and like with like the jumps to like with volume, like again, like for me, like I find I generally like I've experimented with like really high volume, like moderate volume, like low volume. I've been kind of playing in this kind of low to like moderate volume lately, and I feel like that's where I'm responding best, especially with like work outside of like coaching, um, just because those steps are so high with like lifting. So um for me, this is kind of the good amount where I can recover from and still see strength gains. Um, generally, if you're pushing volume up so much where you're actually starting to see strength drop off, you're starting to have like no motivation to train just from like the fatigue um and your joints are getting really beat up, that's usually a sign that okay, maybe you're you're going past that threshold that your body can handle. So, like working out, like maybe it's literally adding like two to three sets per muscle group per body part every once in a while to see see how your body's gonna respond to that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's uh yeah, I would totally agree to that. And um, there's also that when you're feeling your body is just not adapting to this program due to work-life balance and you're in their training on top of that. Now, there's this is where many people start to adjust their programs and just want to change it again just to adapt to what their lifestyle is going to. Now, what would you say is a good optimal time frame to hold one program?

SPEAKER_00

So I would generally like two to three, possibly four months is probably a good time frame, like two being like the least amount. Like, if if you're really not enjoying the program, if you're really getting beat up from it and like you're really noticing strength loss and like the like towards the end of that two months, then it's like, okay, maybe your body's probably needing a bit of a delo, or maybe yeah, you're pushing things a little bit too hard. Um, if you're noticing at the end of that two-month period and you're you're like,

Prioritizing Lagging Muscles And Fatigue

SPEAKER_00

man, like I've this feels very easy. Um, usually it's yeah, like intensity's gotta come up with the program a bit more. You might need a bit more volume, but you can always just taper that up throughout the program too. But yeah, you for in terms of switching exercises out, um, especially with compound movements. I actually like to keep compound movements in for like six months, like especially if you're noticing like things are even to a year, like with my hack squats, like I'm hoping to keep them in probably like a whole year and see maybe if I can work up to like five plates per side or something like that. But like with those kind of movements, usually you can increase over time with something like a bicep curl. It's very hard to see constant progression with something like that. So they're pretty easy to learn too. So, like something like a bicep curl, you could easily swap that out every like two months or three months, but something like a hack squat, yeah. Yeah, you're looking at maybe every six months to a year, like swapping it maybe to a different form of squat pattern.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would say so. Two months seems to seem to be a good term to hold one program before uh before switching it out. So we're you're not really jumping program to program every one or two weeks and just testing different programs out. Your body does need time to work with what you're trying to do here. It doesn't know what you're trying to do, it doesn't know the volume that you're introducing into it. So there is there is a time uh that your body needs to adapt. Um, which brings me to the next thing that I'll ask you is uh when you're picking your program after your your post-show, there's comments and there's feedback from judges saying that you have such and such lagging body parts. Uh, what would be a good tip for coaches or athletes for them to pick a program that fits that criteria?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so generally with weak body parts, having it at the beginning of the week is probably gonna be a good idea when you're a bit more fresh going into it. Um, having those kind of body parts at the beginning of a workout rather than putting them at the end. Like I know a lot of people struggle with calves, you're constantly putting it at the end of the workout, you're probably not gonna be putting as much effort into it. Um, so shifting that towards the the first portion of the workout or even mid can be okay. Um and then just more frequency. So, like if there's a body part that you're really trying to bring up, it could be like even training it up to three times per week. Two, three times a week is usually gonna be good, possibly even four if you're noticing it's recovering very well. In terms of other things, uh yeah, it it might look like if you have a really strong body part, like say you have like a massive

How Long To Stay Off-Season

SPEAKER_00

chest or something like that, it may look like okay, like let's do a little bit less volume on your chest, just because it's already a strong muscle group for you. You don't need a lot of volume to maintain a body part. So let's lower the volume a little bit for that. Let's bring up the volume for your other body parts a little bit more, and usually that can help balance out your physiques more. So little things like that can go a long way.

SPEAKER_01

That's a great point. There's uh there's also a leading question that we do want to ask on based on that. Now you mentioned, let's say, a body pad, the lagging body part, let's say a tricep or a delt or a calves. So such and just muscles, these are considered more smaller muscles. We if we prioritize them in the beginning of the workout, let's say we put them in the first, let's do we do a calve raise in the first exercise, however, that day is a lower body day. How would that contribute to the upcoming fatigue to the compound movements that you'll be doing for the day?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so for calves, you probably won't notice much of a difference. Like they might even actually help your ankle mobility with like a leg press or with like a squat or a hack squat. Um, something like your triceps. Yeah, if you're doing like a lot of tricep volume before bench press, you might notice when you do go to bench press, like your triceps are almost like the limiting factor. Um, it's probably not the end of the world if you're you have a very strong chest. If you do notice it starting to like progress over time, then yeah, you might want to modify some things and potentially put chest in first on one of your upper body days. Um, so having a little bit of vary there. Um, but yeah, it's it's gonna depend. And like if you are somebody that is relatively balanced, then generally doing those bigger movements first. Um, I would probably recommend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So the point being here is you see how programming is such an important part of what a coach's job and our our communication is also a big key. That's why communication and just getting that biofeedback is so important to having that relationship. Uh, that way we can help you develop those lagging body parts and also make your training very, very uh doable. And also, of course, making sure that protein beat is going to last at least eight weeks, uh, but also having some bigger compounds come to up to six weeks, like

Coaching vs Self-Coaching During Prep

SPEAKER_01

you said, the the hack squad to develop quads, those are some of the exercises we want to keep just so we can bring up that entire muscle mass uh throughout this off season. Now, these are some of the things that I wanted to point out that we actually wanted to point out for so some why bodybuilders can't look different every time they step on stage and getting their full potential out. So it it kind of it kind of sucks uh just because natural bodybuilding just takes time. Uh that's competing every year is not optimal in that point. Now I'm not we're we're not asking you to like stay off-season for like 10 years before you compete. But what would you say is a good threshold to be in an off-season before considering stepping on stage again?

SPEAKER_00

So I would say a bare minimum two years is generally a good rule of thumb. If you are looking at your physique and you're like, okay, I need a real significant improvement, then yeah, you're probably looking three. I know some guys that will even push to five years, but I do find with five years, like that's a long time to be in your off-season, and that's a long time to be like working towards something. Like sometimes that's where though they'll be in off-season for five years, there might be like three or four months of the year where they're not really in it or they're not really training hard, or nutrition's not really in check. So you kind of have to be real with yourself, be like, hey, like, what's a realistic timeline where I know I can stay locked in with this um and stay motivated. Physique focused fit premium feel Canadian built sportswear for serious training. True North Sportswear, use code NADX for 15% off. Um, and sometimes, yeah, if you're programming for okay, like five years, I'm gonna do it in five years. You might you might reset like two and a half or three year mark. You're like, man, like I need to compete now. Like so, like, yeah, it's just being real with yourself in that sense. But like, yeah, definitely give yourself at least two years. And if you're doing uh like just a two-year off season, make sure it's productive. I've seen a lot of guys where like they're so locked in during prep, but when you look at their off-season, there's times where they're training once a week or once a month for a couple months, and then they're kind of going back in, and then they're out and they're back in. And then it's just they're not gonna be making that much improvement if you're in a two-year off-season if you're kind of off and on. Yeah, there's more time to be a bit more flexible if you are skipping a couple more days than maybe you did in like your your prep. Like that's not the end of the world, but if you are somebody that is like like come like almost a complete change in your habits in the offseason, it's probably not gonna be a good thing, and you're probably not gonna be looking much different. So just trying to pull those key habits from your prep and hold on to them throughout your off-season is gonna be so crucial for for making some good progress.

SPEAKER_01

That's a really good point. Now, going dialing back with working with uh coaching, uh, there's just this thing right now where I see there's so much resources online, including ours. What would you say the the two differences between working with somebody as a coach to prep your first show or your second show versus uh doing a self-coaching? Now, why I asked this question is I find I'm finding many individuals who have worked with a coach before, they probably their first show, and then they'll go ahead and try a second show maybe a year or two later, but they'll prep themselves. Now, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of those?

Peak Week Needs Time And Data

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So also like prepping yourself, you're gonna have a financial benefit because you're not gonna have to be forking out as much money throughout that process, which could potentially help with stress around money when it comes to competing, as it can be expensive sport. Um in terms of prepping yourself, especially towards the last two months, I see it all the time with guys where they'll be like, oh, I'm just gonna prep myself, and like the last month comes around like, no, I I need to get somebody to help me because they're kind of losing it a little mentally. Because when you are in that prep state, like there's so much like your anxiety is like elevated. I I believe there was one study that said something like close to like a tenfold increase in your anxiety and your inability, and like so like your ability to be rational uh dips down a lot. Um, so you start making some silly thing, or start doing some silly things when you're close to the end of your prep. And a lot of times it could be if somebody is always scared to be looking small, sometimes they might overfeed or do many refeeds or not lose the appropriate amount of weight to get truly shredded for the stage, which I see quite a bit. Or on the other end of the spectrum, when people are super hardcore and they're just digging, digging, digging, and they're just tracing conditioning, oftentimes they'll lose that fullness, they'll actually lose some muscle and look kind of strung out on stage and peak not so well because they're so the fatigue is so high and they're uh so wrecked. So a lot of times with a code we can help you kind of manage, okay. Like when should you kind of push? When should you pull back? Um, okay, we're really noticing these symptoms appearing that you may not even be noticing yourself, and then we can adjust from there. Like, even with one of my athletes recently, he was about 15 weeks out, but he was already showing signs of being like eight, six weeks out. Those symptoms were really starting to ramp up, and I'm like, hey man, like sounds like symptoms are starting to ramp up. Um, I think it's gonna be a really good time to do a diet break for a week long. And like I could tell he was a little bit resistant to it just because he's like, Oh, I'm in so much momentum. But I'm like, dude, like these symptoms are gonna get worse, and if we don't kind of reduce them now, it's gonna be really hard to make it to the end. So like I kind of convinced him to take the break, and then halfway through his diet break, he's like, Man, that was a really good choice. I'm feeling so much better. I don't even feel like I'm dieting right now, and then we went back into it. So, like, sometimes when you're coaching yourself, especially if you're an individual that likes to push hard, likes to really grind, sometimes you can just grind yourself into the ground, and like you just don't bring the best look. So it's it's definitely a balancing act, and like I find coaching can definitely help kind of land the plane smoothly when it comes to the prep.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would agree. Even a very experienced athlete, uh, in in especially in bodybuilding, it's also always always good to have an extra eye um just to watch over your progress and just to watch over you. Because yeah, you can just tunnel vision yourself into into just chasing that condition and then not noticing that oh, you're actually getting flatter and flatter, and details are actually getting blurry

Transparency With Your Coach

SPEAKER_01

and blurry. So it's always good to have um some of somebody just look out for you. So we're just saying we're just saying just having a coach is just so much better. I guess that's that's our main point on having that. Uh and that goes for experienced experienced athletes or even amateur athletes, especially uh amateur athletes, if you haven't been really competing that long. Uh self-coaching, yes, it's nice because what we always hear is oh, I know my body best. Yes, and no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and that's the thing, like that's the the whole reason why if you're gonna get a coach for a bodybuilding prep, you want to start as early as possible because so that you can actually build that relationship and the coach can actually understand how your body is functioning with higher carbs, how you're doing with refeeds, how you do when it comes to anxiety with food and all that kind of stuff. So when it does come to the peak week, we know how to make a peak week protocol protocol that's gonna work for you, that's gonna help reduce the stress, that's gonna actually have you peak well. Whereas, because I've had people come to me and like, hey man, can you help me with my peak week? And I'm like, and it's like two weeks before the show, and I'm like, man, like I don't know how your body responds to these carbs, I don't how I I can't make a peak week that's gonna be really good for you, that I think it's gonna work really well if I I don't understand how your body functions with the different carb loads. Like if you have before and after pictures of different carb levels, um, if I know a lot more about you, it just works a lot better. Whereas if I'm going into it, it's like, yeah, I can do like a basic peak week for you that's I can give you like the best idea of what I think will work for you, but it's just it's not gonna work as well as somebody that I've been working with for like six months.

SPEAKER_01

So I agree, I agree. So yeah, I I'm pretty sure that um that's also kind of that sucks for a lot of coaches out there. Um an athlete just comes you comes to you in a four weeks before a show and just things like, hey man, can you like just help me with this last month? I'm struggling a little bit, and we know nothing about you. And if the peak works well, then great. But if the peak doesn't work well, and then you'll just start telling the world, oh this coach sucks because he doesn't know what he's doing. Kind of that's kind of the shitty uh thing that's kind of out there. But thank God for social media and a lot of influencers, such as ourselves out there, are sharing this in uh information, uh telling explaining to people like this tax takes more time. I would even say enhanced athletes have to go through the same thing. Uh it's not a magical pill. Yes, it is a magical pill, but not really a magical pill for actually a good peak week, it still takes time. Even you're an enhanced athlete, there's even slightly less room for error. Um, so even the the time thing is definitely something that we we really really want to preach. But this is all the stuff that we want really wanted to mention out there for uh uh amateur athletes or even experienced athletes on the reasons why you're not doing as well as you possibly can, maybe even just reaching your full max potential on stage. Now, if you're really trying to do well in a natural bodybuilding stage, let's say get your pro card at WMBF or OCB or whatever, then we really highly recommend that you not really follow those steps, but really look into those steps that we just talked about. The main thing, of course, get yourself a coach. And that coach would uh somebody who would uh look after you, like hopefully they'll do a good job and looking after you and uh really and give them the time to actually understand your body. Uh, those are some of the last words I have for you guys. Is there anything that you wanted to add?

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, I would say for like clients like that are working with a coach, make sure you're just transparent. Like the last thing you want is for you to be like slipping up or not doing exactly what your coach says, either just because you don't trust the process or that you maybe slipped up and you feel guilty and you don't want to tell them. Like, if you aren't being transparent with them, it's not gonna work out well with the peak, it's not gonna work out well with the whole prep. Because, for example, if somebody is like constantly slipping up in their diet, they're saying they're at this calorie intake and like they're not losing any weight, and then the the coach is like, Oh, like that's that's strange. Like, I guess we gotta push a bit more with the diet, and then the calories get so low, and you then you start hitting those, and then it's just not gonna turn out well for your physique on stage. So, transparency is going to be key. Everybody throughout prep, there's nobody that's gonna be 100% perfect. So, like, a lot of times people put so much pressure on themselves with the competition prep that they they feel like if they make one little mistake that they oh they can't tell their coach because like all they're gonna get in shit. And so, like, it's being open and transparent throughout the whole process. That's where I found I've been able to get people to the stage, even if they've had like slip-ups or even if they've had a hard time through prep, it's just communication. Like, we we can work around things or come up with strategies that actually get them there, even though they're not 100% perfect with it. So, like I've had people literally get pro cards not being 100% perfect with it, but we were able to maneuver their process to something that was more sustainable or something that was gonna work better with them. So it's just yeah, that's where the coaching and that relationship can really benefit you when it comes to competing.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Yeah, so that's where we'll wrap up this uh episode here.

Event Note And Closing

SPEAKER_01

The next time we do meet, uh we have the WMBF at Vancouver coming in on May 2nd. If you want us to meet us in person and say hi, we will be there. And hope you guys enjoyed the show, and we'll see you guys next time. Peace.