Episode 7 - IRMS Explained: The Ultimate Truth-Teller in Natural Bodybuilding

You’ve been flagged. Now what? In the world of elite natural bodybuilding, a "presumptive positive" urine screen is the ultimate nightmare. But is a high T/E ratio a sign of cheating, or just a sign of unique genetics? Today, we’re going inside the lab to look at the science that protects the innocent.

About This Episode: In this special episode of The Natural Edge, I’m joined by an OCB competitor who faced the "7:1 Flag"—a testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio that exceeded the 6:1 limit. We discuss the emotional toll of a flagged test and the forensic science used to clear his name. If you’ve ever wondered how the OCB/WADA protocols actually work to separate synthetic hormones from natural "outliers," this is the episode for you.

What We Cover:

• The T/E Ratio Screen: Why the "Radar Gun" of drug testing sometimes flags the cleanest athletes in the sport.
• IRMS (Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry): A deep dive into the 2026 "Forensic Camera" that identifies the atomic signature of your hormones.
• Carbon-13 Isotopes: How the lab tells the difference between the food you eat and the synthetic esters made in a lab.
• The Emotional Grind: Our guest shares what it’s like to have your reputation on the line while waiting for the IRMS results.
• Editorial (Food for the Soul): The "Rush to Judgment"—why we need to stop convicting people in the court of public opinion before we have the facts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's the email every natural athlete dreads. You sacrificed six months of your life. You weighed every gram of protein. You lived with the hunger. You were up for the early training sessions. You never missed a cardio. You gave it your all, and you took home the hardware. Then a few weeks later, you get a notification, a flag test. Your T to E ratio is above the OCB limit. Your heart drops. You know you're clean, but that paper says otherwise. And at that moment, your reputation, your hard work, your natural status are all hanging by a thread. But a flag isn't a finish line. Behind the initial urine report lies the ultimate truth teller in drug testing, the IRMS test. So today we're going to be talking about the IRMS testing and talking to a competitor who lived through the nightmare. We're pulling back the curtain on the science of the OCB testing protocols and explaining why a high ratio isn't a hot test and how the IRMS test separates the synthetic from the soul. So let's get into the science of this thing. So to understand why an athlete gets flagged, we first have to understand the TNE ratio. Now, this is standard urinalysis screening. It happens in all urinalysis testing, amateur or pro, and it measures the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. In a normal human, that's usually somewhere between a one-to-one to three, maybe a one-to-four. Now the OCB is following WATA guidelines, and we allow up to a 1-x ratio to account for natural genetic outliers and also the fact that an increased muscle mass and the type of dieting that competitive bodybuilders do can cause a greater fluctuation in the T to E ratios. But here's the catch. Some people are just naturally high, whether it's a genetic extreme, stress, specific metabolic quirks, or also nuances in dieting. For example, if you're going from show to show, you can have a large number of calories between events and kind of deplane off of your diet and then go back on your diet, which can cause fluctuations in testosterone. Also, different types of training as well. Now, utilizing these, you can't blow past the six limit, but there are nuances where you can get a little bit higher while still being 100% natural. This is called presumptive positive, and it's a flag, not a fail. Here's where the IRMS testing comes in. Now, IRMS stands for isotope ratio mass spectronomy. What does that mean? It means that the lab is going to be going into that sample and doing a deep dive of the type of testosterones that are in there. So you can almost think of a standard year analysis test as a radar gun. It's going to detect a car's speed, but it's not going to detect what fuel it's running on, who the operator was, any of the internal mechanisms of the vehicle itself. So the IRMS is kind of like a high-definition forensic camera that looks inside the engine, it looks inside the fuel block, it looks inside the entire car, and not just the speed that the vehicle was traveling. Everything we eat, everything we inject contains carbon. There's a massive difference between carbon-13 isotopes found in the food that you eat, like plants and animals, and the carbon-13 found in a synthetic lab-made testosterone. When a sample goes to IRMS, the lab technicians aren't just looking at how much testosterone is in there, they're looking at the atomic structure of the testosterone. If the carbon-13 signature of your testosterone matches the signature of the other hormones in your body, you are natural. Your body made it from the food you ate or from the training that you did. If the signature is distinctively different, if it matches the chemical profile of a synthetic testosterone, esters, or one of the other substrates or substances, then we have a violation. The IRMS is the gold standard because it doesn't care about your ratio. It only cares about the source. It is nearly impossible to beat because you can't change the atomic structure of a synthetic drug. And the OCB we use this to protect the innocent. If you're a natural outlier or if your training and dietary program allowed some type of a shift in your natural testosterone levels, the IRMS is your best friend. It is the science that proves your integrity when the numbers look suspicious. However, that email is a lot to go through. So I wanted to reach out to one of our outstanding pro athletes to come in who has had to go through this and tell us his experience from beginning to end. And hopefully this interview will help the next natural athlete that has to undergo the IMS testing so that you better understand the pitfalls and the emotional responses that you're going to have. And how on the tail end of things, if you had nothing to hide, you will be good to go in a good standing. So let's talk to that athlete now. Rep. All right. Thank you for joining us, Victor. Hey, before I ask you your first question, I just want to give the audience a little of background on you. So Victor Igano is a bodybuilder with more than 15 years of competitive experience. You are a two-time top three finisher at the Oregon Cup, and you have won multiple pro events, as well as lots of amateur events. So a very, very experienced bodybuilder who is also a bodybuilder that is experienced with the IRMS testing process. So, Victor, I want to ask the first question because it's going to be out there now. You were the recipient of one of those emails. So could you take us back to the second that you got that email and you saw that you were flagged at that time? Like, did you feel that your natural status was going to be impacted as that's your identity in the sport? Or did you automatically feel that you could exonerate yourself with the process to come?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, Sully, first of all, thanks so much for having me on as a guest. I love the natural edge and what you're doing with the podcast. Yeah, so 2025, amazing year, competitive year for me, my comeback year from a long layoff. And one of my better years, I placed top three in the Yorton Cup. And after that, I was like, hmm, you know, I'm going to check in on why the results haven't really come in for me. And so I emailed uh the OCB and I found out that I was flagged from my urinalysis. And as a natural bodybuilder, when I first opened the email, and you see, hey, you are actually in the group that needs to be, you know, has gotten flagged for this urinalysis, it just hits you, right? It's very stressful. So the first thing that the first thought that went through my head was, this has got to be a mistake, right? Like I did everything by the book. I've never taken anything, you know, exogenous, nothing that has been banned, no banned substances. I do everything by the book. So I was like, this is a mistake. So I kind of like was a little frustrated, a little confused, a little scared, a little nervous. There was a whole whole emotional wave going through me. So I emailed back and I said, Hey, I don't think this is correct. How could this be? I've never taken anything. So there was like that moment of backlash reaction, right? So the email comes back and says, Hey, it is what it is. We have to go through the process. And me being natural my entire competitive career, I never thought about what the process was. I'll be honest with you. I knew that there was a process in place, but I knew that I'm a you know a lifetime natural. So I had to actually look up the process on the OCB website, which is clearly laid out there. And, you know, from the urinalysis that was flagged, it said if your TE ratio, which is testosterone to epitestosterone ratio, is higher than the threshold that the OCB warrants to be further tested, then you need to go for further testing. And my ratio was a six to one. The OCB is aligned with WADA level, Olympic level testing. And their threshold, I believe, Sully, is a four to one. The OCB is a little lenient and it's it gives you up to six to one. No, a four to one, yeah. So I had a six to one. So I did flag it. And, you know, some naturals just run higher ratios, genetics, stress due to cortisol levels, training load, whatnot, even reverse dieting, which is what happened between my shows last season. So anyway, I think that, yeah, I was just really shocked by the email that came in when I opened it up. I just felt this wave of confusion. I was like, this has got to be wrong.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

And I just want to add one point of clarification on that six to one. The OCB has actually increased it to call it 5.9. Once it goes over six, that's when we look at doing the RMS testing because we have had so many athletes come in above that because bodybuilders, heavy training, you know, cyclic dieting, all the things that you talked about can elevate that. So that's why, you know, you were, from my understanding, just over the threshold. And I was not involved in any of that. It's a closed, it's a closed door. There are only three people that ever hear anything about what's going on in the background of the peripheral. And so, I mean, how did that affect you? Did you feel isolated? I mean, bodybuilding is such a small community. So during the weeks that you were going through the results, did you feel that you had to hide? How did you, how did you handle that? Or did you think that people were looking at you, or did you close yourself off from the sport or from other people around the sport?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, I think I did. I think subconsciously there were two sides of me. One side was like, this is crazy, this can't be, and I have to tell the world like this is this is not right, like, you know, and the other side was like, wait a second, let's be logical about this. This is something that happened. You know you're natural. Let's just be patient. There's a further testing protocol that is in place. Why don't we just be a little patient? So I had that logical side of me and I listened to logic, but I think I think you're right. I think I did want to stay quiet about it, right? Because I wanted science to do its work. Because I come from a background of academics in the sciences and stuff, and I knew that science can prove you, you know, that you're cleaner. And I knew that I was clean. So I was like, you know what? Let's let science do its work. So I was frustrated, and there was a part of me that just wanted to kind of lash out at the word. I was like, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? Like I just came back to the sport and I got flagged. What's going to happen now? Maybe it was a dirty specimen. So all these thoughts are going through my head. But then there's the other side of me that's like, hey, calm down. Let's let the protocol take place.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

And how were the emails? I mean, you know, do they come at you like, you know, you're guilty? Or are they more like generic in in the, hey, this is what happened and this is where we go next? And how is how's the tone and tenor? So if anybody gets one in the future, they can mentally prepare.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, absolutely. To all the athletes out there, I got to say the OCB handled this very professionally. No athlete wants to get an email saying, hey, your specimen, your analysis got flagged, right? It's super scary because then you could be banned, right? For anywhere from whatever six months to seven years. And that's scary. But the OCB representative who was reaching out to me was very professional, very factual. And of course, as it was going on, I was just taking those emails and like part of me was battling back professionally, but but I had to admit that they were very professional. The OCB handled it just as any organization that's like very, very factual, like, hey, this is what it is. This is our protocol. We have to let this take place. That's how it was. It was very professional. And actually, they reassured me too. They said a lot of times this has this has happened in the past. And if you are truly natural, like if you're truly clean, this will play out and everything will prove that you are. So I had to just be patient.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And that is, you know, like I said, when you go through this, the lab and pretty much our director, our pro membership and testing director, you're the only ones who know. And I remember reaching out to you when you were going through the process, you know, because I wanted to get you on edge and I wanted you to do all this contribution stuff. And you were like, you know, hey, you know, Sully, I can't. I'm you know, going through something right now. And you mentioned it to me, and you're like, you probably know. And I'm like, I don't know anything. But I remembered, I knew you were gonna be fine because I remembered in your interview when we were talking, you actually talked about it in Edge, how you had dieted so hard for your first show of the season, and then going into the Yorton Cup, you did a rebound diet, you bounced up, and then you just did a mini cut coming off, which I knew causes fluctuations. And you're also somebody that runs on the little, you know, a little bit on the high end anyway. You're always like a 1-4, 1-4 plus or whatever because of your muscle mass, whatever. So like, but even I couldn't reach out. Like it's we keep it so clinical and so like clean. And you know, we we just recommend to people, you know, just don't say anything to anybody. Nobody knows, nobody's gonna know what you're going through. Let the process go through, go through. And even in you know, the worst end results, you know, we have people that on the other end of the process, isotopes are found, and then we're so even then it's between the same three people, you know, you, Chad, and the guy in the lab, they're the only three that will ever know. This is why we don't post the results so quickly. So I know that it's got to feel like you're a little bit on isolation island while you're going through all of that. One of the things that I want to I want to talk to you about is like the cost factor involved. Was that clearly explained to you and how was that handled and how did you handle the cost factor?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, no, I think, and one point about that, I think that the OCB, yeah, but keeping it under wraps is like super professional, right? Like I think other organizations and no flat foul to them, but like sometimes if if you're caught or you're flagged, they don't really give you a second chance, right? Like sometimes they'll just ban you or they'll put you on this wall of shame or whatever. Like the OCB is like, hey, we're gonna do this the right way by the labs, the highest level, and we're gonna prove one way or another, you're either cleaner, you're not. And they're letting science do its work, right? And that's that's amazing. So I I really gotta applaud the OCB for that. Now, going into the cost factor, yeah, fortunately, you know, I I was fortunate enough to be able to like cover the cost, which was I think close to $500. I think it was like $490 some dollars or something like that, $495 for the IRMS test, which if everybody doesn't know, I uh you might even have said it earlier, Sully, about the isotope, what's it, ratio mass spectrometry. And basically it's a way for you know the lab to further test the type of testosterone in your sample, right? It looks at the carbon isotope, which is carbon 13 or carbon, and it figures out where is this coming from? Not how much testosterone you have, but where it's coming from. Is it coming from a synthetic source or is it coming from your natural testosterone? So by paying the fee, the $500, they were the lab was able to uh, you know, do the IRMS tests, and I had to wait a couple more weeks. So it was really stressful. I was like, oh my gosh, hurry up, hurry, hurry up. But uh, you know, I knew I was clean, right? But it's just it is stressful waiting. It's like, come on, I want to see if I got into the, you know, whatever. But yeah, so I paid the $500. I waited the extra two to three weeks, and I got the email back and said, Hey, you're clean.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

No, when the IRMS results finally came back and proved that you were your the atoms that you had in your body were 100% yours. Was that like a moment of celebration or where there's a sense of anger that you had to go through all that just to prove that you, you know, that you were natural, like you already knew you were natural? Like what was that end game moment for you?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I think that's a really good question. Honestly, I think it was a little bit of both, right? I was like, oh my gosh, all of that just to prove what I already knew. But it also showed me a few other things. One, I was happy because I knew that I was cleared for the future in the sport that I love so much. Two, it shows the that the OCB did its due diligence, right? It didn't just say, hey, you're gonna you're flagged in this euro analysis, you're out, you're banned, right? It showed that they have another level of protocol, another tier of deep diving that they can do to truly figure out if you're natural. They that shows that they care about their athletes, right? They're not just gonna kick you out into the cold and say, hey, you flagged on this euro analysis, it could be a dirty specimen or whatever happens to you. We don't care. No, that's not what they're doing. They're taking your sample, saying, hey, this flag something, but let's look a little deeper at it. Let's let's do it. Yes, you have to pay for the cost because you know the OCB, that's not us. We that's between you and the lab, right? But if you do, you can prove you're natural, right? So I think any natural athlete who really truly cares about their membership and what they do and their as an athlete in the sport, they will easily find a way to cover that cost. It is a little pricey for some people, but you know what? It's well worth it. It's well worth it because it truly proves if you truly know you're natural, it truly will cover uh prove yes or no.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And and the way I always looked at it is you know, the cost of a pro membership and the cost of one entry in a pro show would cover an IRMS test, and then you know that you're good. And then we also have that record. That's the other thing that people don't realize is that you know you keep that as a record, and now you know if it happens again, you you know, as long as it's not like you're suddenly, you know, like a one to 19 or a one to 34, you know, then with then it's like we got some talking to do. But if we know people run on the high mark, you know, okay, now now we understand, you know, there's a background for it. You know, you have a history. And as long as no other isotopes or anything are detected in the regular sample, it's not like every time if you have naturally high testosterone, every time it's gonna run you 400 plus bucks. Yeah. We don't do that. We try to keep it as fair as possible. And that is one thing that you know, and I try to tell people this all the time. It's it's like our athletes are important to us. You're not numbers, you're not dollar signs. You're like people to us. And even when situations occur and isotopes are found, if you cannot clear yourself another way, like you maintained a supplement that you took that we find out had some kind of a tweaker or hidden ingredient or something not in the label that can exonerate, if there's no other way to exonerate you, you know, we have to go with what we have because we can't just take people's words on it. And even then, if we have to like go the suspension route and suspend suspend somebody for a number of years, even that's hard for us. So we still try to do that with the utmost dignity and respect for the athlete. I mean, I look at it this way, as in my military career, I had to show a lot of Marines, soldiers, and airmen out the door because they did things that that they they couldn't serve anymore. It didn't make them bad people. It didn't mean we hated them. It didn't mean the gate came down. It's not like, you know, we throw their duffel bag over the fence and we kick them out. It was like you go through a warm handoff process. And I still hear from some of these people that I had to put out years ago, you know, hey, thanks, Chief. You know, the way you guys handled it, I felt so. And this is when we took over as leadership group, that was the biggest thing that we talked about. That would when we have to handle these things, I think it's important we handle them the same way because we have seen so I've heard so many stories, I've seen so many things out there that it's just you know, no, get on, you know, they vote you off the island like on Survivor, it's cutthroat. And it shouldn't be that way. Even if somebody intentionally took something, they're still a human being and they deserve to be treated that way. And that's why we keep everything so close to the vest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

So and I think it, Sully, and in hindsight, you think back to that moment, you know, when you're being flagged and you're looking through the email process and you're waiting for the IRMS to come back. And, you know, you all these thoughts are going through your head as the athlete. And the OCB is just doing their due diligence, they're doing their job, right? But it's very hard in the moment, right? Because it's like you would just want to fight back. You're like, no, I know I'm natural, you're not believing me. And it's like, come on, come on, come on. And then it's like, hey, we just got to wait for the IRMS to come back. And it's painful because time t takes its course. I think my advice to any athlete out there, if your analysis gets flagged, be patient. Okay. If you truly know that you didn't take something that you weren't supposed to, then just be patient. If you get flagged and you need your thresholds a little higher, right? Your TE ratio, pay for the IRMS, right? That's my suggestion to you. I went through it. It was painful, right? Like mentally painful. You had to wait for it and whatnot. But it was worth it, right? Because now I was cleared. Now the OCB has my levels in their system database. And if it happens again, they say, hey, this is his levels. We've seen this before. This guy's good, right? Like that's that's professionalism at its best. And I think that is what you want. If you're an athlete competing in the sport of natural or physique sports, think about that. What organization would you want to be a part of? One that really cares about your long term success and everything that you're doing if you're truly natural, or one that just says, hey, your flag, get out.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

So and we have a lot of these every year. So you're this is why I wanted to get you on because you're gonna help a lot of athletes this season because that flag email is you're gonna have a knee jerk reaction. Yes. It is going to be shocking. You're going to be angry at the Federation, yourself, you're going to be angry at everybody, just like you were. And then you're going to think it through, and then you're going to get to the other end. And as long as there's no isotopes or anything in there that that that flight. And that's the thing people need to understand is that you you can do things to naturally increase your testosterone. Yeah. There are even some things that you can take that will naturally increase your testosterone production by a slight amount. It's not like you know, it's not like a steroid, it's not like an injectable, and all of a sudden you're going to be like an 18 to 1 ratio. But it can bump you up a little bit. Yeah. When you do the RMZ testing, it's going to show that it is a naturally occurring testosterone in the elevation and there is nothing attached to it. There's no atoms, there's no isotopes, there's nothing attached to that. And so as long as you know you're good and you you did the right things and you did due diligence, then you're going to come out the other side. You're going to be fine. Yeah. And we still want you to come back and compete. And that's why it's so valuable because I am so excited to see you again this year at the Jordan Cup and see where you're going to go for your pro shows. Look at that. Look at that. I'm going to get you to the battle of the gods this year in November. Okay. November.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

All right.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

I'll have to push off the holidays. You've got to win the shield. I got to give it the side. I give a big part of the shield to the pros now. So I'll have to be there.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

I'll be there.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

You know, but I I do appreciate your candor and your honesty. And I do think it's important for you know for our for our athletes to understand this. So they're not going to be, it's going to be a shocker.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

But you know what? We're going to get through it. And and Chad is going to do a good job of walking people through it. They're going to get you, you know, get you to the tail end. And you're somebody with a medical background. You are experienced with understanding. I mean, you spend a lot of time in a clinical environment.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yep. I do. And honestly, that's the thing. I know the science, right? So it just shows you that the athlete mindset was taking over, right? Like I was like, oh my gosh, it can't be true. But then the logical science, scientists in me was like, you know what, Vic, chill, right? Like this is gonna play out. You know you're natural. Let the IRMS do its course. You're gonna, they're gonna come back like you're good. And I think that once I thought about that, I was like, the science will prove that I'm natural. I I calmed down. It calmed down my anxiety. I was just getting super paranoid. I was like, did the sample get mixed up? Was there like some contamination? What could have happened? That and you know, but I was like, no, but I sealed it that day and they put it into the bag. I was like, I'm good, I'm good. This is just a misunderstanding. And like I said, there's a lot of different factors that can flag a urinalysis, right? Urinalysis really shows it's like a longer window pattern over time. An IRMS will look at like, hey, let's look at the actual molecules. And and that's that's what you want. You want that deep dive, meticulous, you know, what do you call it? I uh microscopic mic microscope look at the molecules and see where is this coming from? And that's what the OCB water level testing does, and it will clear you if you just do let the protocol take its take place.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

And we get asked from time to time from people who go through this, well, how come you don't do this with every urine sample and just cut it right to the chase because of the expense? It's several hundred dollars just doing the breakdown, and then you add in it at six hundred dollars for for test, and we pay for the urinalysis testing. Yeah. I mean, we don't have much of a profit margin to begin with. That would we would never have a Jordan copy. There would be no more pros.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I'll say this. I'll say this, Sally. I think my advice to an athlete: one, every show you're doing, make sure you have enough fees to do the show, but also for the testing, right? Like you know you're gonna pay for the polygraph and that the OCB pays for the urinalysis, but have an extra, I call it complication fund, right? In case there's complications with your urinalysis, right? Like if something gets flagged and I need to do an IRMS, save up that extra $500. I said it, $500. It's a lot of money, but have that at least once, right? Because they can keep you in the database after that, but at least once. If you've never had an IRMS and you are competing and you plan to do little mini reverse diets or you have weird genetics like I do, or whatever happens, right? Like just have a backup fund for the IRMS. It's $500 for the competitive season that you're doing, right? Because it's gonna cost if you have to do it. And if you don't do it, they can they can't, the OCB is not gonna pay for it, so it's gonna stop at the urinalysis. And if you were flagged, well, they can't let you compete continue to compete. That's not fair to every other athlete, right? So have that backup fund. That's my advice to you.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

So yeah. Well, Victor, I appreciate it, and I know this is gonna help a lot of athletes that are nervous about this, and also athletes are gonna have to go through the process this year because every year there's a new group that that has to. It's just the nature of bodybuilding and just the nature of the way that hormones work in the body. So I want to thank you for your candor, for your time. Before I let you go, do you have any closing remarks? Anything else that you want to share with us?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to the 2026 uh contest season here. That's right. I know I wasn't sure about when I would come back to the stage, but you know what? I stayed on my diet during the off-season, kept my weight down by like 20 pounds, and I was I had a really good year last year, so I'm gonna take that as a stepping stone. I'm coming back in 2026. So the competition season, I know that nobody likes to talk about their contest, but I'm not scared. I'm brash, I'm bold. So, first up, I actually Frank, Frank Meekins was actually one of the representatives who came out and did got my second urine sample. And I told him that I would plan to do one of his shows. It's the OCB Conquer Rain, I think, in Las Vegas. Or like yeah, so I'm gonna be doing that on July 18th. I obviously would love to defend my Presidential Cup title at Bobby Coveno's show, the Presidential Cup. I think it's August 8th. Obviously, I will be back at the Urine Cup in September the 20th, I think. And then obviously Sully wants to get me to do his Battle of the Gods in November. So if if the holiday food doesn't call my name too much, then it's a long that's a long break between shows.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

You're forgiven if it doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, yeah. But I will be back this season. Training has been going remarkably well. Knock on wood, no injuries. I plan to start my diet the day after Easter. So I stayed in better shape, so it shouldn't be too long that I need to get in really good shape. So I'm really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Amazing. And that's your that that's your your calling card, your symmetry and just how shredded you get. Those are your calling cards. So play to your strength and train hard. I look forward to seeing you around the campus this season, especially at that Conqueror Vegas show. That is gonna be epic for anybody who's ever competed in the Conqueror in in up in Maryland. If you know, I mean that's one of the marquee shows in the OCB. People talk about that, they rave about it. Now imagine that, but in Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

I can't wait. First time there this year, it's gonna be great. He already had one for the amateurs. I think this one for the pros is gonna be it's gonna be huge. It's gonna be epic.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

It's gonna be amazing.

unknown 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Okay, Victor, thank you. Train hard. See you around the campus. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Sully. And wrapping up, I want to talk a little bit about guilty until proven innocent. Now we live in a culture of guilty until proven innocent. But the second a rumor starts or a flag is mentioned, people jump. We see it in the gym, we see it in social media, and we see it all around our daily lives. We see a fragment of information, such as a flag test, and our brains immediately fill in the rest of the story. We decide someone's a cheater before the IRMS test is even turned around by the lab. This is a human flaw. See, humans love to categorize people. It's just part of our genetic structure. It is how we survived a hundred million years of evolution. You see something with pointy ears and fangs, and automatically it is a wolf. It may just be a puppy dog. But your body will categorize it as a wolf and immediately go to the negative. It's a survival instinct. In your personal and your professional lives, how often do you do the same thing? You see a coworker get a promotion and you assume it was politics. Your girlfriend or your significant other seems to pull away and you automatically assume that they're angry with you for something that you may have done. You take a small piece of evidence and you build an entire trial in your head without ever asking the bigger questions or finding out the real why. Now, bodybuilding teaches us patience in the gym, but it needs also to teach us patience in our character. When we jump to conclusions, we destroy the backstage bond that we talked about in the last episode. We create the vision where there should be brotherhood. So the next time you hear something's flagged or you hear some type of a rumor about something or somebody, whether it's an athlete or a neighbor's reputation or a colleague at work, I want you to take a pause. Wait for the isotopes, wait for the facts. The integrity that you've gained through this sport isn't just about your own, it's about having the integrity to give others the benefit of the doubt until the full story is told. Don't be a judge before you're an observer. That's the real Natural Edge. So if you've been enjoying Natural Edge and its sister podcast tri sets, please do us a favor, like, share, and subscribe. It really helps the channel a lot. And if you feel so inclined, give us a comment down below. Share some of your experiences. I really like to read those and follow up on them. So until next time, stay hungry, stay humble, and stay natural. Selly out.