Train.Eat.Think
Train.Eat.Think podcast
We are 2 coaches with a passion for positivity and developing our clients and ourselves.
We work with anyone who has a goal to improve their fitness, training, nutrition and lifestyle.
That includes regular gym goers, home gym users, those returning to gym after a lay off all the way to competitive bodybuilders / powerlifters / strongman.
We are problem solvers that meet you where you are at and take you to the level you want to be at - the next level - creating the best possible version of you.
Our podcast episodes will cover every topic across the training and nutrition spectrum with a little mindset thrown in for good measure.
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Train.Eat.Think
Train. Eat. Think. Episode 20 Starting from Zero...
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Episode 20 of Train. Eat. Think sees Benjamin and Francis share their personal experiences and coaching insights on building muscle from the start, avoiding common mistakes in your fitness journey, and optimizing recovery.
We discuss practical tips for beginners and seasoned lifters alike to enhance their fitness journey, avoid the mistakes we made and saving time/effort/energy to get rewarded for your hard work and removing the guesswork.
Key topics
Common mistakes made by beginners and experienced lifters
Importance of coaching and experience in training
The role of tracking and recording workouts
Effective recovery strategies and deloading
Myths about nutrition, supplements, and training timing
The impact of environment and mindset on progress
For online 121 coaching enquiries/information
Please contact Francis on X/Instagram @coachfhm or email fmeliacoaching@gmail.com
Contact Ben on X/Instagram @benjaminyeezus or email ben@yeezuscrew.com
Thanks for listening. See you next week :D
Train eight, think, episode twenty, starting from scratch. So this week we're going to talk about if we woke up tomorrow and we had no muscle, what we need to do to build our physique up again and call out some of the mistakes that we've made. And something that we do as well in our coaching is to try and prevent people from making those mistakes so that we can really focus in on what brings the value and getting you to the place that you want.
SPEAKER_01Looking forward to this one, mate. It gets you thinking, doesn't it? I was I was I was getting my steps in before thinking and what would I change because it just yeah you've got to go back in time to uh dig out the arm memories of this one. But yeah, I think leaning on our own experiences because you know we've we've been you know walking in the gym on on day one. There's a lot of people who come to us who are quite new. We we've been there, we've made the mistakes, you know, we've we've we've bought the t-shirt, so to speak. So we know probably what not to do, and we've got a very good understanding on what's gonna put you in a better position than just going in the gym blind, obviously, with the experience that we've uh had ourselves and obviously helping people. So yeah, it'd be nice to delve into this one.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I can talk a lot to this. I'm I'm I'm sure you can as well, Francis. The mistakes that we've made cost us a lot of time, cost us a lot of effort, cost us a lot of money, and it's my only one regret actually, and in life in general, is that I didn't start earlier. I I wish I started earlier, and one of the things that really changed the game for me when I got to a point, and and it's funny, I was just having that this very conversation tonight in the gym. The game changer for me was number one, changing my environment. So I went into a more bodybuilding type gym, so it was a little bit um of a step away from a just sort of generic commercial gym. Not that there's anything wrong with them at all, but it's one of those environments that helps you. And the second thing I would say, following on very closely from that, was I I got myself a coach. This is well before I even considered coaching myself. Um I I I I saw on the website, I had a look. This is what I want to do. I know that this gent can get me here. We all know that that gent was Jordan Peters. Um, and it was just an absolute game changer. Before that, I'd wasted five years. Granted, I I wasn't deep in, I played a lot of five aside at that point, a lot of football um or soccer for our American listeners, and um it wasn't until I got really serious about that and and I wanted to take it to the new level. But the the real game changer for me right off the bat was getting a coach, and even before I stepped into the coaching arena myself, I could see, as could others, the results that I was getting within a few months. And they're saying to me, What are you doing that's differently? I was like, Listen, honestly, get a coach as an absolute game changer. As I say, this is before I had even thought about coaching. Uh it's such a game changer, and it's something I maintain even to this day.
SPEAKER_01100%, mate. So we we know the benefits of uh having a good, trusted second pair of eyes. Um myself, I you know, I've trained for 16 years. Uh I had a powerlifting coach in 2018, so I I still had you're probably talking eight, nine years of training, self-coached before they even uh reached out for help. No, and I and I definitely would have reached out for help a little bit sooner. I still do think uh my personality type as well, I liked making some mistakes up front as well. I I know that might sound very counterintuitive, but for me to develop into the coach that I am and uh having that the knack and the instinct to wanting to jig sort of things together, I think going through that period myself of you know maybe messing things up and getting things better, but that's because I'm extremely passionate about this stuff. Like I love this stuff where maybe someone who wants results doesn't really want to sit there and watch all training videos and understand the ins and outs, they just want the sort of the outcome and I and I understand that. So uh unless you're that way inclined, maybe you don't want to be spending lots of time making mistakes and then trying to jig sure things together. But I I will say that was uh that was a benefit of being self-coached for a long time. But if I if if I had to look at when I go back and I was thinking scratching my head before thinking, what what were some of the big mistakes that I made? And I'll probably go delve more into the actual nuts and bolts of the of the training side of things because one thing I did have, and I've mentioned in the past, is it it is passion for training. I knew how to train hard from the get-go. Uh I I started off in a in a again, a rough gym in the middle of Liverpool. A lot of the old uh the old school lifters, the the gym dars, as we called them, you know, that they they helped me cut my teeth with intensity right away. Like you couldn't go in there and not train hard. So I had that piece that was always there from the get-go. I loved getting stuck in, pushing the sets, training hard. So that was always there. That that was that was not something that I needed to really try and uh muster out of myself. But what I would say would be looking at the actual training plan design. I I used to follow more of a um a bro split, and I'd say I I I used to hit every muscle group once a week, and I've probably done that for two to three years, and that's the big thing for me that I'd look at and go, if only I would have maybe been training legs twice a week instead of once, you know, chest and back, if I would have split that up and done that twice a week, and instead it was a back day, an arm day, a leg day, a shoulder day. I used to train five days a week, five days back to back, and it was like a bro split. I still made gains, of course, because my effort and the passion for training was there. But if if I really wanted to maybe put myself a couple of years ahead further, it would have been um leveraging training frequency and hitting things a little bit more frequently.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's funny. I mean, going back to before I joined the bodybuilding gym that was a commercial gym, uh DW sports at that point in time. Um I trained with people that had good experience, um, different sizes, different statuses as well. But what I found was there was conflicting things between the way that they like to train uh 20 reps and 30 reps of this, and um some were leaning towards you know the sort of hypertrophy as we know it today, you know, your sort of two sets of eight to twelve reps or somewhere in that sort of vicinity. Again, it was a bro split, it was mostly bro split. So you're all the chest and triceps on a Monday, of course, needs to be international push day, um Tuesday, the the back and the biceps. I think for me, um obviously with my my nutrition lean-ins, that was my problem. I was trying to grow if I look back now and sort of roughly count it up on something like 1800 calories um a day. We we'll probably get into all of the myths that that we've fallen for, and there were so many, you know, uh don't eat carbs after six o'clock, you know, don't spike your blood sugar insulin too often. All of these things that were just so conflicting to think, well, how am I actually gonna make any progress here? And I was training hard, I was doing five days, I was doing six days, and even at one point I was doing seven days and trying to grow, and it just wasn't happening for me.
SPEAKER_01It makes me laugh that maybe when you're thinking there about um some of the things that I used to do. Like I remember um do you know when my my protein first came out right in the UK, the supplement company. Um, it was very, very like we're talking like 2011, 2012, and I remember ordering big tubs of um or big bags of protein back then. It was like big five kilo bags. I even ordered an unflavoured version, which tasted like dog shits. It was it was terrible. Uh I remember having my protein and dextrose right post-warehouse because of the anabolic window. That was the big rave around on the internet if we're going back 2012, 2013. It was the anabolic window, and everyone used to say you've got to get protein in immediately after your training session, or you're gonna sort of like lose muscle tissue or not make any gains. So I used to have like big protein shakers with like 40, 50 grams of weight, dextrose for the to spite carbohydrates and the insulin response because that's what it said online. So as soon as I'd literally finished my last set, I used to rush to the changing room, get me shaker out. Used to be one of those my protein shakers with like a little metal ball in it. I'd fill the water up in it, I'd shake it, and I'd neck it, and I'd be like, Yeah, there we go. Like that's the the muscle tissue was solidified, and now obviously as we know now, like that is just that is just daft, but it's funny to think that's that's something that I used to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's many world records being broke between the when did you finish your last rep and when did you get to your protein shaker? It's definitely a thing. I mean, I think that was an absolute endemic. Every every gym, I think it's really funny when you think about it. Even back then, okay, yes, we did have the internet and stuff like that, and it was pretty connected. But when you when you compare it to today, it wasn't as connected as today, but you've still got those myths that didn't just I mean, if you were doing that in Liverpool at the point in time, I'm doing the same in Glasgow. It just shows you how that that can then sort of like spread across the world without you know, now obviously the internet connects a lot of us, but without that, then you've still got these myths that perpetuate about uh anabolic window and golden hour. I've I've got a really good story from one of my clients, um Nathan shared it with me. They used to go from the gym straight to um I don't know what you would call it, um, you know, like the uh Sunday, Sunday roast dinner type place of carver.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's all be calvery.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it was a it was an all-you-could eat carvery, so they would get the biggest plate that they could and the ice cream at the site, and they had an hour. I I don't know where they where they got it, but it was they called it the golden hour. So within that hour, you could eat whatever you wanted, and that's what they used to do. They used to go from the gym to the calvery. So, yeah, I mean, as I say, there's there's loads of myths out there that that we've all fallen for um across the years, and obviously as time goes by with our own experience, with the coaching that we've done, with the the you know, the n equals one that that we've got in terms of building our own physiques, we've come to learn that it is a lot easier and simpler, and that's something that I'm always trying to get across. It's one of those things where you're trying to prevent people from making the mistakes, but also from believing a lot of the stuff that ultimately doesn't matter. That the the most important thing is just getting it in, and and that's something that we know we now understand, and I think that's what makes it a lot easier when we're having those conversations. That it's less about being so rigid in terms of something really bad happens if you can't. So if someone's in a meeting and they can't get a meal in, for example, it's it's fine because the biggest thing is getting it in over the course of a day, for example, if we're talking about protein. And you ideally, yes, you want to have some feeding so that you're you're keeping the stimulus going, but if there's a couple of occasions where you can't, it in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.
SPEAKER_01There was a point in time I'm talking in my early days when I was 19, 20, that I had to eat every three hours on the clock, and if I didn't, it would actually provoke like anxiety, like genuinely. Like I remember I wouldn't leave the house unless I had a protein source, or it got that bad at one point, and I as we know like it's that's just daft. Like, obviously, we'd like to try and spread our protein feeds, you know. As long as you're in that three to five hour window and you're spreading your meals across the day, if you normally have four or five most days, and let's just say there is one day and you have three meals and you've gone six hours without eating, it's not gonna kill you, you're not gonna lose any muscle tissue. It's not the end of the world. Your your total daily protein intake for the for the day, that is your most important thing. And if you're as we always talk about, if if you're 95% of the you're you've always got your four or five uh protein feeds every day. If there's one day a month where you had three meals, or you'd even add two meals, that's gonna make no difference on uh the physique that you build. So it was just major in the minors and causing a lot of uh a lot of unnecessary anxiety.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's one of the reasons I got into the game, if I'm totally honest, and got into the into the space of online coaching that there were so many barriers that got built up just for like we talk about in our lifestyle clients, you know, or you must eat eggs or you must do this every few hours. And and I fell for that mistake as well. You know, I woke up in the morning, I'm instantly catabolic because I haven't had any food yet. Hurry up and get your breakfast and there's just so many ways that now when you look back, obviously we know slightly different. Yes, we want good decisions because you don't want to get hangry and then make poor decisions, so it's it's really good to have your meals and have your plan and your structure in place for things like siety, but it's like we know now, you know, that there is no need for absolute perfection, there is enjoying structure, there is enjoying having your routine and following it as closely as you can. But we do know now that there's a little a little more leeway, which just makes it easier in terms of people that want to build muscle, especially again when we're talking about lifestyle clients that could have jobs as maybe surgeons, doctors that they can't maybe eat with that sort of level of frequency that we know. Listen, it's not the big it's not the biggest shake in the world. We can still make progress. Similarly, you know, somebody could be caring for someone and it's six meal, six hours between the meal that they get. That's still okay. And and again, these are the mistakes that we've made, these are the myths that we were um conditioned to believe because they were either reported in the magazines or maybe on some forum um online somewhere.
SPEAKER_01I I I remember being in like college and everything, and I'd be thinking, I I I was I was trying to base my career decision off when I'd be able to eat. Like that's how like madness it was. I was thinking like, I can't do that job, like um, I wouldn't be able to eat every three hours. Like, honestly, that that's how like obsessed I was at one point with it. And you know it's it's funny now looking back like you know 10, 12 years later and going, it's just uh it's just it's just crazy talk. It's just uh you know, we we we go off number one is your total calories for the day, as we know your total protein, and just spread it as as evenly as you can across the day. Most people are gonna be fine, like three to five meals anywhere between that. As long as you hit your calories, you're gonna be good to go. I I I don't think it needs to get any uh more complicated than that, but yeah, I uh I used to make that extremely complicated. But to switch on to another training mistake that I made, mate, and I don't know whether you made this as well, but I I never used a logbook, I never tracked anything. I would say for probably the first half of my training career, I'd say I've had trained for 16 years now. I'd say for the first seven, eight years, I didn't track anything. I just literally went in and trained. I just went in and pushed hard. Sort of felt things out of in terms of how many sets I'd needed that I sort of knew when a muscle was done. And it wasn't really until I got into powerlifting that's when I started to track things. So you're talking like maybe 2017-ish ways, that's when I first started to track things, and I got my logbook, started, you know, programming things properly. Um, but yeah, I'd say for the first seven, eight years, I didn't track a thing. It was literally just come in and just try and add more weight to the bar and just push as hard as I could. Not that it it done me any harm, of course, but I think I if if if I had my time again, I would come in with a I'd have a logbook from day one and I'd be tracking everything and just making sure I'm keeping an eye on things, and I think that'd be a game changer.
SPEAKER_02It was an absolute game changer for me. Um prior to using my logbook, yeah, similar to what you're saying, Francis. I'd go into the gym, and you're obviously you know that you're trying to get stronger over time. Um probably then, in all honesty, you were sticking on weights. I can remember probably in the leg press. I was that guy that everybody hates online doing the one and a half inch um leg press reps, but at least I got ten plates aside on it, but they they they weren't real reps. So making those mistakes as well, you know, not understanding um muscular tension. But one of the first things that happened again um under guidance was get your logbook and start writing down your workouts uh ahead of time. Obviously, then when you're when you're doing them in the middle of your training, you can fill it out. I I found personally I really like having the workout written down where you know the sets are sorry, the reps that you're going for when you're heading into a set that really helps me focus in and drive. Obviously, if there's more reps there to be taken, you know, you take them um if it's a good day, you take them and and you write it down and you're coming back. And it doesn't mean as well that you only look at your logbook when you're in the gym or when you're just about to go into the gym. One of the things as well, I would say, that that really helped set me up for success um over time, as well as the logbook, is having goals, short-term, medium-term, and long-term lifting goals. Now that's not at the um you know, to to sacrifice form at any time, and you might not hit them exactly, but it gives you a pathway to sort of head down, and and you don't need to set ridiculously high goals either. You know, for example, if you're curling 10 kilos, uh a short-term goal could be 12, a medium term 15, and a sort of long-term goal, which could be you know towards a year that you're curling the 18 kilos again with good forum, and that's where your logbook can come into that. I used to write them at the back of my logbook so that I would always see them, and a really good feeling when you could put the put the big check in the box that you'd done that. So I think I I I agree 100%, mate. For me, and I know that there's a lot of pushback on on logbooks. Not everybody will need one, but we're not saying that, but what we are saying is try it because you'll most likely benefit from it. And the reason I like the good old pen and paper is it keeps you away from the phone, checking the Facebook and stuff like that, and it gives you some some data that you can keep um across the years as well.
SPEAKER_01I think the thing with logboom is I think uh it gets people get confused with it because I don't think sometimes it gets explained um the way it should be used. I think if if you would have come to me in year two, year three of training and someone just would have said, Oh, you've got to log everything and that's it. But without explaining why, I would have been a little bit cautious to it as well, because I just I liked the the argument that people have is that I don't need to log, but I just come in and train hard and I push all my sets. And you do know what like I understand that argument. If you're that type of personality, I understand that, but you can still do that, and you can track your lifts and you can you can notice trends, uh, whether you're doing too much volume, are we recovering in between sessions? Is a movement's actually progressing. Um, so I I think actually explaining why we logbook and what the premise of logbooking is, I think that is what helps people understand it. And the big thing, mate, as we know, it's it's making sure progressive overload is happening over time because if it's not, the the likelihood of us being able to grow muscle tissue, you know, it's we're we're pissing in the wind, so to speak. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to add a rep or add more weight every week. We know that we've we've touched on that in length in previous podcasts that people want to go back and listen to the first couple of episodes on uh on logbook and progressive overload, how we go about it. But if if you're just going in the gym and your lifts are not moving anywhere in three, four, five months, it's just the same reps, the same weights, the same control. Nothing is changing. Well, your log back look the logbook will feed that back to you so you can make smart decisions and tweaks whether you're doing too much, too little, it allows you to make better informed decisions. What gets tracked gets measured, and it just stops you from going in the gym blind, so to speak. So I think that is one of the big reasons. And if someone explained that to me when in my first couple of years, I would have been more open to logbooking instead of someone just saying, Oh no, you just gotta track your training. Why? When you understand the why behind it, it makes more sense.
SPEAKER_02My pushback comes from the fact that at the age of four. 46, I've got more to remember now than I did at 26, you know, and I know that that doesn't apply to everyone in terms of age, it's perfectly valid if someone's like, I just feel my training or I go in and I know that I'm progressing. But you you've hit the nail on the head, mate, when you say, How do you know you're progressing? When we talk about progressive overload, which isn't just weight on the bar, but one thing that we know you know applies is that the stronger that you're getting, the stronger that you make a muscle, the adaptation to getting stronger is that your body then needs to grow to in order when the next time that you train it can handle the load that you put under and give you a little bit more. That that's how you grow from the adaptation of actually doing the training, and you're also so you don't have to remember 30 different exercises that you potentially do across however many days that you train, if that's four or five, it's very easy to do 30 different exercises. I know that I've got much more to remember, and I'd rather have that prompt there, even if it's just I know, for example, I'm doing eight plates on the tricep pushdown. Um, how many reps did I get last week? And you're looking there and you've got that instantly available, as opposed to you might have wasted the set then because you got it wrong, and instead of doing eight plates like last week, you went and you did six plates, so you're not going to have the progression there because you're not going to get the stimulus unless you've obviously pushed that set to failure. But anyway, we we we digress a little bit there. But the other thing is as well, is as you're saying, Francis, you want to get rewarded for the ref the effort that you're putting in, and that's one of the conversations that we always have about when we're talking about lower volume and higher frequency and also intensity. You know, they're like they're like dials. Um, I'm going to go back to the 80s when you get the old hi-fi and you've got to change the the mid and the treble and the base. You know, there's a there's an equilibrium where everything must meet. You can't have too much of that or too little of that or too much because it doesn't work. So you you want to be rewarded for your time, for your effort again, for the finance that you're spending to do your training. And I think for me, when we talk about things like this, we talk about return on investment. And the return on investment for a logbook for me is just uh it's a no-brainer.
SPEAKER_01I think what goes in addition with a logbook nowadays, mate, is is training footage and taking your phone in the gym to record some videos of your training. I think this is this is something that's so underrated, and I never done it for again the first 10 years because I had no I had no need to. I I didn't I didn't know, you know, be even before working with a coach or anything like that, and coaching people myself online, the value of video footage of your training, it's it's it's it's like it's it's a game changer. I I never even used to take my phone in the gym. I I remember years ago I was one of those. I used to leave my phone at home, and uh, if you would have said to me 10 years later, my phone would be in the gym and I'd have a tripod recording most of my sets, I would have told you that you're crazy. But the benefit of doing that, you get to see your technique, you get to see it's it's like it's like game day footage. Fighters will study your fight or other other opponents that's coming up, football teams will study their opponent coming up, tennis players, you UFC fighters, whatever, everything you you're they're going to study game footage of their opponents and themselves where they can get better. So, why wouldn't we do that? We've all got phones. It doesn't you don't even have to take a tripod in the gym. You can literally you can prop your phone down on a water bottle next to you. That's what I recommend to a lot of clients if they don't want to take tripods in. And just recording a couple of sets from your training from a day, whatever it may be, a couple of sets, and you can write that down in your logbook. I've recorded this as well. So that number now that you've put down in your logbook, it's also got a video to go with it. How cool is that? That is something that you couldn't have done 30 years ago. Couldn't have recorded your training footage like that and writing it down in a logbook. That is valuable data for you. You can go back and go, right, I've got my my logbook here. This was eight reps at 100 kilo here a month ago. It might be eight reps again or a hundred kilo four weeks later, but I've got the video footage on both of these, and I can look at both of these sets, and the the eight reps at 100 kilo now is moving so much smoother, technically so much better. There's progressive overload. Again, it's not just all about more weight and more reps. If you're moving something a lot better, more technically proficient as well. So that's another thing, mate. Again, I and I don't think anybody was recording training footage in 2011-2012. It seems to be very popular over the last couple of years, and I really do think it's a it's a step forward for getting the most out of your time in the gym. Obviously, there is the idiots who ruin it for everybody with some of these stupid TikTok videos that you see, and you know, where people are walking in front of the camera and they start huffing and puffing, and you think that they own the gym. Obviously, there's idiots everywhere, but when you're recording your training footage and you're respectful of other people's space and you're doing it just for you, and you're not making a big song and dance about it, and think the gym is your studio. It's a great piece of uh equipment to have in the arsenal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I I've seen people video before, and I actually don't mind walking around the camera, you know, to give those people the opportunity to record their sets. But like you're saying, that there's a there's a two-way street there for respect as long as they're being respectful and setting it up in a in a proper manner. I have seen some things to the the opposite of that, you know, where it's setting up for a place where nobody can get by, and and that that's just not on. I think there's a way that you can do it respectfully, and and I've even seen people come up and say, listen, I'm just about to film this and you might be in the in the in the scene. Um, do you mind is it okay if I record? And you're like, oh, crack on and even step out to the side and just let them do it. Takes 30-45 seconds if they're pressing the record button and jumping on doing their set. It's not a it's not a huge um a huge strain. But the the one thing obviously, yeah, exactly as you're saying, when you're recording your training footage, there are people out there that are going to get on their high horse about this, about you posing or or whatever it is they they want to try and decry of you recording um even like your top sets, for example, as an absolute minimum. One of the hardest things to do when you're lifting a weight, if you're going for a personal best, or you've earned the right to put another whatever it is, two and a half kilos or five pounds or whatever it is on on the bar, and you're probably super excited about that. Again, we're talking about the the goals that we've set. This could be one of your goals. I'm I'm going for it here, I feel good, I'm in the moment. Um and you've got you know your camera set up. It's it's a good way to see are you ready for that weight? Is there is there things that you can you can tweak? Because it's different when you're on the machine, especially if you're touching a new weight. Um, copyright Jordan Peters. If you're touching a new weight, then um you feel I felt that set was really, really good. No, it was brilliant. I'm ready to go up again. You might actually look back at your top set, your training footage, and go, hmm, maybe a little bit quicker to finish the last couple of reps. Maybe wasn't as deep or as controlled as actually I felt or thought I was. And that feedback is going to give you again reward for your efforts, which at the end of the day, the the mistake that we're trying to stop people make, or if we're talking about what we do differently from going in, is we'd stop those one and a half inch leg press moves. They're never as bad now, but you know, that comes from again skill set from learning and and and filming um gives you that.
SPEAKER_01And and that is the that is the big benefit of working with a trusted coach or a second pair of eyes with recording your training footage if you are unsure of how you're doing something, if it's right or wrong, and you're not really sure. You know, how working with a coach and sending them your training footage weekly, uh they can come in, decipher, and give you form tips, tips, tips, and tricks to maybe fix things for your structure, you know, where you're not getting enough squat depth, you're not getting enough range on the leg press, is your foot stance off on hack squatters. You need to change your grip on a bench press, or you know, this is all stuff that if you're unsure instead of playing that guessing game, if you're working with a coach and you you you should be recording your training footage and sending it to your coach, they should be asking for weekly training footage because it allows them to decipher what you're doing inside the gym. And again, it's very important, and also for you as a lifter and a client, it gives you that peace of mind. Am I training correctly? What is my intensity like? What is my accuracy like? Am I doing the program as intended? I think that is very, very underrated, mate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it's very, very popular. You get um some that that struggle with things like hip hinges, for example, um, chest and pushings are another popular one as well, where um the technique needs that little tweak, or perhaps just no getting there in terms of again the range of where it is from the stretch to uh the push out and and the sort of lock-in. I wouldn't say lock out completely, but you know, to to a very good degree that you can feel um your chest contract. So there's there's definitely value in that 100%, and just making sure that you've got again the the boxes checked off in terms of intensity in the set, control that you've earned for the weight that you're lifting, and maybe even to get called out and say, I see you take five pounds, ten pounds off that. Again, it's for the benefit because the bottom line, and what we're talking about here, and something I talk about often we spend a lot of our time, we spend a lot of our effort, we want to get rewarded for the time that we're in the gym. There's no point, and uh the older I get, I probably bore people to death with this. But at this point, you don't want to waste a rep. Never mind a set, a rep, especially when Francis and I we talk about lower volume at higher frequency. You get less chances to be on target, and the more on target you are with every single rep, you don't miss that's what drives you forward.
SPEAKER_01And I I've had it with a lot of people, mate, as well, and this is not to not to call people out because that's it's why people come to me for coaching and yourself. I I've had it where someone said to me, Um, I've trained for years, I know how to train, and you know, I I I when I hear that I said, Okay, well, good, let's let's see some of your training clips, and they send training clips over on week one, week two, and it's like, yeah, there's there's things to improve on here. So, what we think, and we might have cognitive bias on, we think that we know how to train. Everyone's an expert in the gym, everyone knows what they're doing because again, it's all free on the internet, mate, isn't it? So, you know, we all know we all know what we're doing, but yeah, I I I I I get that often, and it's like, no, well, you need to fix this, and you're calling people out respectfully, like that's what you're coming to me for. It would be very easy for me to just you know blow smoke up someone's ass and be a yes man. What's the that's not coaching? Coaching is look, we're doing this wrong, we can do it better by doing this. That's what you're here for. So 10, 12, 14, 20 weeks down the line, we've took a movement pattern which you were executing poorly, which you thought you were doing good by the way, and then we just we completely revamp it, and it's a totally different exercise. Now you're getting much better stimulus, more accurate. We're not wasting a rep, we're not wasting a set, as you just said, we're not wasting time, and you know, we're not missing. So that again, it's it's massive, mate. I couldn't agree more with you there.
SPEAKER_02Do not miss the thing is as well, you know, you're potentially preventing an injury, maybe not at that exact point in time, but if you're developing a groove, for example, that doesn't fit because you you think that you feel it or whatever, you're preventing any wear and tear potentially on joints that will come down the line as you start to load that. Um there's things like that. So you one of the things we again we've spoken about in previous podcasts is is injury. Um obviously injuries do happen. We're not saying that we can prevent uh any injury ever happening. Sometimes they'll happen to people, just it just happens, unfortunately. But what we can do is try and look after our joints and our tendons and making sure that you know we we've earned the right to get to this this weight because one of the hardest things that we know as athletes ourselves, we don't want to be stuck on the couch. I I've been there when when my back um played up um my SI joint when I couldn't do barbell squats anymore and tried to rehab it. And that time that you've spent down, I know what it feels like, and I know that that's not where I want to be, it's certainly not where I want to see anyone. So if you can keep people safe, short, long term, and help them produce the right form with the right cadence, guidance, all that sort of good stuff, then again it's just another thing that keeps you moving forward.
SPEAKER_01100% mate. Couldn't agree more. Um when when we're talking here about wasting reps, what about in your in the early days, wasting money? There must have been things that you wasted money on. I think this this is a topic that again for beginners they always look into supplements, and it's they're always going out buying the the most expensive supplements, and uh they again they're trying to put the car before the horse. I know I've been there, I remember in my early days where again I was mentioning about um my protein. Uh where I mate, I I was just I was buying everything on there. I was thinking I remember buying things like um HMB, um glutamine. Um HMB was a big one, glutamine. Uh I had BCAAs like in into warehouse, and I just didn't need them because I had enough sorts of protein pre and post. Again, I was having BCAAs while training, and then going to Neckta protein shake right after the last set. It was just it was overkill. Um I'm a BCA's for flavors. I had different flavours like strawberry, lemony, grape, and blueberry, uh all the different flavours, and an eight eight to one ratio.
SPEAKER_02So 41 was it good enough, it became 61. That was good enough to remember that one, yeah. Yeah, it's mad. I think it was Cy Psy Vex Extend, yeah, something like that.
SPEAKER_01The first to do 8 to 1 BCAs. Yeah, yeah, 8 to 1 BCAs, and they were more expensive. Yeah, I have to have that one. But yeah, it's a it's it's stuff like that. Like I wasted a lot of money on on some of that stuff, and I think what'll be good now, mate, would probably be to maybe talk on maybe top five supplements that you'd recommend maybe for the beginner. Like what actually works? What is what would you recommend if you could go back to yourself when you first started and go, Look, is some supplements that I would recommend? Because this is a common question I get all the time. You know, when new clients start with me, it's what supplements do you recommend? What should I take? And forget about we're not talking about the the PED side of things and you know, um, whatever peptides, we're not talking about that, we're just talking about you know, genuine over-the-counter supplements that you can go. So, what what would you recommend? What would be like you know, let's say top three, top five uh uh supplements that you can find can can really help.
SPEAKER_02For me, I'm I'm so supplement late. And I remember once I sent uh a new client, this is what I recommend in terms of the supplements, and he sent me back. The amount of money you've just saved me is already paid for having a coach. It's in the term, supplement is supplemental, it's to supplement what you don't get from your nutrition and your diet. And if you're getting everything in from the nutrition, one of my favourite memes of the BCAs is the guy standing in the pool playing water polo and he's pouring water on his head. It's like try to go for like a shower and and you're standing in the pool already. But my my top three would be whey protein, if we still call that a supplement these days. I don't know if that's just been fully absorbed into it's just something that we have now to help our protein intake creatine monohydrate. If you don't live in a nice sunny country, hello Scotland, um, a good quality vitamin D, and similarly, um a good two to one EPA DHA ratio uh fish oil. And to be honest, I'm sort of tapped out there. In terms of like let's call them must-haves, even though they are supplemental, these are ones that probably are really good to have in the arsenal. Outside of that, it's a real stretch for anything with efficacy. So your uh tribulus, you know, your natural testosterone booster. I made a little post on natural test boosters today, actually. You know, as we mentioned, like BCAs, detoxing was such a huge thing, you know, by these things that make you shit yourself, and obviously the scales go down because you dehydrate nice and easy. Um, doesn't sound very good for a long time anyway. Um, obviously, all your fat burners and stuff like that. Um the only thing I would probably mention over on top of those is maybe a good pre-workout if you need it from time to time, but certainly not be used as a crutch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I just think a good cup of coffee, mate. That's what I recommend for pre-workout for a lot of people. A good cup of coffee. If you don't want to take a lot of coffee or it makes you feel nauseous, like caffeine pills, but any sort of caffeine, like we know caffeine works, so you've just you've hit the nail on the head, mate. But with all them supplements, they're the they're the four that I recommend to anyone, right? But you you'd have to have food and everything in place first. You know, whey protein, as you said, self-explanatory. That's I think that's in most people's diet anyway. Whey protein, a good creatine monohydrate, 100%, vitamin D, especially if you're living where you don't have a lot of sun, a good fish oil, as you mentioned, and probably the only one that I would add that you'd haven't put in uh would be magnesium glycinate, um, pre-bed. Uh I think I I think there's a lot of value in that. Um, but other than that, mate, I think you've got five there, and uh you you're adding the caffeine. I think you if you'd add all of those, I think you're tapped out. I think everything else is just the value of everything else. If you've got things like um like tumerich, is it tumerich or curcumin? I think that's you whether that lowers inflammation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, who knows? I mean, there's always yeah, the you then start down the road of bioavailability and how much should you actually take. Very similar to another myth I fell for in the past. You know, green tea is a fat burner. Yeah, if you can drink 300,000 litres a day, which obviously isn't you know the it's EKCZ, I think was the active component. There's not enough in it to do anything, and again, it doesn't do anything if you're not on a negative energy balance. So if you don't have a deficit, uh green tea is not gonna um create it, and it tastes like um cat's piss as well. And every time I say that, people then say to me, How do you know what cat's piss tastes like? Um of course to that I say absolutely no comment, but yeah, you you you you you understand what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you you can have as many Chinese takeaways as you want as long as you have enough green tea.
SPEAKER_02It's like going to McDonald's and getting a big Mac mail but ordering a diet coke. Yeah, it's just uh it's madness, isn't it? It really is. Well, yeah, I think is um some salt, probably as well, you know, especially if you're active um and and you're training and your steps cardio, whatever you're doing. I think a good bit of sodium um really helps. Um don't be scared of it. There's a lot of fearmongering around salt being bad for you. It's not the best if you're very sedentary, and also eating a lot of processed food in terms of again, we just said McDonald's and and things like that, fries. Uh, if you're eating a lot of that type of fried stuff, a lot of salt on it, then it's not good for you if if you're sedentary. But if you're fairly active, I would say probably get it in. Um I salt all of my meals personally, especially um even more important in the summer months.
SPEAKER_01Uh we've had a couple of heat waves back home and across Europe over the last I'd say six to eight weeks. I have had a lot of clients, uh I've made sure they have especially that pre-warehouse window, they're salting the meals and they can utilize electrolytes as well, especially with being hot, because it's it's it's been pretty common. It's something I've I've um I've dealt with with clients before. Let's say they come to you and they say, I had a poor session today, and I don't know why. Carb time was fine, you know, they slept well, food was fine, and then I look and go, Well, did you have much salt in your pre-ware hot meal? Any electrolytes? No, no salt. It's been hot today. You go, you probably didn't have enough sodium, not enough electrolytes. We fixed that for the next session, good to go. Firing on all cylinders again. So it it can make a difference if you haven't got enough sodium or electrolytes when you're going in the gym and it's very, very hot, you're sweating out a lot of your fluid and electrolytes, it does it. It's that that's that's a uh a silent killer of performance.
SPEAKER_02The other thing is as well, exactly as you're saying, if it's hot out there, people are more inclined to drink more because they might be feeling a bit more thirsty. And obviously, then what happens, the more that you're drinking, the more you dilute the the elements that you've got, and the more you download things, uh dilute things like your electrolytes. Um which then just causes you to uh need more of them or to replenish them, certainly, because you're you're you're taking them from high concentration to low concentration. Good old um standard grade biology there.
SPEAKER_01What about back in the day then when you first started? Did you ever make any sort of mistakes when it comes to recovery? Like what did you prioritize things which just didn't really move the needle forward? Um again that's we just spoke about buying nonsense supplements, but did you do anything daft in in in in the sense of trying to improve recovery?
SPEAKER_02One one thing for me, uh I used to DJ. Um I was a DJ for nearly 21 years, so my recovery was pretty bad, I would say, being out to three and four in the morning, back up at 8 a.m. to go to work. So I talk about it now, and I I don't actually know how I managed it. So, you know, that that recovery never really happened for me, and it's something that I try and stress so much now because again, it's a mistake that I made and something that I don't want people to go through because you're constantly in a state of stress, uh having too many energy drinks to keep you going, to to blunt, you know, um to give you the caffeine and to blunt the adenosine. Um, so there's things like that where I never basically never had enough days off, and even on my days off, I was always doing something. Now, again, I'm not saying that you need to sit on on the couch two days a week and and have 500 steps or whatever. There will be people that naturally just want to do things, so if that's getting out a walk or up the hills or whatever, but one thing I would I would absolutely stress is take the time to let your body, it's not just about letting your muscles reset, you need to let your your central nervous system and and um you know the ones that go along with it, so sympathetic and the parasympathetic ones, you need to let them have some time to just you know just slow down a little. When we talk about you know growth, if you're in an improvement phase, these are all the things that really come in. You don't grow from your training, you grow from the rest that you can do. So that that's definitely one thing that I'd put in there. You know, try and have that time, that downtime, whatever it is that you like to do, read a book and stuff like that. Try and be as as rested as you can for a couple of days.
SPEAKER_01I do think that is something that a lot of people do think when they first come in the gym. Luckily, I never made this mistake. I did I did know that I needed rest days throughout the week. I always used to think the weekends off, I'd say Monday to Friday, and it was always a big recovery hit, Saturday, Sunday. I never used to try and say it every day. But a lot of people do think that more is better, and as we know, it's it's not about that. It's genuinely is about well, how can we drive max stimulus but then be able to recover and adapt? And all the things that you're talking about there, you know, making sure that we we are giving our that the parasympathetic nervous system time to you know slow down, rest and digest the sympathetic, that's what gets you going, you know, the fight or flight that gets you gonna be like that for your training, your work, you're gonna be in a very, very sympathetic state. It is making sure you're having time for that parasympathetic nervous system to take place for sleep and digest, recovery, as you say, reading the book. If it is chilling out, watching Netflix or whatever it might be for 40-50 minutes, you know, just chilling out. They're the these the big rocks that you've got for recovery, and nothing will nothing comes close in comparison to recovery. So again, really good sleep and making sure you've got enough rest days throughout the week, and then obviously making sure you your food is on point, like they're they're your big rocks for food. Once you've got them, nothing compares to them, nothing even comes close to sleep, food, and proper uh alignments if you try them on enough rest days. Nothing comes close to fixing recovery if you haven't got them in.
SPEAKER_02I think a lot of people be listening to this now and thinking, if I take that time off, then that's time where I'm not pushing, that's time that I could have been training. And I think it's really important to mention that it doesn't hinder your process. And and I know that Francis, you can speak to this because you had very recently a period where you you stepped off the gas a little under instruction, and now you've seen the benefit of doing that, and that's given you the energy now because you've let those systems come down a little bit, you've built up a bit more resilience again, so you you're re-energized and ready to go again, and it just shows that's a perfect living example that you didn't hinder one single day. This was all part of your plan that you got to a point where you needed a little bit of rest so that you could bring it back up another level and push even harder. And when we see things like obviously your pictures today, what an absolute treat. It's literally the you know, the evidence of what what rest, a little bit of rest can do for you, and a little bit of extra food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like dropping off fatigue. It's it makes a massive difference. Like we, you know, we're as you just mentioned there, we we've seen a we've seen that come full circle over the last three or four weeks for myself. But that is something mate that I would never have done. You know, when I first started, I didn't I didn't know what a D load was. I didn't, I didn't take breaks. I I was in there five days a week, every week. I didn't miss just no, I I I I I was never sick. I was I just I I I I remember for my first couple of years, I just didn't take a week off. It come, I remember after the first couple of years of training, I remember I I I dug myself into a hole and much. I was and I got sick. I was forced out of the gym for maybe seven to ten days. My nervous system and everything was just shot. I just it was to the point where I didn't even want to get out of bed. I was this this was in the first couple of years of training. I put myself into a recovery hole and my body went, no, you're not going to train. And that that was a that was a lesson for me at the time. Like the you know, the the old gym I was in with the old gym das he said to me, like, you've just pushed too hard, you're in here every year, you're in here every week, no breaks. You've just pushed too hard, and my body let me know. And that was the first time that it really bit me on the ass, and that made me think, and I was like, okay, maybe I need to be a little bit more strategic here. Maybe every six months or so I I take a period where I take five to seven days away or lighter training. And then after the sort of getting uh started started bringing in these sort of recovery weeks, I I got more into more frequent deloads, which this was a mistake again. I I've made I've made a lot of mistakes. But I used to deloft then too often. I used to go, I used to train four to six weeks, and then I'd deload, I'd ramp volume up, deload, ramp volume up, deloads, but every six weeks, so you push one, two, three, six weeks, so you're you you're you're at the maximum, right? Maximum recoverable volume, and you deload and you start up again. That that I I'd done that for a couple of years. Again, it was just an experiment, a new way of trading. But it was I was deloading too often because I was pushing the volume too high that I couldn't recover from. And if you're deloading every six weeks, well, you think about it, you're spending eight to ten weeks in a year deloading. So I went from not deloading to bringing in deloads to then doing them too often. So you're getting both ends of the spectrum, and again, where does the answer lie? Somewhere in the middle. You know, over the course of a year, you're probably likely gonna have maybe two D loads that are gonna come in naturally from trips away, like maybe vacations, holidays. That's what I say to a lot of clients is look, if you if you know you've got a holiday or something coming up and you've been at it for six months, take a break, take five to seven days, switch off. Let that be a the planned deld there. Don't don't plan in a delo after six weeks I've got to pull off after eight weeks. No, just go with the flow. And when these trips maybe come up and you've you've been at it for a long time, be smart and strategic and use the deloads around that, spend time with the family, just switch off from the gym, and then you come back rejuvenated. So that that's how I prefer to go about D-loads these days.
SPEAKER_02I think as well, psychologically, when you say I'm gonna do something every X weeks, if that's eight weeks, you can potentially talk yourself into how you're feeling and how you need it, yeah. As well, I mean, obviously, we can talk about volume and and how many rest days and structure and all that, that that plays a part into it. But I think when you're saying I'm gonna do that every X week, I I think psychologically that can push you into a place where you're like, Yeah, I really feel like I need this when you probably don't, and again, if you're making that that judgment, then there's probably too many across a year. Using July and myself as an example, I had some work trips and I also had um a holiday, so I knew that I was going to be training nine days less for the month anyway. I'd into that my rest days because the way that routines are and stuff like that, it's not as flexible as as you once could be. So that month of July, I've had more non-training days than I've had training days, but I've been absolutely okay with that, and then what happened obviously when I landed back, that's me ready to go again. Um, and I feel good for it. I'll obviously see the benefit of that, and it's a little test as well for myself because over the last 12 years that's probably the longest breakslash amount of training days in a calendar month, save for having I'm not gonna say the word, but the let's call it the big flu. Um that I've I've not had training, and it's just one of those things, it's it's worth having those sort of experiments to see how it goes, but I only probably find out what that's like in the next uh couple of weeks, but it's the longest in 12 years, even coming off of comp preps in the past, maybe like a day or two off, and you're straight back into it because you're trying to maximize the rebound.
SPEAKER_01I think uh a lot of the things with D Los, mate, and the taking time off. I think people are against it, and it's more mentally. It's because physically we we know we can probably just keep pushing it. It's the mental side of things that we think, oh no, we're gonna step back, we're gonna we're gonna lose all our progress, we're gonna lose gains. We're that's that's that's it's like the inner critic, that's what comes out, that's what stops people from sometimes taking a little period of five to seven days rest. And again, it's something that I I would never have done years ago until when you've you've pushed hard for a long time. And not to say that you deserve a rest, uh, because I don't think that's the way to put it, but when you've when you've put your body under that much stress for a long time, taking a little step back and refilling the gas tank, changing the tires on the car. I always use the example of the F1 cars that are going around the track. They might have 60 laps, they don't go around 60 laps all in one go. They have the pit stops, a little bit of a D-loads, a little bit of a pit stop when you really need them. Use them strategically, it just allows you to go back around the track faster and more proficient again. That's one of the best analogies that I that I like to use for D-loads. So, yeah, I think a lot of it's uh it's all in people's head.
SPEAKER_02It makes sense, and we've touched there on the on the psychology. Um, and that's one thing that comes through as well. Is nowadays on social media, we've got physiques, you know, left, right, and centre, where we compare ourselves. We maybe didn't have that back in the day. Yes, we had the magazines, and even as far back to not you, Francis, but the 1980s, um, you know, like E-Man cartoons and all that. So you've had you've had those images, you know, as you've been sort of growing up. So comparison is there, but it's something that I think is worth calling out because you don't want to end up comparing yourself, and we say it often, there's no point if you're just started and you're even let's say year one and you're looking at somebody in year ten, you've got a journey. I I think it was you, Francis, that made a fantastic. I think it was a video where you were talking about bodybuilder, let's just pick one. Samson Dowder is the first one that comes to my head, and he's doing a two-plate squat just in this example. Samson Dowder didn't bring build his legs on two-plate squats. He was maybe using two-plate squats as either a warm-up or the last exercise, or he's refining now, but he didn't use two-plate squats. I think those comparisons against things that we see online in the context is something that nowadays is is a mistake to stop people making.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it I've used the a very similar example. It was about um I think it was about Nick Walker. Like people see Nick Walker train now. Now, the way these pros train now, uh what I've always said is that that's a snapshot of their training career right now, right? So, you as a beginner or someone who's you know pretty new in the lifting game, if you see an influencer or a top pro or anyone, the way they train now, that's a snapshot of their training career right now, of what they need. They've built a lot of muscle tissue probably through traditional methods the first decade, right? But they're not showing you that now, they're showing what they need to maybe stay stay healthy to collect the paychecks for shows. Again, Nick Walker and Samson, they're not gonna do anything remotely dangerous right now. They don't need to, they're not gonna train the same ways they did in year five, year six, because their paycheck, their paycheck and their ability to step on stage safely is all determined and them getting to the stage safely. So they're going to train in a way that is going to keep them safe and allow them to collect the their earnings, of course. So you looking at that as a beginner, we've touched on it with Samson. There was a video of them doing that tricep push down and yeah, that one plate on the stack. You don't know the context behind that. That could have just been for a pump up or it was a warm-up or whatever. But someone who's new with no triceps will be looking at Samson and going, You train it like this, I've got to do this, and it's not the way to go about it. So always take things with a pinch of salt when you're seeing pros the way they they're training 20 years in. You want to look at what how did they train for the first five years? That's more important for you to look at. It's very important to get that across to people, you know. If you're very new or early on in the game, even people who've got a couple of years of experience intermediate, so to speak, don't get bogged down by what you're seeing some of these top-level lifters do because likely what they're doing now is what you need.
SPEAKER_02I think it's always as well, just focus on you, and you can sound really cliche, but it's one that I really like. You can only be the best version of yourself, and that best version only comes if you can keep yourself in the gym, keep training, keep progressing. We we've touched on things in this podcast and and others that keeps the focus. It's why we're such a big fan of putting a muscle under tension and controlling it, it then protects your joints and your tendons for many years to come, because that's one thing that we know. It takes a good few years to build muscle, and you're no good if you're injured and sitting on the couch. And that wee segue sort of takes me into one thing I was I was gonna say, Francis, is if you had you know the the biggest lesson to take away, like five things you would tell yourself from back then.
SPEAKER_01Five things. I think the I I think one of the first ones may would be maybe don't be as uh as dogmatic about exercise selection. I know we've we've touched on that as well in podcasts um previously when we first started. I was I think like episode two or episode three. I used to always be dogmatic, uh, maybe about barbell lift like you have to maybe squat bench deadlift in the early days. That'd be one of the things, and I I've completely changed my mind on that. I think that the very important exercises, and they are great, but you don't have to do it. Um, that'd be one of the big ones. Something something else that changed my mind on massively, as we just touched on, is deloads. I think they can be beneficial, but I don't like to plan them, I like to take them reactively. So I'd say the exercise selection piece, the deloads, and then something else. Um we have touched on it in previous podcasts. Yeah, we could we could do it, we could do a full podcast on this, but not getting as fat on building phases or bugs or improvement for seasons, whatever you want to call them. I've gotten too fat on a couple of those in the past. Um, that could be a whole podcast in itself, but yeah, there's three for you. So exercise selections, deloads, and getting too fat on bulks.
SPEAKER_02Mine would be first and foremost enjoy the process. It's a long process, it's gonna take time, so understand that you're gonna need to be consistent over time, but one thing you'll need to develop is discipline because motivation we've again we've spoken about it, we're not always motivated, but it's discipline that carries us there, and as well, just remember that supplements, most supplements don't matter, and take your progress pictures. That would that would be mine.
SPEAKER_01The progress pictures one mate. That that that that leads me nicely to finish off with this. I think this is an important point, and we were touching on this before. But you say about focusing on you, it it's so cliche, but it's very true, right? We just we touched on before. I I posted a photo today, like you know, I'm I'm six weeks out from travelling home. We're getting very close to being stage lean. I have posted that photo today, and I I I wouldn't have believed that I could look like that ten years ago. I'm I'm very proud of where I am and looking at that photo, and it fills me with sort of um I wouldn't say gratitude, but it's like I'm patting myself on the back, like I'm like, yeah, you've you've you've you've you've worked your you've worked your ass off for that. But that's all come from as we touched on before, not focusing on what others are doing, not caring whether somebody else is natural or not, or what's he taking. I've I've never ever given a shit about that. I have just enjoyed the process and enjoyed being the best version of me. And that's what's allowed me to look at those photos today and and be proud and be like, yeah, we've we've we're bringing the best package that we possibly can for the for the for the stage debut in a few weeks. And I think it's just important for people to to hear that from someone who's trained for 16 years. Keep your blinkers on, keep crafting, and honestly, it it all pays off. It's it's it's so so important to just keep your blinkers on and keep working and enjoy the process, honestly. It's it's massive.
SPEAKER_02It's all worth it in the end. There are days and weeks and months, even where you may you might even think, you know, why am I doing this? But like that, when you start to put it together, and ironically, I was having that very conversation the other night in the gym where if someone had said to me in 2013 when I started this'll be you and in 2026, I would have bit their hand off for it, and I suffer as well from the same you know things that others do where you're like, oh that could be better and this could be better, and it absolutely could, but I can only be better than I was back then because I know that I've turned up and I've I've done what I could over a concerted period of time, and that's really what it comes down to is how often you can keep turning up and keep doing what you do because you get the results at the end of it.
SPEAKER_01That's it, mate. And it's just a as we we touched on another podcast, you you build that resilience, keep moving forward. When life throws you shitsanis or a shit sandwich, which it will do when it comes to life with your training and you know working around things. One of my favourite quotes is uh bounce, don't break. You know, you you choose your response and uh you just just keep putting one foot in front of the other. A decade down the line, waiting to see.
SPEAKER_02100%, mate, and we we've done it again. Um just need to we we need to repeat the the thanks for all the support and and the ideas that we get. Um, we will be looking to do another QA podcast in the not too distant future. So if anyone wants to have a topic that's covered, um get in touch with us. Um if there's anyone interested in obviously online coaching, um Francis is on X at CoachFHM. He's on Instagram as Francis Milliar. Um, I'm on X as Benjamin Yeezus and also on Instagram as well. And the email for each of us is in the footnote if you want to get in touch, and we we promise we we don't bite, honestly. We don't. Another good episode, mate, and uh enjoyed that one. Absolutely, mate, and already buzzing for next week. Um I've uh when you mentioned this topic today, I was like, yeah, this is gonna be really good, and I'm equally excited for next week as well. So thanks as always.
SPEAKER_01As always, mate, a pleasure, right? We'll speak to you all next week. See you later, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Cheers.