How To Build A Mass Monster - Protocol Rationale With Craig And Mark (OptiCast Coaching Series)

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🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO 
Dive into the world of advanced bodybuilding coaching as Mark Tomanek and Craig Wilkie unravel their meticulous approach to training, nutrition, and supplementation. Discover how they optimize physique transformations, manage health, and maintain long-term success.

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🧠 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction to high-level physique coaching practices

02:02 - Craig’s background in football and transition into bodybuilding coaching

04:19 - The significance of bodybuilding heritage and early muscle development

07:04 - Reflecting on Craig’s last competition and the decision to change coaches

08:42 - The importance of client feedback and making autonomous training choices

11:15 - Managing inflammation and health markers visually and through labs

13:50 - Training structuring, volume management, and client autonomy

15:19 - The role of knowledge, experience, and continuous education in coaching

16:52 - Handling complex health issues with lab work and behavioral assessments

18:15 - Signs of systemic inflammation beyond water retention

20:07 - The importance of electrolyte balance and individual variability

21:34 - Tools for adjusting sodium and potassium based on labs and phenotype

24:16 - Building trust, confidence, and systematic communication with clients

26:17 - Strategic volume reduction and training adaptation during prep

33:52 - Pharmacological strategies: PEDs, peptides, and short growth phases

42:29 - Prepping, tapering doses, and pulsating compounds for growth optimization

49:39 - Craig’s approach to growth expectations and body composition focus

58:50 - Long-term growth strategies, lean bulking, and health preservation

63:25 - Adjustment in diet, incremental food increases, and tracking for sustained progress

70:37 - Managing food compliance challenges and trauma-based eating issues

75:10 - Future plans, long-term health monitoring, and strategic long-term growth

78:34 - Importance of injury prevention, health, and mental well-being post-bodybuilding

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I'd say insanely surprised. Now I knew I I remember talking with Sam because I had never been that lean before, ever. And I remember talking to Sam, I can, I can grow so much so fast because I got so lean, uh, leaner than I ever have been. And he was writing out my training plan for the for the uh for the recovery phase. Right then, and he was asking me questions about what Olympus had, what I like, what I don't like, stuff like that. I already knew. I was like, if I can play this right, uh, there's no reason I can't grow. Although he did give me a one-week training break after the show and it killed me.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Welcome you guys to another episode of The Opticast, which is the only God-ordained podcast on optimization on the whole entire world. Guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode. Today I'm joined by Mark Tomanek. Did I pronounce this correctly? Yes, sir. Mark Tomanek and Craig Wilkie. Guys, this is going to be a different episode. As you see, we have a three-way thing going on here. I wanted to use a different word for three, but I'm not to because, you know, I just want to, you know, just make sure you guys are going to continue watching and I'm not going to get banned. But what I want to show today is basically what high-level coaching looks like in practice from the ground up, from the assessment all the way to the end of a growth phase to a peaking protocol and all of these things. The work that Mark has been doing with Craig and the work that Craig has been putting on himself has been mind-blowing. Recently, there was an episode on the Unwracked podcast with uh, you know, with a couple of like high-level people that basically looked at his physique transformation in a health phase and they were like, What the fuck is going on? Like, I I want to keep up with this. Like, uh definitely send us another physique update later down the road because this is not normal. And when I saw the the the the photos, I was blown the fuck away, guys. Like for real. I was uh I was like, what do you mean? Like a 16-week health phase, but then you guys also like grew like a motherfucker in the health phase, which is something that is not supposed to happen, but you know, it does happen, especially when you get like health markers in place and and everything is moving in the right direction and your body is not just trying to survive all of these like amounts of drugs and shit like that, like your body's actually thriving. So let's start with an introduction of who you guys are, and then we're gonna move over diving straight into the previous uh show that you guys had. So, Craig, why don't you start? Well, who who are you? What do you do, man? Uh are you like a soccer player that just decided to like do bodybuilding on the side? Like what do you do, bro?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Great intro, by the way. But no, I'm Craig. I'm um 30 years old. Uh my background is uh football. So I played football growing up. Um and I kind of lifted through football, but it was more power cleans, hand cleans, deadlifts, bench press, stuff like that. Um, and I found that it came natural to me. I was really good at it. For some reason, I couldn't explain why. I was ninth, tenth, eleventh grade, but I was really good at it. And turns out I was better in the weight room than I was on the football field. So I thought, uh, I think I could do something with this other than this over here, you know. Um, so I played a year in college, I shadowed my strength coach in college, and that's what I originally wanted to do. I followed him around like a like a dog. And that's originally what I wanted to do. But I ended up uh graduating college, gotten to a job in the PT world. So I'm a personal trainer at Lifetime off Falls of Newson Road in Raleigh, and it's uh and I love it there. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Almost joined last night, dude. I was on the on I was on my phone. I was like, I want a pool and a place to do hit cardio because they have a bunch of equipment. So but I was like, man, 300 bucks a month for me and my wife, that's kind of a wad just to go to a pool and hit cardio, man. Fuck me. But it's a dope place. It's a it's a dope place.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

It's not a gym, it's a country club.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Yeah, that's where it is. But no, I I love it there. I've been there for uh this always to be five years. Um and I love it. I just build my business, train my clients, go home. It's so nice.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, you have the perfect bodybuilding life. And what about you, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Mark Tominick. I own the Iron Syndicate coaching company. I actually grew up in the bodybuilding industry. So I watched my dad uh when I was like two, three. Uh first bodybuilding show, three years old, standing on a seat next to my mom, my mom holding me up watching my dad. And uh I remember that. And I remember powerlifting competitions, powerlifting meets happening in my gym, five years old, watching my dad go pound for pound with a bigger guy. I just grew up in that that atmosphere. My parents owned a gym. Dad opened it up in '86. It's still open today. It's just a grunge, hardcore, brick walled gym. It's dirty, it's it's grimy right now. Since it's hot and humid out, it's probably 95 in there, 100% humidity. You better bring an extra set of clothes when you train with us.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

You don't even need a sauna with red light. The sun breaks in and you're just fucking, yeah, just I I know that those places are they kind of get the best out of you for training, man.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

We uh we get it for free. We don't need to pay, you know, we don't need to pay uh but it it was a hard environment to grow up in because it was a bunch of hard asses all the time. Um and that that bridged over into my own athletic endeavors very well. Uh grew up wrestling. I went to college, wrestling at Notre Dame College, four-time national champions there, and played rugby as well. So I did double sports there. And then finally, once I graduated, went on my own bodybuilding career, where coached myself to start. And actually, I took all of my dad's old notes from his old coach Ronnie Poyman, which is no longer with us, rest in peace to him. I took those notes, I reverse engineered them, started, and I was on forums, obviously, bodybuilding.com forums, all the different forums, watching, reading John Meadows, Phil Viz, read all those guys. So I give them a lot of credit uh for obviously kind of paving a way in those environments. And uh, you know, I took everything that I had known, learned, and started to put it into practice. I actually put my first athlete on stage who was a friend of mine before I even went on stage. And so I know a lot of people are like, man, you compete at one local show, now you're a coach. I I was that guy. And uh she ended up taking first. So, and from there, we kept, we kept winning, and and I only coached my friends for many, many years until I finally went full time and retired from my teaching position in 2020. And uh I retired from my own bodybuilding endeavors the same time, roughly the same time I went full-time because I could no longer service my athletes the best. And I knew for me to become a professional bodybuilder with my genetics, it was gonna take far too many drugs and food that I was willing to do to my body. And so I took this, I took the path of just, hey, I'm gonna coach people. And uh, we've done an incredible job thus far, taking care of people, winning pro cards, Olympic qualifications, pro wins, you name it. You know, we we've done it now at this point, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, dude. Fuck yeah, I love it. Especially the the part of like, man, you didn't have a lot of experience and everything, but you kind of grew up into it. It's kind of like that scene of Batman and Bane, where it's like you merely adopted the darkness. I was born into it. Yeah. So we're built different. We're built different. So let's start with the the previous show that you guys had, not the most recent one. What was that show? What was the feedback that you guys got from the judges? And what was the assessment that you yourself made, Mark, in deciding like, okay, this is the direction I want to go and and this is where I want to move, which led to the offseason that created this like great package that you guys brought more recently.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Go ahead, Craig. Because I didn't do that show with you.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Yeah, so the Greensboro show in 2020, November 2024, uh, I was with uh another coach, and funnily enough, my wife Sam, she was with Mark at the time. Uh and I was with another coach for the Greensboro show. And we took uh that was November and uh I won that show, took on the Oak Brawl. I was in a light heavyweight. Um funnily enough, I barely made light heavyweight that prep. Barely made it.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Which light heavyweight is like 170 or so?

SPEAKER_03 7:42

No, 180, right? Light heavy is you have to be under 196. Okay. Should be 198 and a quarter, right? That sounds that sounds better. Maybe I weighed in at 196. 198 and a quarter.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Which is already which is already pretty big. It's uh it's already like it's a decent fucking size there.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Right. And and I did that show. That was one of the worst experiences I've ever had. But I did I finished it and I took on the overall great. And then I left my coach in after that show in December, and I started with Mark right around uh January time of 2025.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Okay. Now, now you you've you've you've had to make a a tough decision there because you you said you know it was one of the worst experiences, however, I won the overall, and like I left my coach. Can you get at a little bit more detail? Obviously, we don't want to bash anyone. We we understand like different people have different approaches and stuff like that, but at the same time, it's like it is a decision that people have to go through when considering like their own success. You have to be kind of selfish when it comes to your own development and stuff. So, how was that decision-making process for you?

SPEAKER_03 8:42

At the time, it was rough, but looking back and it was easy. So, let me tell you why. So I was watching Mark coach Sam through her off season. So she wasn't good. She was just she was just in her offseason, and I was the one, you know, on prep, getting ready for the show, 12, 10, 8, 6 weeks out. Um and I honest and the way he coached her in her offseason, the way my coach was coaching me in my prep was so different. It was like I was waiting two, three days for a check-in response.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah, during prep. So we're losing. During prep.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah, on the offseason, I can I can kind of understand that, but during prep, it's uh we're seeing a bunch of stuff on social media right now of like coaches ghosting people and stuff like that. That's completely unacceptable. So yeah, that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

And he would uh and it it felt it felt like I was like a almost a third or fourth priority for him. So you know he owned a business and then he had this other business and then he had his family, and it felt like I was in the back, back, back seat. Uh and it felt like that the entire prep. Um, and uh that was my first ever coach. First one ever. Uh I competed 2019 in the OCB. Uh just self-coached that my 2022 show in the NPC I did with Sam. I self-coached that, and then I wanted to hire someone for this show, so I did. I hired him, football experience overall. And like I like I told you, I watched Mark coach Sam through her offseason be way more detailed, way more on top of everything than I was, and I was six weeks out. Yeah. So after there was some other stuff in the background as well, but after the show, I was kind of like, hey, I appreciate everything, but I think I'm gonna go another route. And a month later, I got with Mark, month and a half, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Okay, okay. And then you guys started working together. So, Mark, you you you picked up Craig. The first thing I'm I'm assuming you're going to do is go over his history, go over his past experience, and assess his physique, and then try to map out a plan from that. So, how was this process for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah, it was it was pretty straightforward. Uh, when I got him, I was like, man, I just want to reverse this physique. I want to get this hell, I want to get this healthy and and make sure that we drop all inflammation. Because when I was looking at the physique, I was like, it's a little inflamed, it's over tax. And yeah, you can experience some of that, you know, post-prep, obviously from pushing. This was just a little bit over that threshold that I'm comfortable with. So for me, it's like if I can get a physique more refreshed, less inflamed, it's always going to be more responsive. And that's men, women, doesn't matter the phase, less inflammation, better response. Uh so that's one of my main priorities. And like some inflammation is good inflammation. We know we need inflammation and to actually encourage recovery to some degree, right? But then there's that systemic piece that sets in and people get hyperinflamed. There's swings in water retention. So for me, it was like, okay, let's go into this health phase, make sure let's prioritize health. So health supplementation all in alignment with what we would see as a typical baseline for a bodybuilder. But I need the lab work to confirm and make basically move through a few pieces to make sure, you know, we're covering all the bases and essentials. And even in that reverse, I'm already planning with the training that I prepare and the volume distributions that I set, I'm already preparing for what's going to grow or what our targets are. Um, so I don't give like a train program, like, all right, this one's specifically just for the reverse. Like, no, no, no. This is the setup and the foundation for what's going to be the evolution of your training and your physique. Because I always like to look at training from a standpoint of it's a it's a live organism. It's going to change, shift, and morph as we progress, which is why we do week check, week-to-week check-ins. I know a lot of coaches in the offseason are doing like bi-weekly, you know, check-ins. And that's crazy, bro. That's crazy. It's so much time that you lose, bro. Tell me about it, man. And not only that, like Craig's Craig comes from experience where maybe check-ins weren't the priority all the time. You know, timeliness. I get to my check-ins within an hour. Like, even doing this podcast, I know people are going to be stacked up, be like, yo, where's Mark? And it's been an hour, it's been an hour. You know what I mean? And that may seem a little bit obsessive, but I sit down, 6 a.m., and I get to work and I don't get up from my chair. Now, I want to deliver that same experience to Craig so we can build confidence in coaching again. One thing that I get when what when I get people that have a lack of confidence in coaching, in the coaching experience that they had, is I want to build that trust again. I want to build that confidence in our, and I want to build that repertoire, that repetition so everything's systematic. And the way that I coach, the way that I use Google Sheets, and the way that I plan everything out, everything's dated, timed, detailed. And I want, I don't, I don't want someone to look at their sheet and be like, I don't know what the fuck we're doing. So really, I wanted to make sure, like even in his progress tracker, it was, you know, hey, reverse week one, week two, week three, all the way through. Here's the changes, here's what we're doing. I want to work food up. I want to get them to a place where everything's a little bit more appropriate. And I paired that expenditure. I sorry, I paired the intake to the expenditure and his recovery demands of the training that I had set. And again, I still believe in a reverse, and we'll talk about Craig's reverse from Nationals, people can grow. You put the right people in the right circumstances, the right volume distributions, the right food and recovery. You don't need drugs to grow. I find more people grow off drugs in most cases than they grow on drugs and growth.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

I've I've had I've had a health health phase that I was breaking PRs. Yes. I'm like, what you know, I think a lot of it is like just the body follows the mind.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So a lot of times when we set in motion in our head already, we're like, hey, man, we're going to this health phase or this cleanup phase, the progression kind of stops here. We're not growing per se. Well, people stop growing. And because of that thought process is, but when we set things up, I'm like, hey, look, training PRs are still at the forefront of our mind. We may be in an RIR setting at some times, but two RIR is still fucking hard training. People hear two R and they think it's easier. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

No, no, no, no. Yeah, it's because they don't understand. They don't fucking get it at all, man. They don't get it, especially when it comes to like connecting to the target muscle itself. There's there's it's one thing to go to failure balls to the walls with poor form on a chest press and just grow your front delts versus just squeeze and contract and stretch the fuck out of your chest while your triceps and your and your delts are like barely working and you're hitting like two reps away from failure. That shit is hard as fuck.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yes. Most people's two IR is is is is sick. It's so far off the mark. And so when someone comes on, I'm not only building that trust value, I'm building repetition, I'm evolving their training and getting it suited in terms of volume distributions and targets, and I'm getting their recovery demands set up. I'm meeting all those demands, but I'm also teaching people to train better. I've been training since I was 10 years old and I've had incredible mentors I've been blessed with in the training department. So what I do is I take all that knowledge that I've gained and I try to instill it in athletes. So, you know, we do training video reviews every check-in. Craig still sends his, even though his training is fucking perfect at this point. But when I say, when I say there's a reason why Craig has progressed the way he's progressed, just study the way he lives and the way he conducts himself. And and there needs to be no conversation after that. Because after that, my dog could take over the programming and he would still progress. 100%. 100%. It's insane. I don't even, I don't, I hate taking the credit because I'm like, dude, your work ethic's insane. There's a reason why you're you're progressing the way you are. Yeah. But that was my whole process. And then what I wanted to do was get into a growth. Once things were set up, he was healthy, we checked the lab work, everything's looking pretty good. That's when I start scaling in the non-andabolics, you know, progressive modalities. So our GH, our insulin, start pairing that in nicely, making sure that's systematic, checking fasted glucose, postperandal blood glucose, making sure all of our trackers are in place. That way we could then add the anabolics in, layering those in and then scaling appropriately as needed. And that was the whole thought process there.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Okay, okay, I love it. There's there's so many things to unpack here. So I I want to go like step by step, but just one note here, especially for the coaches who are listening. You know, I've had a previous experience where I was for a short period of time, I was working with a coaching company and uh getting the clients that were from another coach transferred to myself. And it was a fuck ton of clients like all at once. And the biggest challenge that I had was that this coach had absolutely no fucking checking notes. Like it was just the initial plan with no explanation whatsoever. And this wasn't a bodybuilding thing, it was functional health. So I'm dealing with like parasites, cybo, candida, fucking thyroid issues, like all of these complex cases. And I had absolutely nothing to work with. I was my hands are just fucking tight. So, like, if you are a coach, I think one of the things that you can invest in the most is building a fucking great spreadsheet where you can have all of your notes, the notes from your clients, save like screenshots and a bunch of stuff because all of that is extremely useful. The best clients that I have are the clients that are part of like my my OttaLab Experience program, which gets like very, very nitty-greedy on the detail part of things, a little bit different than lifestyle coaching. But I I would certainly encourage people, and especially like nowadays with AI, it's like you can literally just tell what you want on a spreadsheet and it'll pick up or on your browser and just fucking made it for you. So I would definitely encourage people to do that. Now, you mentioned that when you were starting out, uh, you know, one of the issues that you were facing was a lot of inflammation, and you saw that inflammation in the body before even seeing it on blood work. So, how what what was this, what were the like the signs that you saw in his body that were like, hey, this is inflation, this is not just like water retention. This is not just like, you know, a little bit of stress. Like, what is what is actually seeing? Because if for a lot of people, especially the people who are not into bodybuilding, they hear like, you know, oh, I'm inflamed, and they think like, oh, I just look puffy. And most of the time, it's like, no, you're just fat, you know. But in bodybuilding, it's a little bit different. So, like, what what was the what were the signs here?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, there's a few clear indicators when I look for inflammation, and a lot of it actually comes from electrolyte balance shifts in the renal axis. So it because you can see that visually. You don't even have to know the serum levels. I can literally almost, at this point, my career, I can almost guess the serum levels of potassium and sodium, knowing they share inverse relationship, looking at a physique and go, Oh, yeah, yeah, I know where we're at. So that's what one of the clear indicators that I'm looking at to clear inflammation is hey, how are we sleeping? How are we recovering? Okay, so that's point number one. Make sure that our training demands and our recovery demands meet. Like that equation has to pair up nicely. And we can notice that just from his training feedback. Are you progressing? You know, are you sleeping well? Are you waking up feeling rested or are you feeling groggy? When you're in the gym, do you want to be there? That desire to train is huge because a lot of people miss out on that point. They just beat themselves to the ground. That desire and excitement to train is non-existent for some people. For Craig, it's, I think I'm a firm believer it's always on. He dude always wants to train. Yeah. So that's one of the indicators there is from a more psychological recovery aspect. The second piece is visually, we should be able to see, especially in a reverse, we shouldn't see puffiness. And again, that's excluding body fat. Um, body fat's going to accumulate, but we shouldn't see puffiness. Specifically, it's going to be in the sock lines for people. You'll see a little bit of that edema, not extreme edema, but that water retention set in the sock lines that gets heavy. Um, you may see it in the face a little bit, sometimes under eyes. Um, yeah, or the cheek a lot. Yep, yep. Sometimes you'll see it in, and also if there is systemic inflammation, it's compiling, you'll notice the body, the areas where they preference body fat, that'll compile a lot faster. It'll start picking up the pace, even if you don't touch food. So I look at body fat levels too, just from a visual standpoint of doing this for a long time. I'm not sending people to do a fucking DEXA scan and have a three to four percent variant there. I'm not.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

You don't you don't use an in-body scan? Come on, man. That's the the peak of talk. Dude, I get people on consultations so often and they're like, Yeah, man, I'm you know, I'm 60 years old and I'm like 12% body fat, and I'm like, damn, you're leaner than me. That's crazy. That's wild, man. Congratulations. And they're like, I'm not leaner than you, and I'm like, yeah, because you're not 12% body fat, dude.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah, yeah. They're pretty inconsistent, and I don't, I don't ever they don't hold water in my evaluations at all.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And then what I'm also doing is two major things. Um, I'm making sure the electrolyte balance from not only food intake, but also additional sodium added is the equation is pretty well balanced in favor of an intracellular holding rather than a subcutaneous holding from the electrolyte standpoint. You'll see.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Now that's that that that's an interesting one. I I I want to pause there because I see a lot of like individual variability with electrolytes. I was recently asked, like, what's the best sodium to potassium ratio? And I'm like, for you, I don't fucking know. I don't know your diet, I don't know your training schedule, I don't know your sleep, like, but it changes. And I've I've noticed that in my physique, you know, I I do uh salt in my meals. Uh, that's all that I do. I just put about 30 turns of salt, which is a pretty significant amount of salt. But then I put just potassium in my water. When I'm drinking my water, I put a lot of potassium. And I noticed that after adding potassium as opposed to more salt, my pumps got better, like significantly better at the gym. Like even when I'm having like 200 grams of carbs. So, how do you like figure out what's the best uh, you know, potassium and sodium for uh, you know, ratio or milligram amounts for like a certain person?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, so a couple different ways. If I have lab work in front of me, I'll be able to see serum, potassium, and sodium levels. I really don't want to see sodium in that bottom end of the range and then the potassium creeping up to like 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, right? Getting closer and closer to the hyperkalemia range. But you'll find the higher stimulus a person is, and that goes for good and bad stimulus, the higher that potassium value is. And that's just from the renal the adrenal access, right? Going to produce aldosterone, aldosterone comes down, impacts the renal axis, and basically starts to skew that ratio. So in cases like that where I know historically people are overstimulated, and we could easily say most people today overstimulated. So it's a safe bet, right? But if we have lab work in front of us, we'll be able to know that that sodium potassium inverse relationship. We want to bring down the potassium, we want to clean up a look, we can drive up sodium very easily. So for me, if I have the lab work, I'll use it. If I don't have it, I'll look and I'll start. What I do is I do a lot of personality profiles on people when I work with them. I start to learn how they speak, how they talk about themselves, how they attack their day. Even when someone gets out of bed and they're kind of rushing around, they're trying to get the kids out the door, they're trying to prepare their food, they're trying to get themselves out the door. I'm like automatically person's in an adrenaline state. Okay. Cool. I know that person starts out with a shift in electrolyte balance, and we can go ahead and counter that a little bit with sodium. And now I'm not fixing the stimulus issue. I will fix that at a later date and try to reteach them their thought processes, their plan of attack for the day, uh, addressing the stimulus issues that are pretty consistent. But usually it's again, it's it's person to person, but those are some of the steps that I walk through. And then the last and final measure to determine whether or not someone has a great sodium potassium ratio is their training performance as well as their pumps and how do they look? If we're looking puffy as the training goes on, we can tell the balance is probably off. If they're getting more puffy because their body's getting more stressed as the as the training's continuing, they'll get more puffy, holding more extracellular water, less intracellular. The pumps won't be extreme. If you now flip the equation and you correct that, those pumps will get more extreme. They'll have a tighter look, those pumps will hold longer. And so there ends up being more intracellular. Like you'll see people when you go to peak and be like, all right, now I want you to pump up, hit a few rounds opposing, and then check back in in 10 minutes. And they'll they'll tighten up, you're like, okay, that electrolyte balance is pretty correct because now we're shuttling things intracellular rather than extracellular. However, there's the inverse of that, obviously. But yeah, that's that's about the process I go through. That's the thought process. I know that might be a little bit confusing, but it is per individual, starts with labs, moves on from there to performance, to daily life assessments, personality profiles, and making those adjustments.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Awesome, awesome. Okay, so got the health taken care of, fixed the the main issues that were there, started building the off-season with the reverse being part of the off-season. It's not a break, it's not a, you know, just maintaining or anything like that. I find I find that like most of the people that just maintain on a health phase are the people that approach it, like you said, with the mindset of, I'm not gonna grow anyways. So they don't even try, so to speak. So you moved on from that phase and you started building the off-season. So in the off-season, let's start with training, because that's what we've been talking about. Like, how did you layer in like the sets, the set number, you know, the exercises and the rotation? Because I know Craig's schedule is a little bit, you know, kind of complicated. I see you training, you know, one day like super late at night, and then one day like in the afternoon, and then one day in the morning and stuff. Like, how did that work? Because that's very, very difficult. I, whenever I'm working with people, I try to like help them build their schedule. And for a lot of people, it's like all over the place as well. And that makes it very challenging for progression because, you know, you can have a session early in the morning where you're 100%, but then a session that's going to be late in the afternoon and that ends up pairing with you, like with your weak body part. And you need to be a hundred percent, but you can't be a hundred. So, like, how what walk me through those challenges and how you you structured that for him in training?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. So I try not to get into too much nuance. The more I go for like nitty-gritty details and things, like for example, trying to counter Craig's schedule, the more complicated it becomes. And if you're adding complexity and complication on top of an already existing complication in terms of schedule, it only makes it worse in most cases. So, what I did is I just was like, all right, straight up, here's a few different things that I want. I'm gonna organize the volume distribution so that we are prioritizing our weaker body parts that we need based on his previous competition physique and what we want to grow and where we want to be, which is NPC Nationals. Um, and I already decided on the phone when we talked in our first conversation, I was like, Craig, I'm gonna get you to middleweight. And and so for me, it was like, he's like, there's probably he's in his mind, he's probably like, there's no fucking way. I'm like, no, I'm gonna get you to middleweight. And so, you know, with that being said, like in my mind, I was like, okay, I need to be selective about how and where I add muscle tissue. So those volume distributions are gonna pair up with that nicely. And I give my athletes one single rule about training or one thing that they can really take with them and it gives them a lot of control. Is this there's a part two to this as well. Part one is if you need to take a rest day, take a fucking rest day. Pick up where you left off in the training programming. A lot of the training programming I do isn't necessarily week to week because your body doesn't know if it's week one or week two. It doesn't give a fuck. It just matters if it's recovered or not recovered. So what I'll do is I'll build a training scheme so that way they can take a pause and take a training day or rest day wherever they want and just pick up back in the rotation and keep going. Doesn't matter if it's split.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. It's not a Monday, chest day, Tuesday, back day. No, no, no. I don't care what day it is. Your body doesn't care what day it is, only you probably care what day it is. Let's go train if we're equipped and ready and we're recovered. So with Craig specifically, like I want him, I know he's smart enough to know and I can, I can trust him and I can also get great feedback for him. So we also layer in a training questionnaire. That questionnaire is going to fill me in about how he's recovered, how he's performing, what he feels like he could do more of or needs to do less of. Like it's very simplistic, but it also is very insightful because this is where great athletes and great coaches really start to come together is through collaboration. What I say is not the end all be all. I'm not Alpha Omega. There's only one of those. And ultimately, I want athletes to have some autonomy. And I want, I want you to be able to make decisions for you. If something doesn't feel right, tell me it don't feel right. And let's take a look at it. If something's not matching up right with recovery, let's take a, let's take a little, let's let's take a look at your behaviors, your sleep, right? The training itself, we may have to make those adjustments. So that's that's that's part one and part two of how I organize this training is basically giving him autonomy. Even though Craig may not take the rest days as often as he probably should in some cases, I know he can still make the right decision and and he can do what's best for himself because he's he's the thing is most bodybuilders, Neanderthals. He he's not. He's he's he's very smart. I know he's coaching people, I know he's training people. At the end of the day, I know he's not gonna be like completely hardcore to the point where no rest, rest only when I when I'm dead. Like he will take the rest when it absolutely comes to it. And that's one thing I can appreciate about a lot of the athletes that I work with is they're very smart people and I can trust in them. So that was really how I set that up and planned that in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Yeah, and I I love that the the the way that I do for training as well. It's um, it's it's it's so some of the things that are a little bit similar. It's like I have a a book and a and a course that's in development now, but it's a it's a book that just basically gives you like the framework, and then you can make your own decisions because you know I I go by Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, and one of the most important ones in the peak is autonomy, is the ability for you to make your own decisions. And I much rather teach you what to do so that you're not dependent on me like every time and you just need to send me a message and be like, hey, should I train today or not train today? Should I do this or not? Like, what do I do? It's like, no, I'm giving you the whole framework, everything that I know, and the way that I think about all of these things, and you can make your own decision. So let's start building some autonomy. And I find that some coaches are afraid of doing that because they think that if the clients learn that, they're gonna leave. And I'm like, wow, so the only thing you can offer is a fucking schedule? That's shitty as fuck, man. That's uh maybe, maybe you deserve to be left, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah. Even in and with autonomy, I've learned even in peak week there can be autonomy because there's no rules to this game. In anything that we talk about today, there's no fucking rules. Yeah. So in Peak Week, I have Rachel Sedwick, uh, who's IFP figure pro. She's peaking right now for Alabama in Peak Week. I'm still doing macros. I'm gonna do macros all the way through until show day.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Because I'm prepping someone right now for a show at the end of the year, and we're just doing macros, and someone asks me, like, dude, aren't you afraid of everything and stuff? I'm I'm like, I have I have access to his app. I'm seeing what he's eating. Like, why would I it's same, it's the same fucking food. And his gut is gonna be healthy because there's variety in place. Like, if you're not dealing with complete idiots, you know, or people that prefer it for their schedule, it just fucking works. And and you end up seeing that I I bet that she's the same way. These people end up eating the same thing every day, no matter what. Anyways, you know, it just makes their schedule easier.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yep, yep. She's smart. And when you give people the autonomy, it gives them control, it gives them more confidence in what they're doing. And a lot of times it comes back to what I said before the body follows the mind. If they think it's gonna be great for them, it's gonna be great. If they think it's gonna be bad, it's gonna be bad. So in the parts where they think it's gonna be bad, I'm gonna assure them and back them up and give them the support that they need and the education they need to make the right decisions.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

I love it. I love it. So in nutrition for Craig, when you started working together, did you prefer, like, hey, since we're starting, let's put macros, uh, let's uh, you know, let me put macros and let me watch how you eat? Or was it like, let's actually go on a meal plan so I can understand how your body responds in a more controlled environment? How was that?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, so I always ask my athletes, would you rather have meal plan or macros? And Craig was like, Meal plan, just tell me what to eat. And so it makes it easy. You know, so what I do is then I go through my typical, I want a bunch of protein rotations in, different protein variety, uh, different fruit variety, you know, some vegetables. I want to meet fiber ratios, like there's different things that I want to meet, and then I'm gonna balance that electrolyte balance. And honestly, it was a little bit more important for Craig coming out of the reverse for me to take the helm there just to make sure everything was intact. And once, once we get to a point where everything's stable and everything's consistent, you know, I don't have a problem with people taking over. And in critical situations, you know, I'm I'm definitely gonna take the helmet. I'm gonna teach them why. I just don't want to tell them because I said so. You know, that's one thing that when people come to me, uh, you know, I want to, I'm trying to build that trust value and uh I want to educate them at the same point in time. And that was one of my that was one of my core things with Craig too. I want to I told him on the phone I would teach him, you know, as we're going through. And uh, you know, we we've successfully done that.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Yeah, awesome, awesome. So, Craig, you you started working with Mark. The first thing you saw was uh a few changes in training program, a few changes in nutrition, uh, a few changes in supplementation and communication. How was that process for you on like changing everything? Were you like excited? Were you like completely bought in from the beginning and everything, or were you like, I don't know if this is gonna work out? Like, how how was it?

SPEAKER_03 32:21

I knew it was gonna work out. As soon as I hung up the phone call with him, knew it was gonna work out because I had experienced all the the extreme on the opposite side, the previous prep. Um, and it was cool because I was in the background of I already saw it. I already saw it. I saw the I saw the detail, I saw the Google Sheet, I saw everything. Uh, and I was like, I want that. You know, absolutely. So I was looking, I was so looking forward to it because uh the show was at the end of November, and then I took December, just the four weeks of nothing, and then we started in January, and I was so excited. I was so excited. And then it and it worked out tremendously.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, I love it. Now, you guys ran through the whole offseason, then you started prepping for the show, okay? Which was a fucking great package that you guys brought. You were significantly bigger, and I was watching you at the gym. It was like every fucking photo that this dude uploads updates is like fucking more peeled and just looking more gnarly every single week. Your shoulders are completely absurd. Like you could probably get back to playing football and not even have to wear the shoulder pads at this point because you'd have fucking basketball shoulders, bro. Uh, that shit's fucking insane. So you started prepping for the show. Did you guys make any changes in training or it well, before we get to the prepping on the show, let's talk about the stuff that people actually want to know here, which is I I I gotta give you guys a little bit of this. PDs and peptides and and and and non-ergogenics in place as well. For the offseason, what did you guys find that worked out? What did you guys find that like, okay, I didn't like this so much? Do you guys find any bottlenecks or something to change based on his previous approach and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 33:52

There was only one bottleneck I was worried about, and and that was just liver detox capabilities.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

You know, because of a lot of uh a lot of like oral use?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

No, well, it was just because of the previous prep uh and that inflammation. And I knew the body wasn't clearing inflammation appropriately to the level that I would want it at. You know, I I I do expect obviously with the uh degree of training and intensity that we go through, the liver's gonna have a hard time clearing some of that to some degree with such training intensity. And then you add toxic load on top of it, the liver works. You know, it's it's kick it's kicking its own ass sometimes. So that was my only concern and and and reservation was like, hey, look, I'm just not going to add a huge toxic load here. Instead, I'm gonna really rely on the in the timeframe that we had, which by the way, our growth phase that we did prior to NPC nationals was only 11 weeks. We only got 11 weeks of actually enhanced growth phase in out of anabolics before we go into contest prep because the turnaround time was so quick. He started with me in December, and we got to be in one year timeline, we got to be ready for NPC nationals. And so for me, it was like I'm gonna layer in the GH and the insulin first, get that set up. I want our insulin ratios per meal correct. I want to make sure that postprandial value, everything's clearing. I want to make sure liver detox and methylation capabilities were all on par. That way we can clear toxic load and we don't accumulate inflammation through the growth phase, even though it's relatively short, and then basically set us up from there. So that was my only that was my only reservation with anything.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Did you guys find it like, hey, I think that because we only have like 11 weeks, let's opt for short esters, let's opt for some orals, let's opt for some like uh a little bit of a more aggressive approach instead of titrating doses up. Let's just start at say like two grams out the gate or something like that. Like, how was that?

SPEAKER_00 35:40

You know, his dosages were relatively low. I think, God, what do we get to a thousand milligrams total of androgens, I think, in that 11 weeks?

SPEAKER_02 35:48

For the growth phase?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, for the growth phase.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Are you fucking serious? Yeah, dude. I like it's so it's so hard to like, it's hard to believe, even though I have athletes that face the same thing. Like, I I literally have one guy right now, I've talked about him before. We we started his TRT protocol, he put on 35 fucking pounds on 175 milligrams of testosterone a week in three units of GH. Like, what the fuck? And it's like a lot of people are like, man, it's probably more drugs. I have never had a conversation like this before, where the coach or the athlete was like, Yeah, dude, we went from like 1.7 grams to 2.3, and that's when I grew. Like, normally what I hear is like we bumped the doses up, and then my sleep went to shit. I started feeling more inflamed. I I had acid reflux, my blood markers went to shit. So we had to cut the phase shorter. Like, there's it's I I I urge the people who are listening to this to really like take that in because more is usually not better when it comes to enhancement. Uh, for some people, it is. Some people have a better tolerance for these things. Like I've talked about my own dose of TRT before to keep me at like 1300 nanograms per deciliter. I need about 500 milligrams of testosterone a week. So I convert very poorly. But that is not a choice that's coming out of like, I want a cruise and I don't want to lose muscle, so I'm gonna like cruise on 500 milligrams or something like that. That's not the case. It's because if I go down to 200, my levels are gonna be 600. I'm basically fucking natural. So it's uh, you know, it's a little a little bit different. But when it comes to like the GH and the insulin, uh, in my experience, like in personal experience, not experience with clients, I responded very poorly to insulin. It just created so much fucking inflammation in my body. And it wasn't anything crazy. It was like 20 units of Lanthis, and I think like maybe 20 units total of humolog a day or something like that. But over the course of 18 weeks, it beat me the fuck up. Like I've ended that phase so incredibly inflamed. It was crazy because I was just on test and Mastron. And so I was supposed to look dry and I looked super fucking like fluffy, so to speak. So how did you how did you manage that with like the beta cells and and and stuff with uh with insulin?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Yeah, I think there's, as you know, there's a ton of myths around insulin and gh, but the body already creates them. So what we're doing, we're basically, besides the GH, we're just helping and assisting the body. And that's how I look at it from my applications of insulin. Let's say, for example, we're gonna throw out some just hypothetical numbers. Let's say the body produces 200 units of insulin via pancreas right a day to cover food. But our if our food exceeds that amount, well, then the body has to produce like beta cells have to work harder, and that's where they lose sensitivity because they're not able to keep up with the demands. Because now if I can only produce 200 units of insulin via the pancreas and I have a 250 IU demand or unit demand of food going in, I'm a I'm in a 50 unit deficit. I I gotta find a way to get that because eventually, if I don't, I'm gonna have massive amounts of inflammation there's cut because the glucose is still not clearing the bloodstream and it's just floating, just consistently floating, right? Or it's being stored as body fat. And I find with people using insulin, there's there's a few prerequisites when it comes to use of insulin. And the one thing that I have to know is is the athlete ridiculously consistent? Consistent to the point where it's nauseating for some people. If we're not that consistent and that detailed, as Craig is, I can't apply insulin because there's going to be timing issues, there's gonna be in in how I have to run insulin or how I run insulin, not how I have to. I run a very fine line of basically if you wait too long, you may go hypo, right? And a lot of people will be like, oh my gosh, that's dangerous. Then you don't know alpha cell functionality and it produces glucagon and rebalances. Let's not even, let's not even go there.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

No, it's it's so overblown. The the hypoglycemia thing is so fucking overblown. It's like people are so scared in bodybuilding to do it. And I'm like, have you talked to like a fucking half retard that's just walking in a scooter or Walmart and takes insulin? Like those motherfuckers are taking Novalin R, which is a pain in the ass to manage, and they're not dying. So, like, how come? Like, we we look at studies where they try to cause like you to fucking die with with like hypoglycemia and you just don't can't.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Can't the the issue, the issue with insulin for me is is never that people are gonna die. I I I I'm hard pressed to see an issue of a person that again is a healthy person. We're talking bodybuilding, die from insulin. And and again, it would have to be such an extreme case, you have to attempt to do it. And even then, glucagon still is produced by the alpha cells in counters. Okay, so with with us, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to look at the postperandial. I'm going three hours post-meal and I'm determining what that postperandial value is. That determines my insulin for that specific meal. I try, I try to have some degree of a ratio in mind for the whole day, but it has to actually be a ratio per meal. That way I know exactly how much to the unit of insulin to use for that meal. And again, you got to account for carbs, of course, but protein and fats, because insulin clears all of it to some degree. So you can't you can't just sit there and go, well, okay, my carbs are this much, I'm gonna take this much insulin. No, no, no. You're you're missing two macronutrients, which are still very important that insulin transports, because insulin and gh both do not grow muscle tissue. People think that these are big growth products. They're not. Growth hormone just releases energy substrates for recovery purposes, but then the insulin needs to come in to transport those energy substrates, i.e., triglycerides, glucose. So if that's the case and that's the functionality, I all I'm doing is basically making up which the body can't produce enough for, i.e. being insulin, based on our food demand. So if Craig needs 200, 250 units, but he's in a 50-unit deficit, I'm gonna replace that 50 unit deficit. Again, just throwing out hypothetical values. That way the glucose is clear from the bloodstream. We check that via postperandial blood glucose levels, and he should wake up with his fasted insulin level, uh glucose level within range. If I can keep that in the 80s, then we're gonna stay in a really good spot. And the more consistent he is, the easier it is. The GH I can drive up and I do two IU increments, intram like intramuscular, and I won't do more than two in terms of dosing, because we know IGF levels, they peak and they don't they can't really go above that threshold. So what I do is I just do two IU increments throughout the day at various parts and the muscles we're training, put it in the muscle, and uh we get a really great growth response out of it. And that's what I based most of my growth off of of building that and rep in repetition before I added the anabolics in, which I only added a gram in. And Craig, I'm correct on that dosage, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Uh I don't know if we got up to a gram before we started prepping for nationals. It was either 900 or right to a gram, right in there. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Relatively close.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Now then you guys started prep. Whenever you started a prep, did you titrate those things down or did you continue like growth hormone, we're gonna keep it up, insulin, we're gonna remove it because we're gonna start, you know, RETA or something like that? Or how was the how was the like do you do you tend to use higher doses in the um uh in the prep versus the off season? I've heard arguments for both cases. I think both cases are warranted depending on the client's situation. So how was that process for Craig?

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, so shifting out of that growth phase, I really was basically I was bridging a growth phase into a contest prep. And with the timeline we had, we had done it in, it would have been roughly the same, roughly the same range as like an enhanced growth phase in total, anyways. So for me, I didn't necessarily need to bridge, I didn't need to scale down on any compounds necessarily, except for testosterone. Uh the GH I trans, I train, I I transitioned. I went from six IUs on training days, I went to two IUs fasted daily for fat loss purposes only. So I just two just two IUs fasted daily for fat loss.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Was that pharmaceutical or like whatever?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

I believe that was just generic, right, Craig?

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Generic, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

But what I like to do in terms of PED applications, this goes for anabolic, non anabolic compounds, is I I like to use many different compounds, but very small dosages of ease. So you get you get the benefits, but you don't cross that threshold, that inverted U curve you typically see. For example, use Trinase, I'll use Transe. 50 milligrams a week. People will scoff at that. I'm like, that's where the best, that's where the best amount, that's that's the best amount of traines. You get the glucocorticoid effects, right? Yeah. Blunting those, blunting that process, and we don't get serotonin, dopamine depletion. And the people sleep in prep, which we know sleep is the main driver of fat loss. So yeah, it doesn't matter. Like for me, I'm not too focused on dosage as long as I can get the benefits out of it and not hit that inverted U curve of these compounds.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Yeah, and I I like that a lot. Like I one thing that I do is, you know, pairing trend balone with Windstroll because both of them have an effect on cortisol lowering. So you can you can literally like crush that shit entirely. You you don't want to do that for a really long period of time, but once you're getting towards the tail end, it's a it's it's a strategy that I find to be very useful. And I'm also a big fan of combining like multiple uh uh compounds. I found that for certain people, this approach actually tends to not work because their body cannot process so many different compounds, so they respond better to just like two or three things at a time. But it's very, it's very individual-based. And I know this is frustrating for people listening, um, you know, especially because like a lot of a lot of my listeners are very advanced. Like the people that I started working with, they usually already have coaches. Like we're working in partnership and collaboration and stuff like that. Like they're not beginners at all. So it's frustrating because you you buy a bodybuilding course or something, and you're like, now I'm gonna learn how to do this. And it's like, no, you learn one way to skin the cat, and there are so many. And if you try to go buy the book, just like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a prep. So I'm just gonna like pull this course and I'm gonna go week by week copying exactly what was done. I'm like, you're gonna put a piece of shit on stage. It's gonna look like absolute dog shit, man.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

I always and I always tell people you can buy all the textbooks, all the course, but it'll never tell you what my eyes do. My eyes will always tell you more than your textbook.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

And that is coming from someone, look, dude. I just I just spent another two grand on education last week. Like, I'm I'm I'm I'm getting close to a hundred grand on like mentorships and coaching and all of this type of stuff over over the course of like fucking a decade, right? Not just like a single day year. But it's uh the experience is you can't beat that at all, especially the more you get to work with the person, like the longer you work with someone, the fucking best results you get every single time. Like it's it's like it's so predictable. When you're when you're working with someone that just like, hey, I just want to do a prep. I'm like, we can do that. Like, it's not gonna be great. Like, you should go in for at least an off season, even if it's like a 10-week off season, just so I can learn your body and stuff. So started moving into the prep. Do you guys lower the amount of sets that you guys do during the prep for recovery purposes?

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah. So as time goes on, I just pull back on that volume. And we could do that numerous ways. Uh, I go through like rep block drops so that way Craig can keep progressing because I know even two weeks out, that dude will find a way to progress. So for me, I'm like, okay, well, let's strip back on the volume. I'm gonna lower the the target rep ranges for us. And if I need to, I'll start pulling top sets or intensifiers. I start stripping back on that so we can still make progression because the way to either gain tissue, if you can genetically, or maintain all of your tissue is to strip back on the volume and keep intensity as high as possible and weight as high as possible in training rather than the volume. A lot of people switch the wrong direction, they strip tissue.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Oh, 100%. And I I uh I tried on this foul loss phase that I'm in right now to maintain roughly the same amount of sets as I was doing in the offseason. And I was able to do that for four weeks. And then after that, it was like, fuck me, I'm so tired. Like I'm going to the gym every day and I like I hate it. I don't want to do this. I'm like, I put my legs on the platform of the leg press and I'm like, why the fuck am I doing this? And it's like, that's not an environment that is conducive for growth. So I basically went down from push-pull legs, which is like five to six times a week at the gym, to just four times a week at the gym. And now my passion is back. Now my training is progressing again. And it's like, man, you're just you're just training upper lower twice like twice a week. And I'm like, yep. And I think it's fucking working. Like when I look at my physique, it's better. Like this, these like plateaus and things like that, like they were clearing out so fast. It's uh it's it's it's fucking crazy. It's it's really wild. So you guys basically strung together an off season into the prep. You guys got ready for that show, and it was a significantly better package. Well, Craig, when when you were like looking at what you brought in, like, were you are you like a very self-critical person of like, man, this is like okay, but my legs still need to come up, or like I need some more chest, or like, yeah, it's it's all right, like this is this is fine, but like I really would like to see more. Or were you like, fuck, this is dope. I cannot believe I'm like, I cannot believe that this is my physique. Like I can, I can, it's just like so bought into the process. How how was that for you? Because it was a completely different prep than the first one you could experience.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Yes, yes, it was it was definitely the latter. Like, even when we started the prep, I was in a better position than I was for the Greensboro prep. Uh, but the entire time leading up to Showtime, I was I was just like, this is incredible. My physique has never looked like this before. And I was happy. And I remember when Mark told me uh that we're gonna suck down and we're gonna make middleweight on the phone call back in January. I remember I looked at Sam afterwards and I was like, I just almost died trying to make light heavy.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

And and he was like I remember I talked to you, I talked to you in the locker about this. I I remember I remember talking to you. It was like so many people had that just like go through these off seasons and they add like one pound, two pounds in their off season, and they kind of stay in their light, you know, weight like forever without moving forward, and you were like, I don't want that shit to happen to me, you know. And I was like, it's not gonna happen, bro.

SPEAKER_03 49:24

It's yeah. Yeah, and and I remember even uh down in weight throughout the whole prep. I was like, that I mean, I'll just keep getting better and better. Like this is the best I've ever looked, and I'm okay with it. You know, that that's that was my mentality.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

How long was the prep, Craig?

SPEAKER_03 49:39

Twenty th if if you don't count the like the pre-prep phase that we kind of did, which I think was four, it was right around twenty-three, twenty-four weeks, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Okay. So pretty, pretty long, but uh it's uh it's better to have a longer prep than to not have uh, you know, be behind so to speak. Because if you're behind, you're gonna have to sacrifice tissue, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

And yeah. One of the so reasons uh one of the reasons I wanted to do nationals that year was because I got married in 2025. Uh, and I was like, I don't want to prep during my wedding, obviously, or my honeymoon. Uh so you had like another two weeks of wedding and honeymoon stuff into that, and then we started to prep after that. So that was that was part of it as well.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

Okay. So you guys you guys went through that prep, and then what was the feedback from from the judges that you got?

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Uh so backstage, I can't remember the guy, I can't remember his name uh that I talked to, but uh, he said posing was good, conditioning was was really good. Uh he just said you got gaps to fill. So he's like, the other guys that beat you, they place ahead of you because they have less gaps that you do. So uh one of it was chest thickness.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Or the gap.

SPEAKER_03 50:45

Uh chest, chest thickness, density, uh lower lat, lower back thickness, uh, and then my legs. Uh because when I was posing, I had a pretty significant thigh gap. Uh so they're just like bringing the a little more density and a little more girth to the legs. Those are the top three things.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Okay. Okay. Okay. So you finished that show and then you guys went through a very long health phase. Why, why was it that you got that you guys ran a health phase that was so long? Was it based on on blood markers and just like was his scheduling? Like what happened there?

SPEAKER_00 51:16

So one thing that we were still concerned with. Well, actually, there was there was a couple things. One, we had a histamine issue pop up in like a couple weeks out. That histamine issue was ultimately an issue where he would get like sniffles and like puffy eyes. Uh, so he was like almost an allergic reaction. And more than likely, it's a combination of you know, his job was taxing. You would get a ton of steps during your job. We have some degree of a toxic load from PEDs. We're also cutting down quite a bit, quite significantly, getting to a place where he's hyperlean. And so at that point in time, like the histamine issue was pretty well expected. So, and again, that not everyone experienced a histamine issue. But if we're gonna have an issue, I'd rather be a histamine issue because that's pretty easy to fix, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Mm-hmm. And then Was that something you guys just fixed with like enzymatic approaches and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 52:09

Yeah, yeah. So bromine and a cure setin combination there, but more than likely that was gonna be alleviated in his reverse. Uh, but that reverse and health phase lasted a while for a couple of reasons, besides the histamine issue. There was also strain on his kidneys, and I saw the EGFR dropping, and I had to get that again. It was 68. It wasn't anything horrendous. But for me, I want to see that in the 70s and 80s at least. You know, so I wanted to make sure that that was up a little bit. Also, liver was having a hard time clearing again. So these are things that are just isolated, not isolated, but they're more specific to Craig and how his body responds in higher stress situations, physical, emotional, mental. We see these two major items, liver, kidneys being the two targets. So I wanted to give the body an appropriate amount of time, just of downtime. We just went through a growth phase, a prep, getting his leanest place ever, which was insane, crazy peeled. Give his body a break. He deserves it. But not only that, there's one other factor that came into my determination of holding here was the progression was nuts. I I saw him getting better and better every single week to a point where I was like, I don't, I would I'd be a criminal to change anything. We're basically we're progressing without anabolics, we're progressing just on food and training. I'm gonna let that go as long as I possibly can, and we did.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's kind of how you how you have to do it, right? You have to play it by ear, so to speak, but at the same time, you have to be able to just see where the body is like really telling you where to go. Cause it kind of like if you're paying attention to the feedback, it's kind of building your plan for you. And I I I find that a lot of people that try to force their own approach or their own philosophy onto someone, they tend to get the worst results because they're not actually basing it off of the feedback of the client. And that's that's something that you learn with the with experience, and that's something that you can, you know, bypass a little bit by working with a mentor that has another set of eyes into these things and stuff like that, and uh also trying different approaches with yourself before you're you know using your own clients as uh you know a lab rat, so to speak. Did you guys use a lot of like peptides in the in in this in this phase to uh you know enhance the recovery and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 54:23

I don't think we used any, did we, Craig? Nope, not a single one.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

We didn't use it, did you guys do just just uh insulin and j?

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, just those two. I I could have added in a ton of peptides, but honestly, I was more just about giving him a break and using less of everything, less complication. And again, I'm not against peptides. I use peptides quite frequently myself and in my athletes, but as a situation I knew it would remedy itself for Craig. It was gonna remedy itself either way.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

Yeah, yeah. Now, Craig, were you surprised that you grew so much in a health phase?

SPEAKER_03 54:59

Insane. Uh I'd say insanely surprised. Now, I knew I remember talking with Sam because I had never been that lean before. Ever. And I remember talking to Sam and I was like, if I played this right, I can I can grow so much so fast because I got so lean, uh leaner than I ever have been. So I I remember like the day of the show after after finals, Mark was sitting in the in our Airbnb room and he was writing out my training plan for the for the uh for the recovery phase right then and there, and he was asking me questions about what Olympus had, what I like, what I don't like, stuff like that. Uh so I already knew I was like, if I can play this right, uh there's no reason I can't grow. Although he did give me a one-week training break after the show and it killed me uh because I wanted to get in there so badly. So after that week, we then we started to get the ball rolling. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Okay, okay. Now, what was the approach PD-wise for that phase? Did you guys just bring it down to TRT or a little bit like bump it above that? Like, did you guys keep some other like non-testosterone-based compounds in place as well, just in case? Or how how was that?

SPEAKER_00 56:03

It was for anabolics specifically, it was just TRT. We went 180 milligrams a week, and I kept it there at a baseline. The other introductories of non-anabolics was the GH and insulin, which uh we were up to four IUs. And the insulin was just based on a per meal. Uh, the average ratio per meal was like 25 to 1. So and again, it fluctuate it can fluctuate on a per meal basis, but yeah, that was that was it. And and Craig hit the nail on the head because he was so lean, if he played it right and he did it appropriately and didn't blow his reverse, he would grow faster than he's ever grown before. People, I think people really underestimate about one, how lean they can get, two, how much that sets them up for success in the future for their growing. If somebody the leaner somebody is, the quicker I can get them to grow very easily. Especially if I play my insulin and growth hormone ratios correct. And they're if they're consistent, we're gonna zoom in progression. I've had many guys progress in crazy ways doing this, but they were really, really peeled because of it, or really, really peeled, which allowed this to happen more so.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Yeah, yeah, no, 100%. And I've had I've had people telling me, like, man, you're not even 200 pounds lean, which I'm like, dude, 200 pounds lean is insanely big. Like, that's the first thing you need to understand. For a 5'9 guy, 200 pounds lean, I could, you know, you could have a pro card at being 200 pounds lean. So it's uh just just don't don't take that, you know, as like, oh, fucking lightweight and shit. That's just social media of people saying, you gotta be 200 pounds, otherwise you're fucking victim weight. And I'm like, you're fat. That's just the only thing you are. You're you're 20% body fat, you call yourself 15 because you have no idea of how body fat distribution actually works. Um, but I've decided to do it like an actual lengthier phalos phase to be able to string a couple of growth phases together, not just because I respond very poorly to acute interventions. Like if you were to just drop like a thousand calories to put me on a mini-cut, I'm not gonna be able to adhere to that. But if you drop 250, 500 every week, I'm the I'm able to do that like no problem whatsoever. And then just like getting to that point where I'm really lean, I don't care what my end weight looks. Like, I don't care if it's gonna be 177 pounds, I don't care if it's 183, 160. I don't give a fuck. Because what that slingshot effect of like being able to reverse into a growth phase for a long period of time and be able to do a growth phase that's like fucking 26 weeks, like half a year just growing in a controlled environment, you can't beat that. You can't beat that. And I I think that you are a little bit similar to me in this, which is like you haven't really talked a lot about like rebounds and stuff, but I tend to think that like rebounds are super fucking risky. I think they shorten your timeline in terms of growth of what you're actually able to do. And I really I'm really skeptical of being able to put tissue that fast. So, like, we know that it takes about eight weeks for new cells to form into your muscles. So, like, what what really are we accomplishing in six weeks? And we're gonna have to put you in a health phase anyways. The longer we stay on anabolics, the longer the health phase has to be. So, why don't we just drop it to like, you know, a six to ten week health phase, and then we do this the right way, which is like we know growth is gonna be slow, it's gonna take a long period of time. So just fucking bump it up week by week, slowly. So you guys started, uh, you guys got to that health phase. What was the the point that you were like, okay, now now I think we're ready to push because you guys have been growing. Like, how many pounds did you put on in this health phase? And what was the point that you were like, okay, now it's time to actually push the needle here?

SPEAKER_00 59:32

So we we started the reverse. We were on stage at what, 188, 189, Craig? After filling out. 188. Okay. So yeah, yeah. So we we make middleweight, we get up to 188 there. And I remember one time we pushed 189 a little bit, but we were still watery, so we had to flush that. We actually started his reverse uh right after that, and we ended that health phase holding phase at uh 227. The the thing, the thing that I kept track of to make sure, because like a lot of people say, well, I'll just, you know, I'll just eat a ton and I'll I'll get up and wait. No, no, no. I was watching Craig's glutes to make sure he wasn't adding body fat. This man still has glutes striations at 237 right now, and they might be, they might be starting to flutter. They're holding on for dear life. But at 227, his glutes are still peeled. He could go win a regional heavyweight at that 227 mark with with ease. It wouldn't even have been hard. The so for me, it was where his body fat levels at, and knowing notoriously, Craig has had a problem with inflammation in the past, I wanted to keep that in mind too. If I pushed too hard in that slingshot effect, whether I pushed with drugs or I pushed with food, I knew there was some going to be some bounce back. The body was going to punch back. So we just had to play it smart. And we were really, he was really patient. I give Craig a lot of credit because he just trusted in the process and was cool with holding. There were weeks on end, sometimes two, three weeks, where we didn't do anything. We just let it go. We didn't touch anything. And and that's where I think people, and especially guys in bodybuilding, they they get so excitable when they see someone do something or hear somebody do something. Like people are gonna listen to this podcast, like, I want to try that. I want to try, you know. They and then I'll get a lot of questions from guys about like, well, what do you think about this? We should we add this in? I never got one of those questions from Craig. Craig was like, Thank you so much for your help. I'm gonna get to work this week. And that was it. Every response, I'm gonna get to work. And and and that's why he was so successful. The guys that try adding in all these things and get excitable, I find that the program changes too much and things become immeasurable. When we add in too many dials and you're and you're turning the dial, you're turning dials every which way constantly, you can't get an actual measure or read on how the body responds. Now, within our time together, and in regards to the rest of my roster, over 75% of people I'm with now or have been with me three to six years. I've been with Craig for a very short amount of time relative to most people on my roster. But we've got this so fine-tuned now, and Craig is such an animal when it comes to the work that we've been able to refine this process with ease.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Now, Craig, you you started the growth phase. What were the expectations there? Because we were talking before we started recording. I was like, I don't know how long this growth phase is going to be, which is a it's just actually a great place to be because you're not just trying to force the body to do something that it can't. Like, what what what are your expectations for this growth phase now? Like, are you are you thinking, like, man, we're gonna be able to push like 250, or you don't care about weight whatsoever. You're just like, I just care about fucking eating my meals and training and just market just does the rest.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

I get excited for training almost every single session. Uh, I get excited for every single meal. So if he puts it on the plan, I'm most likely gonna get excited for it and I'll be fine just doing the work. I told I told him uh I was talking with Sam the other day, and I was like, 250 would be cool. But like if I don't get it, it's okay. You know? Uh because I know that Mark's gonna write make the right call for my physique. So I'm like, if he tells me if he puts in my plan.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:05

Yeah, like what's the point of getting to 250 if you're gonna have to drop to like 197? And just like what the fuck? You're gonna have preppers dropping almost 60 pounds?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:13

Yeah. So, you know, he knows he knows what's best for my physique. And if he puts in my plan, run two miles every morning, then it's gonna suck, but I'll do it. You know, so that that's kind of like where I'm at.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

Now, Mark.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

You don't want to transform into a runner? Now, Mark, okay, you started you started the the the growth phase here. What was the what was the change in uh in diet for him? Did you did you move it up like quickly? Did you do are you more of like a moving up like slowly, like 500 calories at a time, or you know, even less than that? I I personally go very, very slow to the point that if you're not actually adhering to eating the exact plan, you're not gonna notice any changes because I just dropped like 200 calories, and 200 calorie variance is very small. So like I tell the clients like, dude, you gotta be locked the fuck in in the health phase and in the fat loss phase because otherwise the growth, we're just gonna fuck everything up. Like, I I try to explain, like, if we're trying to bump you up like 0.25% body weight a week or 0.50% a week, and you accidentally like one week just, you know, just eat off plan and your weight went up 1.5%, you just lost three weeks of growth because of one fucking week. So how how how does that how does that work with with him?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

That that delicate of a balance is actually really important and it's really hard to maintain for most people. Craig was already at the amount of food that was needed for him to consistently grow. All that was needed to happen to go into the quote unquote growth phase was add in the anabolics. So the food was already up on par. He was already above 4,000 calves. So that was a consistent thing, right? It doesn't take a ton of food for Craig to grow. He's he's pretty moderate with his food in most cases, comparatively speaking to some people that I've coached or some people I do coach that are a thousand carbs a day. So Craig's Craig's food intake of 4,000 calves wasn't anything crazy. What I was gonna do from here was only gonna change his food based on recovery and performance demands. So if he was under recovery, I would either A, look at the training a little bit more deeply and see if volume distributions or volume in general just needed to change, or B, could he sleep better? You know, is there more sleep that we can get? Could we change our schedule? Could we change our behaviors? If the pumps were there, but they started to fade mid-session, then I would feed. Then I would add. So it was only based on feedback that I had that was conclusive evidence. Because otherwise, I'm just adding food to add food. And the one thing that I trusted in Craig was eat on, eat on plan. Because once you get up in calories, I find most people, when they eat off plan, they under eat. They think they're eating a free meal, but they actually end up under eating once their food gets high. So a lot of people, once they, once they're in a growth phase with me, with max cows going, I find that they'll eat off plan, like, oh yeah, I had a food, I had food off plan. But like Craig has never had an appetite issue. So I could trust if he went off plan to eat a free meal. With Sam, he was going to eat. I've seen this man eat crazy amounts of food. It was, it's been wild. So, so for us, it was, it was very structured, but there were times where he off plan and I knew he was going to eat enough food. Sometimes that amount of food off plan that he had, even that one meal, was enough to carry us and keep going in the growth phase. So his food didn't necessarily move up. We were at uh, what was that, 4,000, like 4,050 cows, and we ended up scaling up. Even now, I think we're only at like 4,500 and we're like 10 weeks in or 11 weeks in. So it really was just feeding based on what was needed for him to maintain recovery and maintain pumps in the gym, like that longevity piece.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

Mm-hmm. So you're you're tracking all those areas. I really like that. I really like that a lot. Now, if you were working with someone that has appetite issues on the other end where they can't control things, and it's very, very hard for them to like stay on plan and stuff, it's really difficult and challenging and sometimes even impossible to actually have a structured long uh, you know, growth phase because you're kind of like bottlenecking yourself every single fucking week with an off-plan meal. I find that like for myself, like if I go to eat sushi, I can like not eating any of the fried sushi or anything like that, just regular sushi, I can very easily pound like almost 3,000 calories in one meal, which is absurd. You know, it's like way too fucking much food. So I gotta be the one who's like hungry year fucking round, like all the fucking time. What how how would you approach change there if you're dealing with someone like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

It's tough because I do run into those circumstances. I think there's a couple things and pre- prerequisites that I have just as a coach for athletes uh in general, as in like, hey, if you're an athlete that eats off plan, there's not gonna be changes to your plan. I'm not gonna introduce certain compounds or drugs. This phase is gonna have to wait until you get it together. Because there's just there's a comp if there's compliance issues now when it's easiest, it's there's gonna be compliance issues when it's tough and the most critical. And there are some ways to help people and assist because some people, you know, just have challenges with the discipline. I find that you can use redotrutide to help build consistency in some cases. I'm not saying That's exactly what I do. I I yep, yeah. I'm not saying use as a dependent, like people will say don't use uh don't use redotrutide or or tear zeptide or a semi-glutide if you can't stay consistent on your diet. But there are some people with trauma-based issues that cannot, for the life of them, not self-sabotage. Now, does this disqualify them from bodybuilding altogether? Maybe maybe some hardcore people would say, or imperialist would say, yes, it does.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

But I hate that, bro. I fucking hate that so much. Yep. Who are you to tell me whether I can or can't do this shit?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

Yeah, I'm about accessibility. And if I have the tools to help somebody and set someone up for more success, then I'm gonna do that, man. If I have tools like that to go, hey, look, we have we have something that can at least control some of your appetite to a degree, degree. And I'm talking like one milligram a week of reditrutide. I'm not talking six milligrams, nine milligrams a week like they're using in in the clinical phase three trials. I'm talking one milligram a week could be the difference maker for someone staying on plan more consistently, leading to greater amounts of progression. And if you don't think our behaviors in repetition don't build discipline or or habits, then you're missing the whole point here of coaching. Sometimes I just find giving more attention to some of these details and being there with the athlete ends up giving phenomenal results in the long run. And that just doesn't have to be about the physique. Sometimes it could just be mentally, and that will open up a new chapter for the physique.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

I agree. I agree. And the the way that I uh try to explain to people how I approach Reddit, it's kind of the same way that I approach uh, you know, amphetamines, which is like, you know, you can have someone with like crazy ADHD. If you just give them the meds and they don't have a plan, they don't have strategies, they don't have therapy, they don't actually have like a schedule that they're trying to build routines in place, you're just gonna become addicted at scrolling on Instagram and jerking off. Like there, there's not gonna be anything like meaningful coming out of that. However, if you use Adderall as a tool to be able to do these things, to be able to stick to a schedule, then you could in the future even come off of it entirely. So I use Redatruthide as a supporting tool that's gonna allow you to actually stick to the plan so that you live in the plan long enough that it becomes part of your identity of who you are, so to so you get to the point that you don't need this stuff anymore. You know, and I've for some people, like you said, who deal with a lot of trauma-based eating, people that have like actual eating disorders that I'm working with, like with a therapist as well, and things like that. Like, like for myself, I work with a therapist for eating. Like it's it's it's that bad. My sister is is is uh is anorexic, bulimic. My mom has the same issues, like it's it's all over the family. I grew up in this environment. It's not like it's it's not as easy as just like, oh, lock in, bro. Like, bro, I can't just lock the fuck in. Like I've I I'm I'm starving all day long. I'm thinking about food 24-7. So developing those strategies is going to be like the most significant piece here. Now, I just want to switch the gears to to like what the future holds for you guys because you guys have another show coming up this year or next year now.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Be next year, hopefully. Crossing our fingers. It's got to be big enough. Next year, okay. So that and and with Craig's ability to lose body fat and get his peeled as he does, it changes our measuring stick for where we need to be in the offseason.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

Yeah. Yeah. So the plan, the plan here is to play by ear for the for the growth phase. Are you guys like anticipating having to cut it and then put a mini cut and then go for another short growth phase? Or are you just going growth phase all the way, pre-prep, moving straight into the prep?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

No, more than likely, what I'm what I'm doing right now and how I've how I've envisioned this in my mind, and again, I could play it a hundred different ways, but how I've how I've planned this in my mind is we are going to finish out this growth phase, and I maybe only do like 20, 22 weeks potentially. And then I do a little bit of a mini cut to pull back, bring in some of that conditioning, get Craig to that really sensitive spot to repeat the same process. Now, we won't have the same severity in being as lean, of course, of a contest prep, because I wouldn't take it there and waste that much time of our growing, precious growing time. But I surely will get him leaner because I know the more sensitive he is, the faster he grows. And it's not that growth has slowed for us at all. It's just his weight has been at 237 on average, roughly. And that that 237 value is on average, he hits 240 every now and then, bounce back down. You know, as you get bigger, those swings, those happen a little bit to a greater degree the bigger you are. Because again, percentage of body weight, total body weight, it's relatively small, anyways. But I want to push this growth phase and I want to push enhancements a little bit. What I'm doing is basically going through one last push within this where I'll kind of pulsate, and I know a lot of people disagree with this. I I pulsate an oral compound. I don't use it strictly, I don't use it consistently, but I'll put it in for like four or five weeks, pull back out. And I want to push- What are we talking about? Anadrol? Uh no, I'm actually going to do T bull. A little bit, a little bit less harsh in a way. Okay. I'm pushing the T-bull because I would like to break training plateaus. I like to shoot training through the roof as high as possible during those pushes, and then I'll pull back. Again, I want liver to be able to play. I want to be able to catch up because I know his liver detox issues have been consistent, but we have supplementation in to help with that. Then I'll put it in again once I pull it out for a little bit of time, instead of running it consistently. I'll just pulsate it a little bit. I'm actually, I'm actually someone who, and I won't do this for everyone, obviously, but I do like orals in the offseason for a very short amount of time to break training plateaus and push that envelope. And anadroll is a great option. I do use anadroll at times. Sometimes I find the fatigue in the appetite issues that stem from anadroll, even though they're avoidable with you know high amounts of tutka. I still, I still, I still am a little bit hesitant at some points just because I want to be able to extend that growth phase a little bit longer. So I find T Bowl a more sustainable compound in some cases.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

And where where are you guys at with like regards to cardio in this offseason?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

Craig, I got you doing a little bit of hit, right? Two times a week. Two, yeah, two sessions a week. I keep the hit up and it'll be about 300 cal. So it's relatively short, but what I would want him to do is get that heart rate up, you know, for cardiovascular health. I really want to be able to push those boundaries there and push himself, especially as it gets bigger. You know, be able to maintain this if Craig, Craig can be someone that's gonna be 280. He's gonna be someone that's gonna be 285. Like he's gonna be in that range one day, and it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be a fat 285. It's gonna be a lean 285 one day where this man has real serious potential, as we see, to be someone who's highly successful in this field. So for me, I'm I'm not thinking necessarily in like year-to-year time frames. I'm thinking in like two and a half, five-year time frames a lot of times with him.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:45

Which is fucking fantastic because you're already prepping for what's gonna happen in the future. I uh I uh uh last year I went to Brazil to get my gyne surgery taken care of. Uh, but what I also did was I got liver scans, I got kidney scans, I got testy scans, I got fertility done, I got like full body MRIs, heart f MRI, strength tests, max capacity, everything. And people were like, why are you doing that? You're fucking 200 pounds. Like, why are you doing all of that? And I'm like, because I'm about to push the fuck out of this envelope. And if I want to do that, I need to be very certain that my body can actually fucking handle what I'm gonna ask it to do. So once I saw that everything returned clear, I'm like, cool, let's get body composition in place and let's fucking push again, you know? And I I really like that long-term approach because I feel like a lot of people don't really have that in mind. They just sort of uh think in terms of like the next 10 weeks. And it's like, could you do the next 10 weeks without cardio? Yeah, but you're gonna, you're also not gonna add cardio in the prep because you're so fatigued now because you never had it in the offseason in the first place, or it's gonna be more fatiguing, you know, and and you're gonna have it in place either way, and you're gonna have to create an adaptation when you are underfed. Like, that's not super conducive. So I find that the best approach for prep cardio is actually to have cardio in the off-season in place.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

Yeah, we're we're too nearsighted in bodybuilding a lot of times, and I get that's because of the excitement and maybe following to some degree or or engagement on social media. We're just too, we're too short-sighted. And I find with both the men and women I coach, I'm all about I want to win. I want to win. And I have found a way to do it successfully, keeping people healthy and also jumping leaps and bounds in in terms of, and that again, Craig's a perfect example. But I have other athletes doing the same thing. They're jumping leaps and bounds by remaining healthy. And that may mean less drugs. That may mean shorter growth phases. That may mean less growth phases during the year. But I guarantee, like Kevin Lavroni did, that man would take off months from training, hop back on, and just there's a reason why he's called the Maryland muscle machine. Like he just fucking got so big so quick because he was healthy, responsive. And I try to take the same approach, not necessarily pulling off the gas entirely, but uh less growth phases, less drugs, more successful long term, even if that means it takes longer. I would be rather be the one to do less drugs and take longer to be successful than hammer down on drugs and have a shorter career.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:04

Yeah, especially because your name is attached to it. You know, like it's uh, it's uh, you know, it's it's my athlete, my fucking responsibility. So I don't wanna, I don't wanna fuck you up, so to speak, because it's gonna bite me in the ass. Like a lot a lot of a lot of people they're like, when if if you want to do it, I'm gonna do it because you're gonna do it either way. I think there's some warranty to that approach as well, but you have to be ready for whenever, you know, people start talking about you in terms of like being irresponsible with your athletes and stuff like that, which we we have some big names in the industry that approach things that way. I think there's there's uh there's a case to be made for either approach. But I I am personally a fan of the slower, you know, and and moving things a little bit at a more paced approach because I think that's ultimately what's gonna lead to the best results. Like we said, growth is a very long process. If you try to cut body fat too fast, you're gonna put muscle at risk. So there's just no reason to do things fast. It's just like anabolics, they help, but I feel like people think they're like, oh, you get to eat like a thousand calories more and you get to train like two more sessions a week, and you get to do like 150 sets a week. And it's like, no, bro, you're like they're not magical like that at all. You're just fucking running yourself to the ground, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

Yeah. It's it's amazing to me because like even with my with my name attached, even to coaching mainly women, because I actually coach a lot more women than I do men. Like my figure pros, they're all extremely feminine. All extremely feminine, even Jazlin that qualified for the Olympia, like extremely feminine. Rachel competes this week in Alabama, extremely feminine. Wellness pros that were the wellness pro that was just on stage, Francesca, she's 37. She looks younger than the 30-year-olds. Like, there's a reason why this is so important to do this, because there is life after bodybuilding. And once Craig and Sam are both done with bodybuilding, I want to make sure that they don't look back and go, man, that Mark Tominick really fucked us up. You know, that that guy really that guy really screwed us over. And I don't ever want to be that guy. I would rather take the time, even if that means losing athletes and not coaching as many pro top pros or Olympians or many programs. Fine, that's fine. But I'll be able to go to bed at night. And when I cl when I close the case on my career, I'll be proud of what I did. And that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I'm totally, I'm totally fine if someone is like, hey, I don't want to work with you. If that's the case, I'm like, cool. I I'm totally fine with that. I have no issue whatsoever. I just uh I'm not the one who's gonna have to deal with a bunch of issues down the road whenever it comes to your health and stuff like that. But guys, thank you so fucking much. I feel like, you know, the people watching this, you guys, you guys kind of just got like a blueprint on how to think about these things, which you guys already know the Optolab is all about this. It's not about just telling you, like, hey, here's what you do at Peak Week, here's what you do in the offseason, here's what you do in prep. Like, that's not how it works when it comes to bodybuilding. That's not even how it works when it comes to lifestyle clients, you know? So I really, I really appreciate you guys' time. Thank you so much for breaking all of this down for us and and for giving people an insight into what high-level coaching actually looks like. I feel like right now, with like so many new coaches coming into the space and like people just taking one course or doing one show and then just jumping straight into coaching, it's like I'm I'm not here to discourage people from doing it because you know, when we say experience is the number one thing, you can't get experience unless you fucking start the thing. So, like, surely start the fucking thing and do it. But also keep in mind that you're gonna have to play things by ear a lot. You're gonna have to rely on your notes and constant learning about this person's body a lot. Like one of the things that we don't want to do is fall into the same trap of modern medicine, westernized medicine, which is just a one size fits all approach where you have three tools and you just always hammer those three tools no matter what. You're feeling tired, here's a stimulant. You need to go to sleep, here's a benzo. You have anxiety, here's an SSRI. Like, it's just that's not how real life works. That's not how real optimization works. And I feel like you guys just got a fucking amazing breakdown of what this actually looks in practice. Thank you so much for everyone joining. If you guys are ready for another interview, every Friday we have these banger fucking interviews with the highest level of coaching that we could possibly find on the world for you guys alone. So stay tuned. Every Monday we have a new episode of The Coach's Brain. On Wednesdays, we have our QA's coming up. Guys, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you like the video and share with someone who thinks that you can just follow a courses plan and you'll be able to put great athletes on stage. That's not how it works. You guys just got the full breakdown. This is fucking gold. Thank you so much for your presence, Mark. Thank you, Craig, for your time. And I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace out.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:23

Thanks.