The Mind Performance Health Podcast

Muscles, Tiaras, and Swords: The Real Journey to the Stage

• Michael Pritchatt

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Seven out of ten Australians are overweight or obese—a statistic that highlights the gap between available health education and meaningful action. At Mind Performance Health, we're changing that narrative by inspiring through real transformations and practical strategies that produce results.

This episode takes you behind the scenes of natural bodybuilding competition success as our very own coaches Dana and Rhys conquered the ICN State Championships. Dana's journey particularly demonstrates the power of working with—rather than against—your genetic potential. After years of struggling to reduce muscle in her legs for bikini competitions, she switched to the wellness division where her natural physique became her greatest asset. The result? She walked away with the overall title, complete with the tiara she'd always dreamed of, while doing dramatically less cardio and eating more food than ever before.

We dive deep into the science of physique development, explaining the critical difference between building and cutting phases that most people miss. Rhys exemplifies this approach, dedicating proper time to muscle development before strategically cutting for competition—a method anyone can apply to their fitness journey. Beyond techniques, we explore the mental game of transformation, acknowledging that behind every success story are challenges rarely seen on social media highlight reels.

The episode also celebrates our community's recent wins—from Carlos shedding 2.4% body fat in just weeks to Al's impressive 7.5kg transformation. These victories represent more than numbers; they're about improved confidence, health metrics, and quality of life. Ready to write your own success story? The strategies we share work whether you're aiming for the competition stage or simply seeking to avoid becoming another statistic. Take that first step today.

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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, it's Michael here from my Performance Health. Welcome to another episode of the my Performance Health podcast. Now we are going to discuss strategies of helping you improve your lean muscle mass, losing body fat or gaining more so a better quality of life. We're also going to cover strategies to help you not be a statistic. Seven out of ten Australians are obese and overweight. Seven out of 10 Australians are obese and overweight. One out of four kids are obese and overweight. So there's a lot of education out there, but it doesn't seem to be making a massive impact on that side because there's not enough action, I think. So my goal in this podcast here on is to inspire with stories, and today's story I'm going to cover. We had a couple of our coaches here at Mind Performance Health. Dana and Rhys compete over the weekend with their physique and natural physique competitions. I'm going to cover their story, their results, with the goal of inspiring you to take action on your own health and fitness goals. I'm going to share some wins. I'm going to start off with those wins of our clients in our community taking action on their health and fitness goals. Hopefully that can help you take some action, achieve results and make a positive impact, whether it's for yourself and your family too. So I'm going to share those journeys today of competing. But we're going to kick off first. I've got my phone in front of me for those that can't see, or if you can see it on the video, and I'm just going to share some wins from our community this week Now Carlos is seeing us face-to-face in the studio.

Speaker 1:

He has lost 2.4% body fat three kilograms of weight only in the last couple of weeks. Carlos came here to work. He was in excess body fat. He has a health value, want to improve his health metrics. He's a busy professional. As he gets older he wants to improve his strength. So he's really been smashing it. So big shout out to you, carlos Sahar.

Speaker 1:

Sahar has been with us for a little while now. She first did a program focusing on fat loss, toning up, gaining lean muscle but also losing fat. Now she's doing a building phase. Different expectations You've got to understand for trying to do a fat loss phase to a building phase. Different expectations you've got to understand for trying to do a fat loss phase to a building phase. But a building phase, just so you understand, is where we try to build as much lean muscle as we can in certain areas of the body. Food comes up, metabolism improves, but we try to limit body fat gain with the goal of improving more lean mass and strength. So you have to be careful in your measurements and careful in your decisions and not bump it up too fast because we don't want to do bulking where we put on fat too quick. So well done, sahar, because she's hitting her markers.

Speaker 1:

Chelsea fat loss phase has lost 3 kilograms in the last 4 weeks, which is awesome. Great for her confidence and health. Al has lost 7.5 kilograms lost in the last 5 weeks. Big because Al wanted to improve his confidence, what he sees in the mirror, improve his strength and his body composition. So big shout out to you, al. Dean has lost 5.4 kilograms in the last three weeks. Shout out to you, dean, keep it up.

Speaker 1:

Kartik, mentally and physically he's on a mission. He's lost three kilograms of fat in the last five weeks. And Kayla? Kayla's an online client. She's doing a bikini competition. Kayla went through a building phase so we can sculpt up the body in certain areas and now she's doing a fat loss phase, peaking into her competition. I see in season B she has dropped one kilogram in that first week of her fat loss phase. So, kayla, well done. Pretty keen to see what you do on stage. All right, so that's a few wins from our community. Big shout out to everyone working on their health and fitness goals. But I just want to share those kind of stories and achievements once again to help inspire our community and those listening, but also those that have health and fitness goals as well, and on that we'll cover now the results from the weekend.

Speaker 1:

So over the weekend we had our very own Rhys and Dana coaches here at Mind Performance Health compete in the ICN State Championships. Now, just to understand how it works, icn is a natural federation. We have a couple of seasons, season A and Season B and there's different levels of shows. So we have what's called regional shows, we have what's called state shows and we have what's called national shows. State shows is where the best in the state go to compete against each other, and that was what was over the weekend. So Rhys and Dana. Rhys did classic physique, so he went against the top natural competitors in classic physique division this last weekend and Dana went against the best wellness ladies in the state this last weekend. Dana was able to, and I'm not sure for those that can see. If you're watching the video, you'll see that I've got a sword on the table here, okay. But Dana was able to walk away with the overall position where she got her tiara. She always wanted a tiara for the overall position. She got just that. She also got a sword and a sash, okay, due to taking out the overall position and becoming number one in the state for wellness. So well done. Darnall and Reece also was able to walk away with a top three position respectively in his run in a very competitive lineup, and now they're peaking for NBA nationals this weekend shooting for their pro cards, which is pretty awesome to become a natural professional in bodybuilding for both of them.

Speaker 1:

Now, rhys, he went through a building phase For a lot of competitors. Whether you're interested in competing or not, it's still cool to understand. I think, when it comes down to creating a physique, it's not just about losing fat all the time. There's times you have to get lean. There's times your food comes up and you try to prioritize building certain areas of your body. More so, reece went through a building phase with the goal of sculpting his body up in certain areas, building his metabolic base, having higher calories and food, which then makes it easier to go into a fat loss phase, which he did for competing and he peaked for competition. So Reece went through his building phase, built a lot of muscle in that time quality muscle and then peaked down. A lot of competitors they'll do shows back to back or they won't respect the improvement season or do it correctly. So they stay essentially the same. Getting lean is quite easy. You need to spend time good quality time sometimes six months, one year, two years of building quality muscle to be more competitive for that division. So you need to approach this game critical. So Reece did just that build lean muscle and then cut down for competition. Very good on posing as well, reece. He did very good on stage with the presence. It's not just about looking good, you've got to also act the part for the judges. So he did just that. So he'll be competing this weekend once again in NBA different federation, but shooting for that pro card as well.

Speaker 1:

Dana, dana's story Now. Dana, we first started competing when Dana was 15 years old. She was actually too young to compete at that time, but as soon as she turned 16, we got on the stage. Everyone was amazed by how young she was when they called out her age on stage and she did very well. She actually walked away with top positions only being 16 years of age. That was many years ago. So over the years we've competed, she's gone from doing bikini, she's done some sports model, but bikini into wellness now.

Speaker 1:

Now one interesting fact and great lesson here is that when she was doing bikini, dana genetically was able to put on a lot of muscle in her lower body. However, for the bikini class, it made her look out of balance and we need to look more balanced for that class and division. So what we needed to do, we actually needed to take away muscle from her quads. It's not just always about building muscle. All the time it's about being suitable for that division. So we took away a lot of muscle from her quads. We had to do a lot of cardio, we had to do a lot of output to make that happen. Now, as soon as we switched to wellness, wellness is an imbalance, meaning that we've got a smaller upper body to the lower body, a bigger lower body in mass and lean mass.

Speaker 1:

Soon, as we went into wellness, we focused on enhancing her genetics. Genetically she puts on more muscle in the lower body. So we went to grow the lower body more and she was able to eat a lot more food. She was able to do less cardio, less output and yield even better results, conditioning-wise fat coming down and just looking leaner and better. Partly, I think this is because, due to the fact of us maximizing her muscle growth, genetically, her metabolism comes up, which means she can eat more calories and food and also her, which then, in terms, helps when we're cutting down in a competition we don't have to do as much, which is exactly what we found. She went from doing five days of cardio decent amount of time each day in bikini to get the legs smaller to only having to do 30 minutes a week just in the last couple of weeks coming into this competition and just strength training.

Speaker 1:

I think it's important a great lesson here to always look at your strengths and sometimes it's better to lean into those strengths. Wellness wasn't always around, especially in ICN or natural federations when we were competing. It is a newer division that's been introduced the last couple of years, so it wasn't like we could make that decision from the start when she competed. However, it's definitely something I think that has brought out her strengths. So pretty cool to see and a great lesson also to stay dedicated Comps.

Speaker 1:

There's highs and lows. You'll only ever see the highlights of competing, usually on the social media like Instagram. But with Dana there's been highs and lows. We've had times where competitions have humbled us. We've had times where we've taken out competitions.

Speaker 1:

This game is about managing your expectations, only comparing to your standard. You can compare to others as well. It's just not good if you have a negative association with it. If you compare and use that for your benefit, fantastic and drive to be better. But if you're comparing and it's easy to in this game and have a negative association with it, it can bring you down. It takes away the joy of competing. So remember that you'll see a lot of highlight reels with competition. But you've got to compare to your own standard or compare to others and use it to your advantage and push hard with your own training and drive. But really, at the end of the day, it's important that you know why you're doing this for yourself and that reason's a positive one for you.

Speaker 1:

So really good to see her do her thing the last weekend. We didn't even do a peak week, which is pretty crazy for her, but we were already in shape. We didn't need to do a peak week where we make fine tunes to the physique. She was already in the best shape she's been. We jumped on, did our thing, a couple of adjustments, nothing crazy. And then this week we have the national show, where she's already going through, at the moment, a depletion where we're losing the glycogen around the muscle. Then we've got carb loads where we add it back in. Water fluctuations, electrolytes we're playing with as well All predictable stuff, though to make sure she can bring her best physique to the stage this weekend, and we're shooting for that top spot. So a big shout out to Dana and Reese over the weekend and a big shout out to our community as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you all for listening. I'm gonna do more stories and the methods that we've helped our clients with in future, podcasts as well for you once again to get inspired and educated and gain value from, and hopefully podcast as well for you once again. Get inspired and educated and gain value from, and hopefully that inspires you to take action into the next weeks with your fitness goals too. If you're ever stuck or you need any help, you can always reach out. We have how we have our personal training business, whether it's online coaching or whether it's in person at rouse hill. We help clients worldwide and we also have our supplement division here as well. We just got our coffee in this week, mph Nutrition, which is awesome. It's been a long journey to get that going. You can check that out wwwmphnutritioncom too. So, guys, thank you for tuning in. I'll see you all in the next one and get after your health and fitness goals.