Iron Stronger - 1%er Habits The Best Do In Bodybuilding (with Eric Helms & Steve Hall)

Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast.

You'll know what the title of this podcast is

because you'll have seen the title and it will be live.

But we had lots of feedback on what we should call

this collaboration Eric.

And I've been thinking about it a little bit before

we popped on air, maybe the last hour or so,

as I was thinking about what we're gonna talk about.

And I was going through some of the suggestions

and I actually really do like stronger culture.

I know I went with I in stronger, no wait,

yeah, I in stronger before, but something about stronger culture

that the culture thing is now speaking to me there.

I don't know if you had any additional thoughts

on what came through.

Iron Revival also sounds kind of cool.

So as you know, we asked the deer cult

and the deer audience of Revive Stronger to give us feedback.

And you know what?

It actually worked really well with not only episode we had

but also the episode I just had with tracks.

So the last episode of the tracks,

I don't know if you listened to it.

Just kind of, yeah, oh cool, good timing.

I cool.

We carried on the, some of the conversation we had

because we kind of talked about, hey, you know,

fitness kind of sucks online and then tracks was like,

you know why?

It's because it's dominated by grandiose narcissists

and we talked about the big five.

And there's a couple of traits in there.

There's agreeableness

and this is just basically your propensity to

have a desire to find consensus with others

or find differences and whether you actually enjoy

agreeing or disagreeing.

And there's a very, excuse me,

a little bit of Pepsi Max came out there.

It tends to be very low agreeableness traits

on people who post a lot online on average

and also obviously higher extroversion,

which is understandable,

which we kind of all know what that is.

And then people who want to become like YouTubers

and I think this is an important distinction

I was thinking about this.

I was like, well, I want to be on social media.

But you and I like, Steve, you're a full-time coach

and you're also on social media.

I'm a full-time three things

and I also want to be on social media.

Like I still coach.

I'm an active researcher and a supervisor

do a fair number of things.

And there's a lot of people who need the internet

for their job, right?

And then there's people who are like,

I just want the internet to be my job.

What I want to do in my life is be seen.

So that kind of element of grandiose narcissism

and low conscientiousness because it's like,

well, if I need to be seen by this community,

I got to do the thing they care about.

But I don't really care about doing that well.

Primarily just want to be seen.

And I was just found like what our experiences were

and what we talked about and kind of people getting guru

and then leading into it and getting worse

and falls from grace.

Just how well it was explained by the fact

that this actually been researched quite well.

And then I also saw it playing out

in the comments section because I guarantee you

the people who stuck to the question we asked,

do you like iron stronger or revive culture better?

And they chose one of the two options.

They had a very high conscientiousness trait

from the big five, which is, oh, I'm a rule follower.

I was told to pick between two.

This is what I'm going to choose.

And conscientiousness isn't always a good or a bad thing.

Like, I think it's easy to look at the big five

and be like, oh, these are good things are bad things.

But most of them, it's very context dependent

and independent on the other things

because the names that you and I just chose that we liked

and we haven't found consensus, which is great.

They came from people who were not necessarily rule followers,

but we're still helping us find the best name.

Very, you know, purpose of trying to make it

as best as it could be, which I love.

So there were some really cool ideas,

takes on iron stronger, revive, and culture,

all combined together.

And yeah, so, okay, I offered mine up.

You offered yours up, which one do you like better?

Now that we've both said different ones.

And don't be too agreeable if you like it better to say it, Steve.

I am, yeah, it's funny you talk through that

because even hearing that someone might enjoy disagreeing,

like, people have a preference to disagree with others.

Like, for me, I do not even relate to that in one bit

because I'm all about agreement finding consensus.

Even if I bring like half debates, quote unquote, on here,

I'm like, I want to find where if they cross lines

where they agree on this because there's always something

that we can kind of come together with.

And like you said, I don't think that's always a good thing.

Like having some disagreement can be productive and provide.

And sometimes you could, I think I've even done this

where I've maybe felt an internal disagreement,

but I'm going to just agree because it feels easier

that way, which is not productive,

either, and as I've grown a matured,

I've got a little bit better at that.

And with that said, I actually still prefer stronger culture.

So we're going to have to get people to vote now.

No, no, you know what?

Because my agreeableness is, it's not super high.

Now, here's the thing is, I actually haven't taken the big five.

I've taken a related and personality inventory called the TCI.

But I think I have interactions between like neuroticism,

agreeableness and congenitiveness

where I have like this really strong drive to get it right.

But I have a high level of agreeableness.

So it's like, I don't need someone to accept my version of right.

But when there is something,

like I need you to understand what I mean,

and this way of interpreting it.

And you know, like it's like an itch, you know?

So like when we're talking about things that are very clearly

like factual, like did this study find this?

That's why I tend to, I could be very pedantic

and kind of like nail somebody down

when I try to do it in a human way.

But yeah, anyway, I like, I like, sorry.

I'm sorry.

Yes sir, acronyms, right?

A lot of the time like there,

I can't think of what one of them is,

but they like, you're a number of letters.

It's not quite.

That's my separate, like the INSP, ISTJ.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the one that I'm very familiar with.

Yeah, and that one's actually not reliable.

And that one actually is,

I don't want to say it's like complete pseudoscience.

It probably does map to some things,

but if you look up research on the Myers-Briggs personality

testing, it is not sufficiently reliable.

It doesn't really map onto, I would say,

neurobiological traits like the TCI and the big five does.

So I think I described this in the last iron culture episode.

There's a big difference between states and traits.

So yeah, a trait is something that's relatively,

at least once you're into adulthood

and you're not undergoing some massive trauma

or personality changes, therapy, drugs, head injuries, et cetera.

Relatively stable within a semi-known range

for a given person, obviously modifiable

and can be impacted by acute stimuli.

And that's what a state is.

You can find temporary changes and things.

But yeah, like if you were to take the Myers-Briggs

in a lot of different circumstances,

you'd get different things.

So yeah, and yeah, the big five and TCI,

they map onto our understanding of the human brain

a little more than Myers-Briggs.

So yeah, I don't think there's no value in it.

Like I have gone through a Myers-Briggs personality

typing thing with my wife back in the day

before I really knew much about research.

It's found it interesting.

I had a lot of quibbles, probably unsurprisingly,

people know me, but I did find that a useful way

of kind of knowing and accepting yourself

and some of your tendencies.

And you know, you kind of still select and identify

with the things that are probably more reliable

and some of the things that are less reliable.

You go, well, that's not me, but whatever.

And then you go, oh, you're this way on this way

and I think it can be a good way to connect

and maybe it has practical utility.

But yeah, I know big five, TCI, those are very reliable

sufficiently reliable, very valid

and consistently used studies in psychology research.

But anyway, you know what, I like your Steve

and this isn't just the agreeable person me.

So I think we go with it, man.

We gotta, we gotta pick one.

Yeah, I'm happy with it.

I'm happy with it.

You'll have the people happy with it.

Yeah, do they go to the snow?

Your chat there just reminded me of, yeah,

I think it's just a general thing in life

where you kind of accept things at face value.

So me and Charlotte and my partner,

we love watching Trash TV.

And quite a lot of it is like love island, for example,

where you get all these young singles together

and so on and so forth.

And something I had accepted for the longest time

until I thought about it a bit more critically

and I was chatting with Greg Potter.

He came over London for a short time

because he's busy traveling the world.

And love languages came up.

It just made me think of what you talked about there.

It's like, I thought they were like an evidence based

for like you actually have like a love language.

It's like, no, it's just, just something

someone made up.

Dude, there's so many of those.

I'm actually, I've, we did, I didn't do it from March,

but I think I'm gonna do it for the April episode,

episode issue of Mass.

I'm going to write about some of these pop science things

that we believe are evidence based

and just give a bunch of them.

And to kind of show people like, hey, think about it.

Almost every time you hear a pop science thing,

it's probably a little bit wrong, you know.

Like, you know, one that kind of blew my mind.

You know the idea that some people are visual learners,

some people are auditory learners,

some people are kind of static learners?

Bullshit.

Not a thing.

Yeah, it really just comes down to your processing power,

your familiarity with the information from before.

And how it is taught by the person

and your own, it's very like,

it's way more context dependent on that.

Like no one is, you know, like someone's not like,

like you think about it this way, like, oh,

we're gonna teach everyone how to write a bike.

And the visual learners are just gonna watch people

write a bike, you know, the auditory learners,

they're just gonna listen to a tape about how to write a bike

and then these people are gonna be, you know,

they're gonna get on the bike and try it out.

And then the next one's gonna be like, okay,

you know, we're going to have you memorize a series of numbers.

These people are gonna hold blocks that are shaped

like the numbers and put them in a row.

These people are gonna look at a picture of it

and these people are just gonna hear it right out.

You can immediately see that some of these tasks

are gonna be far better suited to one of those mediums.

And it also depends upon like what prior exposure does

that individual have to numbers or bike writing, right?

So all of these things kind of have created this sense

and there are some things that are just inherently better taught

with the visual or sometimes auditory is actually quite important.

You know, like there's a reason my podcast does do so well,

but what you say and how you say it matters,

like telling a story, the oral tradition

is a huge part of how humans passed along knowledge.

So anyway, what do we talk about?

Stronger culture or stronger culture, right?

Stronger culture, that's the one.

And Eric Trexler for me was the other Eric.

It does a great job of just breaking down.

I try to think of other examples,

but you did a great job of breaking down

that kind of popular thought concept that P ratios,

the linear you were, the better partitioning ratio you got,

you're gonna gain more, you're gonna put more of that surplus

towards muscle versus fat.

And those have been fantastic.

So I think it's, yeah, when you bring out the broader pop culture ones,

I'm sure there's gonna be dozens in there

that I'm just like, hell, I've fallen for way too many of that.

Well, hopefully at this point, more skeptical,

which kind of being in this evidence-based fear,

hopefully brings out from you.

But as a reminder guys,

you should definitely subscribe to the Master Research Review

so you can stay on top of all this stuff.

It's highly recommended for me.

If you enjoy these chats, you enjoy Eric.

You just enjoy those.

And as a coach and practitioner,

like it serves as, it's great because it's kind of like a textbook.

Like I'd break get a textbook off and I'd like look something up.

If I needed a reminding,

you can just go on mass search

and it basically has the studies there

or you've done something on the topic,

whether that be for content or for just,

I can't ask you a tricky question.

Completely random question, Eric.

And it's just happened to me because the other day,

I don't know if you ever get this,

someone knocks on your door and they're trying to sell you something.

Do you get sales like random just sell calls at your door

and you're just like,

leave me alone, I'm in the middle of a call

or I'm on the stronger culture podcast.

We are like in an apartment complex now, so no,

but back in the day, 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, when we didn't own a house

and we were in an apartment complex, that was great

because then I wouldn't get any.

I just want to be introvert, not see anyone.

No, I have sales calls.

We have a ring doorbell though.

Do you guys have ring doorbells where you do with the video

so you can see who's at the front door?

Some of the people do.

We don't, but some people do.

It's like an inner area with a bunch of like duplexes.

So you can set it up that way if you want.

We haven't yet, but this will make sense

when I get, at least you understand what I'm talking about.

I can't see the ring.

I'll just say no one wants it,

but the number of cold, it's called cold DMs.

I don't know where cold, I guess it's a cold DM

because there's no, the warm would be if there was a lead

or they'd already started to call calls.

Yeah, same thing.

Yeah, exactly, there you go.

That's what that makes sense.

Anyway, obviously hate them.

I get so many cold DMs from appointment setters.

Now, that's like the big thing.

And do you get these like tons as well

or do you get different people cold DMing you?

Dude, I get probably three a day saying,

they've either gotten a list from some type of scrubbing service

or maybe it's from Libsyn or whatever,

but it either says like Omar Issaf, Eric and Eric

or some random combination of three of us,

but to my email,

because I think it's probably the one associated with our culture.

And then it's almost always some person asking

for someone else to come on the podcast with a pitch.

And it's always like, I really liked your episode

with Steve Hall where you talked about X, Y and Z.

And it's like, I'd like to bring on this crystal healing

expert.

I think it would resonate with your audience.

And I'm like, those two things are completely unrelated.

Like what are you talking about literally for a day?

What about, that's a great point

because I didn't even think about the facts.

I get those emails all the time too.

But on your Instagram,

do you get like people talking about

appointment setters for like,

hey, we can get you clients or whatever it is?

Oh, yeah.

So in my requests,

like, you know,

hey, I thought you were supposed to post about this.

Like basically it's people who either

grow your Instagram following,

help you monetize your content, edit your videos

or appointment setters.

And yeah, my requests are,

I check them once a day and I just see if it's someone

who's actually just trying to connect legit.

And then almost everything else is just like,

what do I even open this?

The worst is when they kind of like,

they're almost,

they don't make obvious that they are who they are.

And they ask like a question that seems like,

oh, they're just like a person trying to learn.

And so you like,

click on it, maybe you're applying

and then they leave you a voice note that's like,

oh, so the reason I was contacting you

is that I'm like, oh God, you caught me.

So yeah, it's super Australian,

which is actually,

it's great talking to you, Eric,

because similar to you,

I mean, when did you guys officially start online coaching?

What year was it officially?

We started in 2009.

That's crazy.

The number of online coaches on,

like it must have been litgy on your hands.

You could count the number of online coaching

services available at that time.

Mate, we sat down to do like an analysis

of who's currently in the space

and where we were like, all right.

So what does Joe Clemson scan Lane Norton do?

And that was it.

There was market analysis was Joe and Lane.

That was it.

Yeah, now it's,

now there's literally tens of thousands, yeah.

Yeah, because I started in 2014, really,

is when I started taking some people online.

And that was early, but now it's it's,

because these guys will reach out to me.

They're like, how long you've been coaching for like,

you struggling to get leads with it,

saturated on like, man,

they're like, every person,

like you probably struggled to tell family and friends

what you did for a job back then,

whereas now they all get it,

because they're just like, yeah,

on my personal training,

that's like a legit career.

So anyway, it's just us being old dogs in this space.

But on that,

you're not wrong, though.

Sorry.

So anyway, yeah, yeah.

So you're getting, you're getting, go ahead.

I was just gonna say,

because on that note,

we're just talking off air,

and you're saying how, hey, 3D and Dre,

in a great spot,

mass research review and a great spot.

So I'm getting a good transition towards a new role

that you've picked up recently,

which is gonna take quite a bit of time,

but it's exciting.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, it's a stable spot,

I think is,

I don't know, I don't know about you,

but there was like, you know,

everyone was like, oh,

COVID ended in 2021, at least the lockdowns did,

and now we're gonna have a bit of an economic downturn.

But this next year, it's gonna be great.

And then like they've said that for the last like three years.

So, and I don't think all of it's COVID related anymore,

but I do think it's harder and harder to sell information.

So, yeah, like you have to kind of stand your pees and cues

as someone who's a science communicator,

and especially if you monetize that.

So like thinking a lot about how to write my books,

and that's why they were probably deleted by about a year,

and then us trying to constantly think about,

how are we operating at mass?

Well, like how many of article,

like we release a big issue,

if people read all of it,

we need to be deep dive at narrow or broad,

or our issues too long.

Those who've been subscribed a while might have noticed

we were playing with quick takes for a while

and research briefs and a little more video content,

and we were also holding our audience

and just trying to get a feel for how do we communicate

the information the community wants

in the most effective efficient way

that's useful to them as possible to effectively stay viable.

So anyway, I don't think we cracked that code,

but we have developed systems

so that we can continually stay on top of it,

and we're also looking into expanding our offerings

in other ways, but we have systems for that,

and we've got a good, like, I'd say a stable kind of position.

We all know our roles a little bit better,

3DMJ similar thing, we just updated our website.

Most importantly, I'm not dieting to compete at worlds this year

and my books are finished.

So change has kind of been like the nature of things lately,

and one of the big changes that's going on

in my life as an academic is that at AUT,

they've restructured the faculty of health

and environmental sciences.

So people know that university have kind of structured

hierarchical systems of, like, different levels.

I give the university at the top

of this, like, the vice chancellor of the president,

depending on the country, your own, or what have you.

And then you have, well, I'll fold out from that,

I'll fold out from that, I'll fold out from that.

In New Zealand, and in, like, I think,

Oceania and some of Europe,

what we have are as the university,

then faculties, and then within the faculties,

there are schools, then within the schools,

there are departments, and that's kind of the lowest,

like, level of organization.

And you can have a big department,

you know, like, that has 30, 40, 50 people,

and probably the largest,

and then you can have really small ones.

It's like four people, if it's in kind of a more niche area.

And they deliver courses, they have, you know,

research they're doing, depending on the field.

And then the schools can be variable and quite big,

and then faculties are really big.

So I'm in the faculty of health and environmental sciences,

and there's, you know, thousands of people,

that you tease a pretty big university.

And it changed from a model where it has four schools to six,

and also totally restructured how the leadership sits

within those and interacts with the schools.

And I sit within the school,

which just changes name from support and recreation

to support health and exercise science.

So anyway, another thing that's changing simultaneously

is what we call our entities framework,

our research entities framework.

So we have different bodies of researchers

who sit across various faculty, schools, departments,

all that stuff who do research, right?

Because the big part of universities is research.

It's not just delivering undergraduate courses,

it's doing postgraduate courses,

which may then have a component to,

okay, your masters, or your honors, or your PhD,

has a thesis or dissertation,

and you're doing research,

and you're getting supervised by a staff member,

and that staff member,

maybe not just doing postgraduate research supervision,

but have their own research,

and depending upon the university,

the field, the marketing external grants,

or internal funding,

or industry connections to do research.

And the way that's kind of incubated, promoted,

and how we support staff at AUT and many universities,

is you have various different kind of lateral entities

that support researchers.

And the biggest one historically in AUT,

which has been,

it's the newest university in New Zealand.

It went from being a technical institute

to an actual university in like, I think 2000.

So it's like 25, 26 years old,

which is young for a university,

but it's grown the fastest,

and it's the highest ranked sports science school in New Zealand,

in this top 50 in the world.

Largely because of the really strong sports science program,

and largely because of sprints,

historically called the sports performance research,

institute New Zealand,

which has now just rebranded more change,

as the sport research institute New Zealand,

because it's become broader and broader

in those things like sociological topics

and sports, sport leadership governance,

and there's a lot of industry connections.

But anyway, that's where I came and where I'd been

to do my master's PhD and now where I work.

And because there's been this change

in the research entities framework,

largely modeled off of sprints to be

patting ourselves in the back,

to be like, oh, how do we replicate the success of this institute?

And the faculty's changing,

and sprints is rebranding,

and the school that I'm a part of is rebranding,

and the relationship between the school, the faculty,

and the institutes is changing.

I saw that there was an opportunity for me to give back.

It helped, and no one else wanted to step up

and do it, everybody's busy.

This is a big deal.

So they put out expressions of interest

for the co-directors of sprints.

That's the model we have historically used

having a couple of directors,

just because there's,

if you count the postgraduate research students,

there's around 200 total staff at sprints,

like professional staff, academics,

students, supervisors,

and then people who are on quote unquote soft money,

doing research.

And I put in that expression of interest

kind of last quarter of last year,

and then I interviewed end of last year,

and then I actually became one of the two co-directors

in January, which is, man, do I feel like an adult, Steve?

But it's a big deal.

It's a huge responsibility,

but it's also a huge honor,

and it's great,

because it gives me an opportunity to pay it forward,

because the environment sprints

has been just so welcoming, so healthy,

and also really productive.

And it's a place where,

if you want to do any kind of sport-related research,

like we find a way,

and we have world-leading labs

and a lot of people and great collaboration,

and it's just a really effective organic ecosystem

that promotes research and researchers.

So yeah, having the opportunity to step up and do that,

it's been very, very, I would say,

time-demanding is like front-loaded,

because there's a lot of these changes

that we have to now step in and be intentional about,

okay, well, how do we modify our operations

to make this as effective as we can for us,

who we are now and what we need?

And how do I represent diverse needs

of all the people who might be doing sport-related research?

You and I kind of think about body strength, things like that,

but that's a small segment of what sits under,

you know, sport-related research,

not even sport science, right?

Because there's, you know, there's sport historians,

you know, there are sports sociologists,

there's everything,

and we don't necessarily have all of that represented

at sprints, but I would say sport science is,

you know, at most 50% of what we do.

And so anyway, that has been a really,

I would say, challenging and a very positive way

of joining, you know, I have to stretch myself

and really leverage the skills I've developed,

but in like a deeper pool,

like I've moved from like the Katie pool.

I have always played the role of kind of the mediator,

the communicator, the connector, the person who tries

to understand the needs of various people

in an organization and then bring it together,

but I've done that at much smaller scales,

you know, 3DMJ, if you can't, like,

all of our total administrative staff,

it's like, it's eight people, you know?

So, you know, mass is the four of us.

And when I've worked in, you know, personal training,

or when I've operated within sprints

from the prior perspective,

I was in where I was the lab leader

for the strength conditioning lab,

or I was on the student culture team,

I was dealing with kind of a large,

but not quite as large segment.

And now I need to be sitting down and meeting with people

who are in industry, government, policy,

across the faculty, across schools.

So it's something that is asking me to stretch myself,

but that I'm really enjoying.

And it's just a, it's really cool

because it gives me the opportunity

to help a lot of people who have helped me.

And yeah, so anyway, that's the big news for me.

And I didn't want to announce it until it was like,

official, official, and it's pretty official, official.

I love, and it doesn't surprise me that it's a role

that you wanted to take on because it's a way of giving back.

I think whilst a lot of the things you do,

like the mass research review, you could argue is just like,

hey, it's paying the bills and that sort of thing,

but it's also a way of, I view it as a way

of you guys giving back the number of podcasts

that you're on, Eric, I was actually,

I don't know where I even was.

I think I was just on YouTube and you must be part

of my algorithm or some of Eric,

but there was like so many dotted podcasts.

I was like, oh, there's another one, another one, another one.

It's incredible the kind of time and dedication

you put out to these things.

And yeah, again, it comes back favorably in terms

of your names out there and then people confined

ways of parting with money to kind of invest

into your products and services or what have you.

But I know a lot of it just comes from,

hey, this person asked me to come on

and I want to be on their podcast to share this knowledge.

So it doesn't surprise me that you're kind of doing

from that perspective, but also it sounds like,

probably for someone like me and a lot of the audience,

they weren't quite realize how important this role is,

even though you just described it and everything,

but we're not, I'm not part of academics

and I haven't been to the university over there

or anything and kind of exposed myself to all of that.

But yeah, again, it sounds like it's quite,

it means a lot to you, the role versus necessarily

it being like the most highest paying role

out there available type of thing.

If that makes sense.

Yeah, it's some, you know, like when you look at academia,

sometimes you'll, if you're not within it,

you don't know which things are promotions

and which things are appointments and they're not the same.

So like someone might be a lecturer,

a senior lecturer, a associate professor and a professor,

those are kind of independent of what maybe

your appointment is, but you might be a dean

or you might be a head of department

or you might be the co-director of an institute.

And in many cases, those don't change your income at all.

They're not, they're not kind of like promotions

like the pathway to professor is.

They're part of your academic service

and they can help you put in a bid to become a professor

and there are definitely some people

who take on appointments just to climb the ladder.

But, and like you said, even when I'm doing things

like coming on a podcast for free or speaking for free,

or you know, answer at DM,

like someone could argue that it's all part

of aircals.com trying to get money in his pocket

through the big fat cow of cash called, you know,

physique and strength, sports, science, communication,

which, you know, whether you talk to Elon Musk

or Alan Greenspan, like, you know,

that's the real way to make money in this world.

And I neglected to mention,

I don't just have an apartment in this complex,

actually owned this apartment complex in 30 more

and most of all.

You're about to stay in the other complex.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I bought out all the apartment ceramics,

I don't want neighbors, you know,

that's something for the pion's really.

They're just empty.

And I like people ask,

oh, can I rent this?

And I'm like, you couldn't afford them out there.

I'm like, what?

And I just, then I just kick them out

and throw caviar at them.

But, no, so, yeah, like,

what I do in AUT, however, has always been a very,

it's like I'm not paid for it.

And it's like they don't show me gratitude.

But it's, I've had,

what they call it, FTE here,

like the proportion of time that you spend

and accounted out of one.

So when I first came on as a research fellow

to provide supervision support at AUT at sprints,

I was a 0.2.

So that's like eight hours a week or something like that.

And then eventually to kind of,

this wasn't even actually adding time,

it was just to better reflect the amount of time

that I was putting in.

I went to 0.3.

And this now for the sprints director role,

the sprints director role doesn't pay you anymore.

But I did ask, listen to how I want to do this right

and still be able to supervise my students,

but I'll step away from the lab leader role,

I'll step away from the culture team role.

I need a little more FTE.

Can you guys get me to 0.5?

Cause I can make the space for that.

So now I'm actually on a like a half contract.

So now I'm part time in the way that most people

would think of part time,

but I was even less than that previously.

So the only reason I'm getting, you know,

additional income from AUT now is cause I'm working more.

But I didn't, I didn't get a quote, unquote, promotion per se.

I got an appointment and it's an important one,

but it's not one that I take personal pride in

in the way people might think like,

oh, I got selected to be the head of sprints.

I actually feel a strong sense of responsibility,

emotional weight.

And I think a healthy sense of fear around this

because I've looked at all of my colleagues,

some of them who were professors

when I was a master student here.

You know, they were academics when I was in high school, right?

They have acknowledged me and said, yeah, this is good

and giving me positive feedback

and they're supporting me to be in a leadership position

of an institute that they saw get founded

as a key critical component

and that they put their lifeblood into.

You know, they're the, my primary supervisor,

my PhD is one of the people who basically built sprints

on alongside some of the other professors.

So to have their trust and, you know,

that means a lot and it means that,

I don't get to mess this up, right?

People are depending upon me and I'm not alone.

I have all of them and I think,

I have certain beliefs about leadership

that I think are important.

Like it's not my job to be in control.

It's my job to represent everyone

and to make sure that I can find a strategic direction

that doesn't leave anyone behind

and that also represents the mission that was there before me.

It's not, now I have my hand on the steering wheel and go,

here's where we're going, team, you know,

and you should have gone through the whole time.

There's just a big difference

when you're leading an organization that you didn't found,

you know, so being an owner of mass

or being an owner of 3D muscle journey,

it's still a consensus-based decision,

but it's a tight-knit group who formed it

and are now leading it.

8UT was around before I got here, right?

And if the strategic direction of AUT

is something that I 90% agree with,

I don't get to go no.

I go, all right, well that's where I've decided

to take on the responsibility to be a representative

of run-outs at Sprens to be a representative of my school,

the faculty and AUT generally.

So I need to be kind of on board with that,

even if there are aspects I don't agree with.

And that's a level of kind of adulting

that I haven't done before.

You know, I've kind of always felt like I'm the Maverick,

I do my own thing, I'm an entrepreneur,

and I think some of that feels like emotionally safe,

you know, like I don't,

if I don't like where the world's going,

I could say, oh, we're just doing our own thing here.

And I've always had a relationship with AUT

where I'm part time, I do my own thing,

you know, my income is dependent upon my own businesses,

and this is kind of like,

it's like two different parties who are shaking hands

and helping each other, but emotionally and culturally,

I've been embedded in Sprens, I have students,

I spend time there, I have deep connections

with all the people there,

and when I saw the opportunity to be in a leadership role,

not within say the hierarchy of the university,

but for Sprens specifically,

and to pay that forward, I was like, you know,

that I think was a really good fit for me.

But it's also meant learning a lot about the university

structures and gaining an appreciation

and taking on that sense of duty in a broader sense

from like that perspective,

and that has been a learning process for me.

So anyway, all that is to say, it's a big change,

it's a big change for me,

and it's that one that I take lightly.

Sounds positive, and I think they're gonna benefit massively

from having you there, and yeah, I'm excited to see where it goes,

and how much you enjoyed the only way I can vaguely relate

to it as you're talking through that Eric was being asked

to judge and then judging on a WNBF judging panel.

Like I felt that sense of responsibility

in a bit kind of almost scared a little bit,

especially the first time I was doing it to kind of do

the WNBF in everyone's stage justice for that thing,

but again, as a judge, I don't know,

if you were most aren't paid to kind of go and judge,

it's like you take your own time,

kind of you do it for the love of natural bodybuilding

and everything there, and yeah,

you might pick up some lessons and skill sets

and get your name out there a little bit more,

but mostly you're doing it for the love of the sport,

I think, yeah, no, judging is definitely giving back.

You sit there all day, you might get lunch,

and I line it up with seminars to kind of subsidize it,

but I've never been paid to judge.

That makes sense.

Right.

Man, actually, I think that's a really good perspective.

Here's an example of what I think is maybe not great leadership

that you can kind of see the parallel between boys,

some people don't lead well and others lead well.

If a WNBF judge or any kind of organization,

like if, and I could understand why you would do this

because sometimes it's about making the athlete feel better,

but like, and I'd even set things like this,

but I think if you take a step back

and really think about it,

an athlete gets a place saying they don't agree with,

and maybe you didn't even put it that way,

and they come to you, they're playing

in a really disgruntled, they're unhappy,

and you go, well, that's not how I ranked you.

Yeah.

And there's two ways you can do that.

You can say, you know what, I'm an infallible judge.

Sorry, I'm a fallible judge just like the whole panel,

but we are stronger together.

And I had you here, if it's appropriate to do so,

sometimes there's context where that's not an appropriate

thing to share with the athlete,

or there's a mechanism for sharing feedback,

because there can be potential conflicts of interest there,

or some people like, you know,

poach clients or having an appropriate relationship.

So whatever the judging standards are,

and I think there's delicacy around this,

you can share like, listen,

you didn't get a unanimous score.

I can't share with you my own score,

and it doesn't mean that every judge agrees

with your eventual score,

but it's probably the best representation

of the closest thing we can get to objectivity in our sport.

I might have had you hire,

some people might have had you even lower than you were,

and you help them, you know, work through that.

But what I think of the failure of leadership

that dissolves your responsibility as a judge

is to say, oh, that fucking panel doesn't know what they're doing.

You came in the second, I had you in first,

and you know what, if it had been up to me,

I would have given you first.

So don't look at me.

I'm the good guy.

I'm right here with you.

You're awesome.

Nothing to learn.

Go blame those people.

Now you're throwing, you know,

you're basically your responsibilities,

your duty, and the organization that you said,

I'm happy to volunteer for and serve under the bus

to preserve your own sense of comfort emotionally,

or to potentially manipulate a relationship, right?

So that's an example of something that,

it's easy to do and not think about it,

and maybe you don't even have all of those intentions,

but it could come off that way.

That's why it feels heavy and weighty to me in this role,

because that is now a much, much bigger thing

than just a panel of seven judges.

And, you know, not the judging isn't a big deal.

Sometimes you got shows of hundreds of people,

you have presidents on the panel,

they are going to judge you at some point,

you're managing conflict of interest.

It's a thing, like, so I think that's actually

not a bad parallel, Steve,

even though running a research institute

and, you know, ranking people's naked bodies

aren't exactly the same.

Oh, yeah.

But that very well said,

you always think we're to act as a panel of judges,

like you talk as if you're talking as the judging table,

not as an individual judge to that person.

It always brings you back to that great book

where the title gives away everything extreme ownership,

always just like, that's the kind of how I like to live,

like my life, like, and it gives me a lot of self-efficacy

that way too, but also responsibility.

Eric, do you think we have 20 minutes?

I had one topic for us to discuss.

I think it might be a bit meaty for people.

If you're finished on kind of your new responsibilities,

we can dive into it.

Yeah, I mean, it's good.

We have 40 minutes of Eric out of being self-indulgent,

and then 20 minutes of something people want every year.

People want every year.

If you ask me that I have to explain it, and then here we are,

and I'm a grandiose narcissist, I'm, yeah, okay, let's do it.

Yeah, no, no, no, let's talk about it.

So I think this is a cool topic and something that we can,

I think that's some good information for the listener on.

Yeah, and I think it might even be that it ends up being

another episode based off kind of comments and feedback,

or we didn't quite touch on everything we wanted to.

But definitely, Eric will be aware of this,

and the audience will be too, where people talk about

the 1% within bodybuilding, muscle growth,

and pursuing that, and that, yeah, I mean,

it might only be a 1%, which is insignificant, really,

but if you kind of get another 1%, another 1%,

another 1%, suddenly, that becomes 5%, 10%,

that starts to become a significant portion

of your results and progress, and for Eric and myself,

pro-natural bodybuilders really have to be on top of our 1%

as it were, if you can put it that way,

to grow as much muscle as possible

to be competitive in the pro ranks.

And we both probably, some people would argue,

yeah, certainly some people would argue,

give too much time and attention to our training,

but we'll almost do anything for growth.

But there is a cost versus benefit of these things,

and certainly for myself, Eric, there's times

of which I look back and I'm like, man,

I was doing that for this 1%,

suppose benefit, and really, it just cost me 5%, 10%.

So whilst those 1%s can add up,

you have to remember, for every give me,

I like to say, there's a gotcha, nothing comes for free.

So, you know, like an easy example is,

I'm gonna add forearm training, neck training,

and a train my satorious, like,

my, like, what's the front side of your calf,

your tibia, that's the one, tibia raises, you know,

train every single muscle group, it's like,

that's time and energy that you're taking away,

potentially from other areas,

and suddenly you could be not really growing as much muscle

as you thought, even though you're trying to grow more

and get those 1%, so Eric, I put it to you.

What, are there any examples you can think of

that you personally do, that you consider as 1%

as that of 1% in something that you do invest into

and then others that you're like, actually, I don't,

and I'll be interested to see if there's anything

that we don't quite see eye to eye.

I have, imagine we will see eye to eye on things,

because I mean, that's why we're here, right?

Cause we like each other, mostly all perspectives align.

And also we have very similar contexts.

Neither one of us are parents.

We're both professional natural bodybuilders,

and I think we both look at our career

as professional natural bodybuilders,

as we take it as seriously as someone

who is in another professional sport,

whether that is, you know, laughable is up to the people

watching us and I can understand a perspective being like,

yeah, you guys don't get paid to flex on stage,

and even if you move up a couple of rankings,

you're still not getting paid, you guys are idiots.

But I think ultimately people don't realize

that all athletes at the professional level,

to get there in the first place,

they had to go through being a professional

in their mindset before they got to a point

where they could ever be paid.

And it has to mean something to them,

and they have to have strong intrinsic motivation.

So whether or not there is a potential pot of gold

at the end of that rainbow in every sport,

I think many athletes have a mindset like us.

It is just that bodybuilding is also a,

like a practice, it's like people do,

you keep doing it after you retire,

it's not like a team sport or playing soccer in the same way.

So we sit alongside people who identify as bodybuilders,

who never compete, who even if they do compete,

maybe do it more recreationally,

I would say, or as a hobby.

And I don't think for me, and I assume for you, Steve,

that hobby quite encapsulates how I feel about it.

To me, it diminishes how much it means to me

and how much I give to it.

And competing is, I'm not gonna stop lifting

after I compete, so it doesn't fully encapsulate either.

So this is part of who I am,

I'm intrinsically motivated to do it.

I do enjoy competing, I will never stop lifting,

and I'm going to take it as far as I can,

and it is a vehicle for me to test myself.

And all those things are still don't even represent

how much I care about it.

So with that context, I don't think there's gonna be much

that differs between us.

It's really just gonna be like,

how do we evaluate the individual thing?

And if the cost to benefit ratio and the time makes sense,

and we agree on those things,

you and I are gonna end up doing the same thing, right?

And if there's something I do that you don't

or vice versa, it's just because one of the,

like, I'm not convinced would be the reason.

But if I was convinced in the same rationale,

we would probably be doing the same thing.

So I don't think we're gonna disagree on much,

but I think there's so many times where I worry

about putting my training out there,

sharing what I'm doing,

because it doesn't make any damn sense

to train as much as I do or to do some of the things I do.

So the 1% that I do, Steve,

and I've actually gotten to a point

where the constraints of my life dictate

the degree that I can do these.

I have been treating my volume kind of like the stock market.

Like, how much time do I have to invest?

Can I put the money in?

And what's the return right now based upon

like demands from becoming the co-director?

So when I can, I train twice in a given day.

And when I can't, I train once.

And then the amount of volume that I do in that session

is gonna depend upon the amount of time I have in that day.

And if I have one time slot, but it's two hours,

I will do two a day worth of training in one session.

And that sucks, it's not as good as splitting it up

from a quality perspective.

So that's one example of a 1% is when I can get to the gym twice,

but it's an option based upon my time gating.

And then I look at, I kind of just right now,

I have a list of all the things I wanna get done in the week.

I know how I would organize them.

And then the things that can have higher volume,

but will probably be pretty good even with lower volume.

And the things that I know I need a higher volume

to kind of move the needle on.

And that really comes down to my perspective of me going,

all right, I'm getting closer and closer and closer

to this genetic ceiling.

But I also, you know, we apply like being a quote unquote

advanced lift or a huge genetic ceiling.

When we talk about it, sometimes like your whole body.

And that's just not the way things work, right?

So I haven't done direct forearm training.

I've done very little direct ab training

because I grew up doing martial arts as an military

and I did track and field in high school.

So like, I always had really, really good abs.

And I think just genetically they had decent structure.

But let's see if I don't know about you, man.

It's all relative to what you get compared to.

I was looking at my pictures at WF World's 2025

and I was like, my abs are not as well defined

and as blockies.

Some of these guys near me and maybe I should actually

start training abs again.

So I've been basically thinking like,

what muscles in my body that are visible

and will enhance my physique to even a small degree

are not advanced because those won't need as much volume.

So like my forearms, my traps, my abs and my tibialis

interior, which you got right, nice job.

I would say those are all like intermediate

compared to everything else.

And even like things like my infraspinatus,

I have like I haven't directly trained that.

It's got a lot of indirect work

but that's kind of a chunk of muscle you can see there

on your back.

Those are all like optional muscles

because they do get a lot of indirect work

that I will put in 15 to 20 sets if I can in a week

but if not, it's gonna be like five to 10.

So that's one example and you won't find me recommending people

to train their infraspinatus or their forearms

or their tibialis interior anywhere on the internet

because it's silly.

But I have silly aspirations

and there's like investments is relative, right?

So when you have, if you're a billionaire,

the investment decisions you can make are entirely different

to someone who only has a couple hundred dollars

in the savings account, right?

So that's not a perfect comparison

but it's almost, it's actually the opposite comparison

because a billionaire, they can,

they get more money off an investment

because they can really reap the rewards

of interest from an absolute sense of money.

I think for us though, I'm thinking like okay,

well where can I add muscle at all?

I could invest 40 sets into some muscles at certain point

and perfect do everything right

and maybe it doesn't grow at all

just because it's that, it's that developed.

Interesting, yeah.

But I might have some muscles that I could invest in.

So even though it seems silly to do tibialis training

or ab training or trap training or forearm training

or what have you,

if those are the only things that can grow in your body,

they're like the only investment

that would even be worthwhile is another way to look at it

which I think is a totally different prospect

that the muscle wouldn't, wouldn't think of.

Yeah, it's interesting actually

because I have started training some things directly

that I previously didn't like I'm doing glute kickbacks.

I never, like five years ago would have looked

and thought I'm gonna do glute kickbacks

but now I'm doing glute kickbacks.

I actually only recently introduced direct

a doctor training which most bodybuilders do by default

but I have always had finer doctors where I'm like,

they're fine but I can, they've never directly trained them

so maybe they can grow even more.

I guess the cool thing with what you're doing there Eric

is it's kind of like a small win in that.

Those areas like you said you could push them

and not know if you guys that they're growing

or maybe they're not even growing it so slow,

you can't really tell but you can tell probably

from the areas that haven't like I could tell

like I talk about a lot like calves definitely grew

from using length and partials like that research

definitely helped put me into a position

where they actually kind of could start growing

and my abs not like you were not well developed

I've trained the hell out of them for a long time

and they've definitely thickened up a ton.

But yeah now you make me question

if I pulled back a bit on maybe some of that ad work

and just kind of held them and then put it into

I don't know like one of these fringe muscle groups

like traps again one I've never needed to directly train

could I get a bit more out there

but yeah it is playing with those final bits

of investment basically like where can I best spend it

because I'm at a point with and probably similar with you

like every session every week you basically leave it

like you couldn't really add any more

without it detracting basically

like you are at your limit and then you go again.

So whereas a lot of people they

don't know where near that limit

but they don't need to be

because they don't need that level of investment

to see a great return

whereas we kind of do for the return that we want

and we're willing to spend kind of in a irrational

almost sense you could argue with some people

we view it as rational but it's interesting

because one of the things you mentioned there is

at least this is somewhere where we may differ

but I think our perspectives come at it

similarly was AM and PM training or twice daily training

that's something I did for three years I think

like I do 12 sessions basically six days a week

and I split them all into two

but I just, I don't know what changed for me when I dropped it

but I just went back to one time a day

and I was like I just, this is so much more on my preference

and similar it takes two, two and a half hours

for me to get the volume of work that I need done

and my gym is actually only like a five minute walk away

so I could split it up

but for like my preferences and my daily demands

and the routine I get into it just works so much better

just getting it all done dusted

don't need to worry about going back

there's not to say I might not split up in future

but there's just something about that

and also I guess practically when I think about it

the gym is so much quieter at the time I go

and if I went in the evening or when I next would probably go

it'd probably be really rammed

and might not be optimal from a stress perspective

and time efficiency perspective

and I think like that

but that is interesting definitely off seat

and that's definitely it

I don't think though, I think there's many bodybuilders

that will be listening who won't think of like doing more sets

as a one percenter

they'll be like I think they won't even believe

that more volume will provide them better results

they're like no no no no don't talk about adding

more set volume that you don't need more

maybe a one percenter is doing a bit of cardio

to improve your insulin sensitivity

or something like that

and then that's where we're probably

I imagine both agree and be like

just be better off spending that time doing more sets

probably if you can recover from it

versus like just trying to hopefully increase

insulin sensitivity which I think is overblown.

Yeah a large part of this comes from

like how well educated are you

and where do you get your information source?

I think I remember when I was in 2005

I had a pill case like I was a 82 year old guy

with diabetes and cardiovascular disease

like trying every supplement under the sun

because I didn't know how to parse like information

and I was like well the only harm is that I'm spending money

and I care about this so I'll lighten my wallet

if only 10% of these supplements help me

then this is a really good idea.

I look back on that and I'm almost positive now

that I was probably taking in some things

that were actively harming me

just knowing how crappy the supplement industry was

and what it was at that time

and it was the regulation was worse.

So yeah some things had probably literally nothing in them

some probably had harmful things in them.

I was probably doing some inadvertent light doping

at the time.

Fortunately it was more than 20 years ago

but I mean like and like I think what I know

about the supplement industry now

and just that it's not neutral or positive

and it's just a financial cost

that it is very sharky and super shady

and there are supplements that I would say.

Yes, my current stack of supplements?

Yeah so I take creatine.

And that's it.

No that's actually not true.

I have some targeted micronutrient supplementation

that I do because I get my dietary analysis

some are regularly.

So like I had relatively low ferritin,

not way low but low enough

and I actually started happening

when I was ramping up my volume.

So I think it has had to do with being kind of in this

constant state of having high hepsadine

in which you can block iron absorption

a little bit and being pretty inflammatory

and just beating myself down

and depleting my iron store.

So I've actually been supplementing with iron

and I'm going to get my blood work done

and that sounds good.

That sounds good.

Yeah, iron stronger baby.

Supplying with iron.

That's right.

More sets of iron and also taking iron.

So I actually know my quote unquote supplement stack

is a little more than that.

I take a multi, it's a green powder

but it's actually a multi that you know

Cliff Harvey actually formulated

called a good green vitality.

But anyway, so I'm very fortunate

I have the relationship with often nutrition.

So I take their way and...

Hell yeah.

Yeah, so they're great and I got their creatine.

So but it's pretty much just creatine way

and then iron and a multivitamin.

That's it.

And yeah, like so the micronutrient supplementation

I do has shifted when I do see something's

a little low for whatever reason during a certain phase.

But yeah, like I have thought about

like, you know, citrally and mali,

it's decent or maybe be tan or beta aligning

but like they're just, I'm just not convinced

by those matters and I do think there's risk

especially for a drug tested athlete to go that route.

But that's where most bodybuilders head's go, you know.

Or they go like, oh, I should get my step count up

or maybe I should do some sleep hygiene things

but those I find are a lot more automatic.

Like you, I don't, it doesn't require much intentionality.

Like you take a pill, you set up your life

so you get the steps you need.

You do everything you can to optimize or sleep.

You know, it might still not optimal.

I still wake up in the middle of the night.

Like, but I don't have a ton of agency there

where I have a lot of agency is how do I train?

You know, okay, here's one other thing I do, Steve,

is I don't have a good point estimate or idea

and maybe James steel will change this.

You know, once he's done reanalyzing the new NES data

of where the real world benefits of higher protein

and takes stop.

You know, and I have a decent idea from the meta regression

we did led by Martin Reffelow that it was trexular

in a deficit.

Ironically, there's less data on that

and there was a surplus because we did some good modeling

and like non-linear fits to that regression.

But I'm not 100% sure where the benefits end

for in a surplus or in maintenance.

I think the closest thing we've got actually is the stronger

by science article that Greg Knuckles wrote

where he kind of talked about, you know, realistically

the plateau is probably somewhere around 1.7 to 2.3 to 2.4 ish,

grams per kilogram and then you throw out this one study

that's an outlier or not and how little do you want to go.

So one thing I've done is I'm very convinced

there's no downside to it, right?

So I have actually jacked my protein intake up.

I think we talked about this last time

when we were talking about James to around like the 2.4,

2.5 grams per kilogram, which I think is probably far

in excess of what I could benefit from.

But this is one where there truly is no downside.

Like you could take the supplement mindset

so I think it's flawed and go, yeah,

if you're in a surplus, correct.

And go, now it is just spending money.

Like there's not really a downside here.

But you go on top.

Absolutely.

I got that big out of the nutrition money, man.

That's actually what I put in the apartments I bought out.

It's just stacks and stacks and protein powder.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I'm on the same page with the I'm around that 1.2 as well.

And yeah, I mean, my calories are ridiculous

when I get into an offseason that they kind of just,

I have such an adaptive metabolism, it gets ridiculous.

Actually, this is going to be,

maybe I was actually interested to ask your thoughts

on this.

I don't know if I should have.

Well, I want to ask you, what stuff are you doing besides

is eating more protein?

Like what are you doing that at the 1%?

Yeah, it's funny because it's exactly the same as you do.

You don't have to do that.

I need to know yours.

So yeah.

Like a lot of the 1%'s are exactly as you demonstrated

in that they're kind of actually what a lot of people

just think of as the big rocks, like the slip

and things like that.

But I think a lot of people, they think they have good sleep

hygiene, but you talk to them and they're like, yeah,

if I wake up, I look at my phone, I have my phone in bed

and so on and so forth or like I take caffeine quite regularly

past 4 p.m. or something like this.

It's like, these are the 1% that start actually,

that they're bigger than 1% probably.

They're actually starting up and but similar to you,

I don't really think of that as it's like we're living

actually back to what you were talking about.

Like bodybuilding is a lifestyle for us.

It's just kind of who we are.

So my day today probably looks like lots of these

like little 1% behaviors similar to you, Eric,

that we don't really view them like that.

It's just like living a healthy life.

So one thing I can say I do like to give an objective

like a cement thing is blue light blockers.

So I do like to wear my orange specks in the evening.

Actually, I used to do them like three hours before bed

and I was like, I'm just not enjoying my evening

because there's three hours of just dark orange life.

So I do it for the last hour, hour and a half now

and it's just become part of that kind of routine

and I kind of feel like at least this is one of those

situations where it's just you buy them as a one off.

There's no, I can't think of it down side to what

there could be.

The upside is arguable when the mechanism's like,

it blocks the blue light.

So maybe it helps for to kind of sleep on set

with the melatonin interaction

but there's not good day on it.

That's one thing I can at least think of.

I do take more supplements than you Eric though

and your comments surrounding supplements

do worry me that I should not supplement

with so many things.

Know that I supplement with a lot

with it's like a garlic tablet

because I don't eat much garlic or I take a mega threes

because I don't eat much fatty fish, a vitamin D,

magnesium, a lot of fish.

And I get my magnesium and my vitamin D test it.

So like those are things that I have conditionally taken,

right?

But I also don't like that.

I would say so.

And I think that's the blood work.

Yeah, 100%.

But I think blood work can go poorly.

I don't think most, I think far too many bodybuilders

to get blood work done, they just want to make their numbers

look pretty and they won't actually sit down

with their doctor and actually talk through it

and then ask for and do more information.

Like there's so many things that people don't know.

Like for example, here's one.

I eat a lot of fatty fish, right?

So I don't supplement with mega threes

because I actually even had a blood test done

that I did with Ryan Anthony shout out

because he's a PhD student in this area.

I actually finished his PhD to look at how much

in the lipid bilayer of my body and my incorporating

EPA and DHA and I'm in like the top profile.

So like I know I'm getting enough fish

and I also getting the numbers there.

But even like there's no such thing

as a mercury-free fish even if you're low mercury fish.

So I get my mercury tested

and I have been right upon the cost

of what is considered clinically too high level mercury.

However, mercury is really only an issue.

Oh, okay, this is even more complexity here.

If you get like a urinary test of mercury,

that's not really testing your methyl mercury

that is getting stored in your body

and that can be very low

when you might actually have high methyl mercury

from a blood test,

which is more representative of potential toxicity.

Another thing that people don't realize

is that you can have a slightly high or reasonably high

mercury level and it could be a problem

by looking at the number.

We don't understand or you don't know

that selenium actually binds to mercury

and makes it inactive and not toxic, right?

And many of the fish that we consume,

they even some that are actually quite high

or reasonably high in mercury

are also giving you a lot of selenium.

So it's really like you need to get your mercury

and your selenium levels tested

and then if your mercury is a little borderline like mine,

I'm not even going to get my mercury tested next time.

I'm just gonna get my selenium levels checked

to see how high they are to know

if my current mercury levels are an issue

and then I modify my fish intake.

So like you start taking one form of iron

at the wrong time, like post-workout,

you're not gonna get the same level of absorption.

I think if you're just looking at it as I'm gonna try

to interpret my own blood work, you're gonna be missing out.

Like for me to interpret my blood work, right?

I'm reading research, I'm leveraging my PhD level

of like interest and knowledge in this

and most importantly, I'm talking to a clinician

and not just my own personal doctor

but other doctors I know who are in the sports medicine space

and I don't think most people are doing that.

So here's one of those things where it's a 1% that I do

but I actually would not recommend people do this.

I haven't done a YouTube video

and here's how to interpret your blood work

but how many YouTube videos are out there like that?

Because I actually think that there's too much depth,

complexity and second and third order effects

to even if I did my best to put out how to check

your blood worth, blood work like on YouTube.

I'd be too concerned if you'll not watching it fully

or just over extrapolating or just kind of going

into the highlights, I go, what should I get checked

and what should I take?

Let me just copy your accounts.

I think it would actually be more harmful.

So that's one of those things that I do

that I wouldn't recommend to others

and I don't want to sound arrogant

but it's decided I don't think they would have the capability

to do that well and not risk doing something harmful

or going back to coming back to supplements.

It is, I won't take anything less

as third party tested.

Wow.

Is it particularly,

because the US is particularly bad, right?

For supplements and being unregulated,

the UK has a few more regulations better.

I don't know if it is better.

Is New Zealand kind of similar to the UK

or similar to the US

or just not a very standard stillboat?

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't give me

the sense of confidence

and third party testing one, you know?

Yeah.

And also just think about it Steve.

If you or I failed the drug test,

think about what that would do

to the national bodybuilding community

and like faith in us and we'd get,

because you see what happens

when someone comes out and goes,

no, I failed from a supplements,

like yeah, whatever, liar.

You're a narcissist, so should pass terrible person.

I would feel like I let down everyone

and like my colleagues, my friends, my family,

even though it was just like an introvert and thing

and like, you know,

some it wouldn't even give me a performance benefit

to how precise the testing is.

Like I, it just can't happen, man.

So that's one of those things where,

you know, like buying insurance

doesn't really make sense financially.

The risk versus reward in the amount

that you spend over time.

Even the people who actually get into car accident

and they pay for it, they're like,

well, that still didn't pay off what I paid in, you know?

The only time insurance companies are not making money

is when like a massive earthquake or fire

takes out the whole like area that they serve

and then they try to get out of it.

You know, they try to get a bailout

or they have a clause that says, you know,

acts of God, you know, like if you find out

that your flood insurance doesn't count for big floods.

You're like, what, you know?

So of course you're about that stuff in the US.

So like, this is one of those cases where I will,

I will never look back and be like,

oh, well, you know what, I regret paying for that insurance.

Like third party testing for any drug tested athlete,

I think it's foolish not to do it, honestly.

But yeah, there are some places

where you can mitigate that risk a lot more than others

depending on the country.

I don't know the implications of the UK

not being part of the EU anymore.

But I mean, many UK supplements suppliers

are selling across Europe,

so they probably have to comply anyway.

But like, yeah, the EU is pretty good, you know?

There's certain levels of compliance there, but

you also have to think about where does

all the various ingredients get produced,

shipped from and manufactured?

Because if there's any links in that supply chain

where they kind of fall through the cracks

of the regulatory bodies for the area you're purchasing,

there's potential for contamination.

And that is true in, it's completely inadvertent

like the supplement company itself may not know this.

And they don't even necessarily know all of the supply lines

or getting something from another manufacturer.

So you just have to be very diligent.

If you, you have to be more aware and more diligent

if you're not going to do third-party testing

in my opinion.

Because then now you're having to control even more variables.

So yeah, I know that's a big burden to ask

of supplement companies and it's easier for those

who are making a lot of money

and a lot of kind of the, quote unquote,

smaller evidence-based ones that are popular

in niche communities just can't afford it.

But I honestly passed the cost down to the consumer

because I will pay twice as much

to get a third-party supplement,

third-party tested supplement, personally,

because it's worth it to me.

And I think it should be worth it to others,

but I can't impose my values on them.

Yeah.

I imagine there's, I just, off the top of my head,

I imagine there's a lot of pro bodybuilders

who on Shode take a pre-workout,

like a pump aid, like pre-stage

that is definitely an author party tested

and that's probably one of the worst perpetrators

of having another substance in there that's banned.

And that's kind of been my kind of guiding rule was like,

I don't do pre-workouts, pump products.

This doesn't matter.

I'll not do those, but single ingredient ones.

I've been a bit like if it's garlic, I'm like, it's garlic,

but like you say, you just, I guess you just don't know

if it's an author party tested at that point.

So maybe you make me rethink as I'm,

once I get through the stack that I've got right now,

I'll make sure I actually get the party tested once

because I think it is, again, for someone like myself,

like you, like the level we take this to,

it's just not the risk to reward isn't,

talking about risk to reward, it's just not worth it.

So maybe that's a 1% actually

as a pro natural bodybuilder is third party tested supplements

or just not taking the damn supplement

that you just don't know,

but the benefits pretty low anyway,

it's a supplement, right?

Is the benefit there?

So do you do some same for protein powders, I'd imagine?

That's still significant.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yes, yeah.

I think so.

Yes.

Eric, we've been talking for over an hour.

I realize we might have to pick up this thread

for the next episode.

What do you think?

Yeah, I've left the scarawarger until the end,

but no, I think, let me ask you this real quick.

Have you noticed a difference

with the blue eyed blockers?

It's hard to say that is like supplements, right?

Like I take ashwagandha as an example.

And do I notice or creating any supplement almost?

Like do I know it's having it or not?

It's like, just don't know.

I think I know something kind of when I take it.

Oh, D, interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, I only get the KSM66

because it is safe.

You actually, that's good.

If you look at that, that's a license product

like pre-appear or a carnison for bid aligning.

And they, if you go to the KSM66 manufacturer

or carnison or pre-appear,

you see they are third party tested.

So if you're getting a supplement

that is single ingredient ashwagandha KSM66,

it's almost third party tested.

There could be some transport.

Other other things going on or if they're housing it.

But it's almost like getting a third party tested supplement

if it's single ingredient.

So anyway, I feel like I noticed,

I feel just a little better

and overall stress resilient when I take ashwagandha.

And that is something that I take on and off.

I took it during prep a lot more than I did

in the off season.

But that's, yeah.

That's actually a good one.

But anyway, like I have all of my screen set

to being on, you know, like the blue shift at night.

Oh, yeah.

It's, you can want to get it.

I sit down doing the true that's, yeah.

So that's where it gets me.

So I just, again, it's just one of those where

it's become such an ingrained habit.

And so if I don't have, you know, Eric,

I take them with me when I travel.

So I just always have them.

So it's hard to now compare,

literally had them every night on like the last decade.

Next time we're on, let's check in on each other.

I'm going to ask if you've committed to third party testing

and I am going to actually get myself a pair

of blue light blockers.

Because why not?

Can't hurt it, right?

Get those third, we're not third party tests.

I don't know if that's the word,

but make sure they're tested because some of them are

just, they don't actually do this orange.

Hey, yeah.

Or not even orange.

Yeah, I can queue up.

Yeah, you hook me up and I'll talk to you more offline

about third party testing.

Yeah.

Guys, thank you for listening.

We've got a name now.

We've had some good chats.

Any questions surrounding this topic in particular?

I think we'll do a bit more of a deep dive next time.

And yeah, we appreciate your is.

Anything you want to leave for listens with Eric?

No, just thank you for helping us build a stronger culture.

Excellent, a name suggestion.

And my agreeableness is going to have me

go with Steve on that one.

And also appreciate everyone's,

you know, willingness to indulge myself, indulgence,

you know, talking about my neurobiology and my new role.

I do appreciate the platform.

Like it's good to feel acknowledged,

but I also understand like,

I hope we deliver that we talk about stuff

that's useful and helpful you guys to.

We will.

I'm terrible for it as well, Eric.

I just going to interview a mode.

And I just want to learn about the person in front of me.

I just, it's a tragedy I have.

So.

Yeah, I'm sure we can talk about me, you know, so guys.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

We'll talk to you soon.