TMGP Ep 01 with Coach Benjamin Yeezus

hi gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 1 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming coach Benjamin yees onto the show Coach Benjamin is a professional lifestyle coach bodybuilder and a level five certified nutritionist from Glasgow in the United Kingdom Benjamin overcame bullying in his younger years to become a top International bodybuilder and a fitness coach Ben now helps people from all walks of life who share a common goal of being healthy let's jump right into the questions where I start off asking him about snacks and his diet the just getting some extra calories in is it part of the diet is it extra yeah well um i' I'd cut back on on my calories for a few days because I wasn't too sure with the injury kind of how long I'd be out for so um okay I was eating relatively low um just carbohydrates breakfast with protein carbohydrates and another meal and then carbohydrates with my dinner at night so probably 150 g of carbohydrates probably about two 100 250 grams of protein there or thereabouts okay is that kind of where you'd be during a prep or is it much higher during a prep would you say at the moment I've been doing about 3 and a half thousand calories um about 250 protein 350 grams of carbs and the rest made up from from fats um if I'm B on carbohydrates I'll pop up with some extra like dark chocolate or some peanut butter and in my last meal or something like that um I do kind of eat similar mostes um I personally find that is so much easier um there's no decision fatigue and stuff like that so it's really um really beneficial for for me um my um my girlfriend she cooks dinner so I saw a great tweet on this actually and it was like quick one keep one so she makes me extra portion at night time and that'll become my meal too for the next day and every day at the moment I'm having oats and we protein peanut butter and jam because I've got some some calories so I'm getting at 80% and then my 20% you know kind of flicks through things like jam a little bit of har Bo or gummies or something like that um but most of it is you know chicken and rice potatoes and Leen mints and that sort of good stuff so you'd say about 80% is the good like the healthy things and then 20% is kind of the to live life fullest yeah I'm even including you know like dark chocolate in that although some days if I want may be like a single finger bit of chocolate like a twirl I'll swap my dark chocolate out and I'll have my twirl maybe during the day if I'm if I'm being on calls or whatever and the the sort of notion takes me it's just 100 calories is the way I see it I'm covering my basis with everything else is good 100 calories from chocolate doesn't really touch the size you know and I I replace your Macros yeah I mean again there like 80% of the good stuff and there's a little slush some days will be more than others some days will'll be less than others but it all balances out for me personally I don't really have any uh massive issues with um the only thing I do is it is the cad bre it's called popping candy um I can't be near that andella mat yeah yeah okay yeah got a lot of people there it's really nice yeah the the JW's gone and probably about 40 hours so I just don't have any in the house to be honest I just don't just don't you got to keep it away otherwise it's too tempting I guess I did try bof once and it was the same yeah very very good too good it's too good they just don't buyer absolutely no you got I've got a similar thing with my girlfriend at the moment where I used to have lots and lots of sweets that I'd accured over a long time mostly from my mom or someone else had given them to me and I just kept them all in a big um in a big drawer in the kitchen but it was just too tempting for my girlfriend so she made me get rid of all of it because if it's there I don't I don't need it but she she couldn't couldn't help herself so it's just easier to take away the tempt one of the things I've always got in the Forefront is if I've got room to eat I should be eating my protein and that's that's absolutely I try and take it absolutely um obviously we've just kind of come off the call and that's what the Noah was saying you know front kind of front loads of protein so I've got room to eat and it's get your cover your basis make sure you're moving towards your goals and anything else on top of that is as as a bonus so to speak especially in a kind of improvement season you know we don't need to live like um I don't know what the term would be yeah EX exactly we are a little bit human so I don't think it bring lessons I don't think it lessons anything and I'm talking there within you know confin um we'll probably go on to later on but I I have a takeaway once per week I even done that when I was on the way to um my competition um one of the things I was really Keen to do was to show you can kind of follow and you don't need to cut out any food groups and I know that you're quite strong in that as well Rosco um absolutely you you don't need to avoid pretty much any food groups um and you can still create you know condition and and size but you know you have got to be covering your your bases most of the time most of the time I totally agree with you there so two two comments are I'm interested and what is your favorite cheat meal that you what's your goto or what does it alate between see this is interesting right because I don't believe in cheat meals oh sorry so what is your I'm not sure what to call it then just a just a meal of choice so yes meal of choice yes C every single Friday without fail um okay I have a chicken a chicken curry um with boiled rice I have maybe four or five chips and a couple of Pawn crackers with it and and I'm good with that I look forward to it all week I I enjoy my all week you know I don't miss anything yeah I'm having pasta I'm having spaghetti I'm having anything that I can of choose is the spaghetti is it special is it the no just regular spaghetti okay not protein or gluten free just regular spaghetti just regular spaghetti with um maybe like three to 5% lean mints done as a you know a kind of tomato sauce with uh maybe some chili powder and stuff like that added um I'm I'm not allowed to do the cooking in the house because I make too much me so um Bas basally just do the I hope with they cleaning up that's fair enough that's fair enough I don't know specifically what's in it but it tastes good nonetheless that's that's all that matters and it's healthy and you're getting your Macros and what what else like during the day would you eat to comprise those 3,500 calories so at the moment um good kind of example I'm having meal one pretty much much predominantly during the week is Ops and way um with some peanut butter if I've got the extra calories which I do at the moment there's some Jam in there so again just sort of enjoying a little bit my meal too will be last night's dinner so for example last night I had um spaghetti H Bolognese I had that for meal uh two today and me three if it's a training day I'm probably going to have maybe like a bowl of cereal and what I'll do is I'll make a protein shake and I put the protein shake into the um into the into the cereal so that's kind of like my milk and I do use milk with that particular protein shake and I'll maybe have um some harble kind of before the gym um I have some cyclic dection as a an intra workout and then when I come out um of H training I have my dinner so that could be anything from you know chicken and rice with h veggies it could be um pasta it could be um spaghetti balles as we mentioned it could be bolognaise with pasta you know those biged potato so there's there's loads of different things there and if I'm having baked potato there'll be a little bit of cheese in it some onion and again I kind of protein sauce at the side whether that be chicken or or mins and then before I go to bed I'm having some fat-free yogurt I put some whe protein in there um some peanut butter blueberries and some honey um and probably takes me close to 3 and half thousand okay wow so is that over did you say about four to five meals a day on every yeah as well yeah so um I've got a got a [ __ ] spion she's sleep here on the couch um yeah I never need to wear a watch I can set my watch by by the dog she wakes up at 6:30 every morning okay and even before I had her when I sort of come into the sort of bodybuilding space when you're doing your fasted Calo not for any other purpose than that I like doing my C in the morning I like doing my training at night um I find that's a good split for me um you know you can do your C do at any time that you please but I I choose to do mine fasted um when I'm doing my competition prep and but she's up at halfast 6 so we have breakfast then and then I just split it out maybe 8 to 4 hours um throughout the day okay and the the Harry Bo those are sweets right and is that to that is that to control an insulin Spike and to for the work what what is it for one one of the things I struggle with is getting food in um so it's just it's just a quick way of getting in some carbohydrates um before the gym when I'm coming into a dieing face they're like the first things to go out so the the harabo the am the jam they all go all all they're nice to have the 20% is to to to go out you're still then having all of your food you're still touching all of your micronutrient bases with your veggies your different food groups obviously your protein sources um so yeah it's more more along that lines for me okay that makes that makes a lot of sense shall we hop into some of the questions absolutely got your answers prepared you they're not they're not too deep I'm sure you don't even need to repair for most of do well actually before we hop into do you just want to tell us a little bit about yourself um what got you into bodybuilding I saw you've got a really cool story and I'd love for you to to share it yeah um my own story of becoming a coach started one night at uh would you call it soccer Rosco or football yes soccer soccer soer here but then again it's very interesting sorry it's really side topic here but we call it soccer but the clubs aren't called soccer clubs they're called for example my local one is called Marty's football club we call it soccer you don't say you're going to play football so I don't understand what the reasoning is for that but anyway sorry even some of the rugby clubs are called football clubs so yeah doesn't really make any hard up last s yeah I had a conversation with a jent one night at a a football game um I had been um competitive bodybuilding myself for a little time I have a very curious mind um coming from a project engineer project management background so I like to know how things work I like to understand so that piqued my interest um I should mention at this point I had a coach as well um here in the UK Jordan Peters trained by JP um I was coached by Jordan for six years loved every minute of it very very thankful for the opportunity to work with him one of the best guys in the industry um and I just sort of got an interest of of learning um about what works for people um one of the things I found that in the health and fitness industry is there's a lot of barriers for people some people think that there is so hard that they could never achieve I mean I won't lie I I didn't think I would achieve even 10% of some of the things that I've managed to do in terms of of of some of the things that I've managed to to work towards the goals that long-term Vision that we' mentioned um and it just came from a conversation a particular gent said to me I've tried every diet under the sun I can't lose weight and I was like okay um I was going on holiday the next day I said to him to do a food diary for me he done a food diary I said I won't judge there's there's no judgment here just tell me what it is long story short we gave him a nutrition plan that he could follow we worked around the foods that he enjoyed and he dropped um almost five Stone I think it four and a half Stone but he also had a medical condition called um non-fatty acid liver disease um he had that for 18 years within 12 weeks of working with him he got a letter from the doctor to say that he didn't need to go for for any more blood tests wow condition had gone away that's a beautiful story wow and that was first that was my client W feeling from that that you know was except when I say I'm I'm on to something as in yeah know I can really make a difference here I feel that I can bring something to the table I can break down these barriers absolutely you know the man was was in his 40s in his late 40s at that point in time and very interestingly he's still a client in mind to to this very day since start so how long how long is that that's about nearly six six years just been on seven years between six and seven years wow I've been AC um i' been bodybing myself yeah sorry on you goar oh sorry is he doing it competitively or just for himself just lifestyle you know okay the kind of gent that goes to work he wants to enjoy having a beer on a Friday night when he's worked hard yes and a takeaway he deserves it absolutely and having the support and the accountability you know keeps him on that track of um the new life that he's obviously you know created he's fit he's healthy all that sort of good stuff you know it's just a joury that it's gone from being a joury now to it's his lifestyle that's that's just what he does so it's great to see yes yeah if if you want I'd love to show um anyone who's listening or like some I saw you posted a lot of transformation so if you want to U show me or if you want to do it later feel free to like send some of the example pictures of some your clients and their trans Transformations yeah absolutely absolutely yeah yeah can do that absolutely you you mentioned you were briefly touching on some of your own achievements in in bodybuilding would you like to elaborate some more on those um I mean one of the things ironically um I found the picture the other day of the first time I ever saw my own six-pack which was a really big thing for me um kind of grown up I don't know if you'll be familiar with with Ben's health I don't know how how old I'm now making myself or but Men's Health was like one of the top magazines and and and the sort of and yes to be fair um they didn't they didn't give out accurate information let's just put it that way they still don't I um so sorry just on the men's health I don't want you to forget what you're going to say but my dad was always he used to always get the Men's Health and I used to look at these guys and and just look at some of the things and back then I was young so I didn't know better I think a lot of people just don't know better and I think Men's Health is creating they do have good stuff don't get me wrong but there's so much nonsense that they that they are putting out and it's it's it's really sad to see so please carry on about uh yeah I mean you're absolutely right you know I fallen for every trick that the industry has to offer don't spike your blood sugar you can do this in six weeks this could be you oh no and again it's reason and it's another reason that I got into into the industry myself was to try and push back against some of the through it yeah you know just just tell people like this is how this is how it is you know basic things like a caloric deficit how you get there doesn't matter if you choose to go keto if you choose to go carnivore I'm happy for whatever method you choose to get there but none of them are superior to the other they're calories in calories out the Bas yeah AB absolutely and it's like it's just like choosing the type of car that you want to take to get you to um a destination but they're all they're all it's not like's a it's not like one's a Ferrari and one's a you know I don't know a f Fiesta nothing wrong with there's nothing you know I'm not not I'm not trying to be like um you know against I'm just saying it's just a vehicle it doesn't go any not the Ferrari M for second one I don't have a ferr um it's your body is a Ferrari better than a Ferrari I think I mean it's it's one of those things you know when you just Stack Up consistency across time again as I was mentioning that that picture I remember the picture being taken when I saw my abs for the first time yeah that was like a 10 15 year goal for me wow and then it was like at that point I I think that was around 6 to9 months into my journey if I if I'm remembering correctly yeah I've always been relatively lean um the struggle for me has been to get the size on that um we we touched on when we were talking earlier you know about the amount of food that actually takes to grow especially for me of time yeah yeah and it's like two two years at a time of of setting that goal in the future to say okay I don't know what it's going to look like I don't know at what point I'm going to stop in terms of you know what weight's going to be for example but I need that concered effort of pushing up to come back in and see how much muscle you put on you it's almost like the reveal but it takes two years to do the reveal and that's kind of always been my approach I've done that now I think three or four times at my latest I was 143 and I sat today around about 2 222 okay wow so that's that's like 80 pound difference and most will probably yeah yeah just because I'm I'm I'm into my 40s now um I'm trying not to carry as much body F but I'm trying to see I'm at a slight Advantage I mean I'm not the biggest on the planet I've got a lot of weaknesses I always put that out there I'm just looking to improve as much as the next person in my own physique and that's what I said to people as well there'll be people out there who are bigger who are leaner who are stronger I see that as being inspirational but the only thing that I can do is be the be the best me because I can only give it everything I've got and that's why I take inspiration from people who who do have their journey and if their journey is takes them to a better place that's fantastic I'm happy for them because one of the things we need to be aware of is we can only be as good as as we are as as long as we given everything we can go bed exactly exactly that completely understand and it's really cool that you take inspiration from others rather than want to put other people down and you actually use it to fuel your own fire that's that's a really good man then yeah I mean like no nobody nobody's not putting work in no that's the thing about a physique obviously all physiques are different you can't you can't take away anybody's hard work if they've work hard for something and that's the best that they can do with the resources that they've got and the time that they've got or whatever if they've given could us earlier in 60 very inspir yeah no 100% And he's he's do he's definitely I I see him definitely getting to 15% so that was oh yeah a six sixy old guy who was 23 25% and he decided to change his life around and do the dieting do the training and he's now at 21% I think is what he was and he wants to be about 15% and I totally believe that he's going to get there as long as he doesn't um burn out I could see that he is very excited yeah to drop quickly and he needs to just understand that it's along it's the the toris versus the rabbit and he needs to just he is older but he needs to also understand that like and I think you gave him good perspective on the really older bodybuilders in the '90s even ' 80s '90s I think that really lit up a big spark for him and it it actually did flip a switch because he was very rushed to get he's like oh my word I'm almost 70 and you also mentioned what about the other people that are 70 that haven't flipped the switch you're going to be four years ahead of them so think about it like that and I think that was really a good mentality to have yeah I think there was a little bit of what I was trying to do there there was a little bit of regret maybe coming out there that he hadn't and do you know what to be honest when I'm saying that that I have that regret I was 34 when I started wow you know wow I was 34 so wow it was like I my only regret I wish I st I 18 what that's that's honest it's um so interesting to hear that because now I'm going to sound ridiculous so I'm 4 and I I regret that I didn't start at the age of 10 I regret I played really I played pretty decent tennis and squash and all those other sports I didn't I went to the gym but I just did the cables and I just did what I thought was easy I didn't want to embarrass myself I was also I was similar to you in the fact that I was the skinny kid got bullied and all those things for being skinny not playing rugby not doing the big boy Sports and um small exactly in Scotland we've got we which is small the we so I was we it was like I don't we yeah watch you don't fall down the stank McDonald's know enough people telling you this kind of stuff it's it scks and you you mentioned actually Ros about this Moria Yes mine has gone from mine has gone from to us I still think and believe that I'm that that 143 I don't automatically instantly go to being there yeah yeah and that's the only time I get jealous is when somebody tells me they're 24 yes I'm I'm hoping to to make this a long a long journey and to to take it day by day but even even I I start at the age of 19 not not bodybuilding anything but kind of a mixture of what I call power building where it's AIT bit of a mixture between bodybuilding and and uh powerlifting it's basically for the guys that aren't big enough to bodybuild and the guys that aren't strong enough to power lift so it's a nice little intermediary there um and I also think that for longevity sake it's it's what I what I want to do um but the reason that I got into it was actually because I really severely injured my back um actually in the gym doing squats uh going atg um but my body type is not i' I'm a tall dude I'm 6'2 and going my legs are like it's just not for me I'd have a lot of buttwink but I'll strengthen conditioning coach I was playing um for the Varity first team tennis he insisted we have to go all the way down until our butts touch the floor my body I did it but it severely my C3 C4 vertebra I can't remember the exact diagnosis but it was bad I was in my bed for two weeks I lost 10 kilograms of muscle which I didn't have to lose at that stage I went from 80 kilos down to 70 and I atrophied terribly and after that then the co hit and the only I wasn't allowed to play tennis it was banned and so the only thing that was open was the gym so that's what that was kind of my story into getting to to the lifting and you mentioned something really interesting about the barriers to to to lifting to improving one's physique and all of that and that's actually exactly the whole philosophy like in a nutshell for the games gurus and for this hypertrophy research project that I've embarked on is that I want to make uh so-called allinclusive I know it's a big thing to say allinclusive but as much inclusive as we can science based evidencebased thing to away for free that is kind of the idea there's there's lots of similar things but they're all behind a pay wall they're all um and and a lot of them aren't all inclusive it's like okay here's your diet and and I understand that and I still think it would be best to get a coach but these are for the people that can't afford a coach don't want to coach and want all the science in kind of one place where it's easily digestible for them and that that's kind of the idea but behind it yeah know makes sense and it's it's really good to be on board as well um there's already been some really good discussions with the group um one of the things I really enjoy is having those different views um yeah I don't just watch and listen and and Gest bodybuilding myself I like to watch um like for example CrossFit on Netflix I've watched all the CrossFit stuff I like listening to there's some podcasts out there um it used to be cross it's called barbell shrug it's now called something else now they've really grown in popularity over the last few years but they've stepped away just from being solely CrossFit I think they do more like functional kind of stuff but they've got a lot of good guests on the podcast so I'm always trying to not just keep yourself in one lane as much as I enjoy all that stuff I like having that sort of plethora where you can maybe enter into a conversation or at least listen to something and say all right I understand what somebody's talking about or you can even offer something absolutely no and that's really cool that you're into other things other than just bodybuilding and I think some people do get a bit too sucked into one kind of sphere yeah and and then they become quite onedimensional and that's and if they like that then that's awesome but it is nice to get different perspectives and to be multi-dimensional it's it's one of the reasons I entered the nutrition space rather than personal training for example my my I I am a certified nutritionist I'm M andu certified so I I worked with powerlifting clients one of my powerlifting clients was a a lady almost 60 she lost 60 kilos and became a two times ipf world champion wow no ways congrats that's I saw you level five nutritionist what what does level five mean so that's basically a kind of degree level um here in the UK M andu have just been exed by the government to meet the framework for level five so it's the equivalent of a degree wow wow that's for now I would love love to hear more about this uh ipf uh world champion is that in a particular age group yeah uh this the category was M2 um and that was um it was the full full left was squat deadlift and bench but also she was a bench champion and in her own right what what was her um what was her bench a 107.5 I think was the was the 62 kilos body weight wow wow that's incredible yo that's almost a 2X multiplier that's 13 132.5 I think it was deadlift okay 132 yeah 132.5 in the deadlift like 2x over 2X I don't remember off hand but it was Nor 100 kilos it was certainly nor 400 kilos and that was at the edge of how how she was she was 60 60 62 something somewhere in that that that you should have mentioned that to um to Rodney listen I check check this there's so many things just G through your head at some point um one of my clients last year qualified for the natural Mr Olympia in Las Vegas wow and wow he qualified for the worlds and the Europeans so he was fifth in the world and Ninth at the Mr Olympia and and his first sort of outing at that level so was saying earlier about twoe goals so he's on a twoyear goal now to let's go again and and see how we go in two years wow that's those are these are some top top athletes in the world that you've got uh veryy very and yes yes um they are um based in around kind of Glasgow yeah yeah okay wow I do have clients all over the world though I've got clients in like um Boston GLS in Maine um Dubai Finland um are they mostly for nutrition or they mostly for everything all inclusive what what is your I don't do I don't do the powerlifting training um I'll be honest I don't program the powerlifting I do program training as well as nutrition um so like obviously being a competitive you know bodybuilder men's physique athlete myself you know I understand a little bit about you know hypertrophy and stuff like that and um but yeah I've got the obviously got the nutrition kind of unlock yeah yeah yeah just having things like advanced muscle gain as particular modules within I even work with clients um who have PCOS for example type one diabetes type two so in the nutrition space I've got a play of Lifestyle clients H clients who compete men's physique clients who want to do shs all the way up to you know kind of national World level um Champions as well which which Champions and and what category so the um that that was the ipf um M2 and Jonathan was he won the regional show and he placed fifth in the world and then men's bodying oh wow okay I please do um oh so yeah we've got a lot of questions I know it's now getting L should we run through them as possible okay what uh what is the hund club and sorry for my ignorance but I all over Twitter and I've never heard of that before uh s called bie butter um sorry yeah that's that's his handle on Instagram I don't think it's very nice if you'd look a bit deeper into that so maybe don't look a bit deeper into the name okay I don't think it's complimentary at all um but that's has that's the name he's giv himself um it's literally just people um kind of almost like a community um okay you can join if if you send them a message I can put you in touch with them and you can get get in and get part of the club um it's just people being positive the messages of support if you see uh somebody had a PB you know just just aing everybody up the way it should be you know okay the more positivity the better I love that kind of environment that sounds really cool so it's not hitting a 100 kilogram bench or or something like that I thought it it was something something used to be related the the of that used to be the entry room you couldn't join unless you you couldn't get unless you could 100 kilos they had the they just like okay the woman can come that that's that's but I I get it I get it I it okay no fair enough okay thanks for that I see it all over Twitter um so I really thought it was uh something else so thanks for clarifying that sorry about the noob what about that um um and you've spoken you haven't actually really spoken too much about what got you into the fitness originally like I've read about you so I I know but if you could just um get pretty much getting a hard time when I was very very young um yes quite badly bullied at school um being the being the skinny one you know yeah obviously you had an easy target and affected me a lot and also reading Men's Health held me back a fair but um all changed when I I been even then I I made my own mistakes after that I spent a few years trying to grow and when I look back and as we spoke about you know I've made every mistake probably non to man in terms of Fitness training yeah I was trying to grow on 1500 calories which we both know difficult happen um I was training six days I was training seven days and then wondering why I wasn't getting any bigger uh and then still eating the same amount of food so it all changed for me and when I got a coach and that's one of the things that I do advise to people even before I was a coach myself I used to say this to people get a coach get a coach invest you know whatever the whatever it is invest in yourself I invest you you learn more in the time if it's three months if it's six months if it's whatever I was with my coach for six years ow and it was like the best experience ever you know it was just I I can't K enough of it it was that's exactly what it was to be honest that exactly what it was and and that's what I said even before I was a coach I used to say to people get a coach takes away the worry it takes away the analysis paralysis it takes away am I bulking am I cutting what is my goal what is it that I want to it takes away the decision fatigue like you mentioned yeah and you got somebody I was a project manager and in my professional career and for 10 years and that's basically what a coach is as a project manager yeah yeah that will drive you to to your destination wherever you want to go yeah yeah and they'll help you get there and give you all their knowledge and they've made all the mistakes yeah they've got the experience they already made all the mistakes they've learned all the lessons saves you time overall it saves you time it saves you money it saves you effort it saves you worry you know and I'm not coming into a big advert I mean it doesn't necessarily need to be your I it's just it's just the basics of get a coach but get one who who cares get one who's going to look after you one who's going to your results that's the huge thing that you mentioned there there are so many people in this world who just don't care um and I feel there's a lot of coaches that don't don't care you're just a number you just give them money and they give you Cookie Cutter programs and it's really sad and I think what that you as a coach can mention that that's very that's very powerful because there's lot so many there's lots of coaches and I think what distinguishes the ones you want from other ones is do do they care yeah yeah I mean it's really nice to get you know good feedback to know that you are helping people and you're changing people's lives absolutely yeah um obviously I mentioned with my first client that that's like one of one of many you know I've worked with clients for example who were suffering so they were type one diabetic suffering um hypos on a daily basis but they they were stuck they didn't know how to get themselves out of that you know I I I'm not medicinal so I don't touch how much that ins they would take it anything like that but what I can do is make their life better by getting them commit to being active I did a goal we can then work towards changing the going down that 80 you know 20 route yes I see a lot of people arguing in the space about you know insulin resistance and you know metabolic adaptation and all this sort of good stuff I have yet to come across a client who's metabolically broken and I've worked with over a thousand people know in my team wow when you've got congratulations well thank you when you've got people that are focused on their goals and you're helping them towards that and they're making good decisions I give you a good example one of my clients today is 57 years of age and he's looking to to get a bit fitter he's left it a bit like Rod you know a little bit later in life but he's realized he's had his moment where he wants to get better so he's G on holiday next week but he's going to take his protein with him he's going to take his way good good yeah he's already thinking ahead of what type of meals he can eat so not going to take food with him but when he's out there he's going to try and choose does got protein heavy you know good good protein sources he's going to be on holiday so if he wants to he can have a little you know he can have a little bit of that he can have if he wants to have a beer if that's his thing he can do that and enjoy it and come back but what the point I'm making there is he's already looking forward to what he can do whilst he's away and this is where for me it becomes not just a diet it becomes a lifestyle and that's that's then again for me what you want to do and what you want people to see us rather than just eight weeks I done an8 week cut and I lost 40s yeah okay that's good that fantastic well done yeah how did you do how did you do can you keep it off that's where the for me that's where it is it's not just weight loss is good fat loss is good I'm I'm not I'm not declining anyone's efforts I never would yeah AB real real m is getting it off something you can stick to keeping it off abely rebanding is a huge issue yeah like you said earlier you know 30 days you can't achieve you can't I would challenge anyone to do lifestyle change in 30 days that's going to be it's not long enough not enough you'll do a lot of fat loss perhaps in that time but not do Liv they'll change yeah I think you do a lot of muscle loss as well if you're doing drastic fat loss that's very true that's very true so on on on that with the what are some key nutrition tips that you give you've mentioned the 8020 you've mentioned the calorie deficit what are some other key things that you'd put in your in your nutrition tips what yeah TP TP tips for me is just try and be mindful you know try and prioritize yourself whereby as I've used the example there of my 57 year old client that's a mindset mindset change he's now thinking a week ahead two weeks ahead of what am I going to eat next week absolutely so when you can put yourself into that plan plan plan ahead that's it so if you're out shopping plan your week ahead what does it look like that doesn't mean that you can never ever go out again you can not enjoy life yeah you got to enjoy it you only get one but if you're eating 35 meals see if you five meals per day youat 35 meals a week see even two are out yeah that's like 6% now if I if I gave you a test Ros and you gave me the test sheet back and I said congratulations you got 94% how would you celebrate so one of the things I is when you say to people your week was 94% good positive fantastic whatever superlative you want to use yeah only in Fitness and Nutrition space is 100% the the ultimate if it's not 100% it's nothing it's not good that's again where you're trying to so that's my that's my nutrition tip Blends into a little bit mindset as well but pick your foods be aware of what you're going to eat and try and build up a plan similar to kind of what I do you know I could tell you three weeks ago on Tuesday what I ate from a dinner probably and that works for me because I like to I basically have the same yeah I have the same Foods Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday so every Sunday is a Sunday roast yeah Monday will be two nights in the week will be chicken and rice two nights in the week will be Min and pasta Min and spaghetti balles I'm not me personally I'm not missing out any food groups I don't like fish particularly there'll be people out there that will love fish and and that's F that's absolutely fantastic obviously have that in your diet a great source of of micronutrients great source of backr nutrients um so yeah I suppose that's mying a tip is like plan ahead make it as good as you can and live yourself a little bit of slush if you can some people won't be able to do that and that's absolutely fine the only problem is we can't cover every single Nuance in the time that we've got so no absolutely no those are some great some great tips and what you mentioned there about making sure the majority are good I think that's something a lot of people get wrong is they do Monday to Friday so well and the weekend they go and completely destroy it but I saw a like five out of seven is not 94% that is that is a big a big problem um even because maybe they do well Monday Tuesday with the thday Friday night to go out that's not even Friday that you got dried and then Saturday you're H hanging it's not right and Sunday you've got a new week coming so you need to you know binge yeah so what one thing to be aware of you know Friday Saturday and Sunday is 43% of your week yeah yeah and what I always say is do with that information what you will but just remember you know calories count even if you don't them calories on a they don't imag they don't magally go away at 12:00 on fre T night and and beers and things and um cocktails have calories surprisingly yes yes yes what I find is it's not always the um calories from the alcohol you know it generally keeps you out late then you start looking for the nearest maybe Kebab shop or pizza shop yeah and then you've got that's Friday night so you wake up Saturday you're hung over yeah you know you're either going to repeat the cycle on the Saturday with all the food then as you say the the calorie deficit that you tried to K maybe buy you know 300 calories 400 calories 500 calories whatever per day Monday to Thursday you're only in a 2,000 calorie deficit and you've probably already done that Friday into Saturday morning so everything else now is just going to take you back up yeah no I totally totally agree with you like it's important to not mess up your weekends for sure for sure I saw so you just use way you don't use any casing part what are what do your thoughts on on so there's there's two there's two TRS of thought casing obviously you know slow digestion um keeps you you speeding if you want for what of a better term overnight um one of the things I've read before in the past is if you're eating something like we so I'll have yogurt and whe before I'm going to sleep you are then giving your gut a little bit of a chance to catch up because obviously the ways quick the yogurt Pro is is a form of casine obviously so it's got slow properties um yes I'll be honest I don't get too uh I don't get too upset about about that um she's going to attack me here sorry I don't get too upset about but um you know if I have a shake before bed even if it was a protein shake I'd be happy with that I wouldn't spend my night being worried that I was catabolic for example because I'm going to sleep my body's going to down regulate and I've got enough as the sign shows as as you know yourself Rosco if you're getting enough protein across at least four fings is optimal yeah and you're protein Target you're hitting your Lucine targets yeah and you're triggering muscle protein synthesis yes you're getting you're checking enough boxes there for me to to worry and again there is another thing the the barriers and and creating that nice easy way entry because when you start bringing in a lot of rules rules way heavy on a lot of people you know say someday you need to have a casing shake before you go to sleep yeah it's just another thing to to yep no I totally agree I I myself actually do have a case in Shake every night because I do like actually do fasting so I um use that as a kind of way to mitigate the the fast I do 16 hours of fast and 8 hours of feeding window um you mentioned sleep how important is sleep super important and for your clients super important probably it's very very hard to rate sleep training and nutrition it's the I think the best way to to to talk about that is there a TR factor that are inextricably linked if your nutrition is on point if your training is on point and your sleep is on point you're you're on you're on the right path there's there's not a lot more you can say you know you want to try and have environments where it's going to be conducive to sleep so that the room's not too warm maybe want to avoid some screen time maybe a little bit of meditation before bed or J on so that it takes things away from from your mind however you find yourself going to sleep um is good I'm I'm very lucky I don't struggle when getting to sleep I never really have yeah I hard in the day yeah do you nap as well what is your sleep schedule I normally have a um I'm normally down sleeping for about probably halfast 10 11 ordinarily okay and then awake for half Su okay so that's s and a half hours eight hours okay okay yeah I okay I find I'm find them yeah you mentioned your nap as well when I can when I on the weekend for example um so for example on a rest night and tonight um yeah I haven't been as active this week because of my injury um I mean my steps have gone down to like 2,000 steps per day so I haven't really been that TIY was oh when I go too deep uh um when I'm doing leg exercises my SI joint gets really unhappy and I've got like a nodule that appears in my back and then if I rub it it just fls up and then I can't walk for like a few days so I got a bit annoy with it and I rubbed it and then it gave me pain for like four days so it's a weird it's very strange you've said you've had it for a long time now it's a chronic chronic problem yeah it's one of those ones I've had to adapt my chaining around it I've been to Physio I've been to chiropractor you know at this point in time most of the time I've got it under control I have three or four flareups across the last four or five years which isn't too bad that's muching around it I I I like the word adapting and adaptability I think a lot of people are not adaptable and not flexible enough in the gym with their training with their diet and I think it's very important to be able to adapt I've got to lose yeah I need to lose a little bit of R so sometimes I won't hit the B maybe two or three inches from the bottom but it's simply because if I do go to the bottom that's when I injure myself so one is about known well sometimes you get called out for it but under the day I've got to then be like I know my body what it can take okays I'm putting a lot of plates on and it's taken away from my of movement but I know myself and one of the things now is um post physique so I've got the receipts of a pretty decent pars I'm going to be like okay I'm all right now yeah I don't think too many people are going to call you out but they can yeah they're going to call out anyone people who like bringing other people down are not worth the energy to even bother with I just I just block now if it's anything like that comes on my timeline or on Twitter or X it's one strike out it's just that's just byebye cheers yeah I don't even argue there's no there's no discuss never yeah know you're not the more you tell them something the the less likely they are to it's almost like um you get your the the Kito and carore whatever has I've alluded to earlier every day it works it sticks to one principle deficit I'll never convince a keto person who's convinced that keto is superior and that's why they're able to do it yeah I vegan's the only thing I don't program I don't program vegan because that's unfortunately one of the only unless you do it right and it takes a lot a lot of programming to do a vegan diet correctly it's one of the only ones that can leave you with nutrient deficiencies at least the of law need yeah carnivore and keto and stuff like that very very they're not as difficult to enter into nutrient deficiencies but I found the reading that I've done now people will argue that and that's fine there'll be people with more vegan experience and it can absolutely be done but you need to be very very mindful in know yeah of the different balances and there you need to take a lot of boxes yes you're losing content ability yeah oh these sort of things get to more um calories yeah to get the same amount of protein yeah yeah which is hard for some you're getting the more more calories then I I completely agree I think a large thing of the vegan is it's difficult to to eat enough and that's why people also yeah also lose um in terms of your injury have you uh had any experience with peptides or bpc 157 or tb500 no I don't have any experience on that you haven't and you haven't you haven't looked into it or anything for for your injuries or or anything I've seen it been mentioned I've just never really sort of dived into it to be fair okay okay that's it's definitely an an aspect that I that I'm quite interested in I I um would recommend looking at it at some stage and it's actually saves some people from needing surgery it is it is definitely something that is worth looking in and something that I know a lot of people I know in the bodybuilding industry and powerlifting as well yeah um they they Rave about it and they definitely Food For Thought definitely i' like jump into some of your I know I'm really sorry it's getting late now and cut me off any anytime that that you need to but I would like to run into some of your training um principles if out um um you use yeah sure sure sure no no you go then you go thank you okay um how important would you say is the Mind muscle connection I do like a about of Mind muscle I think you do feel it I have had training bouts where you are lifting within 10 it's maybe not the strongest in full control in terms of Mind muscle but yeah I I I do person I do think it has a place um rather than just moving away from A to B I think that it should be and you'll probably see as well with some of my videos and I am moving my preferred Tempo is 401 so I'm I'm you know for example on the on the bicep curl I'm pulling up to the top and I'm giving a nice um for count on the way down back up to the top with the explosion so the the force is obviously what generates um the muscle fibers to work that way a little bit um so yeah you've got that M muscle connection mixed in with the the right sort of level of control and the concentric and Ecentric um and for me that's something I've found has worked over time so you say it's say one second constraint Centric 4 second Ecentric and Z second isometric yes yes yes most of your most of your okay yes there are instances for example where if I'm doing maybe some some squat work C I don't buy B squat sadly because of injury but if I'm doing maybe ha squat down a nice little kind of pause at the bottom just pause to take the take the T yeah okay yeah okay even just that one count to bring you back up so on on tension actually the next one is do you use constant tension yes okay okay so I always try all right I always try and and do you go till failure on your working set failure working set so failure for me is when I can't do another rep with good form good form okay okay so not necessarily full failure where you actually can't even move it but failure to the point where you can't move it correctly yeah so if it was like a bicep C for example the minute I would break down yeah the minute you start to much yeah I'll be honest I'm I don't dislike and I get this from John Meadow I don't dislike 25 5 to 30% Body English when you're coming towards the end of a set I'm a Believer there of how do you get to the next level cuz every rep can't always look textbook there needs to be a certain level where you cross over obviously that crossover does come with a level so if you're doing a a branch waren bicep curl where it's coming from like back here if you've ever seen by Branch Warren B set car yeah um but he gets away with it because he's a pro got that genetics sure whereas us me and Mortal you know we've got to be in control with the tension got to be there with a bit of the Mind muscle connection as well um so yeah it's just a case of trying to trying to get um to that failure point but without having too much other come in to compensate but I think I'm okay with it 20 25% and just in my experience okay would you say um on that mind muscle connection do you squeeze the muscle is that is that part of it okay so you do you physically think of squeezing squeezing bicep yes yeah I'm putting focus into the muscle that I'm trying to what biceps are good on so it's like a preacher curl yeah the should the shoulders down elbows locked in and it's literally unilateral or or bilateral I'm a I'm a big fan of unilateral work and I actually arrived at that um by accident when I injured myself I had to go back to the start um with my leg ch um and it's something I've left in now to to this day in terms of maybe two to three exercises will be unal work okay I have sorry s h and and a workout um probably seven a push had 12 12 working sets on average okay I I like that that's quite a low um a low number of exercises and I I like that I do five exercises a day myself um so I I like that kind of range what in terms of range of motion do you like full rum partials what is your I think I think that becomes very dependent on you as a person not everyone as as as you know yourself you don't have full R in the squat it's it's range of motion where you can move a lot of the people that I work myself included we desk Bound for a lot of the day yeah so very hard and you could say you know oh you should be doing mobility work you should be doing this we add the mobility work to the other work I need to do to that to that and that might be to some an excuse but I'm just going to keep I'm just going to keep it real and just say that's the reality of it yeah yeah your thoughts on um drop sets they have the place um at the end of perhaps a body part so if you were doing push let's say you were doing h two test exercises and some flies on the on the Flies there might be a drop set on the Flies just to finish the chest off okay as a finisher for a for a finisher SL intensity I think I prefer intensity amplifier okay on the on the last working set of the body part just to really you know you feel good in the moment good B of work been done little bit the pump yes but you know when you've done a for example if you do a triple drop set on your last Tri set exercise so you've done a tri exercise you come into your second one and you just want to make sure that you've e everything out in the session drop yeah it could be a r and a quarter set it could be a drop set it could be a muscle round which are really good the 6x4 set it could be um there's so many different ways you do it yeah set there's loads of way to do it but yeah I think they they've got their place but what you need to be wary of is accumulating fatigue for the purpose of just accumulating fatigue sure I think there's a repl for them they feel good let's be honest a few good factor in them as long as they're not every single exercise every single set then I would say no yeah I I really liked um your training split do you mind uh telling telling people what your training split is so at the moment I do legs push po um I fluctuate between that and legs Push Pull lower and upper okay but didn't you say something about going three days on one day off as well yeah so yeah yeah that's yeah so I'll train Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday rest day yeah and train Thursday Friday and Saturday rest day so it's 5 over 7 over 14 okay okay so okay five five7 that that that's a really good so five days a week you train and two days you take off I really is I also do 5 days on two days off and I found that I think 5 days is kind of the max you can do before overt training like six days may be better but definitely seven is wrong a lot a lot of people you're training with intensity yeah and the end of your of your your kind of rep range if you're pushing like constantly for um one of the things I say is try and train as hard as you can so that you can only train four days four you get you'll get that beat up yeah that you can only do if you're really on that level of pushing your body to the Limit you need an extra day of rest course there's no shame as well if that day turns into two days especially if you're at a really good level you'll need more rest than you will training days so so that's that's a another reason why I do five days because I'm trying to do do five exercises a day which already isn't a lot so then if I cut it to four days I'm only doing five exercises I don't feel like I'm doing enough exercises and then I need to do six seven eight exercises a day yeah then my gym session will get super long yeah I already actually this leads us into the next question what's your rest interval uh between sets he I'm doing between probably between two and three minutes okay so quite nice and long long interval is that between uh warm-up sets as well or just work my my warmup sets are not very very big at all you know so for example you know if it's legs I'm warming up with h lying hamstring curls for example um let's say I'm doing 100 kgs for example L hamr CS um I'll do maybe eight reps at 40 six reps at 60 four reps at 80 I have a rep at 100 and then a rep for 2 minutes when I feel that I can attack the set yeah for the when you feel ready you're not timing with a stopwatch it's when you feel ready yeah when I feel so if I've got if I've got the 100 to for say 10 reps MH I'm going to set off until I know I can get that the 10 reps with what good for them and then when I'm moving on to the next machine H I'll be leg extension in that particular session so again I'll do the same quick warm up 1 two 3 four but those are like eight four reps two reps a rep literally just getting some blood in and then that's me I'm warm for the session there's no more feeder sets all I'll do then is feel where I need to be at that particular day based on what my my log book will say and then that's me I'm in the session okay so you keep a log of every exercise in a in a textbook H yeah paper log book for me pen and paper stay off pH do you review it uh weekly or um so yeah well before I'm going to the session um either the night before or the day off I'll take five minutes before the workout I'll write out the workout and I'm then starting to visualize generally the day before cuz I like to spend a little bit of time saying it's almost like psyching yourself up can of get yeah I get you not angry or aggressive but certainly focused on focused Vision how it's going to feel so I've already it sounds really kind of what you're doing I'm already visualizing success I'm already imagining what it feels you don't get it be honest you don't always get it but you know I find it I find it quite good I find it a good thing to do yeah well that that's a that's a interesting I haven't actually heard of that before but that visualization is definitely an interesting interesting key cool so let you got one more big question and then one bonus question that I'd like to ask you if you only had 10 exercises to maintain your muscle for the rest of your life which exercise would you choose uh 10 exercises so yeah Chups or pull-ups yeah yeah um some sort of dumbbell press I would imagine dumbbells would be pretty decent h a head press oh CH press press yeah chess press with bum Bells um if you got a bench all the better yeah you can have any any piece of equipment that you want these are just your 10 pair soqu yeah pull-ups and um that we can make that one uh chest pressed on a bench yeah um so that that a flat bench yes yes or even I don't flat bench I'll do 15 yeah obviously yeah very rarely flat so if if we've got the bench in there for looking yeah something for the glut so some sort of Kickback some sort of back okay yeah something that's going to give you um some goats Bulgarian spot squats definitely be in there yeah because they're absolutely horrible they're horrible yeah really yeah um we've got the chin that kind of touches on the back again you could probably stick one of the dumbbells on there um LP P Downs a good one yeah I'm a big fan of um chess supported Rose soic seos big big fan of them yeah um something for the triceps so maybe like some something to dip off of with body weight obviously there's a lot good things you can do yeah di yeah you've got eight you've got two more um something the C okay definitely something for the biceps oh the CH UPS might cover the B the CH Up's big on the biceps yeah CH up cover the let's do cars let's do cars c and a hammer curl let's go with that a cough and a ham what sry what are you going to do for the cough uh calf could be anything find a ledge I'm just imagining here was just a kind of blank room as opposed to a fly quii gym a leg and a dumbbell you go left field okay the Box sorry and then the last one um you said a hammer curl yeah Hammer curl for the bicep you're going to have The Chins to to touch um most of the so the hammer will give you the the the muscle that makes the biceps look big sure you know I think you'd be I think you'd be pretty set I I I thought you might have thrown a deadlift or or something like that in but probably shows my my lack of not liking deadlifts dead okay okay all right I think deadlifts are great if you're good at them if you've the the propensity for them um my take on dead L because I work mostly with genpt you know people sitting in their chairs a lot and I know people call that out and say oh well it's not a bad LIF or whatever I'm not saying that is why I am saying is you need to be kind of good at it well versed at it and probably very well coached yeah it's too much can go wrong yes it's one of those things people Lo tons of away on even when you say them not to and just that expence of been in and around the gym and watching people get you hobble away from deadlifts so yeah Ah that's not good no um last last question and thank you so much for your time it's been really amazing and do it again um what music do you listen to in JY do you listen do you listen to music um I if it was like music of choice I like um sort of tech house so kind all about the kind of the Baseline no no buildup no I just B the whole time there's no draw there's no B it's just okay yeah that's good a dark gem you know yeah like that dark music yeah it's good I like that okay 50 Cent 50 Cent okay get some get some okay get Richard by trying these very first album even to this day there's probably no better album to chain to there you go okay no phenomenal thank you so so much for your time I really really appreciate and thank you for being a gains Guru and um yeah I look forward to more interactions in the future speak peace cheers R again have a cheers by by goodbye Gaines gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp