What is going on guys? Welcome back to Eat, Train, Prosper. This is episode 196 and we are talking natural bodybuilding with Connor St. Gene. So Connor is a WNBF pro and an online physique coach who's just done a few back to back shows in his most recent competing season. And I think based on some things that we might get into, there may be a little bit left of competition season, but Connor will unfold those details. for us. So before we dive into the most recent competition, Connor, can you just give us a little bit of a background on yourself, what you do and a little bit more detail and then effectively what got you into competing and what your experiences like have been and what keeps you coming back to it? Absolutely. So my name is Connor. I'm 35. I've been bodybuilding competitively since 2012. That was my first show. I did not have a good experience competing my first time out. I did not look good. Maybe I'll share some pictures from that prep. You know, that's I guess 13 years back at some point, but it was pretty bad, I must say. But I was a sucker for the punishment and just wanted to keep coming back for more. So. The way I got into bodybuilding was that I really get interested, back in the day it was really T Nation. Who remembers T Nation? Throw those hands up. Who remembers plasma? Who remembers, what else? Fish oil, that I sell there. Mag 10, Mag 10, let's go. Man, those videos with Christian Thibodeau and the Mag 10 and him training people, that was like, you know, that was probably the best information you had back in the day. you were, if you were looking at, you know, what was out there, that was pretty much the tip top you could find, probably at the time, at least that's the way I perceived it. So. was at least the most popular. was like, no matter who you were talking to in the gym, everyone knew about Teenation and was kind of following some version of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, you're kind of be like, okay, that's my guy. They're, they're above the bodybuilding.com standards. So like, I'm going to consider them like on par with my knowledge or something like that. Right. but, but anyways, um, so I get really interested in that and, you know, back in those days, it was the forums, right? So I remember, there was that the bodybuilding forum and there was a a gentleman named Stu Yellen, the mighty Stu, who was doing his first bodybuilding contest prep. And I got into that, man. I was following it. I was right there with him. was like, this is cool. And then I saw the physique. He's like 5'9". He's getting on stage at around maybe like 170. It just didn't seem too far out of reach for what I had, even though I had no idea what I didn't know, but it just didn't seem like it was an unreachable thing that I couldn't possibly achieve. And I could tell after lifting weights for four or five years. Like I seem to have kind of some kind of structure, some kind of X frame going on just naturally. And so I wanted to see, you know, what happens if I really take this, you know, as far as I can go and you know, what will I kind of the big thing, the big reward you get is to see where you can take your body, right? And that's what I love about bodybuilding in general is just kind of seeing where you can take it. And seemingly over the last 13 years, that hasn't gotten boring to me, even though we all know the progress is so slow, but ah I still been able to kind of creep up slowly over those times. It's important. Hot and cold periods for sure, but for the most part, it's been like just kind of inching, inching, inching, you know, a little bit. So that's kind of what's kept me coming back all those years. But yeah, definitely it was that the teenager stuff that got me interested in. I just loved the process of course of training and movement and just refining that over time. And yeah, just kind of ended up being lifelong hooked on bodybuilding so far. So that's kind of my background. I think potentially we can get into the hot and cold periods a little bit and in your introspection on why some of those might have been hot or cold. But first, I want to talk a little bit more around, you just competed this past weekend ah in the Natural Canada Pro Show, right? And for a lot of our listeners right there, there, I mean, we probably have a good chunk. We're like, you know, hobbyist bodybuilders, which is what effectively Brian and myself were. up until I literally started my first prep, you five months ago. uh you know, into the game, but don't understand some of the things like the federations and stuff, which is still, you know, even to me a little bit new. So can you just explain that a little bit? So you are a WNBF pro and, know, from my standpoint, which I'm not an authority on this, so I could be incorrect there. The WNBF is a pretty much like the worldwide authority for natural bodybuilding. Am I correct in that statement? would say yes, if you look at it historically, they are kind of the GOAT federation of natural bodybuilding in terms of the drug testing standards, the history, ah the worldwide turnout and um the overall kind of prestige of... being in that division. I will say though natural bodybuilding is always in a constant shape, a state of like moving about, you know, who's popular, who, where's the draw, what are the divisions people want to do, which shows have like good lighting, good promotion, which shows don't, you know, so there's always this kind of pull towards one end and you know I'd say right now to um the NPC slash CPA, so the CPA is the Canadian NPC, but that kind of side is really pushing the natural stuff hard and they're having a lot of success with it, right? So I do think it's gonna be tough for some of these other smaller natural federations and not that WMBF is small, you let's, if I can do CB, IPE. um you know, AMBF, things like that. Like they're going to have some trouble competing with what the IFBB is doing in terms of the natural events, because they're putting on, you know, they're a very good business. They're putting on very good shows. The lighting is quality. The competition level is high. The prestige is high as well too. So that is really trending up right now. Right. And so that's, that's what I ended up doing these last two weeks. It turns out it was just conveniently kind of, you know, close to me where I live in Ottawa, Canada right now. So uh the shows I did were kind of around the Toronto area. So it was about a four or five hour drive. So it was very kind of easy, easy stakes to get there. um And so, yeah, even though I am a pro with the WMBF, it seems that, you know, there's a little bit more autonomy for the competitors now. So um I just wanted to jump into these CPA natural shows, see how I did, see how much I see fair there and. uh You know, it was honestly a great experience. uh know, both CPA shows, super high quality, very competitive, very good tanners, very good lighting. uh I don't have any bad things to say. I do think the drug testing leaves them to be desired. It could be a little bit more stringent, but I was tested at my first show in Barrie. I was gear and tested at the end. So they did a good job with that, I would say. So that was at least, you know, good to see. Do you think um that the the most recent testing show? um Is it just because please correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not in like the first season of like the the NPC CBC's like natural push? I mean, because I know like for NPC and IFP, like this is like the first season that they're really doing a lot of the natural shows and stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's the first, but I say it's like they made the conscious choice to push these harder. I think they saw the potential in business. um, cause I remember I did, I did, let's just say MPC. So it's more, uh, it's just easier for people to think. Well, I did, let's say I did it. did this MPC natural show in 2019 when that was the early, early time when they started to offer it regionally. Right. And I competed against like two other guys. There was 19 people in the show. It was small people. There was no interest. Now it six years later, more. of these regional NBC natural shows have popped up. And they've gotten big. The show I did in Barrity had 161 people, I think. And the national event had, you know, 260, which is like pretty big for a natural show, basically, compared to how they were six years ago. So they've slowly inched their way up. And I think some of the higher people up were just like, we're going to push these because there's a good interest. And I think they know how good of a business they are and how much they could bring in. So, you know, they've been doing a great job, honestly. ah The only thing is just a little bit tougher testing, I would say would be good. And I'm sure with, you know, feedback and stuff from people inside the the the natural world, that that will only continue to get better. And and Brandon, uh who I believe was has been coaching you for for this right, Brandon Kemper, who he had on the show a while back, uh who also won his pro card in Taiwan the same weekend. I won mine uh pretty much to the same thing. He's like, it was pretty decent, but it but it could be improved. So I think it's likely that they will. Double down on that once they do get that feedback if they want to maintain that prestige because it is really important, you know, for like the natural ethos. Yeah, I think that's the only thing they're really lacking on to be fair. Yeah, cool. So if you're if you guys are good here, there's the first kind of topic I want to move into a little bit is what are some perceptions that you find that people get often get wrong about natural bodybuilding? Because for unless you're like into it, bodybuilding is pretty much like this niche thing. And even for like your more modern day like Jimbrow, like for me, like I was a Jimbrow for 20 years, you know, and I effectively knew. fuck all about like contest prep, you know what I mean? Even from going through the gym, going to the gym and stuff. So what are some of the things that you think like that people just really often get wrong about natural bodybuilding specific? I think the thing that comes to my mind first and foremost is that they think it's not a competitive sport, right? Because it gets compared to enhanced bodybuilding where they're using kind of more... substances and it seems like more of like this, like more of a protocol driven thing where natural bodybuilding, we're just kind of, you know, out in the woods, lifting weights, doing it Rocky style, just showing up, you know, just, you know, and like not managing all the details and, know, doing those little nuanced things to be better. Right. And so ah I think especially after this past weekend that that's really present in my mind, right? It's like damn this shit is getting competitive and you know, it's It takes you know, a lot of effort to get every little single thing right, you know down from like, you know skincare to sodium to pumping up backstage like it is Competitive and if you want your best performance you have to be on your game ah You know versus I think a lot of people receive it is this not as serious ah like a lesser serious take, you know, a form of bodybuilding that you don't take as seriously as the IFBB because IFBB, like the open shows are the big dogs and natural people are just doing this kind of for fun, right? So I think that's the thing that's in my head right now. That's the biggest misperception of uh natural bodybuilding. How does that strike you guys? I mean, I think it's really well said and for some reason, and I think it's because like the, you know, IFBB open class is like what gets the most prestige. Like that's the Mr. Olympia. But like everyone always thinks like that's bodybuilding, you know, or when people hear about the risks and the dangers of like PED use and stuff like it's always tied to those people who like, but they don't realize like your average dude who might be running like a little bit of testosterone or something like he's not 300 pounds open class bodybuilder, right? But for some reason, any sort of bodybuilding gets tied up to like open class IFBB and like public perception. um I do have one question that I want to kick it over to Brian around this. But one of the things that's kind of ah I've noticed in this is potentially a little bit of a unwarranted opinion because I'm a bit of an outsider, you know, in natural bodybuilding, but something that's really struck stuck out to me. I feel like in the last handful of years with natural bodybuilding, the level of conditioning has greatly improved over from like the early to mid 2000s. You know, like you would see guys on stage and it's really like, I guess the culture and how the culture shifts through it. But, you know, like the level of conditioning you bring. The level of conditioning, like, you know, I was fortunate to watch Brandon, you know, in part live in person and see him. It was insane. Like he's inside out lean. It and and I just feel like 10, 15 years ago, the people like they just were not in that kind of level of of of contest shape. It was kind of like unheard of. Mm-hmm. Certainly it was more of a thing where there'd be one guy who would show up like that and the rest of the field wouldn't be kind of in that shape. You can look back at some historical examples of people who are pretty insanely hired that are kind of outliers. But what you see now is there's more, a higher standard across the board. You see less people missing, right? And this is how things evolve, right? And I think too, a big part of that is just everyone kind of understands energy balance now, right? That's not into question. Let's throw it back to those t-nation days, right? It was just like, you keep the carbs low because the insulin sensitivity and this and that. so people didn't really understand the physiological systems involved with dieting and the kind of energy balance involved in just how far. push and how far to die it, right? How much weight do we actually need to lose to see this kind of sharp conditioning level? And now in general, people have a way better handle on that. So you see way fewer people kind of missing in that regard. And so you see everyone kind of turning up in better shape than they were 10, 15 years ago. Absolutely. think that's the reason why, you're curious about that. Yeah, I'm actually curious about the conditioning aspect specifically in natural bodybuilding because I feel like around, was it three to five years ago, maybe a little bit more, it seemed like there was a shift where having glutes that were in and being just completely shredded to the bone became the number one priority of natural bodybuilding. And I'd heard a lot of critiques of people being like, it's at the expense of muscularity. or size and I assume there was gonna be kind of a boomerang effect where it comes back around and then it starts to prioritize or reward size and muscularity maybe slightly more or at least on par with the conditioning. Do you feel like that transition has occurred or are we still rewarding conditioning or is it just the conditioning is now just an expectation and then it's building size on top of that? Yeah, I think the way I'll answer it is this way. I think when people started to get that mind bending shape, that really crystal detail, it was kind of a new thing that was happening more consistently. And I think some of the panels just like ended up rewarding it pretty heavily because they're like, holy shit, like, look at this, right? And then I think as it got more common and normative, it's kind of come back a little bit more into balance where... they're looking at that pretty stringently, but they're also looking at, you know, how much do those muscles just boom, how much do they pop, right? And they're looking at balance. So I think actually they're doing a pretty good job balancing both kind of muscularity and conditioning and judging criteria now. But I think there was a period there where it was like people were coming in shocking levels that just weren't common and they didn't really know how to sort it out. And I think, you know, that was kind of the thing with my physique too. It's like, I don't really come out on stage and look like I'm this full round blasting dude, right? I kind of walk out. You don't see a whole lot of pop in my chest and delts, but then I hit a shot and then you see everything kind of come to life and a lot of sinewy detail. But in a lineup, sometimes you need that boom and that pop to stand out, right? And so I thought I was judged really accurately the last two weeks. So I was really happy with that. You know, there was... In the Masters bodybuilding category, was worried I was going to get a second place there. I felt like my physique was standout in that category. But the other dude certainly had some dimension on the pecs and the arms compared to me. And I thought they might favor that in bodybuilding. But they gave me the first over him. obviously, they tended to go with the conditioning in that regard. I could throw up some pics and show you guys and be like, okay, here's the difference. Here's a physique that's more filled out and booming, that's in good shape. And here's a physique that's sucked down, which is mine, right? And there's no body fat left to be seen, but there's not as much pop and dimension, right? And so I think it's tough. I think it's kind of apples and oranges and the judges do have a tough job in that. in that regard to pick the winner, right? So it is bodybuilding. is, there's always some inherent level of subjectivity, no matter what class you do or what's going on, right? So yeah, absolutely. Great question, Brian. So Connor, what I want to talk about is this most recent prep. think I saw something on your Instagram that in that I think I might be wrong with this, but I was like, have to ask him. But I remember seeing that there was only a 13 week prep for this most recent show or shows because you did back to back shows. um Am I making that up or is that accurate? accurate, you nailed it. Okay, is that not like a blisteringly fast paced for a natural bodybuilding contest? To get in the conditioning that you were? And so I'd love to provide some context around this. So it doesn't seem so crazy to people. But basically I had a season plan last year, right? And so I ended up doing a full contest prep that was like maybe, oh gosh, 30 some weeks. So this is back in 2024. So 2024, I'm starting my prep around, I don't know. 200 pounds and coming down to like 170 or something over 30 weeks, right? And then three weeks out, just what I had going on in life at that time, it felt like the right choice to kind of drop out of the season. um had a partner at the time who had some family health issues. I felt like in that situation, kind of... needed to kind of help her out. And so I had to do some traveling for some sick family members, things like that. And it just didn't seem like it was a good idea to get on stage in that situation. So I ended up like basically getting contest lean in 2024, or very, very close, three weeks out. And then shutting the season down with the hope that I could kind of save it and come back next year. Right? So that is what I did. So I kind of like recovered a little bit, but also kept it very tight. I let my max body weight come up to, think 186 was the highest, which is still pretty lean. That might be leaner than some people on stage if they're doing their first show at 186. So it was a lean starting point. then... It was an aggressive prep, right? And additionally, my plan was to actually not be in this kind of condition for these early shows. I had planned to go all the way to the fall with the prep and we can talk more about that later. But I planned to go all the way to the fall and I planned to actually compete with like more of that softer, booming look that we're talking about. But it just didn't end up happening. As I got into the prep, I started off on myself and then at eight weeks out, I hired Brandon because I was like, you know what? I'm going all in on bodybuilding this year. I want to get the most out of myself. And I had kind of been doing that too. Like I worked with coaches. I was just on my game. Like, I mean, it was, was honestly really sad for me to have to cancel the season last year and I didn't get, you know, I didn't get what I wanted. And so when I didn't get what I want, I was just like, man, I just really want to take hold of this. I, You know, it's probably the strictest I've been, you know, over all the years, basically, of bodybuilding, like the most meticulous about training nutrition. posing everything I could possibly do to maximize things, right? So I ended up hiring Britten eight weeks out and let him take the reins. So at that point I don't have control anymore. It's his car in a run. so we just, he's competitive, we're both competitive and we just kind of ended up dieting fairly aggressively and kind of getting into the shape that we got into. So it wasn't something that we even expected. It just kind of happened and my body was just willing to give it up. It didn't fight me that hard. It was just kind of, there and we kept calories and steps from the needed to be and then Fatigue definitely set in a little bit at the end, but it is prep That's what you expect and that's kind of how it all happened then technically to for the first For the first show from I started that idea was 12 weeks. I wanted to start at 15 weeks out I get a really bad stomach bug and so that took me a little bit to recover from and I was worried it wasn't gonna be enough time, but I guess I guess that it was alright timeline was good, so um That it is rare for natural bodybuilding for it to be that short and I wouldn't necessarily recommend people to do that I will say though if you want to work efficiently You can do it. You just have to know where you need to be and you execute every week, right? You can't have all this time trying to spend, you know What calories do I need to be losing on you just need to know and get ready to do it and execute and you can make it pretty efficient that way What was your stage weight from 186 down to what? So I was on stage and this wasn't my favorite part of the prep because I get lighter than I've ever been. But I would have been on stage around 170 pounds. That would have been actually even lighter than I was in 2022, which is still something I'm trying to figure out because you can still tell there's improvements to muscularity from 2022 to 2025. But I guess I get a little bit leaner and I was shocked at that. But my lowest body weight was down to 165, which to me is crazy because I'm 5'11". And that's, I've never been 165 in my life, adult life before, I don't think. So that was shocking to me. And that was really, really flat. Like I've never seen myself so flat. And then basically bringing that carb up where you're getting probably like after some fluids and food, you know, we're talking 170, but like maybe 168 in the morning in terms of like morning weigh-in. So that would have been around where I'm landing. then. Yeah, that was a little shocking to me that it got down that low. I figured, you know, once I hit 170, that loss is done, but my body said, hey, we can strip off a little bit more energy. There's something there. There's something in between your quadriceps and in between your glutes that we can take away. So it just went ahead and did it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You made a comment around steps. Can you take us through your cardio a little bit? Absolutely, um Branded controlled my steps for the most part and for the most part during prep they stayed at about 10 to 12k. We talked about Cardio when we did our consult and so I have my thing with this and he has his and like I you know uh what I like to do personally is like if I'm on a contest prep I like to do a little bit of hit a pinch a pinch of hit every now and then on like an assault bike, right? And so this is like, I feel like when you diet, start, metabolism starts to slow down a little bit. And basically a little bit of hard cardio will just give you that push forward. It'll just harden you up to the touch. But if you do too much, you will wreck yourself, right? So we're talking what I did personally, and like, you know, this is kind of me doing it by myself and you know, Brandon might kind of cringe if he hears this, but every, every week, I might do like 10 minutes on the air bike or five minutes on the air bike and that's it. Just like, like, I think for a while every week on a Thursday, I did like seven minutes on the air bike, something like that, when I could do it. And then that was just, you know, interval is 15 seconds hard, 45 seconds off, five to seven. That's it for actual real cardio. I feel like though I get a little bit out of that, I feel like it just kind of... moves things along and if you look at some of the catecholamine response from the HIT cardio, I think it makes sense. Dr. Joe Klimczewski is a big advocate of that. And I think too, if you look back to 2013, 2014, 2015, when that was the science-based cardio, yeah, it got pushed too hard. People got fatigued, people got run down. You can't just redline it all day with HIT cardio. It's very, very pick your battles with it. But I think at the right time, with the overall umbrella of recovery being in good spot, it can be just what you need, right? So that's all I did. I felt like when I needed one, I would do one. And then other than that, it was just steps. That was it. that's a low enough dose. I mean, you're literally getting between one and two minutes of total work time. So it's not enough to cause too much fatigue, but it's probably enough to stimulate your body to, I don't know, use the t nation words of like spike the metabolism or whatever. I think like I would like to research this more about like the kind of like the epinephrine or epinephrine response. Allegedly there's a little bit more of that compared to you know more of a normative type cardio session. So like I feel like when I get the end of the sessions even though it's only like five minutes of minutes I feel it. I feel it on my body. I feel different. That's pretty bro. I'm speaking pretty bro language right now but you can just feel it's like pushing things through. I don't know. That's how I perceive it at least. And then I always felt like it just got me a little bit tighter. But in no way can you abuse cardio, I've done preps where I had coaches get me to do like three, four sessions a week, wrecked, wrecked all day. And you can't afford to be that fatigued on contest prep. You need to be a little fatigued here and there, dip your toes into fatigue, come back out of it, you know? And so it's that picking your battles with things like that is very, very important. But for whatever reasons, and I'm sure he has them, Brandon didn't want that, just 10 to 12,000 steps in this most recent prep, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, yeah, that's our discussion. And so that's what I was doing most often. And I felt like it wasn't too ah bad to just kind of do those little brief sessions here and there. I did mention it to him here and there. It didn't seem like it was an issue to him. that was being a little bit autonomous. yeah, for him, he just wanted me to do steps. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's one thing I mean for I guess anyone like Brandon is here undefeated with me. So like I see him regularly and stuff like that. And I got to watch his entire prep in person. And it was just very it was very cool to see. It was very cool to watch from him being like offseason coming through and just seeing, know, how lean he was and stuff. And he always just he was he only did I think like. Like, yeah, 10,000 steps per day or 12,000 steps per day. It was not a lot. He was never on any of the cardio machines, anything like that. ah But do not get me wrong. Brandon trained hard as absolute fucking nails right up until the end, like psycho training right up to the end. um There is this funny thing, and I don't think I've ever said on the podcast, but there would be some days where we would be like where we would line up where we would like have legs on the same day and we would like train at the same time. and we would be on the prone hamstring curl. And I'd be like, all right, like I got a lot of weight on Brandon, you know, I'm on PEDs and stuff now, like I'm gonna be able to lift more than him. No, he would still lift more than me on the prone ham curl. And I was like so salty and I was like, fucking hell. Like he's so lean, he's like so deep into prep, right? And the thing with me is like, as I get into prep, like the gear just goes up. You know what mean? So like I was like I'm gonna get him this week and like no he would still have like one or two plates lower than me for like equal amounts of reps and like it was just Baffling to me, but it was really cool. It's really cool to see. I can tell from his footage, he trains, he trains to kind of on the verge, know, he's like, you know, gets himself hyped up. And that's, that's one thing that like, I used to be more like that and I've changed a little bit. Like I'm a little bit more cool headed now and kind of focused on the movement quality. um which has, I think, helped me bring up some body parts. But yeah, Brandon, that dude, his legs are stacked, like, oh my gosh. And yeah, he trains like an absolute monster, I can tell. And it doesn't matter how tired Fatih D is, he's just gonna go, right? And so I love that about him. Yeah, yeah. uh uh yeah, go ahead if you have more bodybuilding stuff here. No, I was going to ask about some like like prep tips and stuff for like late in the in the game of stage late in the stage late stage of prep. Yeah, so so you had mentioned like right as you joined, we were talking about like caffeine uh usage and this new thing. Brian, can you mention what that supplement is called? Paraxanthine, I believe is how it's pronounced. If any of the listeners want to give that one to Google, which is like a new potential caffeine alternative. But yeah, anything that you would use, you know, as foods getting low, hunger is getting high. What are some like, you know, insider tips of the the natural bodybuilding trade? Absolutely. So I think this is a kind of an individual thing. um But um what I decided to do two weeks out was to follow a strict meal plan. And so I was doing macros before and I was having some problems with that. I'm going to be honest. So. Problem number one was that with the diet hack type foods, especially on like refeed days, with how voluminous some of the foods would get and how much kind of food reward you're leaning into, I would get like, if there was running too high days in a row of high carbs, I would get edema in my ankles, right? And this is something Brandon really helped me sort out, right? And I talked about this on the 90 News Daily podcast. And so if anyone is following me at all and cares about my canker problem that I've experienced in the past and wants to hear more about it here, ah I feel like we found some good resolutions to that. So I'll quickly say, like sometimes I would, you know, refeed and get really serious edema, like pitting edema in my ankles, right? So almost looks like I might see CHF patient or like a pregnant lady or something, you know, post-refeeding, right? And I thought, poor me. You know, I just have this weird thing going on, but I think I understand a little bit more now. So when I do these refeed days, you know, I would like eat them out of potatoes, eat a big salad, eat like a protein jello type thing. You're just literally leaning into that food reward because it's so damn high when you're lean, right? And so this prep, I leaned out of it. Hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. no diet hacks, or very, very little, no zero calorie sauces, things like that. And so um that seemed to really, really help me stay grounded. It made it actually easier to eat because when you're so damn lean on prep, you eat kind of a medium food reward type meal, like a chicken and a rice or a, you It's anything kind of normal normative bodybuilding food think of anything and it still tastes pretty good right because you the food reward is so high for anything any damn thing you can put in your mouth right so One of my biggest tips was to lean out of that food reward right and so I think some people are like I stand the dieting to have these foods that Tastes good, but like everything will taste good when you're lean bro everything so just eat the foods that keep you on track right so that's what I did it two weeks out before that to you I was having like some ninja creamies and Those kind of sketch me out, man. Like those recipes, they're good, they're rewarding, but if you look at like how much sugar alcohol people are dumping into them, like there'll be recipes with like 20 grams of sugar alcohol, right? And it will say zero calorie on the bag, but if you look it up, like I think sugar alcohol is like 1.4 calories per gram. Right? So, you know, I was like making them into counting for those carbs and then being kind of unhappy. was like, no, I want the carbs. If I'm going to have carbs, I want them to be real carbs. I want them to help me help aid my performance. Right? And so I leaned out of that. And then that seemed to help, you know, get a lot out of me that last little bit. Like even little things too, like, I started to get pre-hard boiled eggs at the store, rather than having to like spray a cooking pan and make an egg and get the fat from this cooking spray. Little things like that, man. I know that sounds maybe a little bit over the top, but I was just trying to make adherence as good as I possibly could, right? So that was one thing was just being strict with things. You know, another thing is to like watch your, watch what you're doing in the gym, you know, at the end. um And watch this whole maintain the log book thing. I mean, that is important, but... Make sure your movement quality is good. It's going to be harder when you're fatigued to have good movement quality. You're going to want to cut corners. You're going to want to... you know, maybe use accessory muscle groups to lift. I mean, monitor that movement quality, make sure volume is like at a place you can recover from. And the way I like to tell people to understand this is like, think of the lowest volume tier you could grow off in the off season. And that's probably a good place to be at the end of prep. You certainly don't want to just have no volume. Like that's not a bad, that's not a good idea, but you like, if you think like, what could you make progress of when you're in kind of a slight surplus or maintenance? That's probably a good place to be, you know? Don't get lost in the sauce of crap where you think okay now I need to do all the volume and all the intensifiers because you know Oh, hey, I don't have this progressive overlook component anymore. I can't adapt so I need to just make up for it with more volume That's probably the worst mistake you could make and I've done that before and that was just fatigue central so you need to keep fatigue in a good umbrella the whole time and there's gonna be days that are gonna be tough, but you know, hopefully you're just having kind of one to two kind of depletion days and then, you know, having, you know, a good reachy day and then coming back to life, right? So you need to kind of, as Brandon would say, you know, deplete to get lean and then replete to look muscular, right? And so it's kind of that balance of the fullness to flatness ratios. And that's where I think Brandon is just really, really good at. He's really, really good at the basics of bodybuilding. which is managing those variables. And he's good at looking at pictures, looking at weights, looking at stats, and nailing that with no, you know, no mistakes. That man makes no mistakes. That's why he's so good. Yeah, yeah, it was it was really interesting, you know, with him, I could tell his like low days versus his high days because he was just like his demeanor was different. You know, like there was days where he would I'd say he looked defeated, you know, and I'm like, man, he has to be on like day three or day four of a low day because he's typically like just such like a jolly friendly human. And then like a day or two later, I'd see him and he would have like a pep in his step and his head was up high. And I would like make a joke to Rachel, his wife and like Brandon had a refeed yesterday, didn't he? And she was like, he sure did. You know, so it is like you can you can tell you can sense it in in like someone's like aura and energy and even myself. Right. Like, I mean, you can feel it. The days were for some reason, you know, we have we have like 30 steps that lead up to like the gym floor. And there's days where. they feel like a mountain to climb. I'm like, OK, like we're we're in for it today. You know, so it's definitely a very real thing. You can, if you have a good eye for it, you can just look, see someone across the gym and tell that they're deep prep. Like you just see how they ambulate, how they move around. You do everything a little bit lazier. Um, you know, like I think like it's always a good refraction period for me to see what I'm bad at during contest prep because you start to cut corners. Right? So like, I'm not good at like organizing my environment for very much. So like my kitchen was a mess all the time. I was constantly mad at myself for not. Like putting things back and being organized. And it just felt like a battle to like keep that going. Now that I'm, you know, not in this depleted state, it just feels so automatic. It feels like I have more brain function to like manage, you know, three or four tasks at once. know, like yesterday, for instance, I like, you know, whitening my teeth, uh, cook some chicken and clean up the kitchen all at the same time. On prep, was like, just manage one thing at a time. That thing. And I still am on prep, but I'm not in a deficit, right? So that's the thing. Um. you really feel the difference. It's shocking how differently you'll function in a deep deficit versus even to set maintenance calories, even if you're still shredded, right? It's a big difference. Huge. One thing that I wanted to ask you about and then we'll move on is around like caffeine intake. Like that's something that I typically, I'm a very slow caffeine metabolizer. So I have to be careful or I can't go to sleep at night. um And then typically I'm typically like a double shot espresso at like 6.30 AM and then another one at like, like eight 30 sort of person. But now I need like a third something at like 10, 10 30. before I train or my energy levels are like zapped, know, and it's like, need that like triple touch of caffeine kind of just to get me like, head like chin above water a little bit, whereas like normally like that would have me like teeth grinding like uncomfortable. And it's really one of those wild things how it's like, it's how, how the stages of prep, like you're just running like on a significantly reduced capacity. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think there is a bit of strategy you can take with that. And I will say I won't give myself as good of a grade this year in terms of caffeine management as I would have in 2022. In 2022 prep, I did an amazing job. I took a period off of caffeine before I started the prep. And I ramped it up very slowly. then, so that was a great year where I think at the end I was doing like 400 milligrams and it was working for me, even in deep prep because I kept it so low and that was great choice. This year I did not do so well. This year it was a turning into more of a just survive somehow strategy at the end. So ah I actually did really measure total milligrams. I would imagine if I'm being honest, I think some days I probably would have been around the 600 milligram mark. If I'm being fair, maybe some days venturing even a little bit over that in extreme circumstances but probably average would be like you know 500 to 600 milligrams per day and then yeah trying to keep it to morning trying to keep it to morning for sure and then like I said before this like sometimes I'll use a little bit of nicotine at night because it has a shorter half-life to keep it going so either a gum or a pouch you know I wouldn't recommend that people just try it because obviously it could be addictive but I've used it for preformant preps and I know as soon as I'm done dieting I don't want it. It's like a bit of an ick. um yeah, that could be a strategy too, just to keep yourself going more in the PM hours for something that has a shorter half life that kind of gives you the same type of feel and type of little short person energies, short person mood. Good for social situations as well. ah So damn tired. So that's another thing I'll institute for myself as well here and there. It's just a little bit of nicotine at the right time. And uh also to, um Yohimbine as well too in the morning as a, as a fat burner, is not, which is funny enough, it's banned in Canada, but it's not banned in natural bodybuilding. So you can't buy it here, but you can import it and you can use that. And so a little bit of Yohimbine, if you can tolerate it, the, you know, some people it gets people anxiety, but like five milligrams was pretty good for me. So, uh, that would be like my total stimulant low, which not I'm saying it all, sounds like quite a bit, but certainly um you ramp it up when you need to and then you ramp it down when you don't need it, right? So be smart about it for sure. And you don't want to affect sleep quality, because you're already burning the candle there with getting lean. Most people experience sleep disturbances. I know for me right now, I can sleep about five hours a night. which is pretty good considering the condition, but I've certainly had preps where it's like waking up every hour at the end. So uh that's definitely not a fun spot to be in. So don't make it worse with more stimulant usage, please. Yeah, yeah, the laying in bed, hoping it's at a reasonable enough hour for you to get up and start your day. Like that's just a miserable feeling. And you're like, I don't want to look at the clock, but like maybe it's like four a.m. and I can get up and then it's like 130 and you're like, oh, fuck, this is going to be a really rough night. Yeah, that's not fun. was listening yesterday to your experience. You didn't sleep much the weekend of your show. um Super common, Super common. eh I think it needs to be more talked about because yeah, it's like you're traveling, you're stressed, you know, your body is just, it's that sympathetic drive, bro. Not only is your body like telling you to go hunt a deer, it's telling you, okay, we also need to do every single thing we need to get on stage. And it's like thing after thing after thing after thing after thing to worry about. And so I don't know how to not be stressed in those moments. ah I'm trying to do a better job managing my nervous system, but it's not easy. It's not easy. I really sometimes envy these people who are more type B, who can just let it go and just be like, hey, we're just going to do this show and rock up like more of like an Alberto Nunez type. Unfortunately, that's not my personality style. I'm a little bit more type A. And so I get a little bit more of that anxiety response towards the end, I think. But, you know, that's a game we play. Yeah. Do have any follow ups on that part, Brian? Nah, gonna move on to training. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I'm gonna kick that one off Brian. Yeah, sure. So oh one thing that you mentioned a few times throughout this conversation is movement quality and kind of the compare and contrast, not that Brandon doesn't use high movement quality, but that there's that kind of second gear that like getting amped up for the set and then like really just like slamming down the gas pedal, right on each wrap or each set. ah And that you kind of insinuated that you're taking a little bit different of an approach. And that's kind of the approach that I've been seeing from a lot of people across my Instagram feed recently. I'll specifically point out Dirk Emmerich ah and now Steve Hall a bit, Alberto Nunez. All of these guys are using weights that when you see them in their hands sometimes, you're like, that thing looks like it may as well be a pink dumbbell on a Peloton or something like that because Like they're sitting there doing those like one arm lateral raises, lean down the incline bench, like barely doing any range of motion with like this teeny dumbbell in their hand. And clearly it's working and Dirk and Steve are having these transformative physiques and things are happening. But like, this is so different than the way people have trained for decades. What are your thoughts on that? How much of that are you incorporating? And is there like a significant amount of fatigue that you're saving? by doing this kind of extreme focus on my muscle connection versus heavier weights. Do you need more sets because the weights are lighter? How do you kind of make sense of all of that? Man, that's such a good question. um So I think too, if you train for bodybuilding for a while, you go through different phases, right? And so the phase I'm in right now, and so I don't wanna put this up on a pedestal too much, but I really get into a lot of Jonathan Warren's type content, right? And so the thing with me is I can never grow packs. I can never do it, this wasn't happening. I got into his stuff. I did a session with Eric Seifert in person at Pure Muscle back in Toronto. And then I started to finally see some progress there. And so obviously I just wasn't moving loads very well. I wasn't really moving my shoulders. I had a big arch back. It wasn't connecting on tech very well. And so when I fixed that, you know, that was like, my gosh, all of a sudden I have this progress. And then it was like, kind of like, well, let's try this for everybody part and see what happens, you know, more of this focus on movement quality and how I'm moving loads. Right. So that's the theme I've been on right Now, I'm not saying it's better or worse than anything, but it's kind of the kick I've been on, so to speak. And so I've been exploring the kind of end regions of movement quality. And so, um, I think the fatigue question is really, really interesting, you know, and I would say, I think it is a little bit less fatiguing, you know, but you still need to train with a hyper-oxymetic failure. Right. So there's quite a bit of skill that goes into, training, you know, like moving in a way that's going to grab the muscle, the muscle parts you want. but, also hitting failure, right? And so you need to be chill enough to move well, but you also need to be on the verge enough that you're going to failure, right? So they're kind of two antithetical type things, but if you get your skill levels up, you can do it. And I think, I do think there is a little less fatigue that way. Cause I think you're, when you're targeting a certain muscle, you're getting more of that tension there and you're getting it less elsewhere. So think about doing like a hack squat where you're focusing more on moving your knees forward and back versus the hack squat where you're just kind of going up and down and there's maybe a little bit more including the doctor involved, you're gonna get a little bit more quads there and you're gonna get a little bit less fatigue. The loads are gonna be lighter for sure, but the tension will be higher on the quads in my opinion, right? So you're more likely to grow and maintain tissue there. And so that's kind of where I've been at. So I'm trying to make everything more of a pure kind of expression of tension on each kind of muscle part I'm trying, right? So if I'm on a hack. I'm trying to bias it to quads. If I'm on a Bulgarian, I'm trying to bias it to glutes. If I'm on um a chest press machine, there's a division of the pack I'm trying to target, right? For the most part. And same with like pull downs. I'm looking at, you know, iliac, lumbar, thoracic regions, all the end one stuff. So that debate was awesome. That was a great time in the fitness industry. I enjoyed that. um Yeah, anyone who follows me knows kind of what side I'm on. like cast some stuff. think it's, I think no one, it's just that's better than him. Uh, so kind of looking at the training through that, those kinds of lenses. And so, uh, that's kind of where I've been at. I feel like definitely I've seen some progress from it. Certainly bringing up some missing body parts. Like my pecs are still pretty darn bad. I don't have the best kind of rib cage set up genetically for it, but go back, at my pictures from 2022, go back and look now there's a little bit of detail and size there now, you know, a little bit. I need more time. any more time for sure, but that wasn't gonna happen if I didn't change the movement quality. So that's kind what I've been doing more with people, my people lately too, is looking at their physique and being like, okay, what's missing here? Rather than just trying to work harder, harder, harder, let's see where you might have kind of a lack of quality and see if we can bring that up and see if we can make some really, really easy progress by just kind of fixing things. So that's kind of the kick I've been on lately. um But I'm not saying it's any better than just, you know, going hard, going heavy balls to walls. Like you're still going to get a lot that way. And it's kind of those, those refinements you might be missing. Right. And so, um, that's yeah, that's kind of my thoughts there. How does that hit you guys? One thing I'd like to pick out on there or maybe just kind of zero in on is something like a lateral raise, which I'm seeing now, like that's the specific one I keep thinking in my head when I say they have these teeny little dumbbells in their hand, because it's literally like the form is so strict that it may, I think it's a 15 pound dumbbell. Like I think it's like a seven or eight kilo dumbbell that they're using in most cases. And it's like these, these perfect reps with absolutely no momentum, like very strict. One thing I struggle with and my clients struggle with when I try to use form that's that strict is with progression. Because if you have a 15 pound dumbbell in your hand and you're doing lateral raises, you could fail, quote, fail the way that you're doing it at 17, 18, 19 reps, whatever. But as soon as you decide to push just a little bit more aggressively from the bottom, you can get five more reps, 10 more reps. I mean, there's almost no limit to how many reps you could get with a 15 pound dumbbell in your hand doing lateral raises. Yeah. how do you keep yourself so strict to know that this is failure this week and then next week I get an extra rep, but that rep was exactly the same as the rep I did before. And I didn't actually push with more aggression from the bottom or anything like that, you know? The honest answer is I don't think you can all the time. It's extremely difficult. If you want to film every one of your sets and look at it through a meticulous lens, you could do it, but who's got that time? Like, are we like... You know, are we like the New England Patriots or something where we're going to like film every single set all the time and be like, hmm, okay, like, look, the reps were this, the weight was this, the form was this. Are we going to count the seconds of each rep? Like there's no limit in how much you can analyze this stuff and beat it to death. Right. And so I do think the progression is really important and you want to see the progression kind of coming to you. But, um, the way I try and coach people on this is we want to see progression over time. over the long period, but we want to let it come to us and we don't want to degrade movement quality too much, right? And we want to at least keep a close eye on form to make sure we're not changing the way we initiate the movement. So with the lateral raise, the common problem is people will be with like a kind of shoulder elevation rather than a... Right, so if we're gonna be explosive, that's okay But let's make sure we're at least exploding with you know a deduction as opposed to elevation Right and making more of a trap thing So it's like each movement you kind of get an audit a little bit But you're gonna kind of choose your battles right the way I'll pick with people It's like let's do two or three movements, you know this week. We're gonna look at If we look at the whole program, what do we have like a 50 hour work week ahead of us or something here? That's like, that's a little much, right? Let's just work on it over time and get a little bit better over time. You know? So that's kind of where I'm at with things. And then sometimes too, I'll go with a video and then I'll video something like, oh, fuck, that was all wrong. Okay. Let's, let's make a change here and then, and then go from there. But you can't, I think it's really, really tough. Like I do respect someone like Dirk and Rick who videos goddamn everything, you know? Mm-hmm. think that's why he's at a pretty high level in his game too. He's looking at those details and he's good at managing them. ah I just think there's limitations of how much time you can spend on things like that. So pick your battles. Pick your battles, people. some level you almost can feel if you're changing your form internally almost more than you could see it on a video anyways. Like, you know in your heart if there's like a different initiation of that rep from that lateral raise. Absolutely. I think you have to make a choice too. Are you going to get lost in the sauce of the progression and just say today I'm progressing no matter what or are you going to have a balanced approach being like, okay, here's where I'm at, good movement quality, we're going to see what we get, we're going to record it and then we're going to look at our progress over a months period of time. That's the approach I would favor. know, and before I'd be the type that would be like, no, we're just progressing. It doesn't matter. Music is on, blasting, weight's going up. It doesn't matter. Right? ah So that's, that's the, my biggest change, would say. Yeah. does that feel uh having to kind of reduce weights across the board on all these movements? Like, I mean, I know that it's a different movement in a sense, like your your hack squat that you're doing where your glutes and adductors are contributing is a different movement than the knee forward hack squat. But across the board, I mean, you must be reducing weights 30 to 50 % on some movements. And so what does that feel like? And how do you kind of psychologically make sense of all of that? Yeah, that's a good question. um I think during prep, feels pretty good because you get so lean. You can really sense where the tension is. And so some of these sessions I've had doing training lats and pecs and traps, I can't even believe the amount of tension I'm experiencing on the fibers because like you can just feel like how... lean you are and you can just feel, you know, is this tension just like, let's say you're doing a pull down. Okay. It's a tension disperse to a little bit of rear delt, a little bit of bicep, a little bit of teres, a little bit of lat, or is it right on that iliac lat, right? If you're really just on it. And like, I think it's been pretty good during prep for fatigue management and just for, um, being able to sense that tension and just kind of body awareness. In the off season, I'd probably be a little bit more, wanna, you you kind of lose that effect a little bit. I'd probably wanna see. be a little bit more aggressive on the progression side of things. And you know that there's that opportunity there, but also just still keeping the movement quality golden. um But it would be that balance, right? That balance in between the two. I think I might be willing to let things kind of go a little bit more in one direction during the off season, but on contest prep, I wanted to be more in the direction of keeping the quality tension. And you still gotta put the load on and train goes to failure. Like you don't want to just puss out, that's for sure. But I think this whole maintain the log thing during contest prep. Sometimes it's pushed a little bit too hard and I see people just really degrading movement quality to say they did it and they're like I'm making gains during my prep. It's like well let's really look at it there maybe on a few things you are but you know if you're really really getting lean at the end it's gonna be tough bro it's gonna be tough. Yeah, I know we have. We have just a few few minutes left, but one thing I did want to catch is what's next for the rest of your season. So you kind of hinted at it a little bit. What's the plan? Have you and Brandon talked about it? Let us in. Let us in with some of the details, please. Yeah, so great question. So just finishing the show this weekend, I wanted to see how I felt. so, you know, yesterday was Monday after the show with Brendan increased my food. Obviously I was, you know, uh hard up for the show. And so I wanted to see how I was doing, how I was feeling. And, you know, I'm trying to look at everyone around me too, like how my girlfriend's feeling, everyone, so we're just kind of feeling it out. But I did want to keep going. uh I had planned to go all the way to October. I don't think I'm going to do that, but there is a WMBF Pro Show in Connecticut that I'm looking at in about a month's time. And I'm pretty, jazzed up about doing that. So we're just kind of feeling it out now. uh The idea being that we don't need to deplete anymore. We just kind of need to be kind of at maintenance calories and kind of uh keep the physique alive for another month. And so that's what I'm looking at now is just staying on plan for another four weeks, working on my posing. I really liked hearing your talk about your posing quality, you know, at your show, Aaron, it sounds like you really drilled it in. I feel like there's a little bit more I need to do with that. And with, you know, more, more brain sharpness, I can kind of, you know, have some better movement quality in that regard on stage. And so it's really just trying to maintain the muscularity and the body fat and then do all the other little things to have a better presentation at ah one show and I would have been really sad I think if I don't get a WMBF pro show in because I really want to see how I do in a pro lineup there and so that's kind of where I'm at is I want to hold on for four more weeks and then get that pro show in and then it's it's time to get back to a normal life normal lifestyle I think after that yeah Yeah, yeah, I think the fact that you don't have to deplete anymore is a little bit of like a nice reprieve. It's like the hardest physiologic work is done. I mean, I think the longer it goes, I think the psychological side gets harder because there's something in. How do I put it, especially like the male kind of ego sort of thing like you can find not solace, but like purpose in that grind. of like, you know, this is what I decided to do. I got to get it done. You know, I got to dig. I got to suck it up like I can do it. But when the when that's when that when you no longer have to dig more and it's OK, I just have to kind of stay the same. Right. Like if we talk about a gen pop or even like a gym pop client, someone diets to like 10 percent body fat. Right. What's the hardest psychological part after they're done? Right. When they don't need to be as restrictive and they have more flexibility. But the psychological difficulty is, well, I justified whatever dessert last night after dinner. Why shouldn't I justify it again tonight? Right? Like that's that's that kind of hard part. So I find it very, very interesting. And like much like myself, like I'm human, like anyone else is like, that's always the challenge for me is like when like right now I know is the date before September 7th. Yes, I can. It's very, very black and white. Right. It's going to get much harder after that date. because it's not black and white anymore. And now I have to be a human again and evaluate decisions, right? So I think it's like a gift and a curse. The dig is done. The hardest physical parts are over, but now it's like the psychological parts of maintaining or the things that you said around like posing and stuff like that for sure. I think too, people really struggle post-show. It's less about hunger. It's more about food reward. They're really leaning into that food reward. It's like you don't physiologically need to gain 30 pounds after prep, but you you let that food reward take over and you know, you might see that 30 pounds come on, you know, if you really just lean into it. you know, certainly you want to get yourself recovered, but you know, that level of... uh of surpluses is not required for recovery, you know. So that's one big thing. Yeah, and I guess one one kind of final one for me, what what have your experiences been like post show with recovery? Are you someone who gets lab work to see what testosterone and stuff looks like? Or you just know, you know, you said you've been competing since 2012. You're very, very seasoned at this point is it kind of just, hey, I'm going to have about a 12 to maybe 16 week period of. body weight coming up, food coming up, trying to let stressors down and I know eventually, hormonally I'm gonna recover and then you can just look for subjective things around, sex drive and things like that and how those come back. What's your kind of strategy that you use? Yeah, I kind of have like a middle of the road approach with this. um You definitely want to gain some body fat back right away. It doesn't need to be crazy. like when I was working for ATP back in the day, I conceptualized it into different tiers. So it's like had like tier one recovery was like the ability to like ambulate easier to, you know, have, be more cognitively present and like you can check, check off that, you know, recovery within just bringing your calories up to maintenance, right? And then tier two is like, you know, your sleep improves, your sex drive improves, your hunger regulation improves, you know, tier threes. is, I can't even remember how I did it, but you know, You want to really check off, you know, those boxes pretty quick where you hopefully you see that the energy come up, away the sleep quality come up right away. And then after that, you don't need to like really be too, you have to keep gaining, gaining, gaining. think you just need to kind of stay on that path and you'll see things kind of come back quicker. Like don't think there's a huge advantage to gaining like 20 pounds immediately the first week back, because it actually, some of the recovery thing, it's like, there's a bit of a timeline involved, so you can't really rush it. But you need to get yourself headed in the right direction pretty quick, right? So if you want to be efficient, you got to work efficiently. So, you you want to probably gain that, you know, three to four to five pounds, definitely that, that, that first week. And then, you know, see that kind of half pound per week come on steadily, you know, after that for most people who are in like a. normative natural bodybuilding kind of weight range, right? So basically just, you know, get that those first few pounds on and then slow after that. And you should, you should be good for most people that will get you recovery, not too much body fat gain, hopefully. Yeah, yeah. And just to add additional context there, that's speaking in the context of natural bodybuilding conditioning, which is effectively as lean as you could ever hope to get. If you're dieting from 20 % body fat to 12 % body fat, you're not going to experience these same things. Yeah. All right. I have one more training question that I can't, I can't leave on the table because, uh I have a lot of, a lot of men, um, seem to have issues bringing their chest up. And you've noted that you've struggled with that for a while. And I know that that's a prominent body part that many men covet as well. Um, it's never been a problem for me. It's always come super easy. So when people ask me what, what can I advise for chest? I'm like, look, The thing that worked for me is really freaking heavy dumbbell flies for light. Like always dumbbell flies, man, the deep stretch. And we wanted to talk about length and movements and all this stuff. Like, unfortunately we ran out of time, but I just am curious what in general are the things that you've found have helped you bring that chest up over the last year, two, three years. Yeah, so I had to completely change my mechanics of pressing, right? I think there's, I'll try and be quick about it because I know we're running out of time, but listen to the 90 views daily podcast I did if you want me to go into it really hard, but basically, basically bringing kind of my ribs down a little bit rather than arching, having the stacked ribs over the pelvis and then, you know, not trying to get too lengthened and too stretched and letting the shoulders protract. So before. pressing was this. It was arched and if you look at my shoulder there's not much movement here. See how there's no protraction? Okay so I wasn't getting any pecs. This is how I was doing lengthened movements. Okay we're gonna get that stretch right? So I'm here, I'm rocking out. Nothing's moving, nothing's firing. Okay we'll bring it down here. Now the shoulders are going, the pecs are activating, right? And so you can visually see it. And so I had to change all my mechanics, you know, from the way I was doing it before to that way. And then I started to see some progress, finally. So that was the big thing for me. It's like this arch back and kind of overly focusing on the stretch wasn't the thing for me, right? But Brian, you might do it a completely different way. know, you're uh the way you execute something like that. you know, your shoulders probably do move and you're probably like, you know, your body is set up when you're activating things. you usually, you just going to visually see it on someone because all the fibers come together. Does it look like there's tension there? Right. So probably that, that works great for the way you set yourself up, but The way I was doing it, the way I was performing it, it just wasn't doing it for me. I did that for years and years years years years. So that's how I get right down this whole movement quality thing. was like, damn, like I spent 15 years trying to grow these pecs and got nothing. And then I did a weekend with Eric and now they're popping. you know, that's kind of where I was at with that stuff. So it's much more about the mechanics of the pressing than it is as far as exercise selection or anything like that. Yeah. think there's any one variation that was, everything kind of feels good to me now. I set myself up this way, more or less, yeah. So are we still retracting at the stretch position and then protracting as you come up? So like the way I think about it is like I arch at the at the stretch position, I arch as I feel like that does actually increase the stretch, but then the shoulders roll forward and you get the protraction piece as you're you might be, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, the thing is, yes, they were tracked at the bottom for sure, but if you were tracked too much and really lose that stack and don't bring it back, you might not get as much activation. And so my challenge for you, Brian, would be like, try it exactly my way and see what you feel, See how it feels, see if it feels different to you. I mean, obviously it's been easy enough for you to grow as you've been doing it, but try it with just the stack staying constant. Right. and see how you feel, right? And so... I wouldn't be going as deep. Like the fly motion would stop a few inches shy of where I'm currently taking it probably. Yeah. So, but yeah, that's the way I would do it. And I think, like I said, the problem was for as I stayed in that retraction and nothing would move at all. So yeah, hey. Hey, baby. Hey guys. All right. We're gonna get going, get kids ready for camp and stuff. Thank you so much for your time, Connor. I appreciate it. Thank you guys, have a great time. on. This was wonderful. Very, very excited to get this one out. I think there was lots of good insights from you. We appreciate your time. We'll talk to you soon. Awesome, thanks guys.