Brad, Eric, and Jeff discuss different strategies you can use to help you find the sweet spot between time efficiency and stimulus efficiency for your situation. How long should you rest between sets? Is resting longer between reps to extend the length of a set a good strategy? What are antagonist paired sets and why would someone use them? How to drop sets compare to myo-reps in regard to effectiveness? What evidence is there on double days? Why is it important to be able to differentiate...

Brad, Jeff, and Brian discuss when, how, and why they program cardio for themselves and their athletes. How do the coaches view and prescribe cardio during a fat-loss phase? What are the coaches’ thoughts on doing additional cardiovascular exercise for overall health? What is the benefit of having a step goal over a calories-burned goal? What is the highest the coaches typically program someone’s step goal? Do the coaches ever use cardio as a way to stimulate an athlete’s appetite during a...

Brad and Jeff discuss the physical and mental characteristics of a successful bodybuilder, how to maximize *your* potential, and the amazing things that happen when you let yourself be free of worrying about your genetics. How can you know if you’re going to be good at bodybuilding? How do you know if a certain recommendation applies to you? What is the *art* of bodybuilding? What was Brad’s mindset during his 2024 prep, which he felt led to his best physique ever? The answers to these...

Brian, Steve, and Alberto discuss when and what criteria need to be met to make a dietary adjustment. When do the coaches adjust an athlete/client’s plan and when do they have them hold steady? What types of adjustments to the coaches typically make? What can you focus on and how can you stay motivated when your weight/the scale is not a good indicator of progress? How big of an adjustment do the coaches typically make when they decrease someone’s calorie intake? When the coaches decrease...

Alberto, Brian, and Eric have a spirited debate about who they each think are the top 5 natural male bodybuilders of all time. The coaches talk about the early years of Kai Greene’s career when he was natural, the criteria they think is required for someone to be the GOAT (greatest of all time), who they think is the GOAT and why, honorable mentions, and a lot more. Bodybuilding is where art meets science meets sport, and if you are a fan of natural bodybuilding you will love this episode....

Alberto, Jeff, and Nick discuss the struggles with gaining weight in the offseason, finding your ideal rate of gain, identifying what your current rate of adaptation is, and advice to help you stay patient when you’re doing all you can do. Who should bulk? What can happen when you get too fixated on gaining weight at a certain rate or weighing a certain amount? What were the coaches’ motivations for and experiences while intentionally gaining weight for the first time? How beneficial is a...

Eric, Brad, and Brian discuss methods dual athletes can use to maximize their competitiveness in both bodybuilding and powerlifting. These same methods can also be used by noncompetitors who want to get big *and* strong. Why do the coaches program more bodybuilding work for their powerlifting athletes than they used to? Do the benefits of specificity max out at a certain point? How does specificity change over time? How does the minimum effective dose for novice lifters and advanced lifters...

Brad and Alberto go into detail about what to expect when prepping for a bodybuilding competition, the importance of having people you trust to give you honest feedback on how you're acting, and some of their top tips for a successful prep. How does prep help you learn more about yourself and become a better version of yourself? Should you chase feelings of hunger? How do the coaches recommend dealing with the common side effects of prep such as being overly preoccupied with food, sleep...

Andrea, Brad, and Brian host an audience-supplied Q and A session covering a wide range of interesting topics. Deep in prep, do the coaches ever have athletes experience serious medical issues? When training for hypertrophy, how many reps should you leave in reserve when doing compound exercises? What about isolation exercises? What is the difference between a movement’s RIR and a target muscle’s RIR? Is it more important to have carbs before your workout or after? Is it necessary to feel the...

Eric, Jeff, and Alberto discuss how they program their own and their athletes’ training differently than they used to. The coaches talk about how to apply new training techniques and understandings, the benefits of being open-minded, exercise selection, managing fatigue, range of motion, and a lot more. If you’ve been wanting to learn more about training at longer muscle lengths and lengthened partials, this is a great episode to listen to. The coaches go through how to train at longer muscle...

Nick, Jeff, Brian, and Alberto discuss how to manage your athletic and lifting goals while still being present for your children and partner. The guys talk about how they stay highly-competitive bodybuilders with kids, how they’ve learned to be flexible, how they’ve gotten good at getting the most out of the limited amount of time they sometimes have to train, being a “good selfish”, and a lot more. The dads also share how they talk about or plan on talking about bodybuilding when the time...

Eric, Steve, and Brad have a unique conversation about tracking and bringing mindfulness to a behavior. The coaches discuss the distinction between tracking to learn more about what you’re currently doing versus tracking to change a behavior. Sometimes just tracking a behavior is enough to get the desired outcome and sometimes *not* tracking something can lead to better outcomes. Along with discussing the different types of tracking, the coaches also go through how to choose what you should...

Jeff, Brian, and Brad discuss training to failure, RPE-based programming, and percentage-based programming. What is RPE and RIR? Should you use RPE-based programming? If so, when and how should you use it? How do the coaches help their athletes get better at rating a set’s RPE? What approaches do the coaches use for prescribing proximity to failure with bodybuilders? Can training to failure and leaving reps in reserve both work? Why isn’t all training to failure the same? The coaches answer...

Nick, Alberto, and Brad discuss the necessity (or lack of) of specific exercises for maximizing the development of your lower body. Are there fundamental movements everyone should do? Does squatting and deadlifting make your muscles more dense? What are the group’s thoughts on hip thrusts, glute bridges, and RDLs? What are some fun exercise modifications you can try to get a similar or better muscular stimulus using less weight? Along with answering all of these questions, this episode has...

Brian and Eric address many common questions and misunderstandings around body fat set points. Is it possible to change your set point? Are your genetics really the thing holding you back? Along with answering these two questions, Brian and Eric discuss leptin, modifying your environment, metabolic adaptation, low energy availability, some really interesting research on the Amish, and a lot more. This episode is full of takeaways for both competitors and noncompetitors. Timestamps 0:00-...

Amanda, Alberto, and Eric discuss disordered eating, eating disorders, body-image concerns, and how they relate to both competitive physique athletes and noncompetitors. They talk about common issues they see and how they deal with them, the importance of framing, the influence of biology, research on tracking and physique checking, and a lot more. The same behaviors can be facilitative or debilitative depending upon how they are framed and what they result in in someone’s...

Brad, Jeff, and Brian discuss what the ultimate goal of a person’s training should be if their primary goal is muscular hypertrophy. The coaches talk about when to add volume and when to wait, slower reps versus faster reps, training volume across a training career, longevity, and caution against putting the numbers ahead of the stimulus. Progression should be dictated by the rate you’re adapting and not something that should be forced. ------------------------------ Timestamps 0:00-...

Eric, Alberto, and Brad discuss the things they feel every powerlifter who wants to be successful needs to understand. The coaches talk about how beneficial being intentional with your nutrition can be and a few simple nutritional strategies they recommend. Other topics discussed include, the best way to make weight for a meet, the coaches’ thoughts on cutting to make a weight class early in your powerlifting career, and the ideal situation to be in from a nutritional perspective as you’re...

Andrea, Brian, and Jeff conduct an audience-supplied Q and A session. Topics include maximizing muscle growth, how to track volume, what you can do if you’re afraid of gaining body fat after your competitive season, and a lot more. Timestamps 0:00- Introduction 2:24- How to grow maximally versus slowly and how to tell the difference 13:07- How to balance lifting with other forms of physical activity like running, cycling, basketball, etc. 21:48- If you aren’t working with a coach, how...

In this eye-opening episode, Eric and Steve do a deep dive on the risks of testing new supplements, how you can help ensure the supplements you take are high-quality, and the supplements they use and recommend. Along with discussing the effectiveness of various supplements, the coaches go through the research showing just how common supplement [...]

Brad, Alberto, and Jeff discuss the weird and sometimes scary things that happen when we push our body to the extreme. The coaches share crazy things they have seen and had happen to them during prep. What happened to Jeff when he was vitamin K deficient during one of his preps? What is sleep eating [...]

Brian, Jeff, and Brad discuss how to be compliant with your plan so you can achieve your goals. How do the coaches navigate food prepared by family when they're prepping? Do the coaches find it easier to eat the foods they really enjoy in small amounts or completely cut them out when prepping? How did [...]

Jeff and Alberto discuss how they've helped and pushed each other, how they go about their bodybuilding differently, and how to get the most out of your bodybuilding journey. How long have the coaches been lifting? How does Jeff go about his bodybuilding? How does Alberto go about his bodybuilding? How do the coaches think [...]

Brian, Brad, and Alberto discuss why getting yourself in a good position to prep is so important, what a good starting position looks like, and what they are currently doing to prepare for their 2024 season. Why are the coaches planning and preparing for the stage a year out? What are Brad, Brian, and Alberto's [...]