Ep 365 - Confidence, Self-Doubt & Thinking Clearly in the Fitness Industry - Eric Helms & Steve Hall

- What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of Hold On. Steve, have we decided whether we're gonna call these revive culture or are we gonna call these iron stronger episodes? - I wonder, Eric, if we should let the audience decide in the comments. - You know what, but that'd be good. - Yeah, I think that would be a great decision because they're gonna start self-selecting based into whether they're like hipsters or whether they just like lifting weights. And that's the thing with iron culture. We have a broad cross section. And I think revive stronger does as well 'cause of the diversity of guests you have on. So like to me, like revive culture it almost sounds like something that'd be hosted in museum. While iron stronger sounds like a bunch of meat heads got together and couldn't decide on the name whether Jim and they just made some shit up and went there anyway. That's kind of what the two sound like to me. - Yeah, I think I feel like iron stronger appeals to me more, but I think that's just my nature just being the more of a meat head than someone who feels like they're cultured. Despite my accent maybe gives me a sense of culture, I am not. - No, no, it'll be good. Like as an American I've become disabused now that I've traveled around the world of accents meaning anything besides I was born here. Because yeah, I was enamored with the accents of everywhere I went. And then I started to realize that just because I'm an American and I'm from California like I still have an accent. You ever met that like an American who's like in your country like, oh yeah, you have an accent and it's like, motherfucker, you're in my country. You have an accent. So I love that. But yeah, you interact with far too many Americans. No, we both have accents and I will say this. Revive culture, it sounds like something intellectual and smart, but it doesn't really mean anything. Like you'd have to, you need to follow up. Like what culture are we reviving, you know? And then who are we to be so bold to say that? But yeah, I aren't stronger. It's just like, I like weights and I use them to get stronger. Let's go, let's go. So yeah, I'm good with either one. And I think we can just kind of have it like Schrodinger's podcast name. Like we don't know it's in the box. It's either revive culture or I aren't stronger. Maybe both, maybe both at the same time. And we're just glad to have you all here joining us. And I'm excited for this, Steve. You had a great idea. You were like, hey man, we should do a regular podcast. And I was like, I love that. Because to me, and here's where I bring back the old school field at Omar and I had just over complementing one another for 10 minutes. I love what you've done for us, the industry for yourself. I think you are like a beacon of positivity, knowledge, and also skepticism in our space. And personally as an athlete, I will tell you this. I've been incredibly inspired by your progress and your approach to sport where you have, I think the wholism and the balance, but you give everything you can in trying to push yourself as far as you can. And the proofs in the pudding, like you have made some tremendous strides as an athlete. And I think in many ways, we are kindred spirits kind of in our like where we've gone in our approach and the way we've approached the sport. So I just want to say I'm honored to do this with you. And straight back to Eric. I'm terrible for banter as I told you off air. For some reason, I'm really bad at like, nagging on peak. Negging, I say nagging as if I know what that word means. It's nagging a thing, right? I haven't just made that up. Like you actually, it's like, that was also my slurty banter almost. Yeah, you got it. I can't even, yeah, I have nothing. I struggled to say anything negative or trying like bounce off you and try and make a joke out of it. Because honestly, I feel exactly the same way. As you said, I reached out to you and I was like, hey, need you on the show more. I almost say it every single time that I bring you on. I'm like, why have I waited so long? And well, it's not like the world. The world can always do with more Eric Helms on podcasts, but it's not like you aren't on lots of podcasts. So I always appreciate it when you're on here to be able to talk and just very honestly, one of the most popular guests and for good reason. And so yeah, it's great to be able to do this with you. And everything you said about, kind of as an athlete, like I look straight back at you. It was very strange in terms of like your 2020 season, your turning pro, and then obviously I followed in your footsteps in some ways. Because I think, again, we're similar in that regard where we haven't just been gifted things with our kind of bodybuilding journey and we've had to work hard for that. Actually, that's a really random, strange question to ask potentially you, Eric. Education-wise, like obviously you're incredibly astute, very educated, really well-spoken. Did that come easier to you than the physical side of things? Like was school easy? I've never thought you'd talk about it. No, and actually there's a firm rather to talk about there. But I think it was, but it's not the same as bodybuilding. And so I want to be really clear, it was more of a hidden talent for me, something that ended up surprising me that I was good at, and then I built confidence in a while. I think bodybuilding, I have had a realization that maybe I have more talent than I thought I did. And there's more potential for me to make progress. But I still think if you and I were to sit in our judges seat and we were to assess me, we'd be like, not you're good, but let's be honest about where you are compared to, like the top, top pros while I think-- so I think my baseline talent in academia was higher than my baseline talent. I'm like, how good of a bodybuilder could I be? But I didn't know that. So a little bit of self-disclosure time, if you don't mind. So growing up, I did get into what we call advanced placement classes when I was like in high school or like honors classes. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in the UK or anywhere. But in the US, you can get placed in classes that like in high school, they give you college credits. And you have to take an aptitude test to get into them and have a certain grade point average. And they get taught either by college professors or sometimes you even go to university campus and take some of the courses that would give you credit there, a little bit of background. The first two years of all university degrees in the US are basically the same. So we have four year bachelor's. And this is going to sound like I'm back in the US, maybe I am. But we have a lot of disparity in the type of education that someone gets in high school. So to give people kind of a similar starting point, the first two years of all degrees are the same. So when you hear first or second year university students talk about changing their majors, they're just being children. Like it doesn't matter if you're a second year chemistry, history, exercise science, or whatever a student, you're taking the same stuff. It's called your general ed years. And so you can get some of the credits for that from high school if you're doing well enough. And you can show that you're at that level. And I did take some of those classes, which typically indicates you're pretty smart, but I would get into them, Steve, specifically because they would give you extra credit to on your GPA at great point average. So like a B would count as an A, as far as your transcripts. And I grew up with this belief that I was like lazy, and not a hard worker. And what it really was is I had a very, very tough time actually focusing or applying myself to any topic that I wasn't intently passionate or interested about. Now, obviously that's not like a unique something that you need to necessarily pathologize in people. But I was set aside. Sometimes I'd like sit with my teacher when I was in first or second grade in kindergarten because I was so distractable. And I would like bring books to school and read and things like that, and kind of have this intense imagination that would distract me from school as an only child as well. So they thought I had ADHD when I was a kid. And this was the '90s when it was starting to get really recognized. And a lot of people were getting diagnosed with it. And my mother, who is actually a-- she's a marriage and family therapist. She's got a master's in psychology. And she was a therapist for many years before she retired. She also has pretty severe ADHD, actually. She's medicated ever since I was young. And there was a genetic component to ADHD. And she was pretty convinced that I did have it. Apparently, I learned this later in life. My dad was, too, as were the teachers, but they didn't want to stigmatize me or get me diagnosed. So and get me medicated. So the intention to not stigmatize me had some downstream negative consequences, Steve. So what it meant is that I had this internal core belief that I was lazy, couldn't focus, and didn't try hard. And this manifested in me doing things like trying to get into an AP class so I could just get an easier-- because I felt it was easy to get a B in these classes. It would be harder to get an A in the regular version. So it took me a very, very long time to realize that I actually wasn't lazy and still part of me thinks I am despite the things that I've manifested in my life as an entrepreneur or as an academic or as an athlete. But getting an adult ADHD diagnosis is actually something I'm in the process of doing now. I don't know if I'm going to be-- if I'm going to medicate or consider that. But one of the motivations to do it is that I get really, really hyper-focused on things. So I have a hyper-focused component to it, which I think is a benefit to me. But I can really only apply it to things that I'm intensely passionate about, which is why my entire life looks like one thing. It's closer, honestly, when I have talked about it and gone through this process to what someone on the autism spectrum would describe as a special interest. This is sometimes shown in comedy shows, but I don't want to make something that's very real for people, sound like a joke. But like, sheldon's interest in flags, or you'll have someone who are actually very realistic depictions of actors with autism spectrum disorder who actually may have it, they have the thing that they are really intensely passionate about. I'm not saying that I have autism, but there are a lot of traits in those people with neurodiversity who have these aspects of it. And I very much present as someone who is a special interest. So when I'm focused on something, whether it's a paper I'm writing for bodybuilding, whether it's my contest prep, whether it is a powerlifting show, or whether it's some concept that I can't stop thinking of. I express them on podcasts, I write a paper, I do a blog, I do an Instagram post, whatever. But what people don't see is that I'll be sitting at breakfast with Barb, my wife, and we're having our 20 year anniversary in just a couple of weeks. So I haven't messed this up too bad, just so people know. Thank you. She'll be talking to me about something I am interested in. And I'm interested in her, I want to support her, and she'll be talking about it. And I'll realize I've just missed the last three sentences. My brain just starts focusing on this other thing. And again, without a ADHD diagnosis, the internal messaging that I had around why I do things like that and why I get so focused on the things I care about weren't good alternatives. I'm secretly a narcissist, and I'm selfish. And I'm also lazy. So I've kind of lived most of my life with this belief that if I don't try really hard, I'm actually a narcissistic, selfish, lazy person. And so I've had to do a lot of personal growth around, maybe accepting that it's not true. And maybe it has to do with some of my neurochemistry. And if medication can help me be a better friend and a better partner and a better coach and interact with people and not get so sucked into the thing that my brain wants to focus on, while allowing me to to partition my time and focus on the thing that I'm doing and to stay better at it. I'll give it a crack, but I've obviously been able to leverage this as a strength in my life. But there have been some notable costs to my psyche. So anyway, all that is to say, it wasn't until I was doing my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, which, of course, were in fitness and wellness for my bachelor's sports management fitness and wellness. My first master's was exercise science and performance enhancement. And all of a sudden, I flourished as an academic because I wasn't studying things that didn't care about. I was so interested. And it didn't feel like school anymore. It felt like fun. And boom, it was another level. And then I got my CS CS, and I thought, you know what, maybe I could do a PhD. But each step of the way, Steve, I had to kind of give myself some credit. And I had to be like, oh, maybe I'm smarter than I think. Maybe I can apply myself. Maybe I'm a harder worker than I think I am. And then I started to notice that I was making, like I have a 4.0 in my master's. And I have a, or yeah, yeah, and a 3.8 in my bachelor's, which I only got because I was in the midst of contest prep. And I was so fatigued, I forgot to hit submit on an assignment. It's just prep brain. So I have a bodybuilding induced 3.8. And then I have a 4.0. And I did pretty well for, like, my master's thesis grade and how that was received for my second master's, my infill. And I'm not like a Nobel Prize winner or anything like that. But let's just say that I'm probably above average, as far as people with PhDs in terms of-- and I'm still learning, like, academic, you know, like, that was one of the big misconceptions where the whole mic is retel thing is, like, in some fields, your dissertation is kind of like your magnum opus, and then your career really is built on that foundation. In sports science, your PhD is something that you did to gain entry into the field as a researcher. And then your career is wholly different than that, in many cases. And like, sometimes you'll go to a teaching school, and you'll never really do research again, which was kind of the path that Mike went. He was primarily an instructor, and then he got into the social media game. So like, I think, ascribing his capability or his contributions to his dissertation, it's just not the way it works in sports science. I'm not saying it was an amazing dissertation or anything like that, but I'm just saying, like, how consequential that is, I think, was not accurately represented. So like, my PhD is good, but I feel like I've grown since it, and it's gotten a lot better, and I've learned more about stats, et cetera, et cetera, and it should be that way. So I would say that my-- I still haven't reached my potential as an academic, and that's really exciting, which is cool, and I'm learning more, and I'm moving into, you know, different roles in AUT. And I'm always going to stay doing that, which splits my interest, but nonetheless, very long answer, and very self-disclosing answer, I appreciate it. I like-- Yeah, so I have a formal diagnosis for ADHD coming in the next couple of weeks that something I've decided to do in 2026, whether or not I actually use medication for that, or whether it's just something that helps me better understand myself, cut myself some slack, and maybe admit that I'm perhaps not a lazy narcissist. I'm a hard-working narcissist. No, we're just kidding. But yeah, that is-- but it didn't come easy at all. When I was in-- I developed a lot of coping strategies around who I am after grade school, so basically from the ages of-- and we have up to six grades called grade school. We have middle school or junior high. And then we have high school. And by the time I got into high school, I'd kind of figured out how to make things work for me. And that was-- let me get into these advanced placement classes, but not try hard and get my own things. And then, you know, I do OK. I'm like a B student who's in advanced placement classes, so decent grades. But in grade school and middle school, I struggle a lot. And I was not that-- not like I wasn't. I didn't have good outputs, but just like I would procrastinate, or I couldn't focus, or I would get in trouble in class, because I was talking or joking. And I had a lot of social development issues in terms of without having other kids picked on a lot. So school was not a fun place for me for a long time until high school, where I kind of was a bit of a late liver. And then I had a robust social group and did pretty well in school, but I went into the Air Force afterwards. So it didn't really matter. They didn't have like a stellar GPA. It's a-- you know, do the SATs and get into a university. But anyway, that is my life story, and still evolving. But yeah. It's really great to hear about it, because I think a lot of people just see Eric Helms as this like star-studded bodybuilder, academic. Speaks really well. All of these things, and obviously nothing comes for free, but they wouldn't have known any of that about you in terms of the struggles. And also, like I always like the saying, "For every gimme, there's a gotcha." Like the ADHD in some ways probably was a blessing. Like it allowed you to be that hyperfocus on this thing that's allowed you to really pursue this career and get really far, but at the same time, like you said, you've had to kind of-- you've sacrificed other things that-- and also, like you said, your own sense of personal self-or-well-being and self-talk in that way hasn't been the best. I struggled for-- I have also not got anything diagnosed. I've had-- it's funny. People have said that they think I'm slightly autistic or maybe on-- everyone's on the spectrum, some extent right. And I've done tests online. Like for some things, I fit the criteria. And other things, I'm completely not there at all. So it's very interesting. And yeah, ADHD is one of those things that is becoming much more like mental health in general neurodivergency, way more discussed now, which is great, but at the same time, it does lend itself then to, like you said, some of those jokes and not taking seriously, which I guess it's just-- that's the nature of the beast in some ways. But yeah, similarly, not-- I won't go into like a whole story of mine because I'm not at the level of academics that you are, Eric. But similarly, struggled at school. Like I had extra tutoring outside of school and learning support lessons as well, which-- so I always felt like-- and I still do feel like a complete-- it's that Dunning Krueger effect. I feel like I felt really early when I was just like, I'm really not that smart. Where I'll-- I said to my partner often where I'm like, I just-- I don't feel like I'm intelligent in the slightest. I think she's so much smarter than me. She's like, I think you're way smarter than me for X, Y, and Z reason. And it's just so interesting how people see themselves. It's even if you see it with athletes, right? For like elite in their game and they don't recognize it in themselves, whatever reason. And then you have other people where-- and maybe they're Dunning Krueger in their physique, right? Where they think they're the shit. And you're like, where's this self-confidence come from? I wish I had some of that. But yeah, similarly to you to have got anywhere with my grades, I went to-- I got a degree in geography with business, as it were, because I had no idea what I really wanted to do. And I managed to still get a 2-1, which is fine, but I wanted a 1st, but I had my whole head injury. And now I use that as an excuse to why I forget things and forget names and dates and anything like that. I had it bashed out of me. I can't-- no one can tell me for that. No, no one can. And I'll tell you this, man. Intelligence is an interesting thing. And even just measuring it is a bit of an academic mind field, like you'll have people debate different constructs and like, how do we measure it? And I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this field, but I've read a bit. And I'm not going to pretend that all of this is super, super settled. But an interesting thing is that IQ, like your intelligence quotient, is a relatively fixed trait, once someone has had their basic education. But I don't think it's a great representation of what-- if you and I sat down and we were like just talking and chatting, and we had to define intelligence, like, who do we think is a smart person or not? And we would talk-- things would come up like common sense, or this kind of raw processing power. And then other things would come up problem-solving abilities and then people who were kind of wise, or what we might describe as emotional intelligence and the way they interact, people in a given situation. And I don't think any of those has, or should have a monopoly on what intelligence is. But while IQ is relatively fixed, and some of these other traits don't have super, super clear scientific definitions yet, or they have parallels, because for something to really kind of exist in the academic world, we have to even measure it, in terms of quantitative things. But one of the things that is not fixed and actually can grow, and it really requires the person to put forth effort, and to be very introspective, is critical thinking. So critical thinking is basically your ability to reason, and to not fall victim to things like logical fallacies, and not to use as much of-- and we all can, the more impulsive kind of fast thinking, like our knee jerk reaction to something, and then to stop and to hold on. And then to also try to get more of that into our fast thinking, through pattern recognition. So like, for example, you and I both know now, because of how long we've been in the game, and there's just a concrete example for the listener, that when some type of pop science thing comes up, it's probably not all the way right. It might be partially right at best, because how many times have we have a family member, or a client, or we've seen it online? Where it's like, did you know, blankity blank, and you're like, that's not the way that works, because I've been heavily involved in exercise and nutrition science, or bodybuilding in all these years. It's more complex than that, right. And we know like, all the gurus, they start with a little grain of truth, and then it is something like that they sell on top of it. Like, yes, it's true that you use more fatty acids for fuel when you're doing fasted training, but it doesn't necessarily mean that fasted cardio is going to burn more fast, right. Or yes, it's true that cortisol is a stress hormone, but, you know. And I've come to become much more critical of claims that I run to that that are outside of exercise science, 'cause I see how often it is here. And when I read into it, I find the same thing. Like, there's that famous study, supposedly, of how US criminal judges, if it's their last case, right before lunch and they're hungry, they're more likely to give a harsh sentence. And you're like, yeah, man. It's so, the US criminal system, it's so crazy, and humans are so subjective, they get angry, and they'll just lock you up and throw away the key. You actually look into that study, and you find out that the structure of the specific, and I don't wanna pretend, I remember this perfectly, well, I'm paraphrasing, but the judges, they had their case loads divided up into different types of cases at different times. And the ones that were stacked right before lunch were more likely to have a higher, basically, penalty for the specific reasons that I don't recall. And another one, like my wife, before her current career in geology, she used to be an animal behavior. So she was a dog trainer and she worked in the Auckland Zoo and trained primates. And so she was like an evidence-based dog trainer, what would have you? And apparently, like Caesar Milan, the dog trainer, he's like one of like the charlatans in that field, but he's very, very popular, right? And there's a little grains of truth, you know? And one of those grains of truth is, you know, the whole idea of the alpha. And how, you know, well, dogs were descended from wolves and wolves have alphas. Well, that was based upon research done in a national park in the US. I think you're a semi, but what people don't know is that it's a rescue. So they take wolves who have been, who've lost their pack. And they have basically a bunch of stray wolves from different packs come together and then they do. They figure out who's the alpha and then that becomes the leader. But that's not the natural state of wolves. In fact, the way wolves actually operate is in a family unit. Who's the alpha? It's the parents. And they run around with their cubs until they're old enough to make go out. It's basically like humans, you know? And then we're not not exactly the same. Obviously wolves are not people. But from there, now we've bred them for literally tens of thousands of years to be super, super hyper-sensitive to us. And if you look at what's the most evidence-based way to train a dog and to have a good relationship with a dog, it's not to dominate them become the alpha and then force them to do the things you want. That'll work, just like it works with a person. Like you can be a domineering boss and capture someone, keep them in your home and only feed them. And they'll be like, okay, cool. I guess this is what we're doing. But you can also develop a loving relationship with them, show them that you're safe, and give them positive reinforcement. And then, you know, when they're a puppy and they might hurt themselves around on the street, you can, you know, you can correct them and things like that. But certainly not choke-chaining and lifting them up off the ground, like you've seen Caesar and Milan do in some cases. So anyway, the whole concept of needing to become the alpha with this dog is basically broscience over the equivalent. So anyway, all that is to say, I wanted to give you the compliment because over the time course of watching revive stronger, I've seen you build increasingly better and better and better and better critical thinking skills. And many people in our industry, they get worse. They buy into their own hype, they buy into their own bullshit. They are narcissistic. People give them positive feedback. And how many times have we seen it? Like someone who was making good content and they fall off, you know? And I think that has to do with how often true narcissistic traits are in our community. So, yeah. Yeah, I've definitely seen that. And it's uncomfortable, I mean, it's actually uncomfortable to critically think of. And it's quite nice to not because then it's, and I think that's why a lot of people don't where they want an easy answer. And they're just like, oh, that makes sense to me. And so that's just how it is. It's funny you mentioned the dog trainers and how there's like people that are more evidence-based, as it were, essentially, versus ones who aren't, because we have a dog. So I've seen these reels from people coming up on my Instagram feed. And it's just the worst place to try and get education, basically, is what you end up learning. And that's part of the, why we love podcast, Eric. And why we love this long format discussion. Even on the, obviously, we had our episode 500 and the number of comments I got where I was just like, you need to just watch the whole thing, 'cause you, and the amount of straw man arguments and everything made, where people just have opinions based off like a 30 second segment. It's just not useful at all. So, well, let's be honest, though, Steve. Did we not choose some clips that were inflammatory from that podcast to try to get some of that engagement because then more people would listen. - I actually don't know. I don't know if the AI algorithm picked them out for me to be inflammatory, or if I actually picked them out myself, 'cause I had to use a different, Riverside sometimes picks out good clips. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the software screws up. That's what we're recording on now. But it screwed up that time. So I had to like, take the whole episode, put it into a cap cut. And then I think I actually did select one of my own clips. - Well, I'm not even hating, man. 'Cause let's, like, people, look at what we have to do to survive, you know? Like, we're like combining podcast forces. It is hard in these streets, man. You don't even know if I'm real. I could be an AI. And, you know, like, I'm asleep right now. It's Steve and I use this new feature on Riverside, where you just make an AI version of yourself. You train it. I just uploaded my books and a few episodes of "Rive Stronger and Iron Culture." And here we are, like, this is not real. No, but in all seriousness, I think like, you gotta play the game a little bit. And I think you've done a really good job of finding the right balance, you know? And one thing I do like about you with your podcasts is I think you do a really good job being like a journalist. And I struggle to walk that fine line because Iron Culture will have episodes where I'm the expert and then the episodes where I'm the interviewer. And I think sometimes when we have someone on who a certain segment of our audience doesn't feel is, like, worthy of the platform, they'll, like, I can't just be like, well, I'm just the interviewer, you know, like, they feel like you should know that or you shouldn't have them on or what have you. And I think you do a really, really good job of listening to people talking to them, pushing back when appropriate, changing your content over time. So anyway, all this is to say, this has been a 30-minute period of us just kind of complementing each other. I do wanna give one small shout out and this is my ADHD talking, perhaps, to Trexler. So those who are watching on YouTube, this is a new Mountain Dew flavor that is now available in New Zealand. New Zealand's diet soda technology is lagging behind the rest of the world a little bit. The only diet soda available in the Mountain Dew range is the traditional diet Mountain Dew. And if you go to the States, you know this, Steve. It's actually too much. There's too many options, too much choice. It, five years ago, it hit the peak and now there's too far too many. But ones that I did have when I was in the US last time, I was there recently for, you know, worlds and also the muscle mayhem. And I'm, you know, dieting. So like, what am I gonna have except for, let me have a different diet soda every time I go to the grocery store while I'm here for three weeks, which is basically what I did. And I had the diet Mountain Dew Baja Blast and I was like, this is incredible. And Trex and I bonded over that. But we have major melon now, Mountain Dew. How is it? It's pretty good. It doesn't taste like Mountain Dew. It's not as good as Baja Blast. But I'm gonna give it a solid B+. And it is not caffeine-free, though, right? No. So this is good news, it does me with Mountain Dew. I'm on a, you gotta treat it like a pre-workout. Yeah, yeah. So just for the record, it's seven a.m. for me. It's seven, 10 a.m. So I'm having 114 milligrams of caffeine having this, which is actually on the lower end for Mountain Dew, by the way. Having this 600 mil major melon Mountain Dew. So shout it to Trex, even though he's not joining us on our Revive Culture Iron Stronger episodes. But should we actually talk about something like the legitimate, pretty sound? Yeah, maybe. I don't know why. Yeah, let my question go, because it's not actually interesting. I don't think for the listings there, where I was gonna go. So actually, it's actually really interesting, 'cause obviously you've already done a number of podcasts reflecting on worlds for you at least. Yeah. And so people can check those out for sure. You even did your own, you've done your own vlog series on it, which was awesome, by the way. I'm really glad you were doing those, 'cause it's effort to do that sort of content. But I think, well, received by people. And also probably for you to look back in many years time and be very fond of kind of having that available to you. But that thing that we've spoken about before, I don't know what episode it was, we talked about some of your self-doubt of turning pro. And you've had those self-doubt. And it was interesting, 'cause you also had them on your educational side after hearing out your kind of background there. And that seems to be just, I guess maybe a person, let's you try it a little bit of your own, like where you have these doubts. But that imposter syndrome sort of thing, people will be very aware of. That hasn't held you back. Do you think it could have made you even better? Do you think it's made you work harder? How do you think about that self-doubt? You know the funny thing, I was reflecting on how I was saying how a lot of people in our space kind of fall off, or they get worse over time. Yeah. Like these really arrogant, confident coaches, who, they're maybe not full-done and Kruger, but like a really common thing I see is that when a trainer gets popular and becomes a content creator and blows up online, they get kind of all these sick of fans around them. And they basically start to get worse anecdotes, you know? Like if you go from online training to writing a book about here's my training method, which was really common like 10 years ago. And I'm not saying you people are bad, but like five, three, one, shite. All the programs you'd download from some athlete, right? And you essentially get fed by your own algorithm and the way you interact online with more of these positive comments. And people who are not getting good success with it, you're not gonna go hunt down the negative Reddit comment, at least most people don't. And it kind of gives you this unbalanced positivity feedback and I think someone with the right personality and who's not being humble enough or not actively thinking about how do I get better, but just how do I feel good? You know, 'cause it feels good to get boosted up online. They can get progressively more biased in the way they view things. But I think if you're actively staying as a trainer, things can, they'll be good, but they do get worse. Like, you know, Revive Stronger blows up. Sorry, 3D muscle training blows up. One of the things I noticed was that we had an online presence, like people see Eric Helms or Alberta Nunez or Jeff Alberts or Brad Lumis or Ryan Minor as a person online. And we have, for marketing purposes, we have a, like basically a version of us that people see. Oh, they do this type of training and take this approach. It's flexible diet, it's blank, it's x, y, and z. And as much as we talk about, you know, taking an individualized approach, there's still kind of this conception of the, the Revive Stronger way, right? So people self-select. You're not gonna get someone who completely philosophically disagrees with you. So they're getting not only the expectancy effect, but maybe if they're not a complete novice, that they've already found that some of those things work well for them. So you're more likely to get clients who are going to succeed with you the more popular you get, as you're hopefully getting better. But not everyone does. So I think there's this thing in the fitness industry. Where if you take someone with narcissistic traits, or who's a full-blown narcissist, which there's plenty of, if you just go on YouTube, and they start to see some success. And you can kind of just fake it till you make it. You know, it's a very American thing and the fitness world, like you just talk a big game, have a good physique, have some natural talent or take a boatload of gear and know how to play the marketing game and at least be not a complete moron. And you can do very well in the fitness industry if you're willing to just kind of follow what the algorithm does well. If you know how to be a good marketer and you have a little bit of whatever the niche that you're trying to attach values, you'll be good. And then you get worse over time for the first reason I said. So I think one of the things that has really helped me is that little bit of imposter syndrome, if we want to call it that. I'm always constantly wondering, like, yeah, but am I better or am I improving or am I doing this right? Is this as good as it could be? And I think that has served me because I'm constantly thinking about, like I'll go back and read papers multiple times that I've written and I catch errors. And every time I release a podcast, I listen to it. People think that I just like to listen to myself talk. I don't. I just like, did I say anything stupid? Like that I, that I, that I, that I avoid Eric and I don't hear myself say stupid things. Yeah, I listen back to everything I put online, every single episode I put out because I even want to make sure exactly. It's, it's, it's a kind of an obsessive thing I do. Like I'll do it like when I drive. But and it takes a lot of time because I do a lot of podcasts, but I am definitely thinking like, I'm listening for errors in ways that I can improve and things that I could do better. So I think, um, yeah, I think, I think part of it it has served me there. It's not all fear driven. I think if it was, like if it was purely like, oh, I'm not good enough, I need to make sure that I'm, not screwing up. I would never put anything out there. So I, I've seen far more people hold themselves back with imposter syndrome because I think it's never good enough or why do I deserve a platform, kind of tall poppy syndrome. As we call it here in New Zealand. And I, I think I have developed a degree of confidence. I have known and identified certain traits in myself that have allowed me to have confidence. I don't think most people in my life would say, oh, Eric lacks confidence. But they do know that I also have that other piece to me where I don't know that I'm necessarily as talented or as good as I could be in a given area. But it's, I think those are pretty specific areas. It's not like this overarching personality trait. I think I'm pretty good at evaluating myself. Yeah. So maybe not, I don't know. But like I've met several people who are surprised that I think I'm not as good as I am or in in bodybuilding. And I met other people who think they're very surprised that I ever thought I couldn't have the academic talent I had now based upon what they see. But I'm also 42, like it's been a while. Like I'm sure if you've looked at me and you talked to me when I was 28 in the, in the start of my PhD, it would have been a probably like a more obvious link, you know. So me, I've been thinking about asking you, Eric, was off the back of the previous podcast, actually, with Menno and with Mike. It was clear, obviously. We spoke about it at the start a little bit with Mike and his PhD. And I think there's, we don't need to talk too much about that. I think a lot of the listeners will understand kind of what's going on there. And they have their own thoughts and feelings behind it all. But where there's been some backlash there. And I think Menno also received maybe a little bit, but there's certainly a lot of positive comments surrounding you. And I wonder if ever you can turn, you get concerned that people see you as a guru. Or if that, when people are so positive about yourself, Eric, and I speak very positive about you, many people do as well, for good reason. But does that ever, do you ever be like, oh man, I, but there's a lot of pressure here now, or does it, does it make you feel any certain way? I'm just interested in a way you're at with it. Because I think you'd hate to be considered a guru. But I have a concern that maybe some people who aren't critical might start to go that way, because it's an easy thing to do, right? Have your guru. Absolutely. I think a great way of looking at this as it's not, like I know it's going to happen. But I also understand it's something that I can either feed that, or I can, I cannot, and I don't, I try not to feed it, because it is a trait of people, generally. And I think it's definitely something that is a trait in the fitness industry. And a great example of that is that the impact of the critique that, say, Michael's hotel got over his dissertation and kind of that whole thing, was become this general distrust in science-based approaches to lifting. And if you think about that, that doesn't make any sense. If you actually think about it, there's this one content creator who we don't think his PhD was of a high quality. So therefore, guess what? PhDs in science and general are crap. That is the result of making someone your guru, right? So you become disillusioned in a way of thinking that is intrinsically part of humanity and society evolving, right? And that poisons the well of that. That means that it was about the person, not about what they did to, ideally, you know, help you learn something, right? So this is just such a natural thing. And people don't even realize it when they do it. They identify a character trait in someone, or like they start to see the way they think or the information they put out. And it really helps them. And then they put them on a pedestal. And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that so long as you can kind of subvert the tendency to lose your ability to critical think about what they're saying, right? So if you're putting someone on a pedestal because you think they're a really, really good critical thinker and they're a really good scientist. And we do this in a scientific community like, man, like their insights are just so good. The only times that it can hurt you is when you are assessing their claims, like you might go like, well, there's so much better critical thinking and being smart than me. If they write an opinion piece, you know, I'm just going to assume it's right. Because I can't. Who am I to question in certain name of a academic? I thought that way for years, exactly that way. But you've changed. You've gotten better at that. And I think there's a difference between, who am I to question that person? And I have a question, and I am questioning it actively. But I'm also going to have the humility to think, you know, I could be wrong. And the probability is that they're more likely right. But let me come at it with curiosity rather than it being a negative thing. And I think that's the issue we have is that being wrong is seen as a character flaw, something to avoid. And that's why we rate. Like, if you look at psychology studies, someone who speaks very, very confidently is rated as more intelligent. Also, someone who criticizes others, if you take the exact same information, the number of times being right, et cetera. And this is really well established in psychology research. If you frame everything you do, or every fact that you state as tearing down someone else, like, oh, look what they said, they're wrong. And here's how they get rated as more intelligent as well. And that's one of the reasons why reaction content does so well. Because it makes you look smart. You're the critic, right? And that was kind of the default setting, not for marketing reasons of the evidence-based community for so long, because there was so much charlatan research of science and bullshit. And we've had to combat all this nonsense that exists in the fitness industry. But I also got very tired early on. The first Gen 1 of science communicators that were out, they were all anti-guru's, and they were cult of personalities. Very, very strong personalities. And I don't even need to say who this is. Like, if you were around 10 years ago, like when I was first coming up as kind of the Eric Helms you know today, or even 15 years ago, jeez, getting old. The other people who were kind of seen in a similar category as me, very unique people, very strong personalities, none of them were great marketers. Maybe they became that to survive if they're still around today. But they got by on basically being the anti-guru. And they were the whack-a-mole. They were the unactually personified, right? But they were also maybe like attractive or smart, or they had something going for them. And they persist on that today, and that model still exists. But I got really, really tired of it, because I started to realize that people were also leaning into it, and that it was, I sound so smart, because I've got something negative to say about everybody. And sometimes it would devolve. Like, you would get some of these science communicators who seemed to think everyone except for them was an idiot, even in the science-based community. And they're the only, you know, the Batman purveyor of truth with the righteousness, and, you know. So I guess what I'm getting at, Steve, is that the natural state of following someone, whether it's for their physique or their career, or whatever. But we'll keep it in kind of like evidence-based fitness, because that's kind of our audience, is you identify certain traits about them that you like, you connect with them for some reason, maybe their information really helped you. You can even develop a personal connection with them as, you know, as an athlete, which sometimes I get. People follow me for different reasons, right? And you put them on this pedestal, and they can become a bit of a guru. The way I work around that is what I try to constantly model is critical thinking, and I try to build that in people. And I know that the worst case scenario, if they start there, but they genuinely follow my stuff, which they will, if they treat me as a guru, is that I'm not just going to tell them what to do, but also how to think. And I try to ingrain that a lot. And I try to do things like admit when I'm wrong, I try to show how my thinking evolves, and that's a good thing. And the worst case is that they never question anything I say, but they are willing to apply that critical thought in other places. And that's not too bad. I think the downside is is that if I ever was to have a fall from grace or some kind of public issue or, you know, like I think there are people right now who feel very disillusioned with science-based lifting because maybe they had Mike Isertel on a pedestal, and this changed that, where they've had different people in our field. And I think there's one thing to be disillusioned with the people in the online fitness space, which, by the way, it's mostly shitty people. I'm not going to lie. I've been here a long time. There are a tremendous number of really good people. And in the fitness industry, among trainers, among nutritionists, among athletes, and people in natural bodybuilding community, I would say it's 80%, 90% and really, really good, amazing people. But you also have to remember that if you want to become the most popular person on a social media algorithm, that's a biased segment of our community, right? And it's going to be people who maybe have interesting things to say, but also have certain personality traits. It's not to say that you can't succeed and not be a narcissist. But for someone to be perpetually online and getting the likes and the clicks and all that, they need to have a strong reason to do that. My strong reason to do that is I have a very clear mission statement of I'm trying to give back and help this community and push it forward. And my naivete as an academic, as a bodybuilder, as just who I am, originally early on, Steve, I just assumed anybody else is doing something similar to me had a similar mission statement. And I realized that it's a mixed back. Some people do have a similar mission statement, but also have some narcissistic traits. And it's easy for them to lean into their egos and they can kind of go off the cliff. And they have all these opportunities with these forks in the road to take the, no, no, this is not just about me. Maybe I'm still human. Like I like it. I do like my egos boost and people, like someone makes me their guru. I'm flattered. I also don't want that. But like you said, you must be devastated. I think people are making you a guru. It's like, if I'm really, really honest with you, yes I am, but I also like it because I'm also that kid who was inside of me still there. The one who did not get approval and was bullied and picked on and wants to be seen and liking, you know, like I want to fit in with society. I want to be accepted. I'm human, exactly, right? So it feels good, you know? But I have to go, right, that's there. But what am I here for? What's my mission statement? The community I'm trying to serve, the mission I'm trying to accomplish, the people I'm trying to educate. And I think there are a lot of people, and some of them it's very obvious. I think they even know this internally. They're not here to serve the community. They'll say that 'cause they might need to keep their, you know, to not just immediately alienate their audience. But they've proven through their actions over and over and over again that it's about clout, money. And not often the money is my people think. I think a lot of times it is clout and I want to make money doing it. But they're grifter's second and they're narcissist first. And I think that's a surprisingly large proportion of people in our space, which is unfortunate. I think you get a smaller segment when you get to kind of the evidence space 'cause it's inherently, or at least it was inherently less marketable. But you still get people who want to be the smartest person in the room and you get a lot of ego tied up in that. And that gets in the way. So, ego, narcissism, money, and then what's popular in the algorithm, it's become a very complex space. And it's gonna be the default setting that you make someone your guru. And I think what I strive to do to finally answer your question very succinctly, Steve, is I go, okay, they're gonna make me their guru, but now I'm gonna subvert. I'm gonna get inside their brain and I'm gonna show them how to think, not just what to think and why, you know, whatever air count says is right. I want them to question things. So, that's kind of the only way that I try to combat that. And I feel like I do as good of a job as you can without just completely nerfing engagement 'cause people don't want that, you know. Like they don't want, they want to know what to do, right? They want pragmatic solutions, tell me how to get jacked, tell me how to lose fat, tell me the best program. Don't try to teach me how to program and I'm not asking for that, you know. Like that's, it's something that people, they think if they could wave a magic wand, they would want it, but there's not a magic wand away. If it's hard work, they have to put in effort, you know. And people don't go, I can't wait to start lifting weights and I'm really excited. Like if you think back to our newbie games, we didn't actually want to sit through a college lecture on like resistance training. We wanted to have that excitement and get in there and put our hands on it. And for me, it's just my personality. I think I talked about earlier in this podcast as to why I was just voraciously consuming information and I became the person I am today. Like it's all the same for me. Hitting a PR on deadlift is just as exciting about reading about how to grow the hamstrings, especially when I'm not progressing. So like it was that drive to become a better athlete that drove me to become a better academic. 'Cause it's all the one hyper focused thing that I'm doing. And I can't expect other people to be like that. But for those who I do resonate with and they make me a guru, they're gonna get critical thinking and content, whether they like it or not. They can either not follow me or they're gonna find that they're constantly being challenged in that way, which is probably why I don't have two million followers, I have 200,000. - Yeah, absolutely. I think you said it so well in terms of just how you present yourself essentially on social media platforms, on podcasts, the way you speak. Not in absolutes. You don't look to tell the people down through all of those means. You're kind of setting up people to think about what they're doing. You don't try and put yourself up on a pedestal and act like a guru. I think the other thing you probably do that I think some people maybe don't do is you're very honest, you're honest about what you do know, you don't know what you're doing in regards to like trying things out in the gym, whether there's evidence behind it, whether there isn't. And that's, I've absolutely learned from people like yourself to do that. And also someone who always comes to mind is Brad Schoenfeld, just 'cause I remember him doing a number of posts at times where he'd say things like, just an example that comes to mind, he'd be like, he'd put ifs, buts, maybes in front of things. He'd have a cursor word to be less confident because we can't be that confident. And then have things like, oh, for example, the 10 to 20 sets is a great range to be in for hypertrophy. And people would be like, that's a huge range. Can't you be more specific in Brad's? Just like, no, we can't because we don't have the evidence to speak to that. If I could, I would. Yeah, and so I think it is one of those things for the consumer, probably not people watching this, unfortunately, or listening to this. But for those that do listen and want those black and white answers is actually a good thing not to, 'cause then you have more tools and then you can trial and see what kind of works for you better. And something like you said, I've learned to be more critical of people who I look up to and kind of use my own experiences through talking to more experts within the field who have different opinions and thoughts and philosophies. And then also my own personal experience from my own training, working with athletes, seeing what's working on my end. And so that's helped me just build confidence 'cause I'm getting results. Like you said at the start there, kind of proof is in the pudding, right? That really helped me as an athlete. There was a time, I remember. I don't know, you probably never felt this way, Eric. But there was a time I didn't want to put out training videos because I was like, someone like, I don't know, it's either someone's gonna say, I'm not training hard enough, or there's gonna be some biomechanics experts gonna say, no, you should be moving your arm this way. And then after, I don't know, the last couple of years, once, probably once I had like a pro-level physique or I felt confident in that, I was like, why? They can say those things, but I'm confident in who I am and the results I've driven. So it's not the I'm concerned about anymore. And then those, the comments don't really come anymore, I think they kind of passed. But yeah, it's a journey, I think a lot of probably listeners go through 'cause we have so many coaches that listen at least to the rives from what goes also, the iron culture of course, who probably have that imposter syndrome. And then they want to play the social media game a little bit, but they wanna do it kind of the right way. So I do think what you mentioned there in terms of just being critical speaking in, not absolutes, it's just a great way to do it because there still is terrible loads of terrible information out there, unfortunately, that we can battle against and it doesn't mean we have to tear one another down within like the evidence-based fear as it were. And as you've said loads of times on like different podcasts, talking about science, communication, people have their own way of doing that and what feels right to them. And then you just have to strike the balance with are you getting the results that you want from the content or are people just being like, "Hey, you said this and then they. " I don't know, you're getting just negative comments like this and you're just replying to everyone being like, "Hey, swipe through or me." Hey, watch the whole long form podcast please. And maybe I decide it's not worth it and it's not really driving the right engagement and you just have to see. So yeah, we've almost got to an hour Eric and we haven't spoken. (laughs) Well, I had lots of questions for you. I didn't know where the episode would go and in fact, I'm very open to how the format of this might go whether or not it's we request questions from the audience who go through down that line or we have topics ahead of time. I have loads of things I could throw at you now that would probably end up taking an entire podcast length. Yeah, I don't know. I even have a thought in mind that I don't know if I should bring it up because, hey, let's do it. And you can tell me if I need to edit it out. So, you know James Steele. Yeah. So I got a message from, I follow him on social media. I've actually asked him to come on the podcast. He's been on your podcast, so of course, you know, James Steele. Probably a lot of the audience recognize the name and is it Black Pilled? What people would describe him as? Yeah, definitely. Where he's like, basically. I would say he's definitely Black Pilled, yeah. On where we are forever optimists of muscle growth and natural hypertrophy and gain as much muscle as possible, he is maybe on the complete opposite end of that sort of thing. Dave McConey, our friend, over at Brains and Gains, the podcast, sent me a message specifically like, hey, did you see James is like his post? Have you ever spoken to him about kind of natural potential? I don't know if you'd even seen the post Eric. But I think I've seen it by a social media. I've kind of flicked through it and I didn't really read it. And it was essentially along the lines of, he thinks a lot of people max out their muscle growth pretty much within a year of training. And my memory might be incorrect in thinking or saying this, but it was along the lines of a lot of bodybuilders who think they've made progress. It's just like good lighting and photography and this sort of thing. Did you see the post? Yeah, and I've talked to him about this. And yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. So we've actually, you know, we've published together. We have been on dissertation committees for people together. And I think James is very, very heavily into data. Of course, he does lift, right? Don't get me wrong. And like he's been lifting for a long time. I think there is a really big difference between observing individuals and observing database trends. And I think we really struggle in the evidence-based community. Like this is the whole volume thing. Like how do we understand that we can watch someone in the trenches, reduce volume and get better progress? And how does that not conflict with the most recent meta regression from fellow and colleagues where there's a diminishing returns positive relationship with volume? And there was even a comment on the episode 500 where menos talking about the volume data. And someone's like, well, then how did Jeff Nippert reduce his volume and make progress? And that whole discussion is winding me out as well. It's frustrating, but the issue is that people don't know how to reconcile with you. They think that in a world that makes sense, those two things can't both be true. But they can, right? And it would be a far more in-depth conversation if I wanted to explain how. But for those who are interested, go listen to my conversation on Brandon Decruz's podcast, Chase and Clarity, where I actually specifically talked about this for an hour and change. And that's a good one to listen to. But the point is that observing a population level trend and having that be a true principle of exercise science can exist while seeing things that subvert it on an n equals one basis. And it's not because you're a special snowflake. And that the principle doesn't apply to you. It's just that there's enough caveats that can change the nature of that relationship for that individual at a given time. So what James has seen very robustly across many, many studies and meta-analysed is that there's a logarithmic relationship to muscle growth over time. But this is based upon population level data, multiple, multiple groups from multiple, multiple studies. And it basically, if I was to kind of summarize it, if you make x amount of gains and x amount of time, it takes twice as long to make those same gains again. And that's true of strength or hypertrophy. And if you actually run the math on that and you think about how much muscle that I gain in my first year, because that's when everyone's actually quite similar. If you were not trying to lose fat, if you had a healthy relationship with food, if you were actually going through a gaining phase and you ate, so there's probably a lot of, say, female listeners who didn't know that might not be the case. So I know I'm speaking from a relatively segmented section of that, but your typical young male who was standing to start or wanted to build muscle, he wasn't super influenced because actually this is changing by the social media algorithm to maybe try to stay too lean and actually put on some size. If you think about the gains you made in the first year and you went, OK, what did I make those again in the next two? Did I make those again in the next four? Did I make those again in the next eight? And where does it get to the point where you're effectively plateaued? Even though it's not a true plateau, it's an asymptote. You look up and you go, that kind of comports with top-level natural bodybuilders. But it's not linear. It doesn't always happen that way. You do go through cutting phases. Maybe you get in a car accident and you have to go on TRT or whatever. All kinds of stuff in the real world happen or you get sucked into some dogmatic way of training or eating or something that keeps you plateaued for a long time. You split your resources between trying to get as strong as humanly possible and as big as humanly possible for a decade. And you find that there's just a logistical barrier to you doing enough of one to progress it versus the other. And you find it change it. And you make some late-stage advance gains. That's me, right? So I think James is kind of-- like there's a lot of people who are in the trenches. That person made that comment on episode 500. They're like, you know, let's screw the science because I see things in the real world that don't comport with that, so I'm going to reject the science. And I think James is sometimes so focused on the data. And I would tell him this to his face. This isn't me taking a shot at him. That he will apply that population level data stuff to individuals. And when I think it's inappropriate to do so. So like I was five pounds heavier on stage and it wasn't just due to better muscle retention. If we compare the methods from my last prep to this one there wasn't a huge difference from 2023 to 2025. There's a little bit better. Like I think I could refine it. But if we looked at the generalized principles, I was five pounds heavier. And I seemed like I was five pounds heavier in the off season. And what did I do differently? I trained harder. I did all the things that kind of create that overall stimulus area into the curve. And I've seen that at Coach. I've seen that as an athlete, you see it. People find whatever was the thing that prevented them from doing enough to make some late stage progress. Now here's the thing. Steve, if I had to guess though, if you were to say, OK, well, how much progress do you think you can make by 2027, Eric? I would say, if I had to guess I'd be like probably two to three pounds. About half of what I made, and maybe if I put an even more effort, because that's the best hypothesis. So I do think that I generally follow that same curve. I just wasn't on the place in the curve where I thought I was. I thought I was closer to my potential, but maybe I was a little bit further, which was amazing. It's great. It's good news. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to become Nadi Roni Coleman, just be like, I didn't break the equation. But I think the reality is that you just simply don't know where you're at. We're looking backwards retrospectively at all the studies that have been done that have measured muscle growth over a longer period of time, and then modeled that. And that's really useful and interesting information. I think from a population level, where most people stop before they even become intermediates. And if they stick with it, they're perpetual intermediates for the rest of their life. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's amazing from a health perspective. You're not going to live longer or be happier or anything if you're an advanced lifter versus an intermediate, and you have another 10 pounds of muscle, like even if you're genetically gifted. In fact, you're probably just going to have more tendinitis. And have less time at home because you're training really hard in all the goddamn time. So unless you love training, like the two of us and most of the listeners, you're going to spend more time in the gym because you're trying to offset the slow rate of growth, and maybe you get more happy time. But maybe you're just frustrated because you're training more, you're training harder, but you're making less gains. I can't tell you how you're going to respond to that dear listener. But the point is, I think James's data is amazing. And he's one of the best analytical minds in sports science. But at the same time, I also think that blackpilling is not an attitude that's conducive to ensuring that an individual reaches their peak potential. And even on his story, he was like, I'm going to go up to 1.8 grams per kilogram of protein. And I'm going to do like 15 sets. And I'm like, like bro, like if you take an optimistic non-blackpill stance, you can make an argument that maybe as high as like 2.4 slightly better. And he would be like, yeah, but it's such marginal difference. It doesn't even matter. And I'm like, that's-- yes, but if you take every single possible marginal difference that could matter, even if it may not when you do the math on it, like you take them all. Like that's the bodybuilder, the optimistic bodybuilder competitors mind state, like the coaches mind state. And he's not a coach or an athlete. I think it's just a thing to remember. And OK, great, I know you came from a low volume background. And it's, I think, very impressive of James that he has evolved his thinking on that, because he came from mentors who were-- I would say biased towards low volume training. But again, low volume training from an academic's perspective actually makes a ton of sense. Because you're thinking about how do I make population level changes? If I could get them to do a nautilus machine circuit of one or two sets to failure, great. And that's easy to do. Takes lower adherence. It's maintaining this low stimulus. And I know that they're going to get to that intermediate stage that they can maintain forever and hopefully enjoy it. And that's going to reduce frailty, sarcopenia, and improve longevity outcomes. There's no benefit to them squatting 500 pounds or having a 24-fat free mass index. That's pointless, right? So from an academic's mindset, from a population health intervention, minimum dose training is where it's at. But you're telling me you want to see if you can break the curve from a blackpilled perspective. And you're going up maybe 0.3, 0.4 grams per kilogram of protein. And you're going to do what I would consider moderate volume. You've got a home gym, like, bro. Steve, this is going to surprise people on this very deep in this podcast. Since worlds, I have been building up to see how much I can do. For the last two to three weeks, I have trained 12 to 14 times a week. I've been doing two days. And I have built my volume back up to where I was and even higher than the past off season. I am doing basically 9 to 10 sets per muscle group. And this is fractional counting. Every other day for each muscle group, which means you multiply that by 3 1/2. I'm right around 30 to 40 sets for every muscle group that I'm currently doing. And the average RIR is probably 1. I'm taking most sets to failure by their second or third set. I'm consuming around 2.4, 2.5 grams per kilogram of protein in the surplus right now, which is even more than I recommend as an academic. Because I don't have the full picture of the curve. And if there's a slight marginal benefit, I'm getting my steps in. I'm getting fruits and vegetables. I'm taking citrally and malleye currently low. I don't even know if it'll do anything, but there's no harm. Like it's everything. I'm literally doing everything that I think could possibly make a positive difference. And that's not the mindset of James, right? And my expectations, I'm not using the research to inform my personal expectations. I'm using that to help me decide the principles. And then I'm pushing everything to the table. And some of those things are going to pan out. Some of them won't. Because the individual gaps that I have, I can't know. So I knew that my powerlifting training was preventing me from doing the most effective body building style training that I possibly could do. I didn't know the degree that it was holding me back, because I don't have the counterfactual. I didn't have the pure body builder version. I only had phases. So once I put those the big three away, and once I changed my exercise selection, and once I leaned into learning and using better biomechanics, and once I tried training at longer muscle lengths, choosing better exercise, better resistance profiles, training closer to failure, auditing myself, and constantly seeing, is that actually me training close to failure? Progressively improving my doing more and more volume as the data convinced me that maybe that does make sense. There's at least no downside, except maybe I get hurt more often. And then assessing, okay, I might be loading more. Am I sandbagging? Making sure that the turning up of volume was a true increase in dose. Not a neutral change that just put more time in the gym and made me do easier exercises, sandbag, and lose my mind muscle connection. I did everything, everything, right? Turning over stones, pebbles, and grains of sand is the way I like to put it. And the result was something that surprised me. I put on five pounds of muscle in 16 months, which is decent gains for an intermediate. But does that mean I'm an intermediate? Or does it mean I maximized my rate of progress as an early stage advanced? And now I am advanced, and now most I can hope for is one of the two pounds, another one, and then a half pound, and then hey, sometime when I'm 48 by my calculations, if I maintain the faster a progress, I can't. I'm essentially plateaued. And that, if I had to guess Steve, that's my guess, that you're gonna see peak air accounts in his late 40s, right around the time when maybe I'm starting though I have aches and pains from trying to do 40 sets a week anyway. And who knows, I crack the top three at Worlds, top five, something like that. But I think if I had James' mind set, I wouldn't get there at all. And yeah, I'll, I'm saying the two-year-old face, James, even though your face isn't here. But this is something I'm very comfortable saying to him. And we talked about this. We had like a walk while we were in the UK, and I was sharing those things into his credit. He was like, yeah, that, you know, he's open-minded. He's not dogmatic. So he's gonna be able to handle his protocol in the near future. Yeah, bro. Get this 1.8 out of here. I want you to go to 2.8 grams per kilogram of protein and 14 sets per kilogram. No, man, you can get in that every two days. Get those numbers up. These are rookie numbers, exactly. Yeah. It comes back to, don't stop believing, which is the next phase that you're going through in terms of your vlog series. And it comes back to you in time. Yeah, the next, the next journey. And it comes back to, I've said this a few times on the podcast, I don't think you're an anime fan. Are you Eric? You haven't watched many different anime, have you? The problem, Steve, is that I am an old school anime fan, because I'm old. So like, I watched a cure old. I'm a cure. Like, it was probably the first anime that made it big in the States. So like, the original Princess Mononoke, the original Vampire 100D series, Akira, but by the time Dragon Ball Z came around, it wasn't a hard core enough for me, and I just couldn't get into it. 'Cause when I started watching him, I was like a late teen. And Akira is like brutal. So the Vampire 100D, all of these, these are like the, the kind of bloody like adult anime's. And then I started getting into some of like, what I would describe more is like manga versions of it. And it's a little more, it didn't have that same kind of cutting edge feel, and I also liked the 90s art. So I just couldn't stay into anime. So like Pokemon feels like a kid's thing to me. Even Dragon Ball Z seemed a little childish, even though I like some of the themes. So I didn't stick with anime, that's the thing. I'm basically stuck in like 89 through 95 or whatever it is, yeah. - I found it as an adult. So I found all the, I watched Dragon Ball Z when I was a child, and then I kind of came back to it. But where I was going with that is Naruto. You've probably heard of the anime of Naruto, 'cause it's huge. But the main character just continually says databayo, basically all the time, it's like his catchphrase, and it means believe it essentially. And so that's like the phrase I've also taken on, it was just funny to see that your phrasing was like just totally similar. Because the more I've lent into that kind of growth mindset as it were, as an athlete, and actually it really encouraged that with clients, like lent into that hard, the better the results have been. And unless there's obvious downsides to doing so, I only see upsides, 'cause it's like, it definitely helps the process. Yeah, so I think, and as a bodybuilder, particularly as a competitive bodybuilder or someone who's serious about trying to grow muscle, who's struggled, I don't understand the mindset of just doing kind of the minimum of what they think could work. So I will go for the maximum that your confident is. Yeah, go for the maximum, if you really want results, is the way I see it. And yeah, have that open-minded growth mindset towards it. And as you said, like your season was want to speak to it. Like two kilos, two to three kilos of muscle growth, like since you last stepped on stages, incredible. And it's funny because as I kind of reflected back today, if we didn't have a long discussion on the post, I said to them. I was like, bodybuilders to me are the exact opposite example of people who you'd use as being like their plateaued at one year, because I don't know how many bodybuilders even compete one year into their lifting career. But a lot of people who stick to bodybuilding, you see them from their first season to like the one they've just done. And the vast number of the people who stick at it are progressing, because otherwise you wouldn't keep going with you. So I kind of, I will say though, that it's not an assumption though. I mean, like so my 2023 season, same stage weight is 2019. And my 2019 season, same stage weight is 2009. And but there's a reason for these things. Like my 2007 to 2009, my stage weight went up and I was leaner. And then 2011, it went down and I wasn't as lean. But if you look back, what I did was I got heavily into powerlifting. And I also got heavily into trying low volume training. And I'm not saying low volume training, you can't progress on it. But it's specifically, like you can see that my upper body regressed if you look at my 2011 versus '09, '07 or '09, primarily pictures. And then 2019, I made progress. And I kind of got the best of all of those things previously. Like my stage weight went back up to where it was '09, but I was way leaner. So, but then you can be like, oh, okay. So 10 years later, you put on two to three pounds of muscle. So, and I think that's where my mindset was in 2019, as long as I'm capped out. Maybe I can make some small refinements. I can improve my delts in my back. And that's how I got a pro card, but I'm pretty much done. But then I was, but then I was just like, no, screw that. No, no, you know what, Steve, fuck that. Like, maybe I am done. I'm incredibly satisfied and happy that I was even able to get a pro card. I exceeded my expectations. What's wrong with putting in all my chips? You know, like, dare to believe. You know, like just give you, and what's the downside? Right? There is none. Maybe I get hurt, right? But, you know, like, I don't want to be the person who looks back with regret and be like, well, I never put, I'd never went all in. And it would pit off. And maybe there's a bunch of people who would do the same and it wouldn't pay off, but you can't know until you do it. And that comes back to being so process oriented throughout the entire journey. And because you have no control over the outcome. And I always say, like, if you put your best efforts forward, no matter the outcome, at least you know it was the best outcome you could have possibly got. And that for me, as an athlete is enough, absolutely. Like, I would prefer to get a worse outcome and have put all my kind of eggs in that basket than have done a half-size effort. And just by chance did better. That doesn't satisfy me at all. So, yeah, Eric, we could probably, as people notice, talk for hours upon hours and upon hours. But I think this was a good little, well, maybe people learnt something new about yourself in terms of your kind of academic struggles. And thank you for being open with that similar with me. Again, I don't know if, I'm not at the level of a PhD or a doctor or anything like that, but people often ask me and be like, oh, I don't know. How did you learn, or how did you get to where you are in the industry? And it certainly hasn't come without struggles. Everything has been something that I'd had to try very hard at. Like I said, I had learning sport extra tutoring. And I remember specifically, my mum being quite concerned when I was getting my GCSE results because she was like, this boy couldn't have revised any more hours in the day. If he doesn't do well, I'm concerned that he's going to do something bad to himself. Thankfully, I did actually do quite well. So, yeah, it's just, nothing's come particularly easy. And similarly, physically, for either of us, I think it'd be wrong. I used to think I had bad genetics. I think that's not a right statement I kind of thought, hey, there's no way I could have got to the level of muscularity. I have, if I bad, but certainly neither of us have those elite genetics that an Oscar Mosca or a Brian DeCosta or these sort of individuals have who obviously are also working incredibly hard to have got to their level. But I think if anyone is eager to grow muscle, I think that kind of databoyle, believe it mindset, you as an example, Eric, with where you've got to academically as well. Like if people are struggling, hey, give it a good go. And kind of, yeah, consider where you might be able to improve and that's the only way is up. Don't wallow in your own self pity or seek out help coaches like the guys at 3MJ, myself. They can help level you up. As you talked about that kind of asymptote, you talked about kind of, yeah, games slow down. I see it time and time again with people where they've growth spurt later in their career because they learn. You learn yourself. You learn, okay, actually, I knew failure was important or training close to failure was, but you actually learn how to do it at some point. So if you don't have that, no one comes out the gates kind of doing everything absolutely spawned. So I think it's important that people don't kind of get confirmation bias from someone being a bit black-pilled, I think, being a bit more positive is probably the way to go. Eric, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, dear listeners, for tuning in. Let us know the name that you'd like for this podcast to be and hopefully you enjoyed the episode. Yeah. And let us know. Yeah, a lot of final words are just let us know in the comments what you really would like to see at this collaboration because as you've just saw Steve and I can just talk to each other for hours, which is good. It makes for an easy to listen podcast, but eventually you're going to get tired of just listening to us chat like buds and you'll want to hear specific content. So what do you want to hear from us, do you want to know certain things? Is there a certain format you want? If you've got thoughts for us, please drop them in the comments. Give us up. We're more than happy to do what we can to to better serve you guys in this collaboration and I'm really excited for doing more of it in 2026. And as always, guys, make sure to like, subscribe, give us a comment. Whether or not that's the Revive Stronger podcast, the Iron Culture podcast, all that good stuff. We appreciate you. Take a screenshot, share it all over the place. Tag myself in Eric. We appreciate every single one of those and yeah, we'll catch you in the next one.