EP 52 - EP 52 with Joel Kellett: Holistic Bodybuilding, Achieving an Elite Physique and Living As We Are Meant To

[Music] It's so good to be talking to you. I've looked up to you as one of the premier bodybuilders who are doing it in what I believe to be the right way. This revival of holistic bodybuilding, which was prevalent in some of the golden era, obviously not everyone back then, but really understanding the kind of building blocks of nutrition, natural living, and just the methodology and training systems behind it where it seems way less manufactured, and it's less. it's just more enjoyable and I think more pleasing to the eye in the physique that it creates because it's not the hyper-manufactured, hyper-process BCAA, if I can bodybuilding competitions that we see on most of social media at least today. So I just want to thank you for joining me here to talk, and you've been a massive inspiration for me in terms of your physique, and I know many thousands of people around the world. Thanks, man. I actually really appreciate that in the kind of words. You can't see me, but I was grinning ear to ear throughout that. Yeah. I'm sure that it's interesting. And yeah, it's very nice to hear, like it's nice to be appreciated. If it's something I think that's, in my opinion, very simplistic, it's very sort of a primitive approach, as far as what it is guys are doing today to achieve sub-pathasic as it was achieved. It's clear though, it's like to achieve their idea of what they want. They might point it out or I might have a conversation with someone at the gym and ask, "What it is they want?" "I just want to put on a little bit of muscle." And it's within months that I'm having a similar conversation with them, but now they've bored every supplement under the sun. They've started taking steroids. The things that they should have been focusing on, say, training and diet, they've completely neglected. Yeah. Well, it's. Go on, go on. Sorry. I was going to say, in their defence though, I think in everyone's defence, the industry is flooded with information or I should say misinformation. It's very. I remember when I was young, thankfully when I started the internet, even then, the internet wasn't a massive thing. There was one gym in my area and things were very different. You still brought fitness magazines to get your information from, and even those were full of shit. But. You weren't less. You weren't in tune with the opinions of every man and his dog at that time. So, you sort of just went about it yourself when you learnt your body and discovered what worked best for you. Now, it's by imagining it to be extremely confusing for a lot of people. Yeah, so it's really. The result of the culture is what produces the type of people. So, the culture at the moment is, get as big as possible as quickly as possible and there's no real focus on what it actually takes to get there and the focus is on the steps of the equation that will lead people to buy things. Because that's what's profitable, that's what people post content about. So, they can make living, whatever it is what it is. That's just the nature of these businesses. But, yeah, the natural kind of first steps that will give you the most bang for your bark, probably the entire way of your weightlifting journey, are free for the most part. Obviously, you have to buy food and things like that. But, the simple essential steps of lifting heavy, lifting hard, intensely, switching it up, different exercises, sleeping well and eating whole foods that you make yourself as high quality as possible. That's for the most part, you know, you have those building blocks in place. You're going to put on muscle, right? Those are the fundamentals. Absolutely fundamental. Mind-boggling to me that people would rather resort to, but it is like you said, you know, it's marketing and it's obviously doing a good job. You know, they'd rather resort to supplements of steroids, you know, to, or, or, you know, gimmick-esque workouts to achieve. It's like, you know, it's our own conversation with my mate Bra, the other day in the gym. And it's like people want to do as little as possible, but feel like they're doing the most. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, it's, it's all the gear and no idea, type of mentality. Like they've bought all the, the supplements possible. Yeah. If you watch some, you know, obscure, or listen to some guy, like sort of promoting some obscure exercises. But the exercise itself isn't strannuous. It's, it's that kind of, it's like, you know, you don't, it's kind of like you don't need to put in hard work. But he's a, he's the, the shortcut. He's the easy way around. Yeah. And then the guys that are applying those principles don't seem to get that after years of doing that, and they've made no progress. Yeah. It's, it is tricky. Like, I think it's almost a learning process that you have to go through and I'm sure even, you know, we have this internet culture right now, which is full of a lot of BS. But as you said, the muscle magazines, the stuff that was coming out of the fitness trainers that they could just print in the, in the magazines, like that wasn't necessarily the fundamental Z either. But no, I think just because there was maybe less than a time that has, was enabled products to just be made, that there was just less BS out there. So you have, obviously there are staple supplements that I believe are helpful, and there are some supplements, which I think are the most helpful because they address a nutritional deficiency, which you can get from food. But sometimes to get an extra boost, boost, especially things like magnesium, that is just simply devoid of our soil quality at the moment, due to our, you know, repetitive farming practices, yes, it makes sense to supplement those things. But the things that you buy that are like, actually shred 3000 and fucking test boosts the left and right, like, maybe they have some limited amount, you know, if they have a very high potency or high quality herb within it, but at the same time, you're paying for a lot of filler, shit, you're paying for, you know, especially pre-workouts. I've had a lot of pre-workouts at the time in this, you know, this journey of trying everything, and it's fun to get a caffeine boost, like, yeah, you're going to have a better workout sometimes, especially if you are in a training and lifting in the morning, or after work, whatever, but once you understand that, you know, I haven't taken a pre-workout powder, like a packaged one in years now, and I'm sure you're the same. So there's, there are supplements and compounds that, when you get their isolated high quality form, that you, you know, mix yourself and you apply to the right circumstances, or address specific nutritional imbalances or lacks that you have in your diet, yes, that's, that's, that's, that's good. But you cannot use supplements or these, you know, primarily marketed towards bodybuilders for the most part, things, if you're not sleeping correctly, and that's, you know, you can't cover up these basic fundamentals with these external supplements. Yeah, I tend to agree with what you said about those specific sort of singular or like single ingredient supplements, say like magnesium or, what's another good one? I don't know, even like, what am I thinking of? I'm having a mental blank, like creatine or something like that. Yeah, I tend to agree, like, you know, the, and, and that's the one thing, like, lately, it's probably the most common question I still get in my DMs is, you know, what supplements do I take more often than I just say not, you know, because that's the truth. But, you know, probably in the last few months I have started taking creatine, but I did like have to shop around and find something I thought was particularly trustworthy. And I think the biggest issue with the supplement industry, I mean, especially in America is like, the majority of it, it not that I don't even think FDA approval means much, you know, but it doesn't have to be FDA for it. And you can, you can put things on the shelves and sell it and what's on the label. I mean, you can obviously, you can legally and just in general, you can get a lot of trouble for it, but you can put something on the shelf and the label doesn't have to reflect what's inside. Yeah, so hand, like there are instances where you can be buying anything. And I think the worst, it's really, it's really protein powder, in my opinion, it's got to be the worst supplement. It shocks me that it shocks me that, you know, how much protein powder a lot of people I know personally consume, even after I've had these conversations with them about it, they say, what protein do you get? - I don't know. - Like, yep, yep. - That's the last thing I think you need. You know, when you're talking about these, these singular ingredient, or like nutrient deficiencies that are singular, ingredients supplements that I agree with, but when it comes to, you know, protein powder, taking, you know, two or three times a day, that's a, I think, big, or a big factor in that equation of why, people aren't gaining muscles. Kind of like, like I've said, I'll just give you an example of a conversation that had with someone in the gym, when they asked me what protein powder I was taking, I said, "I don't take protein powder." Well, how do you get in, you know, the amount of protein you need per day, and then it's like, (laughs) briefly like, you know, the meals I was eating, I said, "It's more, like, what I'm eating is more than enough." And I said, you know, if you, I think everyone should be concerned with the protein that they're taking in from supplements. So I said, "Just switch to like, whole eggs or egg whites "in your shape, unless you've been allergy." And so, you know, this guy didn't take that advice at all, and he's having, you know, like, say two protein checks a day. Yeah, I said, "What, you know, in your mind is a, yeah, "but it's just an easy way to get protein in, 30, 30, 40 grams." I said, "No, no, you think it's 30, 40 grams." Yeah, how did you come? Yeah, you got no idea it's 30, 40 grams. Yeah, no idea. It could be flavored cow compound for you. Yeah. But people just put too much trust in that. And it's, I could be wrong, but I have never, in all the videos I've tried finding on how protein powder is made by specific companies, like I can't find anything. You know, and so that's, that protein powder is probably my biggest concern for consumers. You know, I would say with, you know, the utmost confidence that they're probably not getting what they think they're getting. And even if they use that amount of protein in it, I can't imagine it being nearly, I can't imagine it being absorbed nearly as well as something like eggs, you know, or egg whites. 100%. And it comes with a lot, a lot, a lot of asterisks almost, you know, yes, there are probably some protein powders, which are if they are just essentially dried milk powder, then you add to water. Yeah, you're going to get some protein from that. But on the other side, you just find a high quality raw milk. That's going to be infinitely better because it's in its unprocessed form. It has a lot of other vitamins and minerals within it and enzymes and all the rest of it, rather than adding this highly processed extracted form of powder that's been sitting on a shelf, maybe in a warehouse for months as well. So you don't know whether it's degraded or not. They've added preservatives, so it doesn't go off. They've added artificial flavorings and coloring. So there's like, oh yeah, it's fucking chocolate fruity boost tropical flavor, you know? Like, what do you want? What are you actually eating there, you know? Yeah, yeah. So protein powder is, why don't you waste the money? Like just to, like, go, as you said, buy more eggs, buy a few more steaks. Like you don't necessarily need 30 grams, like a scoop three times a day, you think you're doing 100 grams of protein, you're not, like, whether or not, like, one, you're absorbing this fake artificial powder, it doesn't have all the co-enzymes and everything that's found in natural food to help you digest it and absorb it and even real foods. A lot of people aren't absorbing that because they're not chewing enough. And this is like digestion starts in the mouth, right? If you aren't chewing your food until it's primarily a liquid and allowing the saliva to mix throughout it, then you are swallowing, maybe it's like, and I've done this in the past, you know, like chewing steak, you have this big chunk of steak, you're not chewing it properly and then you swallow it. You think that everything going into your stomach is being 100% absorbed, that's not how it works. If it's not being chewed properly, your saliva hasn't been mixed, then it's not going to absorb at all. The same goes with protein shakes. Let's assume that 100% of the protein you're putting into these shakes is being absorbed. If you're just chugging that down, you're not mixing saliva throughout, then it's not going to be absorbed either. So that's like another thing that I say to people is like, you really need to be intentional with your eating. Sit down, don't watch anything at the same time and literally think about what you're doing, thinking about what you're eating and mix the saliva throughout. Like there's some chigong masters who believe that even with water, you should be moving your jaw up and down with each sip of water in order to mix saliva and mix the chia energy within it and then drink it because slamming a liter of ice cold water straight up is quite shocking to the system because if you think about it in the cave and an era, we wouldn't have found a water fountain with ice cold water in a water bottle where we pound the whole thing straight up. It'd be like a river, we have a few sips, we have to sit down and we can't just funnel the whole thing into our body. So this side of holistic living where your body, when is the most muscle built in your body? It's when your body has the most nutrition available to it, the most energy and the least stress. And that comes from living in a holistic way that you can't really force if you're like just, blank mind pounding these huge shakes, smashing down food four or five times a day, you're not chewing properly, it's full of fake stuff. So if you actually want to put the most muscle on, then you have to look at the body as a system and how do you live in your healthiest way to make your body function and have the most energy available to put on the muscle? And that comes from being intentional about your eating, sleeping properly and training in the way and recovering in the right ways. Yeah, 100%. I tend to agree with that too, especially about chewing. I mean, you look at the change in bioavailability in food, depending on like massacation alone, whether you're chewing your food enough or not, like how you're preparing the food, how you're cooking your food. Yeah, that's why I've always, if I do have raw whole eggs, I blend them with fruit. And yeah, I do tend to drink that very slowly. Yeah. And I think what you were saying to all falls under this umbrella of stress, stress on the body, you know, physically, physiologically, psychologically, emotionally. It's this sort of go-go-go mentality, smash everything down. Yeah. It's a high stress environment, almost 24/7 on your body. And I think that's why there's a significant difference too, and the, I should say, just the look of the physics from say the 50/60/70s compared to today. It looks, it's almost like the top bodybuilder, the top pro bodybuilders, to me, is kind of like a visual representation of stress, stressing all the white while trying to pursue a really arduous goal. That's how it looks to me. And like they've achieved it, say the muscularity, but it's like something looks off. Yeah. And it's a culmination of all these things, supplementation, steroids. Like you said, lack of massacation, probably terrible digestion because of all these things. And all those things fall under stress, and like stress on the body, and the cortisol that must be running through their body, must have a physiological and physical effect on the body and physique, and create a look that regardless of sort of how hard you try, you know, even guys that do take very minimal steroids, say, and minimal supplements and all the rest of it, there's still something off about their physique as someone competing in like, so classic physique, then the guys from the 50, 60, 70s. Yeah, the cortisol one is huge, and a lot of people will, you know, the mentality is if they're the harder they train, the better they'll look. And on some levels, that's true in terms of the intensity that you need to bring when you're working out, it is going to deliver a high level of muscularity and lower body fat if your training sessions, you're actually giving 110% every time. But if that's not coupled with appropriate recovery and appropriate lack of stress the rest of the time, like the the Golden Age bodybuilders, they were absolutely smashing in the gym, you know, that you've seen training documentary footage of these guys, but what were they doing outside of the gym? The rest of the time, they were chilling on the beach, they were laying outside in the sun, you know, they were eating steaks, you know, two or three times a day, and generally it was just a very laid back lifestyle. Obviously that's their living, they had the time to do that, and a lot of people don't, if they're working full time, but you have to consider, if you are going into the gym, you're having your bang pre-workout drink, Um, I'm gonna start on those. But, um, you are, you know, you're having some pre-workout, even if it's coffee, black coffee is another mistake that a lot of people make that, you know, spiced quarters all a lot. You're training intensely, you're, you know, you're breathing is off. That's another huge one. You know, the breath is the center of life. If you're breathing through the mouth because you just, you know, you've never had that, knowledge in terms of how breathing is meant to happen, you know, through everyone listening, try and breathe through your nose only all the time. That's even when it's like, yes, after a massive set of squats, you're probably going to be panting a little bit. But as much as possible through your training, only breathe through the nose because the mouth is for eating and the nose is for breathing. It's going to mitigate a lot of the cortisol response because when I mentioned this before, if you're, you know, physiologically, if you're a caveman running away from a sabre to the tiger, you just want to get out of there as quickly as possible. You're going to get more air in through the mouth, which is going to enable you to kind of, in the short term, move quicker and get more oxygen and, you know, breathe a bit heavier. But your body naturally is not going to want to exist in that state, like short bursts, sure. But for the most part, if you're breathing through your mouth like all day, even I've trained people where they are, you know, they're trading at their computer on the stock market and they're not cognizant of their breathing. So they will have like breathe through their mouth when they're trading. By the end of an hour and a half of kind of watching these charts and mouth breathing, they cause also the roof as well. And this one guy said, okay, tape your mouth while you're trading. So that gives just like, you can't breathe through your mouth while your mouth is taped as simple as that. I recommend it for sleep as well. But he found that his decision making during trading while bringing through the nose was infinitely better because he doesn't have that cortisol stress response that is going to spike his heart rate and kind of put you in this sympathetic nervous state, which is reaction, it's survival. And for the most part, you can't think is straight, well, you're doing that. So breathing is one thing that, you know, if that's a chronic state of mouth breathing in most of your waking hours, then you're not going to be able to get out of that hyper stimulated nervous system, which you might from the time you wake up and slam your coffee to the end of the day, really, if you're mouth breathing the whole time, you've never really existed in a state where you're just chill. So you're not going to be able to optimally digest for the one thing. Another kind of breathing technique that I recommend people have is, you know, it goes back to intentional eating. Before every time you eat, before you put anything in your mouth, just sit down and do 10 really deep long breaths in through the nose, out through the nose, and just kind of settle into a state where your body is relaxed and your body is not in a fight-or-flight state because if you are in that, you know, hyper aroused state, your body thinks you're ready for battle. It's not going to, it's going to be pushing blood externally. It's not going to be putting blood through the digestive system because, you know, it's not really important if you're in a fight-or-flight scenario to be digesting food. You want blood in the muscles ready to go, and that's where the kind of, you know, butterfly situation happens is because your body is just ready to go, and it's not really dedicating its time to these recovery practices. So breathing is another one that's kind of fundamental that, you know, you don't really hear anyone talking about that in the body-building space, but it's absolutely paramount. And I'm wondering if you, you know, have really kind of looked into that or whether you just naturally have nasal breathes in your training as well. It's funny you say that actually. I know very little, I would say I know nothing on the subject of breathing, you know, nasal breathing or what, you know, what, what passage, so to speak, is optimal for breathing. But it's funny you say that because I can't help, it's sort of like, I say this with some, you know, some sort of sarcasm, but I can't help, so look down on mouth breathers. Yeah, exactly. I'm wondering about it really turns me off. So I've always consciously breathed through my nose as much as possible. And if I catch myself breathing through my mouth, like really got it. And yeah, like, it's unbelievable. I know it's, but yeah, so it's also interesting that that is the case that, yeah, so I do breathe through my nose even while training, like, it's, it's not very often, I mean, I make very little noise in the gym, so it's not like you're ever going to catch me having to release some, you know, stringers, garantory thing, I don't live very heavy, so it's, it's not like I ever feel like I need to be breathing through my mouth. Maybe that's sometimes a bit hardy over the bit of, you know, the blocked up in the head, but yeah, it's not very often at all. So that's, that's interesting. So you, have you ever lifted heavy or is when you're saying lifting heavy, you're, you're still lifting strenuously, but not in those lower rep ranges, right? Yeah, my, my, what's the word? My philosophy, I suppose, when it comes to weight training is, is trying to get the most out of the least amount of weight. You know, say, right? Yeah, well, I think Frank Zane said, I'm probably quoting him, quoting Frank Zane when I say this, the muscle doesn't know numbers. Yeah. So, so maybe he didn't say that, get the most out of least one. I don't know. I think he quoted, he quoted, he had a saying, you, you want to make the lightest weight feel as heavy as possible through your training. Ah, okay. Yeah, my quotes much, much cooler. So, so, so again, for all those listening, it's getting the most out of the least amount of weight. So there you go. Frank Zane, eat your heart out. So how do you do that? It's, you know, like it's, it's easy just, it's easy to, to apply to someone you might be watching training. So if you see someone, say squatting or doing a bench press, whatever it might be, there's so many things, there's, there's stones left unturned there. There's more they could do to, you know, maximize intensity with less weight, but yeah, people are, and I get it, like a part of me gets it. I, I never did it. I never like, for all I want to try and with more in this world, like I was just never like that. I never came into the gym like, yeah, you know, punch and make trying to lift heavy and stuff. That just seems to be very common practice now, but yeah, it's, it's easy to spot, but it's, it's probably something I'll make a YouTube video on or something, you know, about, you know, it's just sort of a tip and trip things on, on how to do that, like and use different exercises as examples, but I mean, a squat is a very good example of how I would say the majority of people, at least the majority of people I see, could be getting so much more out of less weight and totally preventing injury, which again, common practice. Most guys, I've talked you that do squat really heavy. Well, it's not that they're, look, it's not there. I want to say squatting really heavy, it's just, they're squatting too much for, you know, what they're truly capable of. You know, they're not capable of squatting them out. They think that they're capable of. And it's easy because they're only going, they're not even their, their thighs aren't even, you know, parallel to the ground. Yeah, it's very, it's almost like half the time what I'm, what it looks like I'm watching is like a good morning, you know, like a good morning with the button back and you're bending forward, and coming back up. It almost looks like that. It looks incredibly painful. Yeah, yeah. And there's very little, you know, leg engagement at all, you know, it's in most of the, you know, you watch, you watch Tom Platt squat and you know that he can push the weight he's lifting and it is very heavy. He's very heavy to a lot of people and he's doing it at a high rep range. So, and you know, many thighs speak for themselves. Yeah, you're looking at someone that's put themselves through it. They done, you know, whether it be 20 kilos a side or 45 pounds a side if you're listening from America or anywhere else. You know, it's, um, you start there and you work your way out. But if you, if it's, if it's for you, just about, um, you know, wanting to lift heavy and have it, just ask yourself why and what is the goal? Like the goal of the just, which is 99% of it. I just want to look a bit better. You don't need to be doing that. Like there's no reason. Like, and like I know this sounds a bit, um, you know, I don't know, you can see it or where it might be, but it's not like you're going to go to the beach or you're not going to go anywhere where you can showcase your physique, look terrible and yell at you, but I can, I can bench, you know, all the pounds like, what gives a shit at the end of that? Because there's always someone stronger than you. Yeah. And yes, there's always someone with a better physique than you, but if your goal is just to look a bit better, definitely consider, you know, dropping away, going, it's full range of motion is really what I'm talking about. All the way down on a spot, like take, if you're doing bench press, take the bar to your chest. The only time you see, um, pack tears is because the guys have become become so accustomed to only moving the bar through like you know this partial rep movement and they don't come all the way down to the chair so then when they go a little bit heavier they go yeah I want to try and push for a little bit more and they accidentally take the bar through a slightly deeper range of motion. The muscle is not used to that it's never it's never been put under that stress at that sort of a level of extension and it'll just snap that's it you know it's over. Yeah so full range of motion obviously it's like priority um and and uh what was the other thing I was going to mention? uh might come back to me but um yeah lessening the weight like I would still say the majority of people need to need to do that if they want to maximize muscle growth. Yeah so it's again what are your goals? There are some people that are doing powerlifting competitions and I don't at all want to denigrate um you know the capacity for people to become good at moving the bar in this certain path that will give them the highest number that they can uh that's that's the goal of some people right that's that's a sport to some to some degree but as you're saying for most of us myself included I more so my goal was to uh primarily craft and sculpt my physique and use my physique as an expression of art in a way and kind of slowly build up this uh proportions and obviously be healthy and you know strong and and and kind of prepared for the rest of my life in terms of like the quality of life I want to to live like you want to be strong your bones want to be strong and and live into old age that that was primarily my uh my goals with the gym and and still is um but you don't need to be pushing yourself to uh the nth degree with these two rep maxes three rep maxes because you want it's it's primarily egoic like you can lift in a way where yeah it doesn't look as cool but you can curl 20 pounds you know 10 kilos uh with the biceps where you are you're you're not moving any part of the body apart from the bicep and yes you're bracing the arm and you know your core is engaging but it you can curl 10 pounds and i'm sure you do the same with your arms where like what do you want to do you want to stress the muscle you want the bicep to be under the maximum load as possible if you're um using heavier and heavier weights you're at some level you have to compensate to the degree because you if you've never done the 10 pounds curls and then you kind of move to 24 yeah i'm lifting these bigger weights but you've never gone through the range of motion and really actually strengthen the bicep itself primarily then you're going to bring in the delts you're going to bring in the reed delts and like kind of swing a little bit like okay so what's what's the aim of the exercise it's a bicep curl and you're strengthening other areas of the body and it's like oh my arms aren't growing it's like yeah because you are not lifting in a way where you are stressing the muscle that you want to stress you're not actually doing the exercise and i think that that's where and you know i have gone through it um when i i cringe um thinking back on kind of how i use the train as a as a teenager because um loading three plates on the bar when i had no business even squatting one plate um you know properly and like you said it's almost like a good morning it's like yeah okay cool you you go down a few inches and then back up but you know what's the goal here the goal is to put on muscle then you need to focus on time under tension and it doesn't look as cool but across a period of you know you've been training you know close to two decades i would say right now i've only been training about 12 years 12 years cool so it's a long period right so you've been in the game it's a long period yeah that's consistent you know consistent hard training which is the main thing and consistency is the main thing so when you are pushing yourself to these very very high heavy reps you are increasing the likelihood of injury and if injury keeps you out of the game for three months yeah that's three months that you if you had just lowered the weight and trained in a better way then that's three months of progress and consistency that you're now going without so i really don't recommend people push themselves to that high level unless you are you know power lifting or whatever and even then i would say okay do we want to you know is this going to be a career kind of thing or I would just kind of egoically lifting and risking the harm to our body to do so yeah that's right and i really i know we've said it now like a hundred times but for anyone listening i want to stress it you know what is your goal and and that's why i brought this up because the majority of people i talked to in the gym the majority of people i know uh their goal is to just look a little bit better but i still see them come in and and they just can't help themselves they want to do a one rep max on the on the bench but and they ask there's these are young guys too you know and they ask me oh what's your one rep max on bench is it i have no idea i don't i don't care like yeah and this is i'm i'm taking another quote from someone i don't know who said this but um i read it at some point and i liked it it's uh it said you know i'm a bodybuilder not a weightlifter i'm not i'm not fixated on the weight i'm lifting i have an end goal in mind i want to look like this by this time so um and what do i need to do to get there so that's probably what's going through a lot of guys in mind like they're just a lot of guys come into the gym they just lift weight and they don't have an end goal in mind that's probably the the um the you know general consensus of gym goal is it's like they're not thinking that far ahead maybe but that's why i really want to stress it you know what is your goal and then like you said is it worth you know whether you be in front of your friends whether you that you find it you know genuinely enjoyable to lift heavy whatever the reason is it is still worth considering uh what the goal is and then asking yourself like is it worth potentially hurting myself for one rap when it has when it doesn't align whatsoever with my goal you know is it worth that and for me it never was so it was like all right i don't care how i look i don't care if i'm lifting you know the smallest weights on the rack i don't care if i'm only putting it i put a 20 kilo plate aside on on squats and and um you know not just how I'm conceited but i think i've got a lot more out of that than i than the guys that have been putting four plates aside on you know they it's almost like we can't fathom but that's what i've been doing they're like no what else do you do though yeah dude that's it it's just that i'm getting way more out of it like yeah it's um it's so hard to get that three to people so that's why i said you know to for everyone listening stress that before every session what the goal is and and that's yeah like you said if it's if you want to get into weight lifting professionally if you want to become a power lift or a weight lifter by all means go ahead you know you know the risks you're running yeah um but um i wouldn't you know tell anyone not to do that but for the guys that just want to improve their physiques quit the one rep two rep three rep maxes quit fixating on you know what weight you lifting and how you're gonna look in front of your friends or everyone else at the gym you know focus on the task at hand focus on the goal and that you're going to achieve the physique you want if your patient and persistent and it's like you said before consistency you know being consistent and the last i've never had an injury in the gym ever no injury ever in the gym never nothing not a niggle nothing the only time i got a little niggles like playing tennis you know it's it was never enough yeah that's great yeah it's it's totally worth avoiding don't don't run the risk just to i don't know what what do you want to do with that what do you want to do with like oh i lifted this man who gives a shit man like just focus on the ball yeah yeah um i think you got to take you go out of it um the one thing that comes to mind is like the the stress factor and you know training in that way as well you're gonna be in a higher cortisol response all the time and like you look at an animal in a zoo they're in a high stress environment relatively they don't come up space um they're gonna start losing their hair they're they're not gonna look like a beacon of vitality they're not gonna look like the wild tiger you know man it's a similar kind of thing when you are uh lifting in this way and living in this way that is antithetical to how our bodies are meant to kind of be and and this is where the side of like how do i get more vascular uh how much time you're spending outside in the sun um oh well you know i'm training in the gym which is under fake artificial light and then i go to my office is under fake artificial light and i'm actually not getting outside at all and so if you are actually dedicated to building muscle that's just you say you want a better physique then you need to treat um outside of the gym almost like yes the gym is the uh the intense stimulus needed to to have the muscle um do what it does and repair and grow but there's so much outside of the gym. holistically you need to take care of and I know you're a big proponent of Sun exposure as well Because that's gonna massively increase the blood flow of masculinity your sleep quality your recovery Your testosterone in general your hormone balance lack of cortisol and all the rest of it So what what are you doing outside of the gym to fully kind of support what you do inside the gym? Definitely Sun exposure is a massive one. I love I love the sound of talking about the sound. I love like project projecting all my opinions of the Sun on other people Me too. You're on us. Yeah, I just love it man like there's something about and I just like Like a back to you know Living in this current climate of being fearful of everything You know and everything's caused to answer and whatever it might be I know this purely anecdotal, but I just find a hilarious and like not in You I'll say this you'll be like how is that funny? But um, it's it's funny to the bit to me that say Like take my parents for example my my dad was you know um or like was uh, you know um I would you say you know not scared of the Sun but he Stay protected didn't never didn't really go outdoors that much was a bit of like a sort of rock head just wanted to stay staying and um, you know probably a bit of a night out of that type of thing. Yeah, the beard's always type of guy Whereas my mom like baked herself in the Sun absolutely every single day Um, it has Really like beautiful scant she's in she's in a like like 60s has very even now beautiful skin doesn't wear makeup and where she does very little Yeah, my dad developed Like I said, it's a purely anecdotal, but I just My dad developed skin cancer my mom didn't and then you know, he said oh, well, that's just you know this and that but it's like People don't yet that it's not necessarily or it's not even that it is the Sun Causing skin cancer people think it's just the Sun. All right. Yeah, that's the only thing that you can give the skin cancer Think about the shit you put on your body every day including the Sun's frame. Yeah, the abdomen like it blows my mind that people Is it yeah, but the science dude they're selling your Yeah, they're like what what is the sign and this stuff and then if I it's funny that I've shared particular videos like it and it's it's whatever a scientist talking about the topic saying no, you know At in a nutshell Sunscreen is bad Sun is good and they totally deny it. They're like yeah, that's one guy Yeah, I'm like it's the the Sun. It's funny that especially in Australia the The Sun or the the skin cancer industry is like a multi-million billion dollar Industry it's like they're making the profiting massively if they if anyone genuinely gave a shit you'd be able to You'd be able to get all this stuff that apparently we need because skin cancer such a problematic thing in Australia You'd be able to get a free, but that's not the case. Yeah You know, it's not government funded and so So um back to you know some exposure Without you know getting into the signs of it it is It's it's it's not just you know crucial in in being able to Live as what's the word livers um You know healthy as possible But it's yeah, it's very important when it comes to a bodybuilding Because it does have impact on when your visit on on you physiologically You know end your your and healthy hormone production and Also the the physical aspect of it like looking healthy, you know that contributes to Good you know good looking skin and hair and Again, it's it's people would rather believe in a product being able to Provide them that particular look that there after like all my skins bad. I'm gonna take I'm I'm taking this product I'm taking this product yeah If you tried sitting in the sun for five to ten minutes a day No, no good thing cancer. Yeah, all right dude Yeah, so put back put that concoction of chemicals on your face that should fix it yeah, yeah, it's it's several things for that right so it's One they're spraying aluminium deodorant Aluminum being one of the highest risk factors for things like Alzheimer's and cancer they're spraying that underneath S skin that they're using these lotions which are highly processed and highly chemical They're using a body soap and like a bright blue You know if I can links body wash which smells like god knows what all over their body every single day twice a day So gotta get clean got to wash all that stuff off and and your skin's just kind of like Oh my god, what is this chemical bath you're putting me through every day and then You strip your skin of your natural protective oils and then if you ever go outside it's born layers of sunscreen which literally You know most of the big brands have to Recall because they're now finding like literal cast and agentic chemicals in them, you know like there's there's there's several factors with that And I hammer on it about it because it's it's so important and like the default consciousness right now is like Sunscreen good Sun's bad sunscreen is gonna protect me from skin cancer sunscreen is literally causing skin cancer So is the blue light exposure that you're exposing your skin to most of the day The only science in in air quotes and studies that have been done to show that the sun is bad for you have been on rats first of all um and In isolated UV light They stick rats Who are in a laboratory under these fake blue lights most of the time then they expose them to isolated UV light lamps And then don't take them out like these rats aren't free range going outside in the sun And then these rats are getting skin cancer because they are Not outside and they're in this isolated, you know man-made wavelengths of UV light and they go Oh, yes therefore the sun causes skin cancer. No the one that you just have to look at the actual studies that they're doing To see that that's BS and then there's the financial side of it's like yes sunscreen is a bigger business than even You know the cancer industry the cancer industry wants to propagate cancer because they can then sell cancer treatments right all of these quote-unquote cancer charities where people are donating money and raising money You're raising money for a pharmaceutical company to find new profitable treatments If they actually wanted a heal cancer they wouldn't have any customers and at a base level That just means that that industry and whether or not there's like I don't think that there's that at the top some some do's want to give skin cancer to everyone But it's just the nature of the pharmaceutical system wants to maximize profits. How do you do that? You you know you kind of you fund things that are going to have people feel um Inkined to do things that give them more skin cancer or other types of cancer. That's just the way that it is Um, and that's a terrible realization to to make and people feel kind of hoodwinked which they have been you know for the most part um, yeah, there's also like just the intuitive like okay So the thing that gives everything in this life everything on this planet uh life That thing if we are exposed to it um Kills us like a hundred percent of the time get skin cancer. No, it doesn't make any sense anecdotally the guy that I know that died of a horrific melanoma in his face was the guy that was slathering his face in sunscreen every single time He went outside that I saw him you know playing sports So how does that happen? I mean that's that's because he was covering his face every single day That he went outside with these chemicals uh, and he was never able to you know a lack of vitamin D is one of the highest risk factors for cancers on the whole you know, so right there's a lot of things like you're going outside You're never exposing yourself to some when you do you're putting sunscreen on so you're you're getting rid of vitamin D Then you immediately go and shower in this toxic chemical slop which actually washes whatever little amount of vitamin D Your skin was able to produce because it sits on the skin for 48 hours before it's absorbed You're washing that off as well. So it's really this this insidious epidemic where we are not like we're We're moving away from what we naturally Helistically, you know every other animal in the planet. You'll see dogs and cats literally follow sunlight around the house They'll they'll sit and bask in the sun like it's so why are they doing that? Why are they intuitively like their instincts? Tell them to do that like you think dogs and cats are talking to each other like whoa What do you think about the studies of sonic exposure like no they have like why does it feel good to sit in the sun? Why do you feel amazing? Why does your blood kind of get moving and why do you just intuitively look better when you're tan like why are bodybuilders Putting this fake tan on themselves for bodybuilding shows because it enhances the muscle and they look better So at an aesthetic level. Yeah, it sounds better. Let's do sonic exposure But there are so many different things that kind of contribute to holistic health again, which is the basis of Muscle building in general is like you can't be the most optimal level of your physique if you are living this Crisis of modernity where you're always inside and you're eating fake foods and artificial flavorings and sweetness so I think like part of the reason I do what I do and share the things that I do and and you talk about the things that you do I think is is because yes there's the bodybuilding side of it but health in general is just under attack from so many different directions and if we can through bodybuilding say you know you want to look your best cool but yeah that it's not just looking good and when when you are healthy as an organism you naturally look better I totally agree yeah and and back to quickly actually I want to say I want to stress back to sun exposure it's not to say go outside and roast yourself every day I didn't say that. Don't burn yourself but do roast yourself right yeah there's a difference yes um I say don't burn yourself and if you if you're someone that hasn't been exposed to the sun you know for the majority of your life go outside just for five 10 minutes yeah um you know face the sun in one direction and turn around and expose your back to the sun five to 10 minutes each side and that's it go inside see how you look the following day if you're not burnt whatsoever do the same thing at a at a few more minutes like this is what I had to do I was incredibly pale yeah I started exposing myself to the sun um sound sexual kind of was um out about I think I was like 19 20 or something you know it's about 10 31 now like 11 years ago that I started really tanning religiously and and before then yeah very very pale and my mom would say stuff like you know I was transparent you see my veins and things and never ever thought I would yeah but it was constant it was like the sun tanning was like the training and like the diet and the yeah and the sleeping you know the um it went hand in hand so I tanned every day but I started just with and I didn't even I didn't believe it I just read at some point that you can change your you know your pigmentation permanently with enough consistent days of sun like consecutive days of sun and this was back like when we had droughts here in Australia so there was consistent consecutive days of sun and I laid in the sun every single day for like I reckon to be 20 or something days and then you know we had rainfall for a couple of weeks and and my tan didn't really fade in that time and then I just got back to and I did it over the course of years to the point where now I can go you know say a month or so or even longer maybe the entire winter without really like uh without the same sort of high quality sun exposure as I would get in summer but I don't lose my tan I still remain pretty tan throughout winter and that's part of the reason is that I do believe genuinely that I've that I've changed my pigmentation permanently because of that sun exposure and so what that means now is I can go to the beach for a couple of hours I'm not using sunscreen not sheltering myself with shade and I don't get burnt you know I've increased the amount of melanin within my skin and change the pigmentation and and that's the benefit of that gradual tanning yeah and what sunscreen does like and I'm sure you know is people think it's like yeah but I'm not I can go out all day I'm not getting burnt yeah that's great you're not preventing that specific type of sun ray from you know giving you cancer it's just preventing the burn and the burn is essential it's the body's way of saying yes get out of the sun you're much climbing the sun in the one at the one time yeah so don't do that again you know when you're preventing that it's like um what would the equipment be it's like I don't know it's if you take it's like if you take painkillers to get over some sort of pain you know consecutively like the pain is a messenger there's something wrong with the body and if you cover that up with a band-aid it's pretty much the the issue with medical treatment today is the treating of symptoms and allowing not allowing your body to tell your hey brother something's wrong yeah yeah that's what it is that's that's a good analogy thank you and that's that's what people you know either like they don't they don't understand or they don't want to believe it and I've had this like I have a daughter and I've had this argument with my daughter's mother like a hundred times about you know I said can you please not put like lather or in sunscreen every like just to spend just to walk to the park and back like you know you know going long yeah and that would be that would be like some debate of contention I'm like how is this and I know it's in the documentation like I'd have to provide the science for you know I'm not I'm really not trying to bag anyone out here it's just that we have been fed this idea that it's you know you know detection against everything and then when you finally do get that one thing we've got the drug for you and not only that it's on a subscription basis so you can be king for the rest of your life yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's insidious and once you see it on one thing you see it and everything yeah yeah yeah I see it and it's it's that that would annoy me if I had a kid and and and that was you know scenario is happening but it annoys me when like the the powers that are meant to or at least they purport to protect us are almost doing everything in their power to make sure that we are weaker sicker more reliant more dependent unhealthy because a healthy population that is strong and it isn't sick is a much less it's much harder to control that population right so a lot of the things that come out of the the heart association the Australian Cancer Federation these kind of like organizations which sound very fancy and you think there's a whole bunch of like really smart doctors behind the scenes being like hey guys like let's look at all the science and what what really is the best way to make people healthier it's like no they are getting funded by either food corporations or sunscreen corporations and like yeah the the Australian sunscreen company XYZ is donating to the Cancer Federation to to to figure out you know the best way to prevent skin cancer well no they're just paying board members so that these guys the recommend this is the best sunscreen for you and and boom they get a ton of revenue and a ton of sales it is not to keep us in our healthiest forms and that goes pretty much across the board with all dietary um dietary recommendations as well yeah yeah I agree it's um it's something that you know is very easily overlooked but I just don't think you as as as a consumer you don't have to look too deeply into it I know a lot of people like they start getting you know worked up when I'm sort of engaging in this type of conversation or listening to it or think it's like it has to be something deeper than it is I've had this conversation with other people and I always say we who but you know with one person particular I said you don't have to look at anything that deeply just look at it look at um say pharmaceuticals or the pharmaceuticals history from a surface level point of view I said there are uh they're public they're um they have shareholders they have people that have interest in them they're company and they want to profit it's like I you know spoken to Brock about this we've got more than muscle yes we want to profit like it's like it's a kind of sound like you know I don't want to give you know everything away for free and you know not be able to sustain my own life and then you take you take sort of the sort of for lack of a better term tricks of the trade you know when you own a business and you apply that to a trillion dollar industry you know what what do you think they're capable of in order to make you know last last year's profit double like what it's just surface level thinking you don't have to think yeah conspiracy theories yeah yeah yeah realize all right they don't give a shit about your health they care about profiting that's that is the ultimate goal yeah it's uh you know anyone should be able to see yeah and that's what you have to look at with you know the situation that's kind of unfolded over the last two years go look at Pfizer's fucking before and after uh profit in this whole scenario and you know we don't have to get into that it's kind of been been to death but like you said it's not canceled anyway man I'm uncancelable you can only you can only get canceled if you give a shit you know like oh literally like you you can only cancel yourself it's the same as like you know taking offense you can only you can't you can't give offense to someone you can only take it right so you can only take your cancellation if they're oh you think I'm crazy cool I don't care like I'm I'm gonna say what I say uh regardless um but yeah it it's funny because the bodybuilding and getting bigger and becoming healthier and investigating all the different ways that that happens was pretty much the catalyst for me getting into oh so so why is this you know why is this supplement necessary. Oh, the soil quality is bad. Oh, okay. So like, what else is is kind of in my environment that's bad for me? Oh, so this company made this happen. And what's the history of this being banned and bodybuilding and like freaking out how to get bigger muscles was almost, it was the pathway for me to becoming inherently highly distrustful of government at the end of the day, you know, which I think is hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. What about the mental side of things? So there's the physical side of things, but how have you found that bodybuilding and training has impacted your mental state and the changes you've kind of experienced from that and do you do kind of focus visualisation of how you want your muscle to look and things like that? Because I think that's a highly, you know, everything that you do is kind of a result of your mental position as well, especially in creating the body. Yeah, I definitely visualise how I want to look in it. Like this is probably the first time I'm saying it publicly or at all out loud. Like when I was younger, like I had, I went on another podcast with these guys from Australia for hell export and it was just funny that they even had a song because they're all about, you know, NRL and Prick and all this sort of thing. Yeah. And we just went on their podcast randomly and, you know, I brought up there with like I had this bad issues around, you know, how I looked when I was younger and I was always trying to sort of tailor how I looked according to whatever, whatever, you know, whatever the girl that I had a crush on like, you know, so that was the girl that was like, I was like, fool out boy, what I was trying to look like some sink here. And I wasn't doing it for me. Like it was like, oh, this is what she likes, like this will improve. It was always for someone else, you know, and I wasn't doing anything for me. And it got to thankfully my sister who I definitely like at the time, I had a lot of sort of respect for, I actually respected her opinions and she's quite successful and has always been into sort of health and sort of thing in exercising. She was saying to me, like, you just look sickly. Like she said something really blunt like that. It was like a wake up form and I was, I was like, you know, clinically anorexic. I think I at the same height I am now just like six port. I was about 58 kilos. Holy shit. Yeah. Well, I'm in a perspective. I'm like 90 now. And the heaviest I've been is 98. So that was incredibly thin and sickly. And so I thought like, or I was like, what, like, what, how do I want to look? How do I want to present myself? You know, and I always had this fast nature with like shows like Dragon Ball Z and movies with Arnold in it. And that sort of thing. I loved Arnold's physique. And it was that same thing. Like for a period of time, it was like, this is never going to be achievable. And I haven't achieved that. But it's like to have people say, oh, you look like I'm like, honestly, it is like it's very rewarding because I just have one image. And it was just Arnold's physique. And I just actually, you know, it's not like he's going to be listening to this. So it shouldn't take a fancy. I cut his head off his image and just put his physique up like on my bedroom wall. Just this one visit goes on. Yeah. And I would look at my physique in the mirror and try and find similarities like between the two. And I thought, if I can't find any, that's the, I'm going to like, I'm going to try and find another visit. You know, that I could sort of tailor my own physique around while I'm trying to gain muscle. Yeah. But I admittedly, I did see some similarities. You know, like where the belly button sat under like four abs instead of six and things like that. So it was like a shorter sort of looking torso because the, the pecs are longer and the longer looking legs because of that and all this sort of thing. Like I was adding all that stuff up. And I thought, oh, maybe I could create something like this. And then my mentality went from that to then it was like a sweat, like a light switch. It was just, no, I can do this. And I'll do like whatever it takes to do it except I could like accept drugs. I just couldn't do it or something about, you know, I think kind of like knowing that and looking at everyone else in gyms and things that did take steroids up. There's something not quite right about whatever they're taking today in comparison because the skin doesn't look clean. It just doesn't look held. You could blow the pressure looks like, you know, it's gone through the roof. And I just couldn't bring myself ever to take steroids. So I thought, I'm just going to have to do the best I can naturally. But my mindset was still on this idea that I could look like Arnold basically. I could get that big. And I haven't yet. But I'm still like, I don't think like that. Like, oh, maybe I've reached my, my natural, you know, genetic potential. I never want to thought that. And each year I make some more progress. And, and I think, wow, if I actually, if I listen to those guys in the gym that said, yeah, man, to achieve that, like to achieve what I have now, basically, you're going to have to get, yeah, if I listen to that, like a lot of people do, I wouldn't be where I am today. Like, I'm actually, I was able to start a business and actually make money just purely because of the physique I have. And it's not to say that wasn't hard work. Like we're talking 10 plus years, like Arduous training. Yeah. But, yeah, my mentality's always been pretty strong with that. But the, the, the, doing to answer your question actually training, it's kind of like the combination of the training, the sun exposure, you know, I try really hard, like, especially lately, to get good quality, longer sleep. All that has definitely improved. I think I did a post about this about it. It's sort of improving. Obviously, my physique, like my psychology, in my skin, like that was after years of struggling, like to, to rid, like my skin of like acne and also it helped me overcome a lot of psychosocial adversity, you know, with people that suffer from, you know, whether it's anxiety, ADHD, all these, all these very modern sort of nuanced, you know, quite a quick illnesses that people are dying to. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, it's just symptoms of their surrounding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You go to the gym with how many, like a gym I train at, there's a hundred thousand TV. It's like it's very easy to get distracted. There's constant distractions. Yeah. That's the way everything's made, be set up. So it's, it's definitely going to be hard for anyone to go, all right, I just want to focus on my attention to this thing and the kind of mentality that, like to say, to build a good physique, the kind of mentality to do that in today's day and age. Yeah. Extremely commendable if you get there because you've also got a million distractions trying to force you out of that one track mind. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but training to the sun exposure and obviously diet, I guarantee will help anyone overcome those psychosocial adversities they may be, you know, going through just just exercising in general. If you don't exercise today, start and do something every day, just just move, eat better and buy, eat better, I mean eat whole foods, eat foods that are not in a packet, essentially, like, you know, and, um, and get some of the fucking sun. You feel, you'll feel good. I guarantee you, I feel good every day. Yeah. Regardless of what's going on in my life, like if I just, it's been raining a lot here, but if I just see this sun, my moods improve, you know, a lot of people can say the same thing and there's a good reason for that, you know, it's, um, it all gets hand in hand. It's, it's very simple at the end of the day. Um, we overcomplicate things because of the culture that we're in, again, kind of looping back to the start. Um, our mental energy, we have, you know, 24 hours a day, we're sleeping for a lot of it. And then the thing, the things that you're focusing on at a, at a basic level, they're the things that grow in energy. If you're spending, um, hours a day, visualizing what kind of physique you want, plus thinking about your training, plus, um, your diet, sleep, and whatever, you're going to make more progress, the more dialed in and focused you are. And this is why anyone that achieves anything of any great note is they are one track minded. They're always thinking about this thing. And that it's because they're directing their mental energy towards it. And the issue with why a lot of people don't get the physique they want is they're distracted in the gym. They're on their phones. Uh, when they're not in the gym, they're distracted. Uh, they're watching TV or whatever. All of that is, is kind of by design as well, uh, by these, you know, corporations, media corporations, they, they want your attention because their attention, your attention is valuable to them, you know, that they try and optimize algorithms to keep you on their apps because then they can sell more ad revenue, so on, so forth. But all it is, it ends up doing for you as the consumer is taking away from anything you want to do. Even take the gym completely out of it, you want to become a chess master. You have to dedicate your mental energy to thinking about chess and doing chess every single day. So the principle is the same across all metrics. It's like, you want to succeed in life. Okay, get your health in order. so that you do not have the distraction of low energy, the distraction of pain and dysfunction in your body, the distraction of indigestion. All these things that take your mind off focusing on what you truly want, that's why we want a direct energy towards our health and make sure that as you said, you feel good every day, you feel motivated every day, you're much more likely to practice the thing that you want to achieve great things at, or creativity and things like that, you can't be creative in whatever if you're sick and you're ill. So your health is really a number one priority and training in a way that facilitates health and doesn't hamstring you, pun-not-intended, is really important for everything that you do. And I think this podcast has been a bit of a masterclass in terms of what are the key things that will get you the way you want to be in terms of your physique, but all of the kind of principles we've mentioned can be applied to anything you want to achieve in life. So Joel Caletman, thank you for your inspiration, thank you for joining me on the Soulcast and I really appreciate your time. And what are you working on at the moment? Talk about more the muscle a bit and where can people find it? - People can find me on really only on Instagram or through my website, which is morethanmuscle.com.au. With more than muscle, I rode to a bunch of e-books. So they're very affordable, very affordable priced e-books on everything from training to diet. I rode a nutrition e-book that I think anyone listening to this would be very interested in it. It not just touches on what we've been speaking about here, but goes into depth on everything new, driven and everything whole foods and more about what you should be doing rather than what you shouldn't. And also a powerl, like we started a powerl a couple years ago and that's very slow moving, that's on us. We just haven't got as much out as we hope, but yeah, that's what we're working on now. Yeah, you can find the MTM page on Instagram. It's MTM_MorethanMuscle or my Instagram, which is @overkill. Boom, okay, bro. Well, thank you so much for joining me again. I'm sure we're on this back and in the future, we'll get a lift in together. Dude, I'd love that. I appreciate you having me on and your time, man. That was a good chat. Thank you. No worries. And for those listening at home, see you next time. (gentle music) (gentle music)