197. Chris Bumstead: 6X Mr. Olympia’s Peptide Stack, Supplement Guide and Recovery Protocols

0:00Gary Brecka:Bodybuilding is not a healthy sport. There's a lot you put your body through. Anabolic steroid use, cutting weight, bulking up weight. This is hard on your organs. The vast majority of bodybuilders say that exchange is worth it. I'm willing to borrow for my future for the game today. Before I ever won an Olympia, I got really sick. I had this insane amount of inflammation. Even myself, I'm sure I was still ignorant to what I was doing at the time, but I knew that the more stress I would put on my body, the worse it would push me back. You put guardrails on the amount of risk that you were willing to take, but you still achieve the top spot in the world multiple times.

0:32There's only so much you can really learn about bodybuilding. Once you have good form, you get your protein in and you train hard. But to do that every day for 10 years, that's what makes it hard.

0:40Gary Brecka:You know, I was expecting you to give this laundry list of supplements. And you basically said, I had my nutrition dialed in. I was taking creatine and protein powders. The greatest longevity science and anti-aging experts now have come full circle. Sometimes you got to boil it back to just training hard, eating right and doing consistently. Lots of people want to enjoy the view, but they don't want the climb. How did you keep that very myopic view of being the best bodybuilder from spilling over into every other aspect of your life? It's a great question. And I mean, the very nuanced answer in this.

1:09The honest answer is a lot of it is probably like.

1:25Gary Brecka:Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. As you know, my heroes are the movers, the shakers, the game changers in all forms of industry, whether they're PhDs, MDs, biohackers, researchers, or just people that have solved a major problem in their life. And today's guest is no stranger to that six-time Mr. Olympia champion in the physique division. um you know who he is a lot of you have been anticipating this podcast welcome to the podcast chris bonstead thank you sir it's an honor it's an honor to be on here it's an honor to be intimidating given the guests you've had but really excited to be on here yeah it's just my guess i'm not intimidating they're they're you too you're exciting to talk to i feel like i need to be the one interviewing you so i can learn a little well we can go back and forth you know we actually like all my podcast guests you know when we get here early we run half the podcast before the podcast.

2:26Gary Brecka:I'm like, we should talk about this on the pod. Um, but you know, one of the things we talked about, um, which is a common theme on my podcast, and I really want to unpack this a little bit with you is that I feel like the most impactful people, like the most inspiring, passionate, purpose-driven people are people that solve the major problem in their life. and one of the things we talked about before the podcast was you know it's it's not so impressive to me to be like great once it's impressive to me to be really great over a long period of time and you held the number one spot in bodybuilding for more than half a decade uh which is a long period of time which means you solved a lot of problems um and by problems i mean probably internal demons and external forces.

3:20Gary Brecka:And I would love if you would unpack that a little bit and just talk to my audience about, let them into the mindset of sebum. You know, when you're already at the top of your game and you've achieved this astounding level of success, what was it inside you that didn't make you just say, I'm going to take the award and go home. I did it. Like, you know a lot of people run one traffic they went one kona iron man in their life they're like there's the plaque that's it it's a great question and i mean the very nuanced answer and it's the honest answer is a lot of it is probably like great genes set up to do the right thing a lot of luck set up in the right place and potentially honestly a lot of faults or demons and insecurities of mine that i was trying to use some level of success to seek after you know I find a lot of people who reach a high level of success are kind of potentially compensating at the beginning and when I started to feel like maybe I was seeking a sense of belonging or validation my journey began to become more than just like becoming a better body but a better self how can I use the challenge pushing myself to new limits to discover parts about myself I didn't know before and become a better version of myself and to be able to grow mentally spiritually emotionally relationally along this physical journey and I think that's what consistently drove me is every year was like a hero's journey where like you're working up to this huge moment and inevitably there's this like chaos and challenge that comes in the way where you feel defeat and you need to find something inside of yourself to get through that to get to this success and then it repeats every year every year so I was continuously finding new pieces of myself I didn't know before of what I needed and how I operated best and my journey started with something very health related in 2018 before I ever won an Olympia I got really sick and I didn't know what was going on kidneys it was autoimmune to my kidneys yeah okay so I had this insane amount of inflammation edema in my legs like I put on like 15 pounds in a day and I had like no knee no ankle it was just inflamed didn't know what was going on I was put in the hospital put on loop diuretics IV diuretics and all stuff just to get the water off and they didn't know what was going on.

5:35And it was a, I talked through the story quick now, but in the moment I was like 22 years old, terrified for my life at the time, not knowing what was going to go on.

5:44Gary Brecka:You were bodybuilding then. I was in the middle of prep. I was four weeks out of the Olympia at this point. Yeah. So it was like the biggest, one of the biggest moments of feeling powerless, just completely powerless. And there's a pastor, I believe in this Richard Rohr who talks about like every man experiencing a journey of powerlessness, which leads to a sense of like just humility and gratitude for the rest of your life because you realize you're not fully in control there's so much you can do but there's always a level beyond what you're capable of so i think my journey starting with that really led to every moment of success and everything that i did win it was like yes i did this but there's so much out of my control that got me here and there's so much out of my control that could take me from here so it kept me with a sense of humility throughout my entire journey and also what led to that was me knowing i need to approach things differently like there was a reason I got sick and bodybuilding is not a healthy sport at all there's a lot you'd put your body through so me needing to manage a what started to what felt like it was just physical health and then what I was learning because it was an autoimmune thing was a lot of stress cortisol mental stuff stuff that I held into my life that was causing some kind of reaction my body to not feel regulated and heal efficiently so that was kind of how my journey started and then every year from there was like how can i just grow and become better and my mission in life was to become the best version of myself internally and externally and you know there's only so much you can really learn about bodybuilding once you have good form you get your protein and you train hard what's beyond that it's the mind it's what's making you show up consistently yeah like someone could show up in my peak off season or in the peak of my prep and follow me for a day and do everything i did easily it's not that hard but to do that every day for 10 years that's what makes it hard so that yeah it becomes a mental game and you know you got to figure out the things that are driving you and if those fade why did they fade the things that are holding you back is it self-doubt like minimizing beliefs whatever it may be and my journey was just this long journey of self-discovery more than anything i think it's especially true from my perspective in something like bodybuilding because i would imagine and i've never been a bodybuilder but I would imagine that it's a very lonely sport, you know, because it's not a team sport.

8:00Gary Brecka:It's a very individual sport. So you don't have a team, maybe other than your trainers and stuff, holding you accountable. You're not showing up for other people. You're showing up for yourself. And I think most of life is a very individual sport, you know, and they say like it's very lonely at the head of the herd right the uh all you get to do is enjoy the view right and and you know lots of people want to enjoy the view but they don't want to climb and to do it on your own by yourself who are you competing against like were you competing against yourself were you just constantly like i want to be a better version of myself and how did you keep that very myopic view of being the best bodybuilder from spilling over into every other aspect of your life.

8:51Gary Brecka:Because, you know, as I went down the rabbit hole preparing for this interview, there are a lot of bodybuilders that have actually ruined their lives outside of the sport. People talk about how difficult they were to get along with, how self-centered they were, how they were tough in their marriage. You somehow been able to navigate all of that. I mean, I find you to be a very genuine, genuine humble human being i have the deepest level of respect for that um completely devoid of arrogance but you in this pursuit to be the best version of yourself how did you keep the rest of your life in balance i mean i'm definitely wasn't always the easiest to deal with for sure you know when you're anyone's dieting that there's moments where my wife would be rolling her eyes in the crowd she said he's so easy to deal with all the time my wife does the same thing people like oh he's so smart you're so lucky she's like she's in the background no yeah i mean the first thing i could attribute to was just the way i was raising my family i have an incredible family who i love very much and they taught me like just good morals of staying true to like who you are and what's most important is treating everyone like with respect and equal kindness and i guess just i had this idea of myself where like as hard as i was working it didn't make me any more special than anyone else and it always was really like a me versus me kind of thing and bodybuilding is a very egocentric sport it's very vain it's just like intense and there's like almost like a stereotype that's very accurate of the way people are like trying to be beat better than the next guy comparing to this guy it's a comparison sport it's subjective you're being the pageantry right on stage being judged you know and i think a lot of bodybuilders before me they were like you got to be on stage you got to be stepping on there saying you're going to beat this guy you see him you know you're better than him be like that and when i was young i was like okay that's how i have to be to win but it never made it never drove me it didn't make me feel like i was getting better if anything it stressed me out it made me anxious because i was comparing myself to others and like trying to be what they were but especially in bodybuilding where it is so subjective you have no control of what the judges do so if you're trying to beat them or do what the judges do and then the judges switch what they want then you're just pissed because you didn't do what you want you might as well just be doing it for yourself creating the body that you are proud of that you think is the best and being the best version of yourself and there's no way to continuously improve unless that's your goal if i'm trying to beat the next guy when i beat him i'm done then my motivation is gone but if my goal is just best version of myself that's limitless it's just continuous progress of the journey that you love and i think i mean the most that super popular saying the man who loves walking walks farther than the man who loves the destination you know i i love bodybuilding and i didn't just love working out and starving myself and eating 400 grams of protein right yeah you can't fall in love with that exactly i loved seeing the direct results that came from it you know like there's few things in life that you have so much control over where you've put x amount of effort and you'll get x amount of result the gym is one of the things you know business doesn't work relationship doesn't work like that you don't know what's coming from it.

12:05But when you eat right and you train hard, you get the result. And when you put yourself in difficult situations, you're forced to be in a place to grow mentally. And I love that aspect of bodybuilding. So there were times where I didn't necessarily, or plenty of times where I had self-doubt, where I didn't want to show up to the gym and work out. I didn't want to train hard, but I knew how much I loved the end result. And I knew when I consistently did it, the person it made me become. So I continued to push myself more and more. And every year it was really you know i was i guess blessed to have a mindset where i was just looking at what was right in front of me yeah you know i had plenty of years of obstacles like like an injury x amount of weeks at the olympia where i was like there's no way i tore my lap one year eight weeks at the olympia well there's no way i'm gonna be able to compete yeah all i could do was okay well what can i do today you know i was in canada a deal was there i was like i need some prp right now i'm flying home you know yeah i got that done the next day was like i can't train upper body i can go train legs train legs every day okay well i'll train them every other day because i need to do something and just progressively doing it one day at a time focusing on what was in my control and you still won that year and i still won that year yeah wow and i think one of my other biggest cheat codes was i was really like many men these days really bad at feeling emotion and like letting myself be in emotional state i was very avoidant just like pushed it off and And when I came face to face with being bad at that, I was like, I was very a person like, how do I prove what I'm bad at?

13:35So then if I'm bad at feeling stuff and it's making me feel worse and more anxious, what's the opposite I can do is just embrace the shitty emotions I'm feeling. So if I was like that moment, I had my lat tear. And in that moment, it might be like, oh, you hurt yourself. Compete next year. But that was my life. I dedicated my life to bodybuilding. So to me, think of dropping out the Olympia. It was like I'm losing a piece of my life right now. It was devastating.

13:57Gary Brecka:Right. So instead of avoiding that, I learned to let myself feel that emotion. You feel like you're going to break down and the world's ending and crumbling right now? Okay, well, be in that. Cry for a moment. Like, be in that and lean on the people who are there and who love you. And luckily, I met my wife right after I got sick. So she was with me through every Olympia I ever won. So you met her in your early 20s? Early 20s to now married with a child. And then through that whole relationship, she's a very emotional being. so she helped teach me to lean into my emotion to share it with her and it's so much it's so hard to explain and maybe some men out there can kind of relate to me in that sense where you feel like you just need to suppress it because it's a bad emotion but to just let it out there's no result to come from it no answer no solution and to have someone that you can share it with it just like releases this block and creates energy in you to move forward and i think being able to apply that throughout my journey and learn how to do that just it kept moving me forward that's so that's that's so amazing the the injury that you had well i mean you had a lot of injury but the um the kidney injury um i've heard you when you were talking to patrick david um and and some others and you talked about how that injury made you limit the amount of risk that you took yeah and i think that that's fascinating because i think in bodybuilding Again, I've never been a bodybuilder, but I would assume that it's win at all costs.

15:27Gary Brecka:And there's an exchange for that, right? I mean, anabolic steroid use, constantly, you know, cutting weight, bulking up weight. I mean, this is hard on your organs. It's hard on your liver. It's hard on your kidneys, hard on your heart. And I would assume that the vast majority of bodybuilders say that exchange is worth it. I'm willing to borrow for my future for the gain today. But like when you had that injury and you had this swelling and you realized that I have a real critical kidney issue, you know, landed me in the hospital. What were some of those risks that you weren't willing to take?

16:07Gary Brecka:Because I find it even more fascinating that you put guardrails on the amount of risk that you were willing to take, but you still achieved the top spot in the world multiple times. Yeah. And that is really what's fascinating to me. And it might be a message for other, you know, younger bodybuilders that are on that journey. Um, that yes, it is about the gear that you're going to run, but it's also about the, the path that you set for yourself. So talk some, a little bit about some of the guardrails that you, you, you set for yourself. For sure, yeah. I mean, it's very important for any bodybuilder to understand using any level of PED is a serious health risk.

16:45You know, like the gear you have to run to be a professional bodybuilder, it's not healthy. Like you said, you're boring from your future life. And even myself, I'm sure I was still ignorant to what I was doing at the time. But I knew that the more stress I'm going to put on my body, the worse it would push me back. So there are specific compounds that bodybuilders take. There's an array of them. You know, bodybuilders have always been the guinea pig of... yeah exactly yeah we've always been guinea pigs for stuff even when come to peptides like right we were taking peptides before they were ever anything because we were like we'll give it a shot you're like research purposes only sounds great wait it helps injuries it worked in a rat and a monkey exactly exactly yeah but no so when i got to that point where i go sick i was like okay i was doing x and i got sick what if i do half of x if i don't get sick maybe there's something that was causing it that was too much of a stress on my system and everything's a multitude of issues you know it's not like just the drugs were making me sick it was the stress my lifestyle I was just going out of college I was drinking a lot in between my off seasons there was a lot I was doing so then my shift went on to my health I focused shift my focus you shift your focus to your health and then so then everything I was putting my body that moment made it threw it in your face whoa I'm not immortal I mean coming out of that so I still compete in that Olympia where I ended up in the hospital probably shouldn't have done that but I was very stubborn and I was on I had a journey of a goal I wasn't going to quit on it and then after that Olympia my coach my sister my family myself like sat down and were like you shouldn't compete anymore you should stop this like you put your body at risk like it's telling you something you should stop and I was like I'm just not ready to stop you know if I was given that decision right now i would suck but i was 21 years old you can't be killed by a bullet at 21 yeah you know one of my favorite stories is that i got a 21 year old i thought he was sitting in here but yeah he's in the house that that f1 story of like back in the day of alonzo racing schumacher and they go into a corner alonzo behind schumacher and he rips by him in the corner and like how'd you know to get by him there he's like he has two kids at home he was gonna break you know wow life changes over time you're on a different journey and nothing wrong with either but when i was young dumb ignorant no family send it you know just get after it i'm 30 now as kids but looking back i wouldn't have made that the same decision so i'm grateful i did because i got out with my health still but that's also why i chose to retire when i did too now decisions are different but yeah no the guardrails i put on that were just limiting how much i took and what i took specific things like trend are one of the hardest things on your liver specifically they're super toxic on your body they're the ones that work the best sadly when they say the hardcore they're hardcore that's yeah a reason that's hardcore for a reason it's more adverse effects and benefits for sure from when you get to that level so i just kind of like essentially cut what i was taking in half and was like i'm going to try it again i'm going to take care of my health i'm going to take care of the food that i put in my body i'm not gonna be like oh i need protein i'm going to go to five guys it's no i'm gonna go get a grass-fed steak and sweet potato and like switch everything i'm putting in my body now because bodybuilders back in the day was just like macros are all that matters you know right but it's a lot more i've heard some people on you know even on instagram

20:07Gary Brecka:today there's like macros calories in calories out and and there's a lot of science to disprove that too but for sure um i mean you can get your calories from donuts but you you right but there's consequences to that um and but what's what's also fascinating to me is there's so much about bodybuilding that's like not done in the gym and you know i think some of the some of the leading entrepreneurs in the world kevin leary for example some some of the leading financial entrepreneurs in the world will say the greatest decision they'll ever make is the person that you choose to spend the rest of your life with yeah and i've heard you talk about your wife a lot as that foundation as that rock and i i find it to be very sincere i don't think that you're just on a podcast trying to pay homage to your wife i think that you know when you're competing in a sport as lonely as bodybuilding um and you're sort of taking your family on the journey whether they want to go or not um it has to take a very special person to constantly support you and be willing to make sacrifices on their side of the table.

21:18Gary Brecka:You know, I find this area particularly fascinating because for me, I found a lot of like love and gratitude and foundation after I met my second wife, Sage. And we did all the things that you're not supposed to do, right? Moved in together, built a house together, started a business together, you know, combined our families. And I think maybe the greatest relationships are the ones that go through everything that's meant to tear you apart. Um, but you're still together. And so I wonder if you just talk a little bit about, you know, what kind of foundation strength you got from her, how important was that decision?

21:58Um, because I think men were weaker than

22:04Gary Brecka:we profess to be. For sure. And we're, we're a lot more emotional creatures than we also let out, We're taught to suppress our emotions and not show fear, not show gratitude. That's weakness. Not talk about our faith and not talk about our family relationships. But you're very open about it. So how much of a support system did you have from her? And how did that matter so much to your career? You think you would have made it six times in a row? Not bad for her. If you know me, you know I'm a huge believer in the benefits of hydrogen water. H2Tab delivers cost-effective portable tablets that generate ultra-clean molecular hydrogen at 12 parts per million, one of the highest concentrations on the market.

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23:38And I think that makes all the difference. So if you ask if I would be successful with her, absolutely not. Could I have won some Olympias? Sure. But to me, success isn't just having some trophies on my shelf. It's, you know, finishing my career, like, proud of who I am, how I treated people, the relationship I built and kept along the way. Like, that to me is success. When I go to sleep at night, it's not because of trophies. It's because of the peace I feel at my heart with my character, my relationships, and the love I have for my wife and knowing that that is like my constant rock in life.

24:07And so what she has helped me with is beyond what I could really ever explain. And like you were saying, we're not the best at feeling or expressing emotion, but I think the more we hold things in, the bigger reaction they have within our body, whether from a scientific point of producing more cortisol or just physically feeling numb you know and i was definitely someone who would numb things out and in one of my olympia speeches one year something that i like learned from her was that if you numb the bad you numb the good if you're trying to suppress everything you're like putting yourself in this box of what you can feel you might be trying not to feel negative emotion but you're putting glass ceiling on the positive motion you can feel too you're just like this like numb being so she really taught me to just open that box up been allow myself to be seen you know as humans we're wired for a connection and you can't feel connected unless you're letting your genuine self be seen yeah you know to like in a moment i was just talking about this with henry we were like filming something and i had my official wedding two weeks ago now and oh you did yeah we've been married but we have the official wedding yeah

25:12Gary Brecka:we're gonna sage and i gotta do the same thing we've been married for years and we never actually where did you celebrate uh we were in italy tuscany oh dude that's awesome as far as son's gonna get married oh that's awesome like like como yeah oh yeah is that in tuscany no or that's no no it's where's that sorry mid south south anyway it was beautiful my son got engaged there and he's also gonna get married there and and uh my my wife for a while didn't want to tell people we were married because we hadn't had the ceremony yeah and um so you had it in tuscany yeah so was it like small family oh yeah we had eight people there no yeah it was it was my parents siblings her mom siblings and that was it and our daughter and daughter yeah yeah and even in that small thing there was this moment where like we had this live band playing music it was an emotional day we wrote our vows by hand in the morning you know like lots of stuff coming up and they're playing this song and i just like had tears coming to my eyes where i started crying because i'm just so grateful for like the love that we were sharing the day that we're in and i noticed myself just like we're on one side of the table and there's only six people on the other side and i just turned to her because like that was my safe place to like feel and be seen and whatever like my true vulnerable self was like she i can share that with her and i'm not alone in that so like even though with my closest family there she's still my safest rock to be with so i turned and she was the only one who could see me cry and she like knows who i am and she like saw me put a hand on me didn't say anything it was just like there for me and that kind of like unspoken ability to be seen and unspoken connection and trust between us like that's the kind of confidence that can instill you to be able to do anything you know you come home from a day and you're like i'm fucking injured i feel like shit this happened like how the fuck am i gonna win another don't be like this is why am i even doing this you know and to be able to share that with someone who knows you and sees you and for them to be there for you in that moment like to let that out and then to get to the true thing that's unraveling it's like okay what are you really dealing with why is this pain coming up and to be able to process that not alone yeah that's what instills confidence and to me those are the kind of things that allows you not to win once two three four five six times and become a better person along the way not lose yourself on a journey of excellence yeah that's so awesome man because you grew in you grew in mind body grew in spirit you know and i guess about 15 months ago that's when god gave you the greatest blessing right your daughter she's 15 months old yeah that had to be a material change did that factor into you retiring absolutely it did yeah so when my wife was like I don't know four or five months pregnant at my second last Olympia and that was supposed to be my last I was like ready to retire on that one and that was the year I tore my lat and just a lot of stuff felt like it was lining up for me to be done it was your last one that you tore your lat second last one oh second last when I was I planned to retire okay and then from there there were some things that i was going through internally and i was just like i want to finish on a little bit more of a positive note you know stepping away not from fear but from just a choice of power but then like that same story of that guy you know breaking into the corner it's like okay i have my family at home i've had my success when's enough enough yeah you know like you never get that tom brady michael jordan i got one more in me of course constantly i think he did that six times he did yeah and he crushed it he did he did I don't think that is faith.

28:39I'm sure he'll be 80 years old or be chilling and be like, I could have done more. Well, he wants to play in the Olympics now. Yeah, true, true.

28:49Gary Brecka:He actually, interestingly, Tom, reminds me a lot about you. He has a childlike fascination with performance and optimal health. All of our discussions have always been centered around how can he take better care of himself? How can he sleep better? How can he perform better? So I find it fascinating with someone who's had a career like that too. It's still trying to be the best off the field at what he does for, you know, for himself. But I had a daughter first too, Maddie. And that is a life changing experience. You know, it's really kind of strange for me because the very first day that we brought her home, I kind of felt like it was a foreigner in my house.

29:32Gary Brecka:I was like, is somebody going to come pick this thing up? like yeah is this like gonna stay you know and then terrifying just it's terrifying because there's no guidebook like you don't know what to do they're like yeah but but then what's crazy is this whole i get goosebumps telling this story um and uh this is my first wife amy the mother of my kids who's amazing amazing person still still very close friend of mine to this day but was was so astounding to me was you know we bought this thing home and i'm like i feel like i'm gonna break it i don't know how to feed it um it's so it's so small it's so fragile and then but something in her she just knew what to do i was like where'd you get all this knowledge like you've been reading books like she's like like my daughter would cry and she oh she's gassy or she needs to eat or she uh wants me to come in and hold her i'm like how the hell do you know that it just sounds like noise yeah and then she knew the difference in the cries and it was like so what was really cool was to see this whole like woman come out of your wife at least yeah that was my experience um that just showed up because there was a kid all of a sudden in the house like god imparts this wisdom upon them somehow yep they sort of know what to do because you and i are just fumbling around in the dark like just trying to have a bottle yeah what do you need me to do i'm like So scared.

30:57Gary Brecka:But now she's, so she's 15 months. She's pulling herself up on stuff, wreaking havoc. Walking, running around. Yeah. Yeah. You have any advice having an older daughter than me? Tips I need to know? Yeah. You know, it's, it's, you're going to cave and you're going to melt. And there's, you know, my only parenting advice, and I've raised three kids. I have a fourth one now with Sage that she had from previous marriage. My only advice is just incorporate your kids into your daily life. like do not stop your life and turn it all on to your kid like we we brought madison to busy restaurants we brought her out to eat we traveled with her even in the little they had this the coolest stroller at the time it's called the bugaboo it's made out of aircraft aluminum so like i was a scientist like oh it's aircraft aluminum so cool and um so we got one of these but literally um you know we would go over to some of our friends house and they'd be like shh the baby's sleeping the door's closed they got about exactly six o 'clock and so we tiptoe around then they wake them up exactly 5 30 in the morning and um and we were like oh we brought our baby with us um not not sleep in the car brought it in the house but um and and it just made it so easy and adaptive and then we noticed like when we would take flights people's babies would be screaming and just bouncing off the wall because they knocked them off their schedule yeah but madison was just so used to sleeping when where she had to sleep there was noise in the room there was noise in the room i mean we didn't purposely disrupt their life but her her you know nursery room door was open and we would have folks over for dinner we're down the family it was noisy yeah she would sleep through it um and that's my only advice i don't i don't like to give a lot of parenting advice um i become a better parent after my kids were adults than when i was when they were younger As long as you figure it out.

32:49Gary Brecka:But I think our role as fathers is to just believe in our kids until they learn to believe in themselves. And now I'm seeing that switch in my kids, like as they're starting to believe in themselves and they're starting to stand on their own two feet and they're starting businesses and they're really making their way in the world. And that for me is the greatest level of satisfaction. So my only parenting advice is just don't slow your life down. Bring your daughter with you wherever. and if people don't like it get them out of your life yeah they're the problem yeah they're the problem they were baby two once they have a kid but it's you know what's awesome too is that um there's this fear of the unknown like am i parenting right am i raising them right am i doing the right thing am i being the right role model but eventually like every stage gets better and better like there is nothing in this world better than watching your kid play a sport or um like the first time you go and watch your daughter sing at the christmas players it's it's just so amazing yeah um and and now they're my best friends as adults i mean i could truly say my kids are my best friends um there's no one i'd rather travel with there's no one i'd rather be in business with there's no one i trust more than them um so that's awesome yeah extent that helps that's all that's all i got good advice good advice because you just took her to to our trip to our wedding to Italy.

34:13Oh, you did? It was chaos. We're like, we're never going back to Europe with a baby again. Bad decision. So maybe we'll travel closer than a six hour time change.

34:20Gary Brecka:Well, I mean, that's, yeah, you just went all in out of the gate. You know, that's a little heavy. That doesn't do much. But I think the more you do with them, the more adaptive they become. Yeah. You know, they will learn way more from observation than they do from what you try to teach them. For sure, yeah. And they are way more observant than what you think. Yeah. You know, when those first sentences start coming out of their mouth and you realize how much they know about the world around them because when they're not speaking they're observing yeah they're watching learn yeah yeah and they're formulating their own opinions um so sorry i i great uh the mother of my kids is a great great woman too and and so when we decided we were going to separate we only separated the husband and the wife we never separated the mother and the father and i think that was a big plus for for the kids too um so i want to switch gears a little bit i I mean, obviously you have one of the greatest bodybuilders in the world on your podcast.

35:12We got to talk a little bit about your journey.

35:15Gary Brecka:Everybody's going to want to know, what did he take? How did he eat? What did he do to, you know, to get there? I also found it fascinating on a podcast I was watching of yours when you talked about time where a young kid came up to you that was going to start bodybuilding. And he was like, should I start using steroids? And you told him, no. you said it's a really bad idea um and i thought that was really interesting you know because here you are one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time uh dominating the sport it's clearly you know using peds and your recommendation out of the gate to this young bodybuilder starting out was don't start with steroids you said that on the pet petra david podcast as a reminder um so why did you do that i mean the easy response to that someone watching that be like yeah easy for you to say you're a hypocrite yeah yeah exactly i want to and valid too you know right i mean was a decision that serious if you're going to walk up to a stranger and let their answer decide depict if you're going to do something that's potentially harming your health like you need to be making that decision for yourself you need to be understanding what the risk are you need to be understanding how small the benefits are like did people can look at my life and be like wow like i want that how many people actually make it in any sport you know right let alone body but how many people are gym then how many people become mr olympia and beyond that there's people who are second place at the mr olympia and they're making that cash that check for that prize money is like 20 grand their sponsors maybe some of these people are making like low six figures a year like it's not a life of luxe and then your shelf life is done when you're 30 what do you do from there like it's not as exciting as you might think it's a really high risk and most people don't see the success that they think they're going to see you know so i definitely tell anybody young who's trying to take that seriously is to really tick off all your like boxes and that being the last one like have you spent consistent years training hard learning how to train with proper form proper periodization good programs you know good nutrition good rest and doing everything that you can to get to a point where you can actually see what your genetic capabilities are because one of the biggest thing that limits a bodybuilder is your genetics right you know once you're on the olympia stage everyone's at top zero zero zero one percent in the gene pool of not only your ability to put on muscle but just your ratio of like joint to muscle belly to waist size to like your ability to grow legs and lats so you can create an expert like all the little things are so dependent on that so if you just jump into jumping on steroids at a young age before you know any of that and you have horrible genetics you've just put yourself at risk for no reason so that's a really good that's a really good point i mean on this path that you went on i mean um there's not really you've even talked about it before there's no real guidebook it's not like hey go read this book it's it's it's bodybuilding steroid 101 you start here this is what you do month one month six month 12 there isn't really a guide and i kind of feel like um maybe the guys at the top of their game aren't really that willing to share their what they're doing behind the scenes because any little edge that they have is an edge that they keep for themselves and um so what were you using as a resource like where were you getting your training advice from i mean you obviously did you go in you lift heavy but you would have gotten a lot more injured a lot more frequently if you didn't know what you were doing so where did you get where'd you get the guidance from for training where did you get the guidance from on your gear uh on your nutrition or were you really just figuring it out along the way a lot of specifically training at least started with my brother-in-law he was a young bodybuilder your wife's brother my wife's husband sorry my hopefully not your wife's husband my sister's husband we we just found a polygamist in our midst I suppose myself on the ultimate human yeah my sister's husband they were dating at the time when I was in high school which was me he was a local bodybuilder and he was just to this day like he became a professional bodybuilder as well and he was like notoriously one of the strongest hardest training guys in the whole like league really so me being able to be in grade 12 and that being like my training partner some days gave me like a massive cheat code another moment of like being right place right time like god's timing to be in the right position of like this young kid who loves training now he was this incredible bodybuilder with insane work ethic who is the guy i'm looking up to so that's cool he taught me more than anything just what true intensity was you know people think they're training hard in the gym but the idea of taking like every set close to failure or to failure every single day and pushing every single week after week, year after year, it's different, you know?

40:07So that was my standard when I started training at like 16 years old. And that was like my huge cheat code to this day where I'll train with bigger bodybuilders than me. And I often have better form and I'm stronger than them because I've just, that was just my like blood, you know, that's what I've been doing. So he was a huge resource for me. He coached me through the beginning of my career.

40:24Gary Brecka:So he was actually in the gym with you, coaching you. Yeah. That's awesome. Doing my diet, nutrition. And I really think so much of it is so much more simple than people realize. And I imagine you see this a lot too when people stressing about health, trying to find his perfect solution and answer. Sometimes you got to boil it back to just training hard, eating right, and doing consistently. I totally agree with you, Vin. I told you one of my favorite comments that you ever made that was shocking to me was, you know, you talked about going into Mr. Olympia Prep and, you know, I was expecting you to give this laundry list of supplements and this laundry list of, you know, peptides and all of this stuff and you basically said i had my nutrition dialed in i was taking creatine and protein powders and i was like wow um and i often talk about that how like the greatest longevity science and anti-aging experts now have come full circle and we're like getting back to the basics yeah sunlight um vitamin d3 grounding and breath work whole food diet focusing on sleep like the basics the things that you can't manage your way around you know i'm sure you couldn't train your way around a crappy diet yeah and you couldn't eat your way around poor training and so there's some just those fundamentals it's like the fundamentals of longevity if you follow the blue zone whole food diet sense of connection and purpose and mobility into later in life yeah that's what the data says right and i and i think you're saying bodybuilding is like nutrition train hard sleep recover repeat yeah for sure um i'm major oversimplifying it but um But I do want to go into the supplement bandwagon a little bit.

42:05Gary Brecka:I got a list of some of your favorites, and I wondered if you'd just talk about these and, like, how you incorporate them into your daily regimen and how important they were for you. whey protein was like the big one um was that your main in addition to whole foods was that your your main other source of protein trying to get to what 200 grams of yeah protein 210 grams of i mean i would typically aim to get like at least 200 to 250 grams from whole foods of protein wow and then i would stack on anywhere from 50 to 100 grams from protein shakes but the goal was always whole food but when you're eating 300 plus grams of protein it's just a lot of food yeah especially like life's busy or whatever you walk out of a gym just being able to have that in your bag mix it with water and go is yeah it's super simple and convenient so that's probably you know been a over two days i haven't taken protein powder in the last decade really i remember i had a very short stint as a triathlete and um um i actually was the age group champion amateur for for my age group in Florida.

43:15Gary Brecka:And I went so psycho that one year, biking, running, swimming, biking, running, swimming, that I did a Chesapeake half Ironman and I came home and I hung my bike up on the garage. And if I still had that garage, it would still be there. That was 18 years ago. And so, and that's part of what fascinates me so much because the grind and the mental fortitude that it has to take to to maintain that level of intensity over such a prolonged period of time is just still fascinating to me um creatine was one of your must-haves yep um and i say every woman over 40 years old needs to be on creatine it's no longer a bodybuilding supplement it never has been but i mean no no longer just for bodybuilders i think it's fallen into that bodybuilding category um but for cognitive function um it's dirt cheap you took green tea and monohydrate right yeah how much of that were you taking typically five grams and then in like competition season i would be doing five grams pre and post workout so up to 10 grams and then just recently i was just learning about the cognitive benefits too so yeah before i do like a podcast or something i'll take 20 grams of it and just yeah get ready to go sipping on electrolytes and creatine on my way here oh were you really yeah i think we did hydrogen water and a couple other things you know on the way in here um you also talked about multivitamins um you had a basic multi that you took which is to cover the bases like b vitamins yeah exactly more so just even learning like you know better than most is the nutrients in our food is pretty lacking right now yeah and when you get them a nutrients in our food is so much lower than it's been in the past but b when you're dieting super strict near the end of prep like you don't even have the luxury i'll start cutting out vegetables and foods because your calories are so low everywhere you put it matters you know so you're not going to get enough nutrients when your priority is getting enough protein and and then enough energy to get through your workout so being able to take a multivitamin for me was also something that was super beneficial that's great and you you've also talked about glutamine which i'm also a big fan of um what were you taking the glutamine for For my gut health.

45:33Yeah, I would throw that into pretty much every shake I had. I'd put like at least 10 grams into that.

45:38Gary Brecka:Listen, there's what I share on this podcast, and then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here. But my VIP community, that's where the real magic happens. Picture this. You're struggling with energy crashes, brain fog, or just feeling like you're not operating at your peak, and you don't know where to get real answers. But here's what really sets this apart. You're not just getting my insights. When I have incredible guests on the podcast, VIP members get to submit questions for a private podcast segment. So that world-renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge tailored to your specific situation.